For all my sweat, my blood runs weak

May 31 was Beat's 44th birthday, and true to form, he went looking for a hundred-mile race he could run to celebrate. He found the Bryce 100, a new event covering a hundred miles of trail on the Paunsaugunt Plateau, along the rim above Bryce Canyon National Park in southwestern Utah. Admittedly, I can be a hard sell on hundred-mile foot races (my requirements: They should feel like they're going somewhere, like a journey. They must be rugged, climby, or have otherwise difficult terrain. In other words, not too runnable — I fear the prospect of actually *running* a hundred miles. Little to no pavement. Also, must offer dynamic scenery.) So I was excited about the prospect of the Bryce 100, which offered all of that in my childhood backyard. I spent most weekends in my early 20s backpacking and hiking the canyons of Southern Utah, but for whatever reason I hadn't visited the Paunsaugunt since I was a teenager. In my memory, the place was like a ride at Disneyland, with rock formations so strange that they had to be carved by humans, then painted with over-the-top bright orange and red hues to complete a cartoonish "Wild Wild West" aesthetic. I was excited plunge myself into a journey deep into the "real" Bryce.

Beat flew into Salt Lake on Thursday and we drove down to Bryce Canyon City in the afternoon. He was running off of a couple of terrible nights of sleep. I also felt quite depleted — almost feverish — possibly from a bug I might have caught from my dad, or from putting in hard efforts at altitude too close to the race, or perhaps just general malaise. Either way, I wasn't feeling terribly optimistic about my physical fitness, but still excited to embark on the trek. We joined our friends Steve and Harry, who had also come out to Utah for Beat's birthday run, in the o'dark-thirty gathering around a barrel fire at a trailhead off Highway 12. Pre-dawn temps were in the 30s, and the sky glittered with stars — clear skies, in the desert, usually mean scorching bright days followed by frigid nights.

The first segment of the Bryce 100 followed the Thunder Mountain Trail — which actually does have its own namesake Disneyland ride, and was every bit as bright, campy, and fun as the Big Thunder Mountain Railroad. The undulating hills resembled a rollercoaster ride, and spruce trees looked healthy and trim, like cultivated garden trees. I half expected to see a mechanical mountain goat stroll out from behind the hoodoos, but this was the real deal.

Everyone was feeling good and running well in the morning; smiles were wide and cameras were out in force. Even with the consistent climbs and descents, the trail was smooth and the pace felt easy at 11- to 12-minute miles. I clung to hope that these conditions would hold out, both physical and terrain.

Steve and Harry had a surprise for Beat at the first aid station at mile 11 — an inflatable birthday cake stashed in a drop bag. We were standing at about 7,200 feet — the lowest elevation on the course — and Steve had to take a few extra gasps just to blow up the toy. We mustered a rather weak early-morning rendition of "Happy Birthday to You" as other runners and aid station volunteers joined in. There was general bemusement among the whole group — who runs a hundred miles on their birthday? — but it was still early enough in the race to feel giddy about the long day ahead of us.

It didn't take long for things to begin to unravel. The next segment worked its way along a series of drainages amid the Sunset Cliffs, and I started to feel winded walking up even moderate ascents. Running descents also was an open-mouth effort, and although it didn't feel wise to put in such heavy exertion this early in the race, I wasn't sure I could afford much more slowness. Beat and I hadn't planned on running together, and he put some distance on me while I struggled. Over the rolling terrain, the trail gained enough elevation to reach Proctor Canyon above 9,000 feet, where Beat was waiting for me at the 20-mile aid station. "How's it going?" he asked, and I just shook my head. Panic was setting in.

By this point, Beat was experiencing some altitude-based discomfort as well. Although nausea hadn't set in yet, I was already feeling a degree of hypoxia — breathing heavily, becoming terribly light-headed, and gasping as I battled to keep up with the "pack" we had fallen in. Looking back, I shouldn't have pushed this section so hard, but there's a general notion in the mid-pack that by mile 20, you should be able to keep up with the runners you're around if you're to hold a good pace throughout the race. Everyone who went out hard is long gone, and those who fall back might miss cut-offs. I didn't want to fall back.

Miles 20 to 26 were almost mind-bogglingly tough. I remember thinking that if my dad and I went out for a six-mile hike like that, it would be a solid morning's effort and we would reward ourselves with Slurpees afterward. But this was just a six-mile segment of a hundred-mile race — one we'd have to cover again on the return. We dropped a thousand feet and then climbed a thousand within the space of 1.5 rocky miles, and then continued the steep rolling terrain beneath the sandstone cliffs, so bright and cheery and wall-like that I felt like they were mocking me. "Have to get used to this," I mumbled to myself. "You like tough terrain, remember?"

