Tis the season

There are 101 more days until the Iditarod Trail Invitational, which means winter training has officially begun. As of today, my plan is still to attempt the 350-mile distance on foot. But with that beautiful Snoots snow bike parked in my living room, I reserve the right to waffle on that decision for the next 100 days. I mean, just looking at this bike, with its shiny titanium, muscular fork, and shredder tires that make the Fatback look like a toy ... well ... it's fair to say temptation will probably taunt me daily. But for many reasons that I have mulled over since 2011, the goal is finishing on foot. That's the dream. And if I ever want to take the Snoots to Nome, there's arguably no better preparation than walking to McGrath. As Mike Curiak told me, "You already know how to ride a bike." Pushing a bike — and doing so with purpose and happy legs and no blisters — is the key to success. Just ask any biker who entered the 2012 race.

So how does one train for a 350-mile trek through the snow while living in the San Francisco Bay Area? That's a great question; if you know an answer, please let me in on the secret. Short of actual snow, the best surface to train on is soft sand, which I do not have convenient access to (it's at least an hour of driving to the nearest beaches that aren't disgusting swampy South Bay reclamation areas.) In lieu of that, I'm of the opinion that steep climbs are the best way to build the necessary muscle strength for the combined resistance of soft snow and a loaded sled. There is, of course, running while pulling a car tire. While it's not a bad idea to increase the workload on flat surfaces, I'm not convinced that tire-pulling is necessary training. Most of the 14 or so people in the world who like to run these sorts of races will disagree that it's not important, but I haven't yet had a physical issue with not specially training to pull a sled. It's just a lot more work, but doesn't seem to impact my upper body in significant ways. No, when it comes to winter racing, my major issue is feet. To illustrate, I present a photo of my 2012 Susitna feet:

Major feet fail

Bursting-at-the-seems edema, intensely prickly and painful maceration, and heat blisters(!!) from boiling my poor cankles in their own juices. What causes this? I have a few theories:

• A major electrolyte imbalance. I'm fairly certain I experienced a moderate case of hyponatremia during the 2011 Susitna 100. During the second night, I felt out-of-sorts, disoriented, and confused. I attributed that to fatigue because, well, it was the second night — and it was 20 below. But then I started to pee frequently — as in needing to stop every five to ten minutes. This went on for about an hour, and after that I felt considerably better. I've since learned that extreme cold can present a higher risk of hyponatremia, similar to extreme heat. I've resolved to be more cognizant of water and sodium intake, because dry air makes me feel consistently thirsty regardless of temperature, and during the winter I tend to overdo it on fluids because dehydration will increase the risk of hypothermia and frostbite. Ah, the fun of it all.

• Vapor barrier socks. A great idea if you're pedaling a bike and not doing much with your feet; a terrible idea if you're running (or walking) and sweating up a storm. My feet became so deeply macerated that every step felt like hot coals littered with hypodermic needles. This has happened to me as recently as March, during the Homer Epic 100K, which I ran without vapor barrier socks. Gortex shoes and gaitors could also be a factor in holding in moisture, but the balance between breathing and insulation is a difficult one to strike. Basically, I have to figure out how to keep the feet dry without freezing my toes off. I can't depend on the damaged nerves in my formerly frostbitten toes to tip me off when things get dire, so I'll still have to err on the side of more insulation layers. My hope is to have a chance to stop, check my toes, and change into dry socks on reasonably frequent basis. It's not super fun to sit in the snow and strip down to bare feet when it's below zero, but a quick sock change could do wonders in avoiding Susitna feet.

• Too much ibuprofen — which I took because my feet hurt — but before I became a runner I didn't make a habit of tracking my intake. Now I do.

I'm convinced that "Susitna feet" will be the most likely obstacle to finishing the ITI, and therefore must be my number one priority in avoiding. After that, my priorities are: good decisions regarding weather, sleep management, calorie intake, gear adjustments (I need to avoid wearing too much. I always wear too much), snowshoe use (if I want to avoid overusing the snowshoes, I need to build up stronger ankles and arches), navigation, and a host of obstacles and annoyances that I can't even anticipate. When I take all of this into account, the actual walking part of this thing doesn't sound so hard. The legs will likely be fine regardless; they haven't let me down yet. Still, I intend to train them up as well as I can this winter, by running up all the steep trails I can find, and mountain biking. Why mountain biking? Well, if I run all the time I will probably end up injured. I don't need speed, at all, just endurance. Mountain biking keeps things fun, mixes up workloads, and still provides solid endurance building. Plus, winter will be over before I know it, and I need a good biking base for summer.

