Saturday, February 24, 2018

Following the 2018 Iditarod Trail Invitational

 On Tuesday morning, less than 40 hours after Beat and I rode bikes in 61-degree sunshine, the temperature at home plummeted 72 degrees to 11 below zero. Six inches of new snow blanketed the forest, and wisps of fog skimmed the hills to the south. Pink hints of sunrise were just beginning to show when I stepped onto the balcony. Wearing only socks and a T-shirt, I stood still for as long as I could muster — three minutes maybe — and breathed. The air had a sharp, crystallized feel, a sweet aroma, and a raw taste, so visceral that I could almost believe those wingnuts who claim to derive caloric energy from air. It's difficult to describe why cold air evokes such strong sensations — perhaps it's the shot of adrenaline one experiences while swiftly freezing exposed body parts. But it felt wonderful to me. 

"This is a good omen," I thought.


The rest of the week in Boulder continued to be just perfect — crisp and cold, but with brilliant sunshine that made 15 degrees feel almost summery, in the weird way that only high-altitude sunshine can. I didn't get outside nearly as much as I would have liked — save for a mellow two-hour hike with my friend Wendy, it was an indoor week filled with final preparations and work catch-up. But I felt content, both with my surroundings, and in my own skin, finally ... for now at least.

The sensation of transitioning from "less comfortable" to "a little more comfortable" in my own skin is clearly impossible for me to explain. No matter how much I complain to Beat about my physical slumps, even he responds to questions about how I'm doing with "she's great!" But I've found some success in comparing my body to an unreliable car. Sometimes you can drive this car across the country without issue, and sometimes it breaks down in your driveway. Your mechanic has outlined a number of problems, but none of them quite add up to an easy fix. Since you can't get rid of the car, and you can't predict what it will do, you make up superstitions. "Well, it's sunny, and I'm wearing my lucky driving socks, so we'll make it today."

During the last full week in February, winter finally arrived in Boulder. Then I hopped on a plane to Anchorage, Alaska, where it looked more like winter in that city than I've seen in a number of years. And I felt at home ... lucky ...

I am lucky. I can hardly believe it's been ten years since the first time I walked these snowy streets on the final Saturday in February, anticipating the 350-mile journey to McGrath. I swear I am no less frightened now than I was then — perhaps more so. I've traded the naivety and youth of a 20-something for the wisdom and experience of a somewhat-more-broken woman in her late 30s. It doesn't feel like a fair trade. But has anything changed, that really matters? I wonder at the strange cycles of a linear life. I wonder why I keep rotating back. I am ready to try new things, so much so that I am asking friends to hold me to a promise to bike tour somewhere warm next March, rather than return to Alaska. And yet I crave these experiences with a zeal that I'll never adequately explain. I'm so excited that my heart is buzzing (hopefully that's excitement, and not life-threatening palpitations.) I'm so anxious that I want to curl up in a corner and hug a pillow.

I didn't actually come here to write a rambling blog post. (Well, I did want to archive pretty photos from "that one week of winter in Boulder.") Really, I just wanted to post the tracking links that I promised Mom I would post. On Sunday, Feb. 25, at 2 p.m. Alaska time, I'm heading out on the Iditarod Trail again. My intention is to walk the 350 miles to McGrath, at as efficient of a pace as I can reasonably maintain. "Reasonably" meaning I have no intention of being lax about the race, but I do intend to maintain control at all times, if at all possible. This means higher focus on self-care. This means stopping for longer breaks if my breathing becomes shallow, even if it's not the most convenient spot, and being prepared to safely do so. And it also means moving well as long as I can move well, and foregoing sleep and comfort if I'm feeling strong.

I acknowledge that, with the exception of the 2016 Iditarod race to Nome, I haven't had a great experience with an endurance race since I wheezed my way into a long-overdue DNF in the 2015 Tour Divide, nearly three years ago. There have been *many* days since then when I admitted to myself, "I'm just not a race person anymore, and need to let this go." But the race to Nome was one brilliant exception, enough that I continue to cling to faith that — with the help of lucky driving socks (or a stuffed husky named Bernadette) — I can do well in the 2018 Iditarod Trail Invitational. I couldn't ask for a more beautiful venue in which to take another shot.