Photo by Beat Jegerlehner

Beat decided we should stick together for this segment. During a few of the short, steep climbs, I saw the flickering gray clouds of lapsed consciousness and stopped frequently to catch my breath. But every time I stopped moving, I was overcome by an intense wave of nausea that threatened to drop me to my knees. Blood flushed from my face and when I held up my hands, I could see them trembling without my consent. We hadn't even covered a marathon distance yet. I tried to decide when would be the best place to call this — next aid station? 50K mark? Try to turn that around and complete the official 100K distance? The hundred miles was downright impossible.

I was ashen-faced at the 26-mile checkpoint, but decided to continue forward all the same. "I could at least try to cover the first fifty miles," I told myself. "Otherwise, I'll miss out on so much." I remembered talking to my dad about these types of efforts earlier in the week. "The thing about 10 miles or 50 miles or a hundred miles is, it's all difficult. I always feel tired after ten miles and I can't imagine how I'll go on, but I resolve to go another ten, and then another. And then I keep going until I eventually hit a hundred, and I discover it's not even that bad. Of course there are continuing highs and lows, but it's rewarding to get through all of them and emerge on the other side of what had been an unfathomable journey, just a day earlier. I think the life lesson is that you can always do more than you think you can. There's always something left."

Then again, I couldn't remember the last time I felt this bad just a quarter of the way into anything, unless I count the multi-day bike races I've participated in. And those are different in that they provided opportunities for more prolonged breaks to try to build myself back up. In single-stage races, there's nowhere to hide. You feel bad, too bad. Keep moving. There's a kind of satisfaction in this as well. After mile 26 I decided my body and I were going to go our separate ways for a while, and I turned my focus to the expansive vista at the edge of my feet.

The Grandview Trail rolled along the rim of the Paunsaugunt, providing endless views — the red cliffs, the distant mountains, the green farmland along the Highway 89 corridor. I lapsed into happy memories of my youthful explorations of Southern Utah, when I'd hike ten miles a day and that was damn hard, too. It never gets easier, whether I go ten miles or a hundred. But if I reach for a hundred, there sure is a lot of amazing country out there to see.

I can't say things became any easier, but I became better at convincing myself that it didn't matter. Still, as time drug on, I was only taking in a minimal amount of food to sustain alertness while battling pukeyness. Often how it went is I'd avoid eating altogether until we reached an aid station, and then hunger would rush in once I'd sat down for a few minutes. I'd eat something substantial, like a half bean burrito or a chocolate chip cookie, and then have to swim slowly through my nausea for the first mile or two out of the aid station. If my stomach was empty, the nausea wasn't so bad. But then I'd become more aware of my flagging energy and hypoxia.

Out in the open, a fierce wind blew, carrying with it a lot of dust and sand that lodged in our throats and irritated our eyes. This was tough hundred-mile racing at its finest — the dry dust and heat of the desert, combined with the high altitude and climbing of a mountain run. At this this point I'd convinced myself that the heat of the day and sun exposure was causing my nausea, and everything would get better once darkness and cold finally descended. Before mile 50, we spent some time running with a woman from Jersey named Grace, who was running her first hundred-mile race, and also first race out west. She was curious about my "Ride the Divide" race and also surprised that I'd never worked with a coach. "I never set out to be an athlete," I said. "Really, I still don't think of myself as an athlete. I just like to spend lots of time outside, have visceral experiences, and connect with like-minded folks. Endurance sports are a great way to achieve all that."

As the sun set, my stomach was beginning to feel better, and I convinced myself I'd moved through my slump and that the back half would be less grueling. We'd been moving slowly enough for the past 25 miles that my legs still felt fairly fresh. Also, I'd been experimenting with blister control by cleaning my feet and changing my socks every 20 miles, and it seemed to be working — fifty miles and no foot pain. Still, when we reached the halfway point in fourteen and a half hours, and Grace suggested that maybe we could wrap it up under thirty hours, both Beat and I laughed. Everyone knows that these hundred-mile races haven't even started at mile 50. 

