Fall in the Grand Canyon

My dad and I have created a tradition around hiking across the Grand Canyon in one day during the second weekend in October. Our first trip together was in 2004, with a group of my dad's friends. Back then, rim-to-rim was a daunting prospect — 25 miles and 6,000 feet of climbing under possibly intense heat. I trained specifically for the outing, mostly by hiking to peaks in the Stansbury Mountains and riding my touring bike up a canyon in the Oquirrhs (I lived in Tooele, Utah, at the time.) The night before, in our hotel room on the North Rim, I was so anxious I hardly slept. We started more than an hour before sunrise. It was a hot day, unseasonably so. A few people in our group showed early signs of heat exhaustion near the Colorado River. A thermometer at Indian Gardens read 105 degrees. But by the time we emerged, I was sore, fatigued, and wholly absorbed by the beauty and vastness of the Grand Canyon. We've made a solid effort to go back nearly every year since.

The great thing about traditions is that you can return to them with expectations unchanged, even as every other aspect of life shifts and evolves. After seven years, 25 miles isn't such a daunting distance anymore. The other R2R hikers in the original group have mostly dispersed. My dad and I have experienced absolutely perfect weather, torrential rain and even minor flash flooding in the Grand Canyon. Much has changed, but I still love going back and making the annual crossing with my dad. It's my favorite tradition.

And the great thing about our Grand Canyon tradition is that no two crossings are ever the same. You never know what the Grand Canyon will dish out during the second weekend in October. During our first hike, we experienced triple digits. This year, there was snow.

The massive cold front that rolled over the West last week dropped a couple of inches of powder on the North Rim above 8,000 feet. I prepared for winter conditions, even nearly packing my microspikes before I decided that amounted to excessive preparation. On Thursday, we left Salt Lake City and drove through several wet blizzards and icy conditions across central Utah. But by the time we hit Jacob Lake, the clouds were beginning to clear, and the emerging sunlight revealed golden aspen leaves and pine needles dusted with snow.

That evening, we watched the sunset from Imperial Point, where I slipped on a patch of ice and nearly fell into oblivion while walking along the rim to take photographs.

Temperatures were in the mid-20s when we started our hike from the North Rim on Friday morning. I love that I'm wearing all my high-tech winter stuff — Patagonia micro puff jacket, Goretex shell and windstopper gloves, and my dad is wearing work gloves and a cotton sweatshirt that I brought home from girls' camp in 1992. That white towel is his sweat rag. He never had to use it.

It was such a gorgeous morning. I've walked down the Grand Canyon five times now, and it never ceases to stun me.

The North Kaibab Trail. Dad and I had to cancel our trip last year after my grandfather died, so this year was my first trip down the Grand Canyon with any experience as a trail runner. I can understand why the rim-to-rim-to-rim run is such a popular thing in ultrarunning circles. Beyond the stunning scenery, the trails themselves are well-built, wide and runnable, almost to a fault. I'd love to try a R2R2R run someday but I have a lot of work to do before my feet are in that kind of shape.

Ribbon Falls. This little spur trail ends at a sparkling, mossy waterfall and is entirely worth the side trip, although in the past we've had a tough time convincing our hiking companions of this. We actually timed the hike this year. Six minutes off the main trail.

This was actually the first year that my dad and I hiked rim-to-rim alone, just the two of us. My dad is a no-nonsense hiker. He likes to stay in motion, and because of this we covered ground quickly. I tend to take more breaks, even when I'm racing, but I enjoy keeping up with my dad's steady motion and solid pace. He can out-hike me any day, and it's always been this way, no matter how much I improve my fitness or how much closer to 60 he gets. (He's 58 years old, and in incredible shape.)

At Phantom Ranch we filled up on water — all 20 ounces or so that I had consumed so far — and enjoyed our annual "lemmy," which is what they call lemonade at the bottom of the Grand Canyon. There's a whole resort-style compound down there, with cabins and a dining hall and indoor plumbing. I used to think that kind of thing had to be an anomaly in such a remote setting, but now that I've been to the Alps I no longer think of it as strange.

We marched up the Bright Angel Trail under mostly clear, cool skies. The thermometer at Indian Gardens read 60 degrees, if even that high. I was pleased that for my first time in five Grand Canyon crossings, my feet actually didn't hurt on the final switchbacking ascent. My mom waited for us at the top, where we emerged just before 4 p.m., for a total time of nine and a half hours and a moving time of 8:05. Not bad.

That night, my dad debated hiking back down the canyon to the North Rim the following day. He wanted to wait and see how he felt after the first rim-to-rim crossing before deciding. I would have loved to join him but I had already made prior commitments to pace my friend Danni at the Slickrock 100 on Saturday night, and I needed the day to travel to Moab. (Plus, rim-to-rim-to-rim followed immediately by 43 miles of an ultra-race is just craaaazy.) He wanted to try it but was struggling with very sore feet. During long runs, I often experience agonizing foot pain that goes away completely after just a few hours off my feet, so I speculated that he would feel better in the morning. Sure enough, he got up early Saturday, felt fine, and headed down the South Kaibab Trail. He wrapped it up feeling even better than he had at the end of the day before. It was my dad's first (intentional) dabbling with a kind of "ultra" experience. I wish I could have been there to experience it with him, but he had a great time going solo. Instead my mom and I woke up early and headed back around to Jacob Lake, where I began my drive north into the long night ahead.

A great tradition. It requires early commitment and a lot of planning and arrangement on my parents' part, so I'm not sure if we'll plan a trip for next year or not. But I have no doubt we'll be back again, someday.

Cranking the generator

(I planned to post about hiking the Grand Canyon with my dad, but ended up finishing my Slickrock 100 pacer report first. I'll post Grand Canyon pictures later.)

The situation was eerily similar to my "first date" with Beat at the Bear 100: I hatched a convoluted scheme to transport myself from somewhere many hours south to the halfway point of a 100-mile Utah trail race, only to stumble in at the last — and yet serendipitously perfect — moment to take a pacing job that I was unprepared for, mostly as an excuse to spend time with the person doing the running. This time around, I left Jacob Lake, Arizona, in the late morning on race day. My dad's tiny Toyota pickup puttered north as the last wisps of autumn's first snowfall faded from the ground.