Race tracking: 


If you want to track my thrilling progress at sub-three-miles-per-hour, the Iditarod Trail Invitational will be tracking the race at this link: https://www.iditarodtrailinvitational.com/tracking

The direct link to Trackleaders: http://trackleaders.com/iti18


And some possibly interesting social media links:


The Iditarod Trail Invitational Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/iditarodtrailinvitational/

• Kevin "OE," a volunteer in Rohn, plans to post updates from this remote wilderness tent camp at mile 200: https://twitter.com/AlaskaOE

• Craig Medred, a freelance journalist in Anchorage, often writes articles about the ITI: https://craigmedred.news/

• Iditarod Trail Invitational news page: https://www.iditarodtrailinvitational.com/news/

• My Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/jill.homer.1

• My Twitter page: (I may send out a brief text from my Delorme if I need to communicate something more important than "My feet hurt." Otherwise, I will probably not update this.) :
https://twitter.com/AlaskaJill
Monday, February 19, 2018

What's in your sled?

 It's the last week prep before the Iditarod, traditionally our week of Gloom n' Doom. However, I'm feeling decidedly less gloomy than the past few weeks. Though pre-race trail and weather reports look good, my mood has nothing to do with this; I know far better than to trust pre-race chatter. No,  I'm perkier because my leg rash cleared up, my sleep has improved, my morning blood pressure seems to be going down, and I'm breathing more naturally — perhaps I've hit the low point of this slump and am back on the upswing. Who knows? I certainly don't, but I choose the path of naive optimism.

 Perhaps another reason I'm happy is because I finally got back on my bike for the first time in a month, following a long bloc of focused Iditarod training. My only agenda for this ride was four hours of "killing time" on the hills surrounding Sugarloaf Mountain. The weather wasn't nearly as nice as it looks in this photo — temperatures in the low 40s and incredibly windy, with gusts that forced me to throw a foot down at regular intervals. Dirt road conditions featured blinding blasts of dust and occasional but not insignificant patches of suicide ice. Despite the relatively poor riding conditions, I was stoked — moving at now-incomprehensible speeds on descents and marveling at how little effort it takes to propel a bicycle up a hill.

 Now in focused taper mode, I took a couple of days off, and by Saturday felt a little gloomy again as endorphins faded. On Sunday, the temperature rose to 60 degrees, and the wind all but died. (There were still occasional blasting gusts interspersed with a gentle breeze, which is akin to calm around here.) Beat and I threw on shorts and short-sleeved jerseys, and headed out for a mellow spin along nearby back roads. It was a gorgeous afternoon. We've had other 60-degree days this winter, but this was the first day that really felt like spring — the air had a freshness to it, and mud and ice glistened beneath high-angle sunlight.

 Then, on Monday, the temperature plummeted nearly 60 degrees. We awoke to low single digits and a dusting of snow. The forecast predicted 5 inches, but the actual storm wasn't set to arrive until after dark. We spent the morning finalizing most of our gear and loading up our sleds. Just minutes before we set out, Beat and I switched duffels — he decided his was too long, and mine was too wide. The trade was a revelation. Beat's duffel perfectly fits my sled, with no empty space to collect snow. I can loosely stuff all of my gear inside, including my snowshoes, with ease. (Abundant space to accommodate fast, sloppy packing is a priority for both of us.)


Although I may never have faith in my own fitness again, I am pleased with my gear prep this year. I feel more comfortable and competent with my gear than I ever have. And yes, it does help that this gear doesn't include a bicycle. I'm at ease with the idea of using my stove in deep subzero temperatures and moderate wind. I've finally arrived on a combination of head gear that I'm comfortable with. I'm better practiced at using gloves for finer dexterity, in case I need to set up camp in difficult conditions (typically I go bare handed, and this will still probably be my default, but at least I'm better with gloves than I used to be.)