Keep the earth below my feet

Bryce 100 — it was tough. There were a lot of moments to love in my 34-some hours out there, but perhaps my favorite came just minutes after I mumbled, out loud, to myself, "this is the most horrible slog, ever." It was mile 98 or so (out of 103.) A dirt road sliced through an open meadow of pale green grass, with only small hills and stands of thirsty ponderosa pines to interrupt the otherwise unbroken horizon. Somewhere beyond our sightline were the rippling orange hoodoos of Bryce Canyon, but we hadn't seen anything like that for miles. Just the interminable dirt road, and the dusty blue sky, and colors washed out by the fierce light of the afternoon sun.

I was walking with Beat and two of our friends, Steve and Harry, although at the time we were strung out along the baked dirt. Everyone was experiencing an advanced degree of discomfort, mainly spurred by altitude and heat, but I was the only one who was almost completely incapable of running. This dirt road was endless and I just wanted it to be over, so I tried to run. I did try. But I'd been fighting nausea and hypoxia since mile 16, I'd only taken in the minimum amount of food I could force down my throat, and there was almost nothing left. Every time I upped my exertion level, dizziness kicked in, pukeyness gurgled up, and I felt like I was climbing Everest rather than jogging along a gradually descending dirt road on the Paunsaugunt Plateau. I'd never worked so hard for so little. Which is what I tell myself every time I feel defeated.

On top of feeling sick and generally icky, the temperature had climbed into the high 80s according to Beat's thermometer, and this final section of the Bryce 100 offered almost no shade. The course markings veered off our GPS tracks to add another couple of miles to an already long course, which proved to be the final nail in the coffin of everyone's morale. Even if they could run, no one wanted to anymore. They were done. Nothing left to do but slog out the final unknown number of miles.

I was operating with the mental and emotional capacity of a four-year-old. Beat had already witnessed my obligatory hundred-miler meltdown, after I started bawling because running made my tummy hurt too much. We connected up with Harry at the last aid station, where he was seriously considering dropping 11 miles (actually 13) from the finish. Steve caught up to us a few miles later, and my mood improved now that misery had company. But I still fixated on how miserable I felt. This is so backward. Why do I always come to these beautiful places just to suffer? And why do these last miles have to be so notably unbeautiful? And why does this dirt road have to be so eternal?

There was a fork in the road with a sign saying it led to the border of Bryce Canyon National Park. "Screw this race," I thought. "I'm going to go look at the canyon." With that absurd thought, a strong desire to actually do so — purposely veer in the wrong direction just to look at yet more beautiful scenery — washed over me. Following this desire was Zen feeling of acceptance. "Huh," I thought, "Beneath all this ickiness I actually feel happy. I'm doing my favorite thing, which is moving through the world. I just think I'm miserable because I'm uncomfortable. But what if physical discomfort doesn't actually matter?" Because it doesn't.

Physical discomfort is real, but misery is a state of mind. I'd fought it off for the better part of 30 hours with the help of the jaw-dropping scenery of the Sunset Cliffs. I'd started to give in because I was bored and ready to be done, but this area wasn't so bad, really. The pine-studded hills reminded me of the high deserts of New Mexico, which led me to recall my happier memories from the Tour Divide. I laughed when I remembered how miserable I'd been when I had food poisoning on the Polvadera Mesa, and how I now look back with fondness on the time I fell asleep in a feverish delirium with my gear strewn all about beneath the ponderosa pines. I'd learned a lot back then, about mastering my own destiny by letting go of the illusion of control. I'm still learning. I couldn't control getting sick during the Bryce 100, but I could decide how much I let that circumstance control me. I'd battled the malaise. It was worth it. I was winning.

"This is the stuff of memorable experiences," I thought. "This is the stuff of life."

So maybe I overdid it

 Late spring is such a beautiful time of year on the Wasatch Front, and so brief. I forget. There's a short window between the snow and withering heat of summer, when the mountains come alive with electric greens and vibrant wildflowers. It's intoxicating. I must have some, I told myself, even when I woke up Sunday morning with deep-set stiffness and a hungover feeling of fatigue. Saturday's Twin Peaks attempt was as hard on my body as any 50K trail race; probably harder, as I engaged all kinds of muscles I hardly use and bashed plenty of body parts in the process. I promised myself I would take Sunday off, I really did. But when the morning dawned as gorgeous as it did, I groped for justification. "It's not like I can just come back any time." "Really, it's my quads and calves that are sore. Those things are resilient." "It will be good for the soul. Hundred-milers are soul efforts anyway."