The plan was to drive six hours to Moab, where I arranged to meet my friend Danni at the Slickrock 100, a brand new 100-mile trail race in the redrock desert. I hadn't seen Danni since I moved away from Montana in March, and looked forward to quality time spent chatting about past and future adventures, giggling randomly and generally catching up on life. The fact that we would also be plodding through the dark in the desert was an added bonus.

I made an unexpectedly long stop in Kanab to cope with symptoms from a head cold I'd been fighting all week, which flared up badly enough to make me feel concerned about driving. How was I going to rally enough to run with Danni in the Slickrock 100 when I already had 25 miles on my feet, was so congested I could barely breathe and felt disconcertingly nauseated on top of all of that? I sat at Subway sipping Diet Coke to hold down the panic gurgling up in my gut.

I managed to calm my stomach and continued north and then east to Moab, arriving at the finish line just before sunset. I learned the race organizers had completely rerouted the course after a large rainstorm washed out several sections of trail and made other regions completely impassable — in the desert, that can often mean neck-deep quicksand, potential rockslides and hidden craters. The reroute was understandable. But since the course changed, I had no idea where to go and no one could help me, because none of the volunteers knew either. The race director was essentially out in front of the runners, marking the course as he went, and communications back to volunteers appeared to be limited. Just when I was about to give up entirely and crawl into the bed of the truck to sleep for twelve hours, I randomly came across the race director, who was marking the last few miles of the course. He recommended I go to the Deadhorse checkpoint, which was at mile 53 of the new route.

I rushed up the highway and found the checkpoint at 8:30 p.m., which just happened to be the exact time that Danni arrived at the aid station. Luckily, Danni wanted to take a long break to eat some ramen and put on warm clothes, so I had time to change out of my jeans and into better socks and running shoes. I hadn't prepared any race supplies, so I just grabbed my hiking pack — complete with discarded wrappers, an old bagel and an unknown amount of water that I had hauled all the way from the bottom of the Grand Canyon. Add a flashlight and I was ready to go.

Danni looked strong and said she felt good. We made good time to the Gold Bar aid station at my mile 8.5, where Danni discovered she had a bad blister on her big toe. As she sat down to fix it, I noticed a massive plastic jug of florescent orange cheese balls on the table. It must have been five gallons worth, and looked as though not many racers had partaken. A young man at the aid station asked Danni if she wanted any cheese puffs. She refused, so he waited a second and then said, "Well then, how about some cheesy poofs?" She looked up and said, "yeah," then proceeded to eat several handfuls and ask for a bag so she could take more with her. I grabbed a handful of the greasy salty snacks myself, the only aid station food I ended up partaking in (I had an astonishing amount of my own food in my Grand Canyon leftovers.) They did hit the spot.

We started up Gemini Bridges jeep road, gabbing away, when we saw another racer walking toward us. "Have you guys seen any race markings?" he asked. "I haven't seen any in a while." I had to admit that I hadn't seen any race markings all night. The director marked the course with pink ribbons that had a little piece of silver duct tape on the end. The tape was about as shiny as a tin can, and did nothing to reflect light from our headlamps. In the dark, the pink ribbons became almost entirely invisible, hidden among the red dirt and juniper trees. I pulled up my GPS track and sure enough, we had veered almost a mile off the main track. Since I was the pacer and navigation was supposed to be my job, I felt a surge of guilt. The three of us ran quickly down to the point where the track crossed and realized we had completely missed seeing a Y-junction in the road, let alone the pink ribbons directing us in a different direction. I watched the track like a hawk as we continued on the jeep road, vowing not to veer off again.

After a bit, an approaching racer told us there was only 1.5 miles left to the next aid station, which I thought was strange because I knew it to be closer to five. Another time, Danni commented that it was weird how the trail seemed to go downhill both ways. The very steep drop into the too-soon checkpoint should have been a huge red flag, but the truth is we missed all of these warning signs until we arrived at the aid station and a familiar young man said, "weren't you here before?"

My stomach sank as I finally zoomed out on the GPS track we had been following and saw it dead-end right where we stood. We had backtracked to Gold Bar, five and a half miles later. Danni stomped her foot and let out a long, loud "F____________!" The volume even surprised me a little, but the frustration was mutual. The ever-friendly race volunteer held up the vat of orange balls and said in a cheerful voice, "So, do you want more cheesy poofs?"

The tension shattered and even Danni, as demoralized as she was, started laughing. She refused to blame me for the major navigational error even though it was really my fault since I was the one so confidently following a supposedly infallible GPS track. Then, just like he had for me earlier in the evening, the race director magically appeared out of seemingly nowhere and told us that because of confusion caused by the reroute, many of the racers had gone off course, and he was telling everyone that they could simply subtract their bonus mileage from the final spur at the end so that everyone could complete a fair hundred. Forgiving bonus miles is pretty much unprecedented in ultra-racing, but we weren't about to argue. I wanted to hug the race director, who I was sure had adverted a time-sucking morale blow that was my fault and may have cost Danni her race.

After that, I made finding pink ribbons my job, rooting them out of the darkness with my high-beam flashlight and determined hyper-vigilance. We still got lost a couple of times, once while looking for a turn we knew was coming but simply could not find. 1.5 more bonus miles.

Danni struggled with the usual issues of a 100-mile run: Sore feet, Advil loading, blisters, lack of appetite, malaise and extreme bloating. We compared ultrarunning to heavy drinking, and listed reasons why the latter might actually be healthier. I told little stories to fill the miles if I sensed Danni wanted to chat, and turned to silence when the mood called for it. My own feet started to hurt, my throat and sinuses were clogged with phlem, my body longed for sleep and I began to flag in my own motivation. The temperature dipped below freezing. We watched ice form on puddles and thick frost build on the brush. The windchill cut through to my core even after I put my Goretex shell on. It was a cold night. None of this rattled Danni in the least. Her determination held strong, as did her legs, and we moved much faster than I expected at that point in her race.

