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Thursday, March 10, 2011
Me and the beast
Wednesday, March 09, 2011
The plan keeps coming up again
In April, Beat's signed up for the Santa Barbara Endurance Race. It's 100-miles of tough trail running with a reported 35,000 feet of climbing. There's a chance I'll be in good enough condition to keep up with him as a pacer for a short portion of this race. Depends if I can improve several aspects of my running in a few short weeks. I intend to work on this.
In May, several of my Banff friends are riding the Mah Dah Hey Trail as a mountain bike tour. I'd love to join them, write an article for Adventure Cyclist, and perhaps see a few Montana friends and haunts in the process. This dream is TBD, because North Dakota is a long way from California, and Beat probably can't swing the time off.
In June, Beat's signed up for the San Diego 100. Another fun road trip south. I'm hoping I can go visit my sister in Huntington Beach for at least one of these weekend ventures. I'd also love to travel to Juneau for a summer visit. This is something I've been promising friends there since last summer, but I'm unsure whether I'll be able to swing it, and a Juneau trip is very TBD. There's also the ulterior motive that I'd love a chance to swing up to Whitehorse for the 24 Hours of Light. I really want to enter at least one solo 24-hour mountain bike race this season. For reasons I'll explain next, the timing is bad for the 24HOL. However, everyone knows that 24HOL isn't a race, anyway. It's a Yukon mountain bike festival where you get to binge on biking to your heart's content. It shouldn't be a setback at all.
I can't afford any late-June setbacks, because in mid-July, I'm signed up for my first 100-mile trail run, the Tahoe Rim Trail 100. This is a big deal to me. I want to nail it. I know the Susitna 100 counts as my "first" 100-mile foot race, but I still believe Alaska snow expeditions and summer mountain trail running are different sports, requiring different skills, and I have lots of work to do to get in shape for this rocky, climby, higher-elevation run around Lake Tahoe. It's intimidating, but I'm excited for the challenge and the training.
August brings the Capitol Forest 100, a 100-mile mountain bike race in Washington. Beat and I are both planning to ride it, and unlike the WM100 there is no running option, so I guess he's going to have to buckle down and ride. Beat's already a much faster mountain biker than me, so I'm guessing by August we'll be raring to "race" each other rather than hang back together.
In September, Beat's going back to the Tor des Geants, crazy man. This means while he trudges 200 miles and 80,000 feet of climbing through the rugged and pain-inducing Italian Alps, I get to support him by drinking cappuccinos in village cafes and hiking all day in these incredible mountains! Hooray!
In November comes to big crescendo for the year, a trip to the Himalaya with Racing the Planet in Nepal. It's a stage race, TransRockies style, but on foot and much more self-supported. You carry all of your food and gear for a week-long run across 250 kilometers of incredible high country. Basically, it's a fast-pack trip, but Racing the Planet does a lot of the groundwork to design a network of trails that outsiders seldom have the opportunity to visit. Since I've never even been outside of North America (Hawaii excepted), I'm very excited for the prospect of visiting both Europe and Nepal in the same year.
In the past decade, I worked hard and lived sparsely enough to develop a fair amount of self-sufficiency, and always wanted to take time off to write, really write — not just doodle away on my blog, which is a fantastic outlet but shallow in many ways. Last April, I pursued that dream by moving to Anchorage and setting up my "writing shop," but I struggled. I didn't struggle because I didn't find instant success, which I'm not even seeking — yet. No, I struggled because I lacked self-discipline. I rode my bike all day. I started working on my writing projects, only to burn out after a couple hours and recruit a friend for a four-day trip to Denali instead. When given perfect freedom, I can be a fantastically lazy person (in my own activity-motivated way.) I got scared of nothingness, and instead sought out a structured work environment to reign myself in. I applied for a job. I moved to Montana. I don't regret it, but often I wonder if I really gave myself a chance.
I love writing. Observing life and giving a voice to my experiences is who I am. I sincerely believe that if I were forced to give up bicycling, hiking, running, even going into the wilderness, that I could probably adapt, and go on living a rich and full life all the same. But if I somehow couldn't share anymore, couldn't write, the sun probably would cease to rise. I would no longer be me. Simple and plain.