West Ridge of Grandeur Peak. I effectively had three hours between the time I made the decision to go hiking and the time my parents and I were leaving to visit the cemetery where my grandparents are buried, as well as my living grandmother. Grandeur Peak is a "little" mountain at 8,300 feet, so it seemed doable. I chose the West Ridge approach because I hadn't been there before, the trail was only 2.5 miles, it was a closer drive than the Church Fork trailhead, and didn't involve dealing with holiday weekend crowds in Millcreek Canyon. But that also meant starting in the city, near 5,000 feet elevation. There was perhaps a bit of willful avoidance regarding the simple math in that equation.

 I do love climbing a seriously steep trail. With a few small dips, the West Ridge actually gains 3,400 feet in 2.5 miles, or a vertical kilometer over 4K. I could climb trails like this all day and be a happy hiker, if not for the inevitable equally steep descent. I made decent time to the peak, 1:17, and started down at a fast march in an effort to match it (I'm generally slower on descents.) At the first little dip that required climbing, an excruciating cramp seized my left calf. It clamped down and wouldn't let go; felt like someone was applying a tourniquet to my muscle. I used to experience these calf cramps frequently when I lived in Juneau, and back then I interpreted them as a sign that I was overtired from steep hiking. I stopped to writhe through the pain for a few seconds, and then spent another minute trying to knead the knot. No luck. I was just going to have to get myself down the mountain with this tight muscle.

 It hurt. I hate descending a seriously steep trail. I could descend trails like this all day, and that would be my proof that Hell is indeed real and I have gone there. I know I need to get over this loathing in order to pursue my first love, but it's hard to tolerate when calf muscles are pinching and pulsing as I'm trying to sidestep down some loose gravelly slope. Still, I made it down not really worse for the wear. It was a cramp, after all. Those things have short shelf lives.


So, Monday. I went to bed at midnight on Sunday night and slept solidly for ten hours. I had no intention of sleeping that much. My dad and I had planned to squeeze in another hike, but he came down with a stomach bug on Sunday and I had assumed he wouldn't want to go. He was feeling marginally better Monday morning so we decided to use the short window of time we had to go to Bell Canyon.

 My mom thinks it's weird that my dad was sick and I was obviously tired and we went hiking anyway. She's right. It's just that we don't get these opportunities often. The justifications came back out. "It's 70 and sunny." "I need one more good test for my shin, which I think is in great shape again anyway." "I'll rest for the next three days, no problem."

 Bell Canyon has a reputation for being one of the few family-friendly hikes in Wasatch, and was proportionately crowded on Memorial Day. It's still a Stairmaster of a trail; the route to the Upper Falls is 7 miles round trip with 2,600 feet of climbing. My left calf was twitching, and it would sometimes seize up when we had to stop while climbing to let someone by (which was frequently.) Dad was nauseated and also not enthused about dealing with the crowds. Can we admit that we regret going out today? I dunno. I was so happy to be there. I met a couple of old friends on the trail. And we finally broke away from the crowds and enjoyed a peaceful break gazing up at the roaring hydraulics of the Upper Falls. Good for the soul, I assured myself. Good for the soul.

 I think there's a chance I'm coming down with the bug my dad has. I'm not feeling so good. I have to work all day Tuesday and lots to get done for final race prep on Wednesday, plus it's supposed to rain, so at least the mountain temptations are removed. Beat had me promise that if I ended up going on a mountain bender in Utah, there would be no whining at Bryce. There will be no whining, I promise. But panic before then, that I can't prevent.

Bold return to the Wasatch

I spent all day Friday driving from the Bay Area to the Salt Lake Valley. Eight hundred miles on a desolate yet crowded Interstate 80. I actually quite enjoy long solo drives, for many of the same reasons that I enjoy long solo runs or rides — I can retreat into my quiet personal bubble, ponder all of the deep thoughts that I don't mind forgetting later, view intriguing landscapes, listen to music, sing out loud if I feel like it, get worked up over news, and snack on junk food. I also dislike long solo drives for the same reasons I dislike long solo runs — some boredom is unavoidable, as is at least one segment when I struggle not to doze off on my feet/at the wheel. I can't always find good places to stop and pee. My legs cramp up. I eat too much junk food and then I feel icky. Then, once it's all over, I'm really tired and feel vaguely hungover. Yeah, that's endurance running driving. 

 But doing the whole 800 miles in one push was all worth it when I woke up early on Saturday morning to attempt a Twin Peaks summit with my dad. Not knowing what kind of spring snow conditions we would encounter, we packed all of our snow gear. Knowing the day's forecast called for 85 degrees, we also packed a ton of water. Heavy packs and a hike that starts at 6,000 feet altitude. I knew that no matter what conditions the day brought, it was going to be a big effort just to keep up with my dad.