Once, while climbing an expansive slickrock plateau, we turned off our headlamps and jogged by the light of the nearly full moon. Sandstone slabs glowed in the silver light, and the frosted sand shimmered. Distant rock formations were as visible as they would be in daylight, but with the kind of stark definition and otherworldly colors that only moonlight can create. We ran in silence, with our footsteps adding soft rhythm to the oscillating melody of the wind. I glanced toward the startling clarity of the sky, stars upon stars splattered across the fathomless emptiness, and visualized the energy moving from them, across vast distances, through me. I like to believe that this energy is what continues when consciousness ceases. That whispers of life echo in the wind, and if we quiet our minds and release the burdens of our bodies, we can almost hear our part in the universal symphony. I sometimes question the sanity of my "hobbies," but the truth is I need this as much as air, these vivid moments to experience the universe on my own terms, in my own version of heaven — the stark, cold, ethereal desert. I move through the world like the ghost that I am and generate what feels like pure energy.

Danni probably could not tell that I was blissed out. She may have even been having one of her low points. I didn't say anything, I just hummed to myself the earworm that had been following me across the desert, a song whose lyrics reflected my feelings, "Generator First Floor" by the Freelance Whales.

We get up early just to start cranking the generator
Our limbs have been asleep, we need to get the blood back in them
We're finding every day, several ways that we could be friends

We keep on churning and the lights inside the house turn on
And in our native language we are chanting ancient songs
And when we quiet down, the house chants on without us

Despite my navigational failures and selfish bliss-seeking, I was able to redeem myself as a pacer in small ways. I successfully located all of the pink ribbons in the most difficult navigational section of the course, a rugged and forested jeep maze that another racer referred to as "the Easter Egg hunt." I found spare batteries in my pack for Danni's dying headlamp and kept her updated on the stats after her Garmin died. We started up the 22-mile spur that the race organizer had supposedly cut to 18 and we planned to cut to 15 to match up with Garmin's stats. The sun rose as we moved across the plateau, and suddenly for the first time since I arrived in Moab, I could see real color in the landscape. Slickrock fins appeared like petrified waves across Canyonlands National Park in the distance, revealing the presence of the places that ripple through my past — the Colorado River, Island in the Sky, and the White Rim. The morning dawned clear and gorgeous. So we were both shocked — and despite seriously sore feet almost disappointed — when the race director cut us off with only 4.5 miles on the Garmin.

"We haven't gone nine miles," Danni argued with him. "We're only supposed to go seven and it hasn't even been that."

He said the storm had created an impassable hole in the road a mile ahead and insisted we had traveled nine miles. We thought he was sleep-deprived and significantly disoriented. Looking back, he may have meant the round trip. But either way it brought the distance of the Slickrock 100 down to something closer to 90, and our own extra-bonus-miles Slickrock down to something between 95 and 97 miles. We debated doing more extra bonus miles to bring Danni's personal total to 100, but once you've been given an out, even three extra miles is tough to manage mentally. We reasoned that Garmin stats are rarely perfect and perhaps with the usual margin of error she had done 100 anyway. We mustered a solid run into the finish at 8:24 a.m., giving Danni a 25:24 finish. I ran with her for 43 miles in a little less than 12 hours, only one of which was in daylight.

Danni was deservingly thrilled, although her own bliss may have been muted by extreme fatigue and the fact she had retained what looked like at least ten extra pounds of water weight. Her hands and lower legs looked like the Michelin Man. We debated what might have gone wrong with her nutrition but couldn't come up with any definitive theories. Sometimes these things just happen. Which, kids, is why it's not healthy to run 100 miles. But it is, in its own way, lots of fun.

Beat finished the race in just over 22 hours. We saw him once on the course, where he claimed his feet hurt and he hadn't quite recovered from the Tor des Geants so he was going to quit the race before the final spur, at what was supposed to be mile 78 and turned out to be mile 81. But then he DNF'd his DNF and ended up earning his well-deserved belt buckle. Danni and I joked about how funny it would be if he quit before the last, easy, nine-mile spur. We celebrated with 50K finisher Meghan Hicks at my favorite southern Utah haunt, Ray's Tavern in Green River.

So there is my pacer report, which is considerably longer with less photos than Danni's actual race report. I think Danni does know this about me — that I only sign on for long-suffer fests so I can write lengthy reports about them on my blog, and also so I can get blissed out on exhausted night running, and of course spend time with Danni, who is a super awesome chick that lives entirely too far away in Kalispell, Montana. It's funny that my circle of friends conducts reunions this way, but I wouldn't have it any other way.

Rain lets me run fast

I had a fun weekend "at home," a distinction that included traveling to San Francisco to visit my friend Monika. Monika and I were good friends in college. We even lived in the same house for more than a year. We've only gotten together a couple of times since I moved here, one of the sad truths of busy lives and the way social networking has replaced face time. But it is fun to get together with an old friend and interact as though the last decade never happened. Monika still remembers me as the naive Utah girl who embarked on daylong slickrock canyoneering adventures wearing jeans and Sketchers. I remember her as the funny Slovakian who was one of the only friends willing to join my more harebrained adventure ideas, such as climbing Mount Timpanogos in the middle of the night. We treat each other as though we were still the same vivacious 20-somethings, and it's fun.

Monika invited me to breakfast on Saturday morning and asked if I wanted to join her and her friends who were visiting from North Carolina for "this bluegrass festival." I pictured a small gathering in Golden Gate Park where I could lounge in a camp chair and chat with my friends. I honestly had no knowledge or concept of Hardly Strictly Bluegrass, a massive annual music festival that draws upwards of 750,000 people over three days. I didn't have any idea that I'd be pressed into a crowd near the stage during a Kris Kristofferson and Merle Haggard duo, or that I'd be dancing on the periphery during a Broke Social Scene set (one of my favorite indie rock bands), or giving up all hope and plopping down near several sketchy-looking men who launched into random, screaming rants during Gillian Welch. I used to be a big live music fan but realized some years back that I actually don't like feeling trapped by swarming masses of humanity. Now I've apparently fallen so far off the bandwagon that I wasn't even aware this huge free music festival was happening this weekend. It was a treat to experience, but exhausting. Monika would ply me for tips on how I could "run all day" and I would insist that ultrarunning was easier and less harrowing than waiting in line for the port-a-potty, which, between the four of us, we spent most of the day doing anyway.