So this is my long way of saying that I'm going to go back to pursuing the dream I left behind in Anchorage. I have a few ideas, a few plans. I am going to finish my Tour Divide book. Last December, editor Diana Miller gave my first draft a thorough and thoughtful edit that I can really spend some time with, to develop that story in the best way I can. And it really is a worthwhile story, worth sharing, that I need to get out in the world. I've been dragging my feet on it for more than a year, and at this rate it will rot in a drawer, which I really don't want to happen. I have some new "book" ideas that I want to develop, see where they go. I have a few freelance relationships that I developed last spring that I can pursue, and I have several article, blog and column opportunities with Adventure Cyclist that remain. I also hope to develop what would be the more lucrative career path — layout and design, for both hard-copy materials and e-publications. In the newspaper biz, this is where I shined — as a fast-working (and award-winning) graphic designer. I feel that I have a lot to offer small businesses, nonprofits, and outdoor-related companies in this regard, because I can develop content as well. Maybe I can even land some contract work for special projects at local newspapers (do they have those in big-city California?) That would be a dream.
It also could be a massive failure, but I doubt I will ever regret trying. I'm lucky to still have few obligations, a fair amount of self-sufficiency for the time being, support from Beat, and of course Google's awesome health insurance plan. As long as I can avoid the urge to ride my mountain bike all day, I feel I have a productive year in front of me.
Tuesday, March 08, 2011
The second day
OK, tomorrow I will write a post about my upcoming plans. Tonight, I am just going to enjoy the lingering bliss from this awesome day.
Monday, March 07, 2011
I pack up my belongings and I head for the coast
To a whole new town with a whole new way
Went to the porch to have a thought
Got to the door and again, I couldn't stop
You don't know where and you don't know when
But you still got your words and you got your friends
Walk along to another day
Work a little harder, work another way."
- "The World at Large" by Modest Mouse
Last June, when I was anticipating a move from Anchorage to Missoula, I went for a 140-mile bike ride in an effort to make peace with life as a drifter. Seeking and embracing change is a big part of who I am. I move, I discover, I grow, and I move on. Anchorage held an unbelievable amount of promise, but the allure of change prompted me to take a chance on Montana. I left Alaska believing maybe I would find "my place," the place that would entice me to finally settle.
There are several reasons Missoula didn't quite work out; it wasn't just that I found a boy and dismantled my whole life for him. Although the boy, of course, was the overwhelming motivator for my recent move, he wasn't the only reason. It was starting to become apparent that I didn't quite fit in in Missoula. I regret that I had to leave a few truly great friends behind, not to mention some gorgeous terrain that I barely skimmed the surface of, but I knew that sooner or later I would need to choose between the few strands of potential woven into Missoula and the incredible potential of further developing my relationship with Beat. He couldn't move to Missoula for me. Even if I were completely dedicated to my life there, there were still no options for him. The ongoing joke in Missoula is: "How many Missoulians does it take to screw in a lightbulb? Only one, but twelve will apply for the job, ten will be electricians and eight will have doctorate degrees."
I of course have no idea what the future will bring, but I sincerely believe I won't ever regret this move. I certainly don't regret moving to Alaska for Geoff, even if, in the end, neither Geoff nor Alaska became a permanent part of my life. It was still the best thing that ever happened to me. I strongly believe this is the right next step, the next best thing to happen to me.
This move probably seems to have come abruptly, but it has been a longer time coming than this, as most of my friends and family members suspected. The window opened after Susitna. There was no longer a need to stay so I packed up my stuff. It didn't take long — one of the benefits of moving around so much is you never have time to accumulate a lot of excess stuff. I can still fit most of my life in my 1996 Geo Prism, although my life is heavily weighted in a single direction these days. Inside my car this time were two people (Beat was out for the weekend anyway and gave up his return ticket to help me drive down), one annoyed but increasingly accepting cat, and five — yes five — bicycles. Also some clothing, outdoor gear, a few dishes, and miscellaneous items. All the important stuff was in there, or stacked on the roof, Beverly Hillbilly style (I even kept the bike box for Beat's Fatback. It did not survive the Biblical rains of the Sierras.)
We left Montana on Saturday afternoon, bound for Salt Lake City. (My parents took this recent move surprisingly well. I think my many years of drifting has worn down their defenses.)