I plan to keep track of all of the "training" I do this winter through Strava — which, despite its more annoying competitive side, is a great program to track and record total hours, hours on my feet, and overall effort. I don't necessarily like using my GPS watch every time I go outside, but I'm going to try that this season and see if having a comprehensive record helps with motivation and direction. Right now, I feel like I'm in good shape to start more focused winter training. After I crashed in the 25 Hours of Frog Hollow, my right knee developed a sharp pain that slowly diminished over the next ten days. For a while I was worried about it, but the pain has faded to the extent that I'm more convinced it was just a deep bruise or some other minor tissue damage. And beyond that, I feel great. Physically, Frog Hollow was a walk in the park and then I rested for a week. I'm still babying the knee, but no longer concerned.

I still need to decide which pieces of gear I'm going to use, and what I still need to acquire. Beat and I are planning a Christmas trip to Fairbanks, where I'll have more of a chance to sort it all out. Beat has continued to make refinements to his sled, pole, and harness designs. He's put so much thought and time into these sleds that I joked about opening up a business. He said he'd "sponsor" me if I made a logo for him, and this is what I came up with:

Note: This is just a joke. Beat is not actually launching a sled-making business. But he does have quite a bit of high molecular weight polyethylene laying around the house, so, hmmm ...

Beat, of course, has the whole thousand miles on the north route to Nome to tackle this year. Recently I've heard more chatter about those bumper stickers that are so popular with runners — you know, the ones that read "26.2, 13.1, 100.2, or even 0.0" for distances that runners (or non-runners) like to race. Since I was designing graphics, I thought I should make a sticker design for Beat as well:

He reasoned that no one would get it, except for maybe a few dog sled enthusiasts and people from Alaska (1,049 is the often-cited number for the total distance of the Iditarod Trail.) Ah, well. It's an obscure endeavor, this sport — and I love it. 

Finding our community

The concept of community is becoming increasingly more paradoxical in the modern era. Internet, smart phones, and other sources of instant information sharing have contributed to a global community; we can feel just as connected to someone in Bangladesh as we can to the family next door. In other ways, we're more isolated than ever, distrusting our neighbors and remaining clueless about our local issues and leaders. Family and friends scatter all over the world, we change locations multiple times, and it's becoming increasingly more difficult as individuals to define where our "community" resides.

Earlier this year, a friend introduced me to Ann Trason, who is something of a legend in the sport of ultrarunning. She absolutely dominated the sport for more than 15 years, winning the Western States 100 fourteen times and setting a course record that stood for 18 years. Through the '90s, she held world records at the 50-mile, 100-K, 12-hour, and 100-mile distances. Most newer generation trail runners know her name from Christopher McDougall's book "Born to Run," where she was portrayed as a cutthroat competitor and antithesis of the easygoing style of the Tarahumara runners. After 2004 she disappeared from the sport almost entirely, although she continued to serve as the co-director of Dick Collins Firetrails, a popular 50-mile race near Oakland, until 2010. There was, of course, much speculation about why Ann stopped competing. Since she was a private person who didn't give many interviews, the speculation remained just that.

We met for lunch back in July, but then months passed before we found a weekend when we were both in town and not too busy to schedule another meeting. It was just going to be lunch, but then Ann decided to pace one of her friends at the Rio Del Lago 100-mile race near Auburn, California. She invited me to join her and help as crew. That's how I found myself driving east in Ann's Subaru on Saturday afternoon as she frantically changed clothes and organized her hydration pack in the back seat. We made it to the mile 53 aid station a mere three minutes before her runner arrived. Friends there had collected a bib for her that read "PACER" in big block letters. "Do I have to wear this?" she said with a smirk that betrayed a silliness behind her initially serious exterior. "This is so humiliating."

After she took off with her runner, Kevin, Ann's friends asked me how I knew her. I didn't feel a need to beat around the bush about it. "I'm a writer and I'd like to work on a book about her," I said. "But that's up to her whether that happens and honestly I'm happy either way. It's been great getting to know her as a friend. She's a lot of fun."

It's 2013 and, at age 53, Ann Trason is back, although not in the way most people expected. After nearly a decade away, she's become quite active in ultrarunning events this year, pacing friends and others at the Western States 100, the San Diego 100, and the Javelina 100. She also entered and finished two 100-mile races of her own, the Idaho Mountain Trail Ultra Festival in 33:24 ("It was scary," she told me. "I was sure I was going to fall off a cliff. Have you felt like that before?" Since her race happened on Aug. 30, the day I timed out of PTL, I replied. "Yes, and most recently on that exact same day.") The second was the Stagecoach Line 100 in Flagstaff, Arizona, on Oct. 19. She finished in 29:42. ("I was so cold. I couldn't see. My water bottle froze. I was second to last! But I was only disappointed because I wasn't dead last. I thought I was.")