Then we waited in line for the train. I saw the line of festival-goers at the train stop and asked my friends to consider walking home. They protested that Monika's house was "across town," which I knew in urban-speak basically meant five or six miles. The crowd grew and I tried begging, to no avail. We ended up waiting nearly an hour to be wedged in a train so full of bodies that I could feel two different strangers' breath on my neck, then had to catch a connector train that was similarly crowded and slow. It took us more than two hours to travel "across town." There are a lot of aspects of San Francisco that I appreciate. I like the cables strung over buildings like a crackling spider web. I like eating Guatemalan food at a heavily decorated storefront in the Mission district and almost feeling like I'd traveled to central America. But I'm glad I live farther away from the crowds, closer to more sweeping trails and even some small mountains, in the burbs — or, as the city people I met on Saturday put it, "Oh, wow, way down there" as though I lived in Mexico and not Los Altos. I guess if you're used to spending two hours using public transportation for a five-mile commute, then Los Altos would seem impossibly far.

Today it rained for the first time in a few months, a long-awaited weather event that I was thrilled about. I only had time for an hour-long run before dark, so I headed to Rancho, thinking I would do my usual five-mile loop. But I was running so strong up the PG&E trail that I decided to continue up to the top, a seriously steep four-mile climb, then launched down the other side of the ridge as rain pelted down. The trail was deliciously sticky, covered in a thick moon-dust paste that clung to my shoes, but it was worth it. I felt like I was running on the moon, light and fast without worrying whether my feet were going to slide into gravity's gravel purgatory after every step. At one point I looked down at my GPS and saw "holy cow sub-seven-minute mile!" so I picked up the pace even more. I still made it back before dark, just barely, having run nearly twice as far as I'd planned to run.

I missed the rain more than I realized.

Thanks, Mr. UPS guy

It was going to be my first mountain bike ride since Aug. 10. As it turned out, I didn't have time for the ride I originally planned, so I would have to settle on my usual, the Steven's Creek loop. It's the route I always fall back on and subsequently crashed on seven weeks ago. I'd been looking forward to getting back at it, but I'd be lying if I said I felt excited for this particular ride. More like dread.

I felt the tell-tale lead weight in my legs as I churned up the paved Monte Bello Road. It was a humid day and far from clear; a brown haze hovered over the Silicon Valley. Sweat beaded on my arms as I sucked the thick air, which felt to me like 110 degrees but was probably closer to 80. A brown truck rumbled past, heading toward the wineries that dot this narrow, dead-end road. The grade steepened and light-headedness set in; it felt to me like 11,000 feet elevation but in reality was still under 2,000. The brown truck emerged from a driveway and passed again. I thought about the trail runs I did this week and the current condition of the trails — loose gravel with nothing left to hold it together because all of the dirt had been churned up and dehydrated to a fine moon dust. The result was a little like a teflon-coated baking sheet spread with granola and topped in several inches of powdered sugar. A slippery, skidding mess on descents and churning, slipping grind on the climbs, and if I fell there were only sharp things to land on. My riding confidence is already shattered and these chunder trails don't seem like the best place to pick up the pieces. But they're what I have to work with, for now.

Today, however, I just wasn't feeling it. I was already hot and tired and the mountain biking hadn't even begun. My GPS was running and the numbers weren't good. This just wasn't my day. I resolved to finish the paved climb and then turn around. I would ride trails another day. Maybe on Sunday. Or next week.

The brown truck passed again, and this time the driver stopped the vehicle beside me. I put my foot down and looked up at the UPS guy, expecting him to shout at me for obstructing the narrow road with my bicycle. Instead, he was smiling. "You're toasting this climb," he said enthusiastically. "I don't often see mountain bikes up here that are really ripping it up."

For a second or two, I just looked at him. Who me? I glanced back to make sure he was definitely talking to me. Had he even been up Monte Bello before? Had he actually seen other cyclists riding up this road? I personally had ridden this thing at least 25 percent faster in the past, but today I was just a plodding, tired slowpoke. I didn't really know what to say. "Wow, um, thanks."

"You gonna ride down the trails?" he asked.

"Um, yes," I said. "Heading down Steven's Creek Canyon."

"Awesome," the UPS guy said. "Rip it!"

And with that, he continued up the road. I plodded after him and watched him turn into another driveway. I had at that point only about a half mile to the end of the pavement. But I could hardly turn around then. The UPS driver would see me retreating down the road. And anyway, he had such a big smile on his face. He told me to rip it. Secretly, I hoped he wasn't talking about my skin. But his enthusiasm was infectious.

I rode the loop. It wasn't that bad. I didn't exactly rip it. I was overcautious and poky. But I had fun. And I got my Steven's Creek crash demon out of the way. I'm one ride closer to rebuilding my confidence. I'm glad I went. Thanks, Mr. UPS guy.

Redwoods road ride

Big Basin Redwoods State Park

I didn't actually mean to binge on this much road biking this week. I blame jet lag, which wrestles me awake well before sunrise each morning, and a bit of writer's block, which makes me feel reluctant to return home to my computer. It's not that I'm necessarily stuck with my project, it's just that I've forgotten where I'm going with it. It's a bit frustrating, staring at blank screens, tapping out a few sentences and then erasing them. I want to reset my mind, and anyway I have that 25-hour bike race to train for. So I take to the road.

I winced as I placed my sore sit bones on the saddle this morning; of all the body parts that have fallen out of shape since my August bike crash, my suddenly sensitive butt is the most noticeable. I rode 40 miles and Monday and 45 yesterday, both with 4,000-plus feet of climbing, so I decided I'd take it easy today. I brought one water bottle and no food. The sun burned hot even at 8 a.m., foreshadowing the 95 degrees it would hit later in the day. I motored up Highway 9, feeling strong. An hour and a half later at the crest of the climb, without even really deciding too, I kept going.

Who's a big tree?

Miles sure go by fast when you're coasting downhill. I knocked off six miles and launched into a new climb, again, without really making a conscious decision to do so. Twenty miles and about 3,500 feet of climbing into my ride, I placed my water bottle to my lips and found it was empty. So I had no choice but to descend to the nearest water source — the headquarters of Big Basin Redwoods State Park.