I can't say I felt a whole lot of emotion about leaving Montana. I really didn't spend enough time here to get attached, although I imagine I'll be back as frequently as I can afford, to visit my friends, ride some epic logging road loops with Bill in the Bitterroot, hike some goat trails in Glacier National Park with Danni and Dave, and finally climb all three of the Lima Peaks.
The drive of course was grueling. Turns out a 15-year-old car with 191,000 miles loaded to the brim with gear — and with wheels and a box stacked like a sail on the roof — can't move faster than 70 mph, and that's only on steep downhills, with a tailwind. Geo was at the limit of his endurance, but he motored along, just like he always has, ever since he was a young buck of 38,000 miles and I loaded him to the brim with camping gear and hit the road for my inaugural drive across America, back in 2001.
We blazed through many of my old stomping grounds — Idaho Falls (2004-2005), Sandy, (1983 to 1998) Salt Lake City (1998 to 2003), and Tooele (2003-2004 ... the place where my cat Cady was born.) Then we kept on going west. I told Beat all of my stories of my experiences in the Oquirrh Mountains, the Stansbury Mountains, Skull Valley, the Bonneville Salt Flats, Wendover, Elko, and the Battle Mountain rest stop where my family was stranded for half a day after the car transmission died during a vacation to San Francisco in 1989.
The farther west we traveled, the fewer experiences I had to share, until we crested Donner Pass in a wet snowstorm, I told Beat what I knew about the history of the place, and held my breath for the newness and strangeness of California.
Today I started unpacking, but quickly got more wrapped up in an urgent need to go for a long bike ride. I put my fixie together and headed over to the Google campus to have lunch with Beat, then continued grinding into the wind along the gravel trails that line the San Francisco Bay. It was a strange sort of place, both muddy and dry, and guarded by a fortress of towering electric lines. I watched a chorus of shorebirds rip through the air, breathed the salty air with pungent hints from the Palo Alto landfill, and soaked in a lot of sunshine. The return tailwind was so strong that the fixie almost ripped my legs off. In a space that holds millions of people, I saw very few. I allowed myself to feel some sadness for the end of winter, the end of my time in Montana. And yet, I only saw positive potential on the path in front of me.
I'll write more tomorrow about my plan for California, and what Beat and I have planned for the upcoming year. For now, I will say that, yes, this is going to be quite different. I rode around all day in a cotton T-shirt and a single pair of socks, passing people on the bike path who were wearing down coats (in other words, I'm sweltering in the heat and it's not even hot.) Yes, for the foreseeable future, the snowy photos in my blog will have to come from visits away from home, and the regular photos will probably appear more, well, regular. Maybe this blog will be less interesting. And you're certainly under no obligation to keep reading. But somehow, I doubt it. I am only excited about the future and all of the adventures in front of me. California isn't the end of the road. Not by a long shot.
Thursday, March 03, 2011
The journey reveals more along the way
Monday, February 28, 2011
Recovery
Friday, February 25, 2011
Susitna 3, Chapter 3
As we worked our way back into the Dismal Swamp, we saw a man on foot dragging a sled back toward the Susitna River. We speculated that he was either going to McGrath or training to go to McGrath on the Iditarod Trail. "I used to think the foot people didn't have it that much harder than the bikers in these types of races," I told Beat. "That's why I thought the Susitna would make a good first hundred miler for me. But I was wrong. I was really, really wrong. This is so much harder than it is on a bike."

Beat fell behind for a little while, and I felt sick of my iPod, so I turned it off and decided to count the steps between the scraggly trees that occasionally popped out of the barren swamp. I counted 214 steps, then 683, and then I realized that I was only counting to about 80 or so and after that starting over, and then eventually making numbers up. In the meantime, I noticed that my sled and poles were talking to me. The fish-scale-covered skis on the bottom of the sled made a low, groaning noise like a distant voice on a crossed phone line ... "Hellloooo, hellllooo." Meanwhile, the poles dug into the squeaky snow and made higher pitched noises that sounded very much like Danni's voice. A couple of times, I actually looked back and expected to see Danni right behind me. After the third time, when she wasn't there, I decided to turn the iPod back on.