We took the standard Broads Fork drainage, starting in the bright green foliage of early summer and quickly losing seasons as we climbed.

Late spring became early spring, with tiny green buds and lots of deadfall.

Continuing to ascend into late winter.

8,500 feet — the hard part begins.

I was a bit nervous about encountering rotten snow conditions and rockfall, but the bowl was filled with old avalanche debris and the resulting base felt solid. Both my experience and skillset in steep snow conditions are limited, so I try to be mindful of variables and extremely conservative in my approach. Still, I had some anxieties. Now that I live away from big mountains, I tell myself that what I miss the most is the beautiful scenery and challenging terrain. But I forget another benefit of mountain living — the opportunity to get out and do things that scare me.

The long climb up the bowl was fairly straightforward, but there were signs of rotten snowpack, at times sinking thigh-deep into jagged postholes. By the time the slope steepened, I was sucking so much wind I could hardly see straight. I've noticed that when I come directly from sea level, 9,000 feet is about my threshold of manageable altitude; beyond that, I'm going to struggle no matter how fresh I am. And of course, the more tired I become, the lower that threshold gets. This was one of my worries about the Bryce 100 and one of the reasons I wanted to take advantage of an opportunity to come out to Utah a week early. I hope to avoid this cross-eyed breathlessness if at all possible.


Things got steep while I was fixated on my own oxygen deprivation. On top of that, the avalanche-scoured snowpack had all the structural integrity of a tattered piece of lace. It was effectively a thin layer on top of a large boulder field, and much of the snow below the surface had melted and run off. We couldn't see the boulders, but we started to punch through the cracks between them, wrenching knees, bashing shins, thrashing to pull stuck feet out of holes. I experienced several anxious minutes when I wasn't sure if my dad was going to be able to pull himself out of a hole, and I hadn't found a spot that could hold my weight close enough to help (he was leading, so unfortunately did most of the deep hole finding, too.)

By the time the conditions really started to seem unworkable, we had nearly reached the saddle. I thought the descent would be okay because we could follow our own steps and pick our way around the holes. But there was some really sketchy stuff near the point were we had no choice but to climb onto the rocks — effectively crevasses between car-sized boulders with no way to gain purchase on the crumbling slush "bridges."


So we were both a little spooked when we reached the saddle, and it took us exactly zero seconds to call "no way" on the summit push to Twin Peaks. There was an even steeper and likely more rotten snowfield on the south face, and the other option is a Class 4 scramble on the exposed knife ridge that had its own razor sharp point of snow. A harsh and surprisingly cold wind nearly knocked us over, and we were happy to just look at the view and turn around.

Lovely view it was. Little Cottonwood Canyon and the Salt Lake Valley from 10,815 feet.

But we still had to go down. It was tough. In this photo my dad is trying to work his way around a hole where he fell up to his shoulder on one side. That was the hole where he solicited an adrenaline jolt to scramble out while I scouted for purchase in a spot close enough to pull him out. We descended most of this mountain slower than we climbed it — every step deliberately kicked many times before any foot was planted — and it was even more strenuous and wind-sucking at times. On the positive side, I effectively climbed the mountain twice — in both effort and position, so I don't have any downhill-induced shin pain to show for a 7.5-hour adventure.

Hokas and crampons. Not a bad combination. Usually when I wear my spikes with soft-soled shoes, I can feel the point pressure on the bottom of my foot. But with Hokas, all that cushioning does what it does best.

When we got down to the more stable snowpack, we were finally able to get off our feet for a few minutes.

This gully was filled with the remains of a massive avalanche. At first I thought the slide was recent, but on closer inspection, it probably happened a while ago.

Still, the avalanche left its mark. Our 7.5-hour hike ended up netting my training log a total of 8.5 miles and just over 5,000 feet of climbing. The numbers don't even come close to depicting how tough the effort was. At one point I was gasping for air when my watch buzzed in a 102-minute mile. Impressive.

Proper taper? I might have to take an extra rest day to get over this one. It was still worth it. A grand adventure with what was really just the right amount of scary, careful management, and success, topped off with some jaw-dropping scenery. I do miss you, Wasatch Mountains. 

Alaskaversary

It occurred to me today that this week would be the tenth anniversary of the day I first set foot in Alaska. Of all of the moments in life to commemorate, this is one that stands out for me — a turning point, or point of no return, depending on how I look at it.