I've never even ridden down into Big Basin before, which is inexcusable, really, because it's so close to my house and such a great route for beauty, climbing and solitude. On a weekday morning, you'd never even guess you were in the midst of one of the largest population centers in California. I saw exactly two cars, and had the rest of the narrow, shady, steep roller coaster of a road all to myself.

The unobstructed view from Highway 236

See what I mean? Forest as far as the eyes can see. And this is about halfway between San Jose and Santa Cruz as the seagull flies. It's all open land — a sliver of small mountains that people nearly forgot. Except for, of course, the loggers who deforested this area about a century ago. The entire Bay-area coastline is second-growth forest at best, but the region still contains a few stunning redwood trees that loomed like towers over my tiny bicycle. I loved this ride, and never even really noticed the effort, that is, until I ran out of water again near the crest of the final climb, and my toes developed a sharp ache from too many hours in road shoes. (Even though it's been two and a half years since I had frostbite, my right toes can still only tolerate about three hours in hard-soled clipless shoes before I develop excruciating pressure pains.)

I ended the ride at 53 miles and 7,345 feet of climbing, which is way more than I intended or really felt necessary. (Garmin map here) But at the same time, I almost wish I took the initiative (brought more water and food) to ride even farther. Sometime soon I'd love to ride all the way down to Santa Cruz, a coastal town I'm ashamed to admit I have not yet visited. The road riding opportunities in this region really are sublime, which helps temper my reluctance to get back on my mountain bike. (I know, I know. I need to get over this. But there hasn't been a significant rainstorm since June, and the trails were moon-dust on top of loose gravel before the elapsed six weeks of continuing, persistent dryness.) But I can't wait for rain forever.

Back in the saddle

Forty-six days. That's the amount of time that has passed since the last time I experienced a good, satisfying moment on a bike. Then it all came to a skidding halt on a bed of gravel and broken dreams. Forty-six days can be a long time.

There were a few rides at the four-week mark, right before I went to Europe. Three rides, actually. One was a commute, and two were short road rides on my mountain bike, because the front suspension helped protect my tender arm from the jarring pain of mildly bumpy pavement. During the second ride up Montebello Road, I lagged far behind Beat. When I finally wheezed my way to the top, where he had been waiting for more than five minutes, I announced that I was in the worst physical shape I had been in since the extended angry knee episode of 2007. Nothing felt right, everything felt hard, my arm hurt even though it seemed nearly healed, and frustrations about my abilities were mounting. I was teetering dangerously close to a fitness funk that threatened to anchor me to the couch in sheer protest of my useless body.

Then we left for Europe. The trip — one and a half crazy weeks in the Alps and one lazy week in Germany — proved the perfect medicine, the reset button I so badly needed. We returned Sunday night. Jet lag had me up at 3 a.m. Monday. I attempted to snooze, mostly unsuccessfully, until 7, then got up to face the day. At 8 a.m. it felt to me like 5 p.m., which is the time of day I like to exercise in my regular California routine. I wasn't focusing well on my work anyway, so I decided to head out for my first real ride in nearly seven weeks.

I pumped up my road bike tires, rifled through piles of gear to find my buried helmet and repair stuff, and set out into the refreshingly cool afternoon (because actually, it was still early in the morning.) It took a while to get my legs spinning, but after five miles I started to feel pretty good. Not just good — fantastic. I turned up Highway 9 and shifted into high gear for the 2,500-foot ascent. My quads burned and sweat streamed down my face as I marveled at the relative ease of the effort. (Climb a few mountains in the Alps and you will understand what I mean.) I crested the big climb and launched into the roller coaster of Skyline Drive. Suddenly coasting at 35 miles per hour, the wind pried an enormous smile from my lips. Tears welled up in my eyes, mostly from the speed, but also a little from joy — such simple, effortless joy. I had nearly forgotten what that felt like.

I thought back to a conversation I once had with a former climber who had a chronic shoulder injury and could no longer climb. He could run, ride bikes, ski, swim ... but he couldn't climb. And yet, he still identified as a climber and admitted that while he enjoyed running and skiing, they never quite filled the void left by climbing. As a non-climber, I wanted to assure him that trail running had as much potential for fun, fitness and scenery as rock climbing. But of course I was wrong, just as I'm wrong when I urge injured runner friends to ride bikes as an adequate replacement for their usual activities. It's not. I do believe most active outdoor people find their perfect medium, and these mediums are deeply individual. Like an artist who can paint beautiful landscapes with oils but only flat imitations with watercolors, we all have our one best vehicle. Mine, of course, is a bicycle. I love trail running and hiking, I have a natural ability for distance swimming, and I'm certain I'd still live a happy life even if I could never ride a bicycle again.

But there would always be an emptiness, a hole that would never be completely filled. And after 46 days, during a clear and cool Monday morning in the Santa Cruz Mountains, I savored the satisfying sensation of long-awaited fullness.

For those who might be curious (probably no one, but it's looking slightly less disgusting these days so I'm posting a picture) this is my arm seven weeks after the crash. As recently as two weeks ago that deeper wound at the bottom was still bleeding, and I developed an infection in Italy that convinced me to stop wearing band-aids all the time (thus pooling bacteria-laden sweat around it for hours on end.) It still feels a bit raw but the deep-set soreness is all but gone — 110 psi on the rough pavement of Alpine Road today confirmed that. I came home after my three-hour, 45-mile hilly road ride completely ecstatic about my progress, and when I told Beat he actually went into Active.com and signed me up for the 25 Hours of Frog Hollow. The 25-hour mountain bike race in Hurricane, Utah (which Beat and I raced together as a team last year) is an event I've been coveting but was reluctant to enter for a number of reasons. However, as it turns out, it's only a few days before my sister's wedding in Salt Lake City, making travel logistics easier, and not so close to our Nepal adventure that I can't recover — as long as I ride conservatively, and don't crash. So now I have a month to train for a 25-hour solo mountain bike race after more than six weeks off the bike, and a rigid goal not to injure myself. Even if I take it easy (and that's my plan), I am going to be inclined to gut out the full 25 hours and it's probably going to hurt. A lot. And yet, I'm so excited. I get to ride my bike. A lot! The binge after the fast.