As the sun disappeared behind the mountain, the deep and bitter cold began to return. A lighter but noticeable headwind swept along the swamp, and the windchill again needled into my layers. At this point I had put all of my headgear and mittens back on, and I was again wearing nearly everything I had brought with me. I tried to march faster. Beat overtook me and we chatted briefly, but he too was becoming cold and shortly put more distance on me as we dropped onto Flathorn Lake. We could see the checkpoint when we first entered the lake, and I told him it wasn't more than a mile. The chill cut deeper and deeper as I trudged across the lake ice, my feet refused to move any faster, and still the checkpoint never became closer. I thought maybe I had re-entered the same Flathorn Lake twilight zone that pushed the distant trees ever farther away after I punched through to the water in 2009, but then I watched Beat disappear up the hill and realized Flathorn Lake Lodge was a place that still existed.
Flathorn Lake Lodge has always been my favorite checkpoint of any race I've ever participated in. Peggy and her friends and family cook up monster pots of jambalaya, cut oranges, bake brownies, stoke a roaring fire and generally just make you feel like you want to sign a lease and never leave. I sometimes tell people I subscribe to the "checkpoints are a pointless time suck" theory, but I don't really believe it. Checkpoints are the way I turn myself back into some semblance of a real person. They warm my body and fill my stomach, remind me there is still goodness in the cold, hard world, and are really the reason I do races like this. I could rush back out into the cold and shave a couple hours off my time, or I could sit back, relax, and soak in the entirety of the experience. I've always chosen the latter.
David and Andrea were just leaving, and for a beautiful half hour we had Flathorn to ourselves while Peggy doted on us and I stuffed my face with brownies, my appetite nearly recovered. Meanwhile, I remembered how cold I had been on the way in. I decided I needed to go for broke and wear everything. I changed out my liner socks for the first time in the race (this would prove a mistake. I had no blisters form until those last 15 miles.) I put on a pair of fleece socks over my vapor barrier. I changed into my last dry base layer. I stuffed the last of my handwarmers in my mittens. And before we left, I put on my down coat. That was all of it. "If this isn't enough, I'm SOL," I thought. It was not a happy realization.
We checked out of Flathorn just before 8 p.m. The lake was now enveloped in purple darkness. The air was as still as a graveyard, as frigid as the deepest grave, and I was immediately filled by an inexplicable, almost insurmountable dread. I recognized my dread as irrational but it was there just the same, coating my heart like ice, telling me that I was terribly, terribly afraid of the dark. Why so afraid of the dark? Was it because I had been awake for 39 hours already, and on the trail for 35? Was it because I was out of spare clothing and now going on faith that I would stay warm enough? Was it because I wasn't certain I could stay awake, or not even certain I could stay alive? Whatever the reason, I was fearful. We skittered over frozen overflow on the edge of Flathorn Lake, and I did my best to keep my dread in check.
The snowmobile volunteers told us the last 15 miles were "flat," but of course they were not. After the initial climb out of the lake basin, the trail continued its slight uphill grade on a rolling obstacle course of snowmobile moguls. Snowmobile moguls are a slight annoyance on a bike, but they really are extra strenuous on foot dragging a sled, because you can never hit a stride. Your feet are climbing as the sled drops out behind you, then have to struggle down as the upward-swinging sled pulls against you. It's absolutely infuriating sometimes, to the point where you think about picking up the sled and just leaping from mogul to mogul, if only you could be so strong.
What the last 15 miles are is inconceivably straight. First the trail follows a seismic line and veers ever-so-slightly on a gas line. The cut in the spruce trees stretches beyond the horizon, into the eerie orange glow of Anchorage city lights. We'd see a headlight in the distance and watch it approach, and watch it approach, and watch it approach, until I convinced myself it was either a static light or a slow-moving cyclist, and finally, about five minutes later, a snowmobile would pass us. The seismic line has made many a Susitna 100 participant nearly lose their mind, but my mind was in a strange place — not a place to be annoyed by this unnaturally straight trail, but in a place to be both terrified and awestruck by the expansive night, the glimmering orange lights, the distant stars, and the deeply biting cold. I no longer had access to a thermometer and couldn't say how cold it was, but I do know the frost buildup on my clothing was thicker than it had been yet, and the air certainly felt colder than it had yet, wind or no wind. There are a lot of reasons why a body feels cold — and fatigue and lack of calories certainly contribute — but I convinced myself the night was approaching absolute zero, and I have to admit I was just a little bit scared.