 I feel reasonably versed in my plan for the event of an asthma attack in a storm, the steps I'll take to get my breathing under control in high winds, and the type of rest my well-tested sleeping gear can afford. I'm confident my layers will keep me comfortable at 40 below and winds up to 50 mph. Although I have very little experience with anything lower (or a combination of deep subzero temperatures and high winds), I also have a safety buffer. I know which items I tend to lose or wet out, and brought spares. I'm happy with my decision to bring a spare base layer, in case I fall into open water (not unthinkable.) I'm happy with my decision to bring lots of extra socks and lube, as well as reinforced waders to keep my shoes dry, because nothing causes misery quite like walking 18 hours a day on cold and wet feet.

No one will ever accuse me of being a weight weenie, but I also won't be accused of being blatantly unprepared (making poor choices and mistakes is another matter altogether.)

 The temperature was 7 degrees with light falling snow when we set out for an hour-long sled drag on a thin layer of white dust over dirt. As we scraped over the road, I ran through a multitude of different scenarios in my mind, and contemplated what gear I'd need to solve the issue, where it was in my recently acquired duffel, and how I'd access it quickly — yes, even in the madness of a haphazardly packed duffel, there are methods.

 My type B personality is not a list-maker. I can't even tell you the last time I made a list for anything. Part of the reason I never make race or gear lists is because on paper it just looks like so much junk, and I don't want to scrutinize it so heavily. Also, it's so long, and so boring. But I made a list this year. Occasionally people ask me about my gear list, so I'm posting it here. If you are like me and never read gear lists, you will need to do a lot of scrolling to finish this post. It really is a lot of junk. Comments are welcome, but I'm not changing anything at this point:

To start:
Drymax liner socks
Acorn fleece socks, M
UA underwear
UA bra
Mountain Hardwear light blue fleece hat
Skinfit thermal top
Mammut hiking pants
Furry fleece buff
Skinfit Caldo jacket
Gaiters
Columbia Mountain Masochist shoes


Bedtime bag, blue:
(3) spare underwear
(3) DryMax liner socks
(1) Acorn fleece socks, M
(1) Acorn fleece socks, XL
Rab vapor barrier socks
Nike DriFit shirt
GORE windproof tights
Down booties
Down pants
Toiletries

Small gray bag:
Wiggys Waders
Neoprene shoe liners
(2) plastic oven bags (as extra VB layer)

Outer layers bag, gray:
Skinfit rain pants
REI Event rain shell
Primaloft overboots
Fleece knee warmers
Skinfit primaloft jacket
Skinfit primaloft shorts

Spare gear bag, yellow
RBH Designs overmitts
Goggles
Fleece balaclava
Fleece buff
OR light windproof mittens
Mountain Hardwear light shell
Medicine bag
Spare foot lube

Electronics bag, green
(3) iPod Shuffle
(12) spare AA batteries
Spare camera battery
Spare headlamp
Cell phone?
Cell phone charger?

Stove bag, yellow:
MSR XGK stove
Pot
Cup
Long spork
Stove repair kit
22 oz fuel bottle
(2) fuel pumps
(2) flint fire-starters
Waterproof matches
Wind screen

Repair kit:
Zip ties
Cord
String 
Repair tape
Spare buckle
Spare screws
Screw driver
Duct tape
Multitool
Sled attachment piece

Bivy bundle
OR Helium bivy sack
RidgeRest sleeping pad
PhD designs sleeping bag

Sled duffle bag
Mountain Hardwear wind fleece
PhD Designs down coat
Snowshoes
Trekking poles
Trekking pole pogies

Duffle weight (34.3 pounds)

Food:
3 pounds nut and chocolate trail mix
1 Mountain House meal
6 oz beef jerky
2 (1.5 oz) meat stick
8 bars
4 Jif-to-Go Peanut Butter

5.0 pounds of food to start
Total duffle weight: 39.3 pounds

Sled harness backpack:
Windproof buff
Skinfit primaloft mittens
Black Diamond windproof liner gloves
Windproof (red) balaclava
OR windproof hat
Feed bag
Sunglasses
Delorme InReach
Wet Wipes
Camera
(4) spare batteries
Knife
Garmin eTrex30
Fenix headlamp
Foot lube
Cash and credit cards

Revelate Designs hydration pack:
3L MSR bladder
Inhaler
Dermatone


Harness and pack weight (no water): 5.1 pounds

Oh, and the list doesn't include Bernadette, sister to Beat's long-suffering Siberian, Bernie. Bernie has been along for the ride since 2013, so it seems apt to tow my own husky up the Iditarod Trail. The number of times Bernadette made me smile while glancing back during the three-mile march today tells me this is a good choice.