I had to dig through the very old archives of the Wayback Machine to find the exact date — May 30, 2003. Three friends and I had been meandering north for almost a month, living out of a 1990 Ford Econoline Van with a custom roof, retrofitted electrical wiring and the high luxuries of a television, cell-phone based dial-up internet connection (as in, we actually plugged our laptops into a phone) and a small refrigerator. Perishable food was hard to come by in the north, we were discovering, and the fridge stayed mostly empty except for foil-wrapped Dolly Varden and grayling that we pulled out of tiny streams in British Columbia, and cans of Pepsi that I insisted on keeping cool. After a month on the road I was only starting to conceptualize what a big continent North America really is, and the past week had instilled a sense of isolation via a bewildering expanse of black spruce forest, birch groves, and snow-capped mountains over the farthest horizons. Towns came in flashes of log buildings and gas pumps, and then they were gone. The sun wasn't setting until midnight. I thought I had experienced remoteness after days of backpacking into desert canyons in Utah — but when that feeling came via motorized transportation on a highway, I knew we were really out there.

But the place had a sameness to it as well — endless miles of black spruce forest, birch groves, and snow-capped mountains — and after a month I was starting to feel road-weary. "Everything moves slower out here," I wrote. "The sun, the time, the progress of life. The end of May. Everyone has hit a one-month lull. The novelty has worn off. This is our life now. Putting up tents and making pancakes is our job; the remote dirt road through this continuous expanse of wilderness is our commute. "

We spent much of May 30 lingering in Dawson, Yukon, where we camped on the edge of the Klondike River so Chris and Geoff could pan for gold. They used Frisbees from our kitchen stash — the same ones we used as dinner plates in camp — and were quite serious about the endeavor, squatting in the cold water and sifting through mounds of sand and gravel that they'd hauled from the hillside in stuff sacks.

"I walked up the hill and surveyed the remaining buildings – collapsed and corroded wooden cabins leaning over the steep slopes above the creek," I wrote. "The gold rushers once lived here. The people that traversed barren snowfields in the rigid cold of endless night, seeking a dream. I’d like to think I’d do the same, but I’ve never had a dream so intense, so overpowering, as to drive me into the glacial dark with only a faint glimmer of hope for success."

I smile now, when I read this, thinking back at the wide-eyed naivety of 23-year-old me. If only she knew.

"Chris and Geoff gave up on their dream after about 45 minutes, minuscule flakes of sparkling 'gold' still stuck to their legs and arms, mud dripping from their hands. Discovery is not preemptive. This is the frustration of gold panning. This is the frustration of traveling. At this moment we drive along the Top of the World Highway, across the Yukon River and less than 50 miles from the Alaska border. Our destination. And perhaps the cause of our discontent. We could turn the van around right now and never be the worse for it. There may be nothing on this horizon save the reluctant sun, but we’ll never know until we go."

There wasn't a bridge across the Yukon River this far north, so we crossed on a ferry, standing just outside the van as the boat plied across the silty water. On the other side of the Yukon was a narrow, dusty gravel road that spat rocks into our open windows as we rumbled higher into the mountains, truly the top of the world. Crossing the border was anticlimactic — just another tiny outpost lined with thick alder groves and more black spruce. Alaska looked a lot like everything else here in the far north. But we were back in the United States and there was a feeling of coming home. But not quite. I'd lived in Utah for most of my life, and the feeling of homesickness was strong in those final days of May. I remember daydreaming about redrock cliffs, missing the suburbs, and imagining the West Desert in November while we traversed a brown and white patchwork of tundra, still locked in winter in early June. I didn't yet realize that the roots of my homesickness would shift, and ten years later, I'd be out on a highway en route to Utah, daydreaming about those first days in Alaska.

"The landscape here is diverse and frightening; it commands joy but demands respect. Everything borders on extreme – daylight, temperature, seasons and life. Survival out here is also extreme, something I don’t feel adequately designed and conditioned for. My body is too weak and too susceptible to sun and bug bites, too unaccustomed to hunger and thirst and cold. Maybe this is the cause of my nostalgia for strip malls and suburbs. However, it is also the cause of an extreme respect and fascination with this place they call the Arctic Circle."

Horseshoe Lake 50K

Heat training and Oreo lips

On Sunday we did our last long run before the Bryce 100, the Horseshoe Lake 50K. It was a beautiful morning, with saturated light at clear views over the big blue Pacific. The race was sold out and I think there were close to 200 people at the start. I was drawn into all the excitement of "yay running" and went out too fast on the first climb, which resulted in being caught in a faster group for the punchy descents. Not wanting to get mowed down on the singletrack, I did my best to keep the pace by resorting to toe running.