Germany

Beat and I have been spending a quiet recovery week at his mother's apartment in Bielefeld, Germany. We've both used the time to catch up on work. I had a difficult time focusing enough to complete much writing — my mind is still muddled with Italian mountains, Alaska winter dreams and borderline obsessions with cycling — but it's been a good week to catch up on bookkeeping and work on the tedious, hair-pulling process of updating my eBooks. In the near future my digital books should finally be well-formatted with plenty of photographs and will look awesome on iPad and pretty good on Kindle. I'm looking forward to this, but in the meantime I'm slogging through the ePub process and exchanging communications with a company in California that is nine hours off my current time. Yes, it has not been the most productive week, work-wise, but arguably more productive than my week in Italy. Arguably.

I'm excited to be in Germany and have tried to get out for explorations, although I can only go as far as my feet will carry me, so my range has been rather limited. There are a number of beautiful trails around Bielefeld. The area reminds me of southeastern Ohio, with its rolling hills, lush green forests, and wide valleys of sectioned farmland, villages and the city. I rode my bicycle across Ohio at this exact time of year in 2003, so my explorations have filled me with bicycle touring nostalgia. Have I mentioned I am dying to go for a bike ride? Even a mellow cruise on a road bike would make me feel exceedingly happy. Although I did manage a few mellow commute-type rides in the days leading up to our Europe trip, it's effectively been six weeks since I've ridden a bicycle. My injured arm is at about 95 percent these days and my mind is almost reeling with bike lust. Seriously. I can't focus. I have to keep reminding myself that I'm in Germany and that in itself is pretty awesome. I did look into bike rentals but availability was limited and the logistics discouraging. I decided to run through the week instead.

Meanwhile, Beat's mom has been spoiling us with regular home-cooked meals, daily trips to the bakery, more chocolate that we could ever eat (I say this, although it's almost gone now), rich German yogurt in an assortment of flavors and an endless supply of Pepsi Light. I actually lost a few pounds while I was in Italy, but I'm quickly packing all of that back on and more here in Germany. It's just as well. Beat needed the recovery. He's slept a fair amount this week and even gotten out for a couple of active recovery runs. He's doing well except for some nagging pains in his Achilles. And we're both enjoying Beat's mom's kitten, Filou.

Can you tell I miss my cat Cady? I miss her.

It has been a good week for running. Thanks to the climbing volume of last week a bit of nagging knee pain I haven't put in any "fast" runs, but my progress has been good. I transitioned from completely empty legs during an hour-long walk on Monday to feeling strong during my 20-mile run today. For my "Tour of Bielefeld" I started going on walks with Beat's mom's partner, Peter. These were fairly quiet outings, as Peter doesn't speak much English and I speak even less German. But he pointed out all of the notable sights to me, including the University, a large school that is famous for its ugliness. Indeed, the buildings look like they were designed by 1960s Hollywood sci-fi set designers — futuristic retro. Beat got his master's degree there, so I'm sure he has lots of fond memories of the place.

Peter and I walked 7.5 kilometers on Monday and 15 kilometers on Tuesday (14 miles total). On Wednesday I ran twice, an 11.5-mile morning run in which I was vaguely lost the entire time, and a 5.5-mile recovery run with Beat in the afternoon, for a total of 17 miles. On Thursday we ran 7.5 miles, and I did 20 today on the Hermannsweg Trail. The "H" Trail was actually a lot of fun, all along a narrow ridge with tough climbs, rocky descents and fantastic valley views. The whole route is 156 km — might be fun to come back and run the entire thing someday.

The H Trail also allows cycling, so maybe the better idea is to come back and ride the whole thing. I admit I spent way too much time this week fantasizing about cycling. I saw these signs and imagined an illustration with a backpack-clad runner chick tackling the rude mountain biker and stealing his bike. We return to California on Sunday. I will miss Europe. But I'm excited to see my cat ... and my five bicycles.

Switzerland: Hopp! Hopp!

I admit I was surprised when Beat got out of bed at 6 a.m. Saturday morning. I expected him to pass out after his shower Saturday night and not wake up for days. Or maybe I was hoping for this. Either way, despite his apparent inability to walk without a pronounced limp, he was still all-in for the half marathon in Switzerland that afternoon.

We expected Steve and Harry to arrive in Courmayeur by early morning. But a results check revealed they were still about five hours away, so we had to roll away without seeing them finish. I drove through the seven-mile-long Mont Blanc tunnel, along the rough and narrow roads of France, around at least three dozen roundabouts (have I mentioned how much I miss traffic lights? Yes, I miss them), onto the smooth and narrow roads of Switzerland, and finally onto a real freeway while Beat drifted in and out of consciousness, but mostly out. We arrived at Beat's brother's farmhouse at 11 a.m., ate a quick brunch of fresh bread, cheese and local yogurt (all of which I absolutely gorged on), and were back on the road by 12:30, en route to Lake Greifensee.

I snoozed most of the way to the half marathon and awoke just as Andy pulled into a series of farm fields filled with thousands of cars. I got a side stitch just walking to the bus, and was still in disbelief that we were actually going to do this race. Beat couldn't even put his shoes all the way on without wincing in pain. I felt as though the liquid lead in my bloodstream had finally solidified. I took comfort in my conviction that Beat would probably be forced to walk the entire thing, and I could just walk with him, you know, in the name of being a supportive girlfriend.

Beat, for his part, did not look extremely enthusiastic either. He wrapped his feet in gauze and then removed it, then second-guessed that. We picked up our race numbers — in the 10,000s — and our suggested start time, 3:50 p.m. Because more than 15,000 people run the annual Greifenseelauf, the race incorporates a staggered start and tracks times with electronic chips. The finish area was still more crowded than Disneyland. In fact, the whole place had a very Disneyland feel — like the queue around the (fake) Matterhorn Bobsleds, with quaint Swiss mountain decor and $4.50 bottles of soda (make that 4.50 Swiss francs, which are worth more than dollars.) The main difference is that here, the sodas are warm, and instead of feeling sick to your stomach after riding too many roller coasters, you get to feel sick before a thirteen-mile run.