I'm happy the cargo weight came in around 40 pounds, meaning ~46 with water and fuel. If I can stay reasonably comfortable and secure in most conditions that Alaska can throw at me, I am not going to complain. My type B personality will never let me retain any level of self-confidence; thankfully, I can use excess gear and stuffed animals to soothe my aching inadequacy.

Just five more days! 
Wednesday, February 14, 2018

I'll be something better yet

Well, the anxiety dreams have returned. In my latest, I'm pulling my winter sled up a steep dune in an endless red-sand desert. The drag is incredible; I can barely move my legs. When I look down, my skin is beet red, bubbling with beads of sweat. I'm following a parallel ski track, a very faint one, and I have to squint because the glare is so bad. It's hot; I feel dizzy. The sun becomes brighter. I'm blinded by white glare, sinking in the sand, gasping for breath, and then I jerk awake. Real sunlight is pouring through my bedroom window (because I slept in until 8:15 a.m., because I haven't been sleeping well at night), and I'm drenched in real sweat. It's 57 degrees inside the house, 20 outside.

Is this what I fear right now? Heat and sweat? Well, yes. What happens beyond my skin begins to feel more manageable than what happens within. I find comfort in the world around me. Saturday morning greeted us with a few inches of snow, and refreshing cold — around 10 degrees.

Beat and I set out for a hike up Bear Peak, with light packs and an easy "taper" pace. I couldn't regulate my temperature well — one minute I was overheated with my jacket unzipped and hat removed, the next chilled and bundled again. My breathing seemed far too labored. Later Beat saw my tracks in the snow and called me out for lazily dragging my feet. "I'm slipping," I thought.

It was a beautiful afternoon, though, with the city shrouded in fog and delicate rime clinging to the charred branches of skeleton trees. It's always worth the effort to spend time outside on a day like this, always. But I wasn't thrilled with whatever was happening beneath my skin. I did not feel exuberant. I did not feel strong. I felt beaten — far, far too soon.

When I come out in the open to admit my fears, people will reassure me. They'll tell me I'm just having pre-race jitters, that I'm tapering, that I'll be fine. And I'll smile politely and nod, because I want to believe it, too. But this is what it feels like to me — like my fitness is so much sand in my fist, slipping through my fingers, scattered by the wind.

On Sunday I took my sled up Niwot Ridge. Beat had a lot to do at home, so I went alone. A surprising amount of snow had accumulated since the last time I trekked up Niwot. The spacious and typically empty trailhead parking lot was bustling with skiers and snowshoers. I didn't want to maneuver my sled in crowds, so I veered toward the less-popular forest road. Surprisingly, only one or two skiers had broken a skin track on this route. At first I snowshoed outside of it, out of respect for skiers, but conditions were incredibly difficult for trail-breaking — a thin layer of fragile wind crust over shin-swallowing sugar snow.

Shamefully I drifted over to the skin track, and realized that my sled so perfectly planed my snowshoe tracks, that it left the trail smoother than before. Indeed, a couple miles later, a skier passed me and complimented my trail. "Ten points for the pulk track," he said. As I looked back at him, I saw that my sled was full of snow — I could barely see the duffel behind a foot-high pile of clumped powder. Because my sled was wider than the skin track, it scooped up snow from both sides, not unlike a plastic shovel. Damn. No wonder this climb was becoming harder and harder. "It's not just me," I thought. Even at this higher altitude, in much tougher conditions, I was feeling better than the previous day.

"Beautiful day," the skier commented.

"Yeah, but windy," I replied. "It's gonna be fierce above treeline."

"We'll deal with that when we get there."

Despite my heavy sled and stupid snowshoes, I more or less kept pace with the skier for more than a mile, shadowing a few hundred meters behind him. He had just left my line of sight for good when I saw him again, scooting toward me at a surprisingly slow rate of speed, for a descending skier.

"You're not going to the ridge?" I asked. He'd already surpassed most of the boring forest road skinning — the only terrain left was the steeper, open slopes above treeline.