I've done a bit of research on common causes of shin pain. There are a lot of different theories about which motions and/or tight muscles lead to tibial stress. My experiment of one so far shows that braking or landing hard with my forefoot, which is my tendency when descending or accelerating, seems to exacerbate the pain. Subsequently, slowing my downhill pace, shortening my stride, and deliberately engaging full foot strikes (trying to get that heel on the ground) brought quick relief. I was unhappy at mile six and suspected I would need to stop once I reached the first return to the start at mile 13. But at the half marathon point, after seven miles of mitigation efforts, I felt considerably better. I decided that continued experimentation with shin pain management would be more beneficial for my upcoming race than quitting early and hoping this will somehow work itself out in ten days. If it was a full-blown injury, I would certainly be more cautious. But this still qualifies as a minor nagging pain, and it doesn't seem to be worsening. Most sources I found say that shin splints typically take three to six weeks to go away, but it's possible to continue training during recovery as long as pain doesn't get worse.

Beyond that, the run was fairly uneventful. It was warm — probably into the mid-80s — but there was a nice breeze whisking along the ridge to take the edge off the heat. I felt strong, so my purposefully slowed pace caused some frustration and dissatisfaction ("I feel good. I can do better than this. But I shouldn't. But I can. Grrr.") In the aftermath, I feel my stride experimentation was beneficial, but there were plenty of points during the race when all I really wanted was to run faster — or climb faster, because a determined power-hike up a steep grade also involves getting up on the toes. But I dialed it back and finished strong, happy, and essentially pain-free. One week after the 50-miler, the Horseshoe Lake 50K was a good confidence boost in my endurance ahead of the Bryce 100.

I finished in 6:32. I raced this same course back in October and felt compelled to look up my former time, to see how it compared. Also 6:32. Apparently, getting stung by a wasp and minor shin splints cause me the exact same degree of pain-induced slowness.

I'm not planning to do any more running before Bryce. I'm headed out to Utah a week before the race to visit my family, and my dad and I are going to go for a few hikes in the Wasatch this weekend. The whole course is between 7,000 and 9,500 feet, so I could use all the pre-race acclimation I can get. My friends claim this is an unfair advantage, and they're right. But they're also all stronger runners than me, and the 34-hour cutoff looms.

I'm really looking forward to the Bryce 100. These 50K and 50-mile efforts are fun, but there's something intimately engaging about pressing through the night and emerging into a second day. Hundred-mile runs and multi-day bike races have their own life spans, and they always linger in my memories long after these smaller adventures fade into the distance. In a sense, long efforts are my way of extending my own life, because I live so intensely and experience so much in a relatively short time span. I often emerge feeling like I've made weeks, months, and sometimes years of individual progress. Many will argue that these efforts are inherently unhealthy, and they're not wrong. But in my opinion, the benefits of hundred-milers could never be quantified in any tangible way. From an outside perspective, they're nothing but stupid ... but inside, they're an integral part of an invaluable education.

And with that, I missed a week but I am still trying to keep track of my training for the summer. Blogs are good for that kind of tangible nonsense.

Week May 6-12
Monday: Trail run, 6.5 miles, 976 feet of climbing
Tuesday: 0
Wednesday: Road bike, 17.5 miles, 2,553 feet of climbing
Thursday: 0
Friday: 0
Saturday: Trail run, 50 miles, 8,799 feet of climbing
Sunday: 0
Total: 56.5 miles run, 17.5 miles ride, 12,328 feet of climbing

Week May 13-19
Monday: Road bike, 16 miles, 2,143 feet of climbing
Tuesday: 0
Wednesday: Trail run, 9.1 miles, 1,327 feet of climbing
                     Mountain bike, 8.9 miles, 1,844 feet of climbing
Thursday: Trail run, 7 miles, 1,675 feet of climbing
Friday: Road bike, 17.5 miles, 2,535 feet of climbing
Saturday: Mountain bike, 20 miles, 2,740 feet of climbing
Sunday: Trail run, 31.1 miles, 5,671 feet of climbing
Total: 47.2 miles run, 62.4 miles ride, 17,935 feet of climbing

Strava hubris

This was supposed to be a mellow pre-race spin up Black Mountain, but after just two miles I knew it was going to be a grind. My legs were empty, like an unseen force had drained out the muscles and injected them with gelatin. The week had been going great up to a point, but then it took a dramatic turnaround. What happened? "I blame Strava," I grumbled to Beat as I struggled to hold his wheel.