Beat and I tried to carry on conversations along the seismic line. We talked about sled improvements, bike gear for the White Mountains, future adventures and just how many hours ago Steve probably finished. But my mind was so mushy I found it hard to concentrate, and more often than not I had to stop to pee as Beat walked on. Every half mile or so required a near-emergency sprint for the side of the trail. I would take a sip of my Camelbak and have to pee. I would pee and stand up and feel an urge to pee again. The urine itself wasn't an unusal color — still fairly yellow, but not dark — but on top of my fear of the cold, I also alarmed myself with thoughts that my kidneys were out of whack. After all, I've heard all sorts of horror stories about ultrarunners who run 100-milers and shut down vital organs in the process. I didn't feel particularly unhealthy beyond being just a bit cold, but then again the constant pants dropping wasn't helping with that problem either.
As we dropped into the Little Su River, the moon rose over the forest. Oblong and vaguely orange, it looked like a radioactive potato and added to the ominous, surreal tint of the night. Beat fell into his own battle with the sleep monster. I watched him stumble along the wide trail, and if I caught up to him I could see his dark bloodshot eyes behind his goggles. We reached a road crossing where volunteers in an idling truck told us we had four more miles to the end on that same soft roadside trail we had started the race on. In the bright sunlight of Saturday morning, we failed to notice that trail was significantly downhill. It was still soft and punchy, only now it was climbing. When I dared to look at my GPS, I realized I was no longer moving 2 mph, again. I tried to pick up the pace. I added up my songs. Twenty four songs. Only 24 songs.
Slog, slog, slog. Beat had had it with the Susitna 100 and surged ahead. I did my best to keep up, but another part of me hung back. Even in the midst of my hardest, most grueling physical challenges, I always have a point near the finish where I feel reluctant to wrap it up, to see it end. The songs ticked off and I worked through my feelings about it — "This is the worst pain ever. Worst. Pain. Ever. But, um, holy cow, I'm actually going to do it. I'm going to finish a 100-mile foot race! Who would have ever guessed?" Through my slight chill, burning tendons, throbbing feet, and almost crushing fatigue, I could only smile. Damn it, I was going to finish this thing.
Beat waited for me at the end of the roadside trail. We were only a quarter mile from the finish line. I was thrilled that he waited so we could finish together. "Icy kiss," I said, and bent in to press my frozen face mask against his. "That was by far the most frustrating finish to a race I have ever seen," he said. "It was all uphill." I couldn't be annoyed because we were finally done with it, but I was still shocked by how much my legs and feet burned and throbbed in those last few hundred yards. I wanted badly to run into the finish, to actually pick my legs up and run, but when push came to shove, and the tightly bundled, clapping volunteers were in sight, I couldn't do it. I just couldn't.

We limped across the finish line at 2:16 a.m. Monday morning, for a finishing time of 41 hours and 16 minutes. It was by far the longest "single day" effort I had ever engaged in, and unquestionably the most difficult. And yet, as I threw my arm around Beat and we stumbled into the cabin without exchanging more than a few small words, I knew we had done so much more than cross 100 miles of Alaska together. We had crossed a threshold, proved we could stand together against 100 miles of pain and fear, fatigue and danger, awe and life-or-death intensity. And if we could do that together, we could do anything together. And that, to me, felt like our victory.
Thursday, February 24, 2011
Susitna 3, Chapter 2
It was just after midnight when we stepped back out into the deep cold, but as Danni predicted, the wind had died down. I briefly glanced at the thermometer on the river and saw the needle hovering near minus 20. I didn't need to look any closer. "It will probably take us five hours to get to Alexander Lake," Beat said, and I agreed. We started trudging up the Yentna River.
The trailed veered back into the woods, climbing the river bluff and emerging into yet more rolling swamps. The glittering sky became more muted, an indication that it was starting to cloud up. Having moved several dozens of miles inland, the robust birch and hemlock we passed when we started the race were gone. The forest had deteriorated into stands of scraggly black spruce that twisted in gothic shapes over frozen swamps — the kind of scenery that dominates Alaska's Interior. It was strange to think that it was possible to cross entire climate zones on foot, and the time it was taking made it seem more like an expedition than a 100-mile race. "This is one way to get your money's worth out of the Su100. Walk it," I thought to myself. "I feel bad for those biker guys who have to sleep in their own beds tonight. They're completely missing out." It was a lie, of course, but it felt good to think it.