As Ann told me her stories about struggling with technical scrambling, gnawing on a frozen water bottle valve to break up the ice, shivering in the eerie darkness of the desert, slogging along sandy trails with her friends, taking the time to soak up beautiful scenery, and feeling pangs of guilt about not living up to others' expectations, I thought, "Wow, we have so much in common!" But within this new perspective on running is the same woman who possesses phenomenal drive, talent, and success. She still holds the Leadville 100 women's record, which has stood since 1994. But I get the sense that part of her life is done now, and she's happy about that. For many of these past ten years, Ann didn't run at all, even as recreation. She recovered from injuries, participated in long-distance cycling, and tended a massive garden on her property near Michigan Bluff on the Western States course. "I have always been an all or nothing kind of person," Ann told me. "But all I ever really wanted was to run. I love running. I missed it."

But why has she made her way back into ultrarunning, specifically? In a word — community. She wants to give back to the sport in her own ways, and re-integrate into a community that she's felt separated from for too long. She's self-described "out of shape," reluctantly testing the latest gear such as Hoka shoes ("I don't know about these things," she said. "They're like moon shoes."), and is baffled about why she's still drawn to 100 milers ("I said no more after Flagstaff," she said. "But there will probably be more.") But it seems enjoying being "back" in the sense of giving back. She's enthusiastic about sharing her knowledge and experience with the next generation of runners, through coaching, trail work, and pacing at races. She also coaches a middle school running team in Berkley, and enjoys spending time with the kids most of all.

Ann's friend Kevin finished Rio Del Lago 100 in 20:01. The following day, she and I headed out to Ruck-a-Chucky to take some photos on a course section of a 100-kilometer trail race she'd like to launch next fall. I've been experiencing a knee "lock-up" issue since my bike crash last week, so I didn't want to commit to running the whole way. We ran down a steep fireroad down to the American River and then I hiked and jogged up the Western States Trail while she ran down-trail, hoping to grab a few images at a scenic spot further down the river. By the time we got out there it was nearly noon and the light was high and flat, not the best for photography. It was a downright hot day, especially for mid-November, and I didn't have much water. I was frustrated about being somewhat crash-injured yet again, and disappointed about missing out on an opportunity to run with "the great Ann Trason." And yet, I'd already learned so much from her in the past day. Ann has had quite the journey, and this is where she's arrived — with a sense that her home, and her community, is the most important part of her life.

The Loneliest Highway

I love road trips. In a perfect world, I would always have the time, means, and energy to just ride a bicycle everywhere, even destinations hundreds of miles away. But there's also something special about getting behind the wheel of a vehicle and piloting it across states, absorbing large swaths of scenery and chunks of local culture along the way. 

I've driven all over the North American West during the past ten years, and one of my favorite crossings is Northern Nevada. This segment of Interstate 80 is often described as the most monotonous, least engaging highway in the United States, with nothing but wide-open desert plains and distant barren mountains as far as the eye can see. I disagree with this assessment wholly, but then again these are my kind of landscapes — sweeping and mysterious, with adventurous intrigue lingering on the distant horizons. Still, the twelve-plus hours it takes to drive 800 miles between Los Altos and Salt Lake City is a lot of time to spend in a car by myself. To avoid the boredom sleepies, I keep myself engaged by stopping to take short walks and shoot some photos. This is my photo essay from the California-to-Utah commute.

The view from Donner Pass during the eastbound drive on Oct. 30, looking toward Donner Lake and Truckee, California.

Interstate 80 through Nevada. There are so many mountain ranges here that I want to explore. Someday I will take the time to stay, and not just fly past.

This truck stop has really, really terrible fountain soda. I think it's the well water.

But it does have nice views.

This photo is from the return drive. While gassing up in Wendover, I made a spontaneous decision to detour off I-80 and drive a highway that I've long wanted to travel — Highway 50, also known as the Lincoln Highway and "The Loneliest Highway." Towns along this road are all at least 100 miles apart, and there's little in between but sagebrush deserts and mysterious mountains.

Highway 50 lived up to its moniker as the Loneliest Road. The small amount of traffic I encountered out there was almost disconcerting. I imagine if you traveled this highway in a bad snowstorm and something happened, there's a chance you wouldn't be found for many hours or even days.