Speed. Most of the time, I prefer to pursue longevity-promoting balance. Do something at 100 percent of your capabilities and you might need a week to recover, but at 80 percent you can go for half a day, and at 60 percent exponentially longer. Eventually you come to the conclusion that if distance is your ultimate goal, speed isn't the way to go about it. Still, I admit that it's intriguing take something you do all the time and try to do it faster. Every once in a while, I get sucked into the temptation.

It started with the AMGEN Tour of California, and considering my own PRs on my favorite routes. I realized that just about every "record" I've set happened in the first year I lived here, between March 2011 and March 2012. I don't like to believe that I'm getting worse at biking, although every statistic and intuition I have points to the likelihood that this is happening. But I like to think that the abilities are still there, somewhere, hidden deep inside me, and they just need a little coaxing to come out.

For the record, I think Strava is ridiculous. I do. I did enjoy the record-tracking program right up until I started to receive those "uh oh" e-mails three times I day, informing me I lost the queen of the mountain / course record on yet another 0.2-mile segment. I was able to ignore these e-mails until a segment came through that was in Fairbanks, Alaska. My interest was piqued enough to check it out. This particular segment was none other than the Wickersham Wall, the seemingly vertical snowmobile trail up the Wickersham Dome that starts at mile 94 of the White Mountains 100. If I'm ever achieved a speed faster than 0.5 mph while pushing my bike up that thing, I'd be surprised. Queen of the Mountain? Bah. Strava's ridiculous. I pretty much stopped using it that day, although I do go back from time to time and mass-upload the Garmin data on my computer.

But there is one Strava segment I do care about, even if I don't like to admit it to myself — Montebello Road. At 5.2 miles with 1,941 feet of climbing, it's my go-to road climb and one of the few things I do that I can benchmark around every turn. My best time on this segment, according to Strava, is 39:08, achieved on February 6, 2012. It's good enough for 16th out of 163 women, and I'm fairly certain I can do better if only I tried. Okay, maybe I should do some road-cycling specific training first, but isn't trying enough? No? Well, on May 17, 2013, I set out to try.

The segment starts at about mile 3.4 of my regular ride from home to the Montebello gate and back. I always forget to check my watch at the turn, but it usually happens between minutes 12 and 15 depending on traffic lights, which means I need to hit 51 minutes or better to assure busting out a sub-39. This is the easiest thing to track, although I also have this notion that I need to keep my minutes-per-mile pace above 9:00 at all times. This is about the slowest I can go over the toughest mile to actually achieve the 8 mph average I need.

So that's the basic tracking system. The first mile is the steepest, though, and after that I'm too maxed out to understand my watch anyway. That's why I cling to the 9-minute-mile thing, because I can always look at that number and understand whether I'm moving faster or slower. So there I was, churning pedals, unapologetically gasping for air and shooting snot rockets, with eyes fixed solely on the prize — avenging 15 months of Strava mediocrity. I made it through the hard climb, raced over the flatter miles three through four, and tucked my head for the final climb when the numbers shot skyward. 9:10 pace. Then 9:34. Then 10:02. Oh no! I was melting down. My legs felt like they were shooting flames, and I couldn't imagine where I was going to find the overdrive to maintain my pace. And somewhere in the back of my mind, that little trail running angel came to sit on my shoulder and said, "remember that little training race you have on Sunday? The Horseshoe 50K? It's on Sunday. What are you doing?"

"I don't want my legs to die," I thought, so I gave up. I kept pedaling but I stopped looking at my watch. At the top, it read 53:41. "Hmm, if it's minus fifteen minutes to the bottom of Montebello, than it just might be good enough. Even if it's just minus twelve, it's not bad. But no, I stopped trying. It's not good enough. It's never good enough if you don't try."

I admit I haven't uploaded the track yet. Part of me does not want to know, at least not until Sunday's race is over. I can't believe I roped myself into a silly Strava race and now my legs admittedly feel pretty tired, when they were just fine for Wednesday's double-header and Thursday's 7.5-mile hill run on the Black Mountain trail. Speed. I get why it's needed to, you know, actually get faster. But it is hard on the body and in the face of longer distances, it seems like a bit of a waste. When you're trying to maximize gas mileage, it's probably not the wisest move to keep the pedal pressed to the floor.

Speed is fun, though. Oh, sub-39-minute Montebello. I will get you, and prove to you I can still ride a bicycle. Someday.