We passed Danni about seven or eight miles from the checkpoint. "How are you feeling?" I asked her. "I feel cold," was all she said. I lingered for a second, expected to start exchanging our usual playful banter, but then realized the expectation was ridiculous. We weren't out for a fun hike in Glacier National Park. We had just walked 50 miles through the middle of nowhere Alaska and it was minus 20 out. It was a time for solitude and silence. Even Beat and I didn't say much in the 12 miles to Alexander Lake, except to remark about the soft trail, its difficult footing, and how slow-going it was. We were only five miles from the checkpoint when we encountered the first skiers — a mere 10 miles in front of us. Their proximity to a couple of mid-to-back-pack runners spoke to just how bad the trail really was. From the inside of my ice-crusted face mask, I could hear my raspy breaths becoming louder and more frequent. I was working so hard. I was tired. And yet I was moving so slowly. It just wasn't fair.
About 30 minutes later, Danni stumbled in. She was shivering and looked extremely tired. "I need a nap," she said, then spread out her sleeping bag and crawled under the checker's table. The checker expressed irritation but Danni was already zonked out. I felt bad for the checker, being stuck in this stifling place all night long. I wasn't about to stay much longer. I figured most of the people there were dropping out of the race, probably in various states of moaning pain, and it was not a happy place to be. David and Andrea escaped and we left at 5:15.
That sense of purpose soon faded into overwhelming exhaustion. I started stumbling often, and more than once drifted all the way off the trail into the deep snow, where I had to use my poles to push myself out. I had taken two caffeine pills at Alexander Lake, but they seemed to be doing nothing. "I'm falling asleep on my feet," I said to Beat the next time I caught up with him. "Seriously, I don't think I'm going to get through this thing without a nap."
"You'll be fine," Beat said. "Just wait for the sunrise. You'll see."
"No, seriously, I am too tired," I said. "I can't even keep my eyes open."
"You're not going to fall asleep," he said. "Just keep moving. When the sun comes up, you'll feel better."
I was glad to leave the gothic swamps and drop back onto the wide Yentna River. In my four times traveling on that river, I hadn't once been there during daylight hours. I was excited to see it from this new point of view. We stopped at Luce's again, now 65 miles into the race. It felt like success, but there was still a long, long way to go. Beat encouraged more eating so I ordered a grilled cheese sandwich and more coffee. We congratulated a cyclist, Anna, who managed to revive herself from the dead at Alexander Lake and continue down the trail. "I admire that kind of fortitude more than I admire speed," I told her. Perhaps this is because I can relate to fortitude, but still — it takes some serious grit to not give up after you've convinced yourself you have to give up.
I quickly grew tired of the Iron Dog circus, and wanted nothing more but to get off that frantic river. Shortly after I made a choice to increase my effort as much as I could physically stand, I started to feel quite ill. I felt flashes of extreme heat followed by almost instantaneous deep chills, until I had to stop and lean against my poles, breathing hard and waiting for the vomit that would not come. Amid my nausea is when I also first started to notice just how much pain my feet and legs were in. My IT band burned and my feet throbbed with every step. I blinked against the hard sun but there was nothing but sickness, and pain, and more sickness. Beat tried to talk me through it; he offered ginger candies and encouraged me to eat, but I knew eating was an unthinkable proposition, like pouring hot acid on a fire. Sometimes I felt so overheated that it was all I could do not to rip all of my layers off, but the chill would come so quickly that I refrained. "My feet are killing me. My legs are killing me. My body's shutting down." I breathed heavily in and out, in and out, but the only relief was my brief stops to lean against my poles.
Snowmobiles raced by. I started to secretly fantasize about one of them smacking me head-on and putting me quickly out of my misery. I was beyond the ability to put words together into a coherent sentence. So when Beat looked at his phone GPS and warned me that we might have to pick up the pace in order to make the cutoff, I just grunted, "Can't."
"We're not even doing 2 mph right now," he said. "If you can just try for 2.5 ..."
"This is just ... way ... more hurty than I thought," I said.
"I know," he said. "It hurts. But it won't always hurt this bad. Just keep moving."
"I can't do this for 30 more miles," I said. "I just can't."
"What are you going to do?" he asked. "You can't just sit down on the trail and wait."