Still, amid the nausea and dread, there was a little buzz of excitement. I've never run a road race before, even a 5K. All of my foot races have been on trails. To run with this many thousands of people in a foreign country expanded the already large novelty of my first half marathon. We had to walk three kilometers just to reach the race start and queued up with the cattle line of runners. As soon as we reached the starting line, Beat's brother took off like a flash and even Beat started pounding the pavement to the tune of sub-nine-minute miles. I realize this isn't all that fast but given the circumstances, I had my doubts that he would hold this pace for very long. After all this time, it's strange how I still underestimate him.

Despite his hamburger feet, Beat stubbornly held his pace and I lost track of him after an aid station near 11 kilometers. After downing several cups of "wasser," my sour stomach finally started to settle, but my twisted knee was sore enough to convince me to just settle in at an easy pace. After this, I really enjoyed myself. It seemed like half of Zurich turned out to cheer on the runners, and there were big parties going on at every intersection. The race was meticulously well-organized, in true Swiss fashion, and I enjoyed the fact they put names on all of the race bibs. People would cheer me on as I passed, and I discovered Swiss people have a beautiful way of saying my name — they roll both the first and last consonants so it almost sounds like three syllables instead of one. The name Jill must have revealed me as an English speaker as well because they would tell others to "Hopp Hopp!" but I more often received a "Go, Zzzshilllll, you can do it!"

I saw Beat one more time at an out-and-back section; he was nearly a kilometer in front of me. And then, just like that, the race was over. I couldn't believe how quickly it went. I finished in 2:07. Beat finished right at two hours, less than 24 hours after finishing the 128-hour Tor des Geants.

I really enjoyed my first half marathon experience. There's something a little magical about running in a Disneyland setting, especially when you come into it with extremely low expectations and thus can just relax and enjoy the experience. Could I run faster? Undoubtably, although I'm not sure I'd want to try. Road running is pretty rough on my knees and hips; as I discovered in cycling, my body doesn't respond well when motion becomes too repetitive. I will say that running thirteen miles of road at a two-hour pace (okay, okay, 2:07) felt physically easier than any single two-hour span that I hiked in the Alps. So, as far as I'm concerned, I already ran about 22 half marathons while I was in Italy. (I kid, I kid ... sort of.)

But the fact that Beat not only showed up at the Greifenseelauf starting line, but ran the entire thing, really shows what a nut he is. Crazy Swiss runner.

Italy, day nine

Despite my inability to take care of it, my body showed surprising resilience to my demands of supporting Beat all night followed by hiking all day. But on Friday morning, that all came to a crashing halt, and I woke up feeling like someone injected liquid lead into my bloodstream during the night. I wasn't entirely surprised, given that I had climbed anywhere from 5,000 to 11,000 feet every day but one for the past eight days, endured hundreds of kilometers of stressful driving, slept an average of three hours a night, and fueled myself with a sporadic diet that contained about 90 percent simple carbohydrates. Still, I can't overemphasize how crappy I felt when Beat dialed in his daily dawn update to tell me he was starting up the final pass of the Tor des Geants. I mumbled that I would likely not get out of bed for the rest of the day. Of course, thanks to my extended bout of jet lag insomnia I couldn't sleep anyway, so I got up and cleaned the apartment, organized Beat's gear, and packed up so he wouldn't have to worry about anything after he finished. Beat called again from the top of Col de Malatra and asked me if I wanted to meet him for the final stretch. I hadn't planned to, given this was his moment to shine, but I did appreciate an opportunity to share what I imagined was the extremely satisfying experience for him.

I dragged quite a lot on the way out of town, but picked up energy again on the steep climb to Refugio Bertoni. I caught Beat running along the flat traverse a couple of miles later. He said running felt better on his painful feet, but caused a number of other problems that he was only occasionally willing to deal with. I wasn't faring too well myself with a still-sore twisted knee and deep fatigue, and whenever Beat ran I actually struggled to hold his pace. As we started down the final steep descent, he mentioned possibly leaving Italy that night for Switzerland, a four-hour drive to his brother's house near Zurich. In a twist of Beat's borderline-masochistic sense of humor, we were both signed up for a half-marathon the following day: The Internationaler Greifenseelauf, a massive event with more than 15,000 participants. The reasoning behind this crazy plan was to: A, allow Beat to spend time with his brother, who was registered for the race; B, continue one of Beat's regular traditions; C, be a unique first road race experience for me; and D, secure bragging rights for Beat ("My warmup run was only 200 miles. Do you think that's enough?")

However, over the course of the arduous week, I had come to believe that the half marathon could not possibly be a serious plan. Even less fathomable was driving four hours that night when Beat wouldn't finish the race until 6 p.m. and hadn't even given himself a single minute to recover. "You can't possibly still be thinking about that stupid race," I snapped back. My comment was mostly directed and convincing Beat that I was exhausted and had no business driving that night, but it was the wrong way of saying it, and the words "stupid race" really irritated him. I instantly felt bad about it given the last thing I wanted to do was steal his thunder, which is why I hadn't planned to meet him on the trail in the first place. I tried to dial it back and apologize, but we were both up against a raw edge. When we reached the pavement of town, Beat broke into a celebratory sprint and I let him go. Because of this, I actually missed seeing him finish. I arrived several minutes later to find Beat sprawled out in a folding chair with a huge smile on his face. All was forgotten and forgiven.

Beat's finishing time was 128 hours, 13 minutes and 55 seconds, for a position of 111th male and 117th overall among 473 starters and 300 finishers. He was happy with his time given how many struggles he experienced in the last half of the race, and very happy to have finished the whole thing not just once but twice — an admirable display of mental fortitude. We celebrated with individual gigantic pizzas at the pizzeria across from the TDG tent, cheering as dozens of other smiling racers sprinted, ran, walked, and limped into the finish.

I'm incredibly proud of Beat and grateful to have shared in a small part of his experience. The little support I offered him was really for my own satisfaction; he didn't really need my back massages, dessert deliveries and commiseration, although I like to think that maybe I contributed a small part to the mental fortitude that led to his success. And of course supporting Beat meant traveling with him to Europe, which has been such a great experience for me. Some have asked if my first venture outside North America has been strange for me, and in some ways — the terrible soda options and the driving — it has. But here in these beautiful mountains, among people who love mountains, is in other ways as close as I ever feel to home.