"It's nasty up here. And I'm exhausted," he admitted. "You must be shelled, too."

"Yeah, this has been quite the slog. I'll probably only go another half mile, to that research shack."


The skier's track ended, and all that remained was deep, crusted powder. No one else had been up here, at least since wind-driven snow disappeared the tracks — which in the strengthening gale, seemed to be happening in a matter of seconds. I stopped beneath the last larger stand of trees and put on my knee warmers, overboots, wind fleece, balaclava, buff, and mittens. This was not my first Niwot rodeo.

I'd already been at this for three hours and hadn't even broken the five-mile mark yet. It thought about turning back, but the alpine zone is never an easy place to reach, and enduring these conditions is always good practice. I lifted one snowshoe up the 25-degree slope and punched through wind crust into a thigh-high hole. To garner the momentum necessary to move forward, I had to bend forward and thrust my hips against the backward force of the sled — not unlike the cable pull-throughs I do at the gym — then swing my leg sideways like an awkward ballerina so I could punch another hole a few inches ahead. Sometimes my leg anchor stuck, and sometimes the snowshoe slipped backward to where I started. My pace — were there any GPS sophisticated enough to measure such tiny increments of movement— no doubt dropped below 0.5mph. My heart rate shot to the maximum I'm able to maintain.

All the while, shards of snow blasted me in the face. All in all, this wasn't a terrible day on Niwot — sustained winds of 35mph, gusting to 55mph — but an abundance of blowing powder made it feel more intense. My breathing deteriorated quickly. I turned my back to the wind and took a few puffs from my inhaler. I concentrated on taking slower, less shallow breaths. I desperately wanted to turn around, and knew that on a typical endurance training schedule, any hard efforts at this point probably do more harm than good. But I don't have typical endurance fitness. At this point, what I mostly have are doubts. Anything I can do to boost my confidence is worth it. Again I turned to face the wind.

Thrust, punch, breathe. Thrust, punch, breathe, breathe, thrust. Occasionally I found a patch of crust that supported my weight, and walked almost normally. But this would only last a few steps, and then I'd crash through rotten Styrofoam into another thigh-deep drift. The crust was so thick that I'd struggle to pull my foot out of the holes, as though I was real-life sinking in the sand I'd dreamed about. When I couldn't quite extract a foot, I'd drop to a squat, paddle my arms through the snow and crawl-hop forward like a deranged rabbit. This is a situation where I will fully admit that skis would be far preferable to silly snowshoes, although I think skis would also stall out beneath the crust. Really, these were workable conditions for exactly no one, least of all me with my 40-pound sled. But if I could move forward here, and control my breathing here, well ... perhaps I can do it anywhere.

Half-blinded by blowing snow and drifting laterally in search of solid crust, I ended up too far left of the shack. Now with four hours on my watch, having traveled a literal half mile in one hour and 15 minutes, I decided to call it good. Despite engaging the most strenuous activity physically possible for me, at 11,500 feet, I'd maintained reasonable control of my breathing. My heart rate, while fast, hadn't reached concerning levels. I wasn't dizzy. But I was shelled. Truly shelled. I staggered with the wind and started punching a new trail down the slope — because even my deepest postholes were already partially buried in spindrift. It was going to be a long hike out.

Back where the skier had turned around, my beautiful sled track was already filled with snow, and the walking was somehow even more difficult — the slippery spindrift was off camber enough that my right snowshoe kept sliding sideways, which turned my ankle uncomfortably. I wanted to cry, but not in that emotional way that's caught me off guard recently, so I didn't cry. Anyway, being shelled after six miles of hiking just two weeks before you hope to do 350 is not something to cry about ... yet.

The emotions came anyway, though, as trail conditions became easier and I descended into rumination about the state of the world. For that sort of angst, as it often does, iPod helped — The Bleachers with a fitting reminder that we all have deep flaws, and no one is coming to save us. So go ahead and live your life anyway.

All my heroes got tired
All the days, they got short.
And a love that I dreamt of,
Came to me at my worst.

Yeah, the nights I don't remember.
Are the ones I can't forget.

When all your heroes get tired,
I'll be something better yet.