"I know that," I said, still breathing heavily. "I know that. But Flathorn Lake. I just have to make it to Flathorn Lake."
"You're not going to quit at Flathorn Lake," he said. "It's only 15 miles from the finish. If you don't finish, we'll have to find some 50 milers for you to do so you can qualify for Tahoe Rim." (a 100-mile trail run in June that I already signed up for.)
"Oh, there's not going to be any more 100-mile runs," I said. "I hope I don't finish Susitna cause I don't want to qualify for Tahoe."
"No more 100-mile runs?" Beat said, sounding genuinely disappointed.
"No," I said, not even hiding the irritation in my voice. "Please, please. I can't think about that. I can't think about the cut-off. It just stresses me out. It makes me feel worse. Please can I just drag along for a bit and try not to think about how awful I feel?"
Beat seemed dejected that I was being so unfairly grumpy with him, but nodded and walked on ahead. I fished out my iPod shuffle. Instead of listening the music, though, I could only think of it in terms of time. "One song is about five minutes; that's 12 songs an hour. At 2 mph that's 12 songs for two miles. Twelve miles to Flathorn means 72 songs. I can listen to 70 or so songs. Maybe add 10 more songs for the short ones, and because I'm moving slower than 2 mph." Then I started to count the songs. I made it to three songs, and lost count.
As I trudged toward the looming mass of Mount Susitna, my iPod switched over to a song from the "Ride the Divide" soundtrack. I downloaded this soundtrack, along with several other new albums, just days before the race so I'd have a fresh Susitna playlist. I downloaded the "Ride the Divide" music because I had seen the movie several times, and was hoping the music would fill my head with images from "Ride the Divide," which in turn would remind me of my better days during the 2009 Tour Divide. This particular song didn't ignite any recognition from the movie, but it did wrestle my attention away from my own self-absorbed suffer-fest. "July" by Amy Petty started to fill my soul with something that almost felt like hope.
I listened to the whole song, removed my mittens, fished around in my pocket until I found the shuffle, hit the back button, and listened again. The lyrics rang with a more lasting kind of truth, as though I was suddenly able to see myself in the aftermath, beyond the suffering and pain:
Do you remember when all we had to do was get up to go to school on time?
Do you remember what it meant to refuse, said she wouldn’t let you play outside?
Now we’re so caught up in this great big. big world and so quickly the seasons change the wind;
Now before I lose myself in the blur, I go back where I begin.
Tears filled my eyes, which quickly became streams, and before I even realized it, I was bawling. I was glad Beat was a ways ahead, because I was in the midst of a full-on emotional breakdown, blubbering, sobbing and generally just spewing out a lot of built-up pain and frustration. I wiped away the tears and snot and let more stream out. I reflected back to the 2006 Susitna 100 and my emotional breakdown in the Dismal Swamp, when it was raining and I was wet and cold and pushing my bike through the slush of that wide-open nothingness. There was a point when I sat down on the trail and gave up. And then I got up and kept going. I never forgot that moment, and can never forget that moment. It was the first time in my life I realized I could be that strong. And here I was, back on the Susitna River, back where I began.
The black despair that had dominated my heart suddenly faded into something almost joyful. The pain was still there, but it was nothing I couldn't manage. "Beat's been through so much worse, and got through it," I told myself. "I've been through so much worse, and I got through it." I lifted my chin, plunged my poles into the squeaky snow, and attempted to march the best I could. The afternoon sun blazed overhead, already sinking lower on the horizon. I crawled up the icy Wall of Death and found Beat at the top. He had laid out his sleeping pad and gathered up some chocolate for a snack. He expected me to arrive broken, and was ready to make a peace offering.
"Thank you so much," I said as I briefly sat on the mat. "But really, I'm so much better now. I was just at a low point. I just had to get through it. I'm sorry I was so grumpy with you."
He wrapped his arms around me. "It's all right," he said. "It happens. I know how it is."
Tears filled my eyes again. I was still an exhausted, over-emotional wreck, but at least now my overexagerated emotions were veering toward the positive. I was again overcome with love and gratitude. "Thanks so much for waiting for me," I said. "You know you didn't have to."
"Of course," Beat said. "I wouldn't leave you."
P.S. Beat has started posting his write-up from the race. You can read the first part here.
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