Italy, day eight

The days were all starting to blur together, as were the names of the TDG life bases. I'd forgotten the name of this one within minutes after I arrived around 11 p.m. Like the other checkpoints, it was stashed in a quaint mountain town at the end of a long and winding canyon road. The white tent was wedged in a small plaza between several hotels, where street lights flickered in dull streaks of orange amid the race's overwhelming flood lights. I parked the car under the artificial midnight sun, read my Kindle, and eventually dozed off only to be awoken by Beat tapping on the window at 1:30 a.m.

It's an intriguing environment, these events where people from a multitude of different nationalities come and go in the night, but all share the common and often debilitating condition of being human. In places such as this I get the sense that there is no nationalism, no language barriers, only fragile biological beings trying to endure something quite difficult and painful. They have their individual reasons for being here, their personal goals and backgrounds, but they all have the same drooping look in their eyes, the same drunken stagger in their steps, the same ashen faces, hunched postures and quaking hands as they clutch lukewarm plates of pasta. Sitting with Beat inside the white tent, I would often forget where I was until I mentioned something to a nearby racer, who would then regard me with a blank stare and mumble something back in French or German or Italian. We didn't need language to communicate, though; their eyes said so much more than words — I am tired. My mind is liquid. I have forgotten my name. But I feel so alive. I do not know why.

My own mind was starting to slip away. Despite GPS's flawless directions, I lost my way driving down the canyon road and made a few circles around the deserted streets of a stone village before finding my way back to the highway and home at 4:30 a.m. Beat called at first light, about 6 a.m., absolutely elated about the scenery he was looking at — a dramatic emotional upswing that he wanted to share. I was unable to doze back off after that, so I spent the morning attempting some work and blogging in Courmayeur before recruiting Martina to join me on my next life base trip that evening.

We arrived at Ollomont early enough to hike up Col Brison before I expected Beat to arrive at his final life base, about fifty kilometers from the finish. It wasn't quite early enough to make it to the Col and back before dark, so after the first two thousand feet of climbing, I amped up my pace to near-max. For me, few things are more physically and emotionally satisfying than a hard climb in a mountainous landscape. I love the feel of sweat streaming from my cheeks onto the rocks, of hot blood searing my calves, of biceps flexing as I dig my poles into the dirt. In the midst of a good climb, I can transition from being completely exhausted to overflowing with energy and life within minutes — no sleep, no food, no problem. Of course, I don't expect to feel this way indefinitely, but for one steep Col in the Italian Alps, even my overtired body feels like it can take on the whole world.

And, in the midst of this elation, I think about whether I could take on a race like the Tor des Geants. Like the Tour Divide, it's a race that fits many of my interests and strengths. The sheer length, steepness and technicality of the course forces even the fastest competitors into trekking mode — it's a hiking race, not a trail run. I am a clumsy and slow runner, but I'm a good hiker — indeed, I'm often faster when I'm in hiking mode versus trying to shuffle up these steep slopes. I also do a lot less damage to my own body when I don't try to run — my tender feet can feel pretty trashed after a six-hour 50K, but all of the hiking I did this week had no effect on my feet, and only a little on my legs. To a certain extent I can operate okay on heavy sleep deprivation as long as I keep the calories coming in. And as long as I don't trash my feet (admittedly, this is quite unlikely over that much distance) and eat enough, I think I could thrive in the environment of the Tor des Geants. And of course, I could just hike the whole Alta Via della Valle d'Aosta without the structure of a race. I would love this, but at the same time, there is a side of me that relishes in the extreme challenge offered by the TDG, made possible by the support of the race organization and the simple drive to complete the course in a time that might otherwise be impossible. Racing is motivation to push beyond suffering and personal limits, and in its own way, suffering becomes a meaningful and rewarding experience in itself. It's why, if I ever go back to the Tour Divide, I don't think I would be satisfied to tour the GDMBR at a leisurely pace, even though I love bicycle touring. No, the GDMBR carries a different meaning for me, and I'm not sure I could return without the drive to complete the course faster and better than I did the first time. 

Different experiences, racing and touring. Both good, but undeniably different. Indeed, I loved my tour up Col Brison. I arrived at the pass right at sunset in a wash of magical light, feeling good, with no requirement to hike down the Col, up another Col, down that Col, and up on a seemingly endless loop. I could just sit on the crest, bundle in all of my warm and still-dry layers as cold wind whisked along the ridge, spend long minutes watching the orange light fade from the horizon and turn to pink Alpenglow on distant glaciers, smile, stand up, and hike down the way I came. And indeed, even in my best element I can still make mistakes, still be clumsy. I had become accustomed to hiking with poles, which improve my balance and allow to me move downhill at a faster speed than I otherwise would. Without poles, I took a couple of bad steps and once wrenched my right knee violently, causing a burst of pain. For a few seconds, I fretted that I had done something bad enough to prevent me from continuing down the trail, but eventually the pain subsided and I was able to walk without limping — although my twisted knee did hurt, and forced me to take deliberately slow steps. I stopped at a refugio located right at treeline to watch the moon rise over the mountains and wait for Beat, who called to let me know he was about an hour away. Martina caught up to me and we waited together, eventually chatting with the race volunteer at the refugio using Martina's limited French and my subtle sign language.

Beat was in a lot of pain when he reached the refugio. His feet were hamburger, he told us, a wrap of blisters that burned like fire and muscle sensitivity that made every step feel like a plunge into a bowl of thumb tacks. After spending the evening almost believing that I could take on the Tor des Geants, looking at Beat's near-bloody feet was another dose of reality about just how difficult this race really is. A long mountain bike race is one thing, and can hurt, but not in nearly the same way. In a foot race, the body experiences all of the impact, and when something goes wrong, there's nothing to fall back on — no shocks, no coasting, no wheels. My feet are my own weak link, and in my experiences, there's really no pain quite as agonizing during a physical effort as hurty feet.

We traveled together down to Ollomont, where Beat decided to sleep for two hours before having the race medics tape his feet. Martina was sweet and waited with me until Beat woke up so I could see him off and take his bag, given this was the last major checkpoint. Beat limped away from Ollomont at about 1:30 a.m., into another long night.