Eureka, Nevada.

An overlook view during one of the short walks I took near a BLM area that advertised petroglyphs. I did not find the petroglyphs.

Descending into Austin, Nevada.

Much of Highway 50 is above 6,000 feet. I thought it would be chilly, but temperatures were in the high 50s and even low 60s for most of the day. I *really* wished I could be out riding one of the four bikes I had in the car, but they were too deconstructed and tightly packed to justify a joyride. Also, I was (and still am) stiff and banged up from my bike crash, which I haven't recovered from as quickly as I expected.

A salt flat near Fallon.

Someday I will plan a bicycle tour from California to Utah on these lonely roads. Ideally it would take place during one of these colder months, because otherwise I would have to carry *a lot* of water. Even on pavement it's a hundred miles between resupplies. My kind of space.

The whys of racing

By Friday morning, racing a mountain bike around a dusty desert loop was about the farthest thing from my mind. The polished titanium Snoots, still speckled with red dirt, was propped against the nearby wall as I scoured the Internet for ideas. Is it possible to ride a bicycle on Baffin Island? I've long wondered if this land of wind-swept snow crusts, gravel bars and frozen fjords could potentially offer fat-bike friendly travel in the early spring. I'd envision granite cliffs higher and sheerer than any in Yosemite, towering over wide, white valleys, and dwarfing a solo bicycle tourist that was me in my dreams. Can fantasies like that come true? I Googled and pondered.

Then, without warning, it was time to pick Beat and Liehann up from the airport. Car packing, lunch, five-hour drive to Southwestern Utah, grocery buying, venue searching, race check-in, camp establishment, tossing open bags of food and bike parts around a Subaru Outback and calling this mess our "pit." We ate stale bagels with sliced cheese for dinner, and just like that it was time for sleep.

I laid awake in my sleeping bag for hours, thinking about Alaska. What explorations await up there? The Iditarod Trail, McGrath, maybe Nome, what else? I crawled out of the tent to crisp, near-freezing air and a sky splattered with stars, more stars than I had seen in many months. I gazed up at the Milky Way and wondered about the secret, untrammeled places of the world. Places with night skies so deep that they appear as a portal into outer space, places so inhospitable remote that they might was well be outer space. I looked around at the other pits of the race venue — elaborate canopies, trailers, RVs. The vast sky above the Virgin Rim had lulled me into dreams of distant exploration. But I was still locked in a pulse of civilization: A 25-hour mountain bike race, the temporary home of hundreds of riders and supporters, engaged in what one might consider the opposite of exploration — calculated lap racing.

Why do I race? This question has been on my mind lately, filling in the gaps in between thoughts about how to focus my career efforts and wonderings about future adventures. I questioned racing specifically because just two months ago I very much wanted to quit racing cold turkey, and even when I changed my mind about that, I could only muster passing enthusiasm for the 25 Hours of Frog Hollow. It's a fun course that I (mostly) enjoy riding, and friends from Montana, Canada, and Colorado were going to be there — a fantastic reunion. But beyond that, what was I even doing here? I don't race to try to beat people, only because I gain such minimal pleasure from that (personality thing, perhaps, Type B through and through.) I enjoy improving on my own results, but I'd ridden 13 laps here two years in a row and wasn't sure I wanted to ride more than that, because more time on the course would mean less time visiting with friends who live thousands of miles away. Thirteen laps is still 169 miles of difficult dirt riding, with a hefty climb in the first five miles of each 13-mile lap, five miles of relatively happy rolling descents, and three mildly technical miles that I've taken to calling "The Slabs of Despair."

"I will ride easy," I thought, "and see what happens." I vowed to spend some time hanging out with Keith and Leslie, but the outside goal was 14 laps.


Beat and I started out riding together and largely stuck together for the entire race. He was riding a singlespeed and would ride away on the dusty climb, but then I'd catch him on the Jem Trail descent, often in the exact same spot. We made up our own hike-a-bike sections when the energy surges required to power over the Slabs of Despair became too much to muster, and joked about how much more we enjoyed the walking at this point. I lamented my relative lack of bike conditioning — a former iron butt that's gone soft and sore, and painful pins-and-needles sensations in my arm from death-gripping the handlebars. I started to become upset about the pain in my arms, only because my legs felt fine and my energy levels were good. I was climbing well and not even all that tired, especially since we started making 30-minute stops in Keith and Leslie's warm trailer once night fell. They cooked baked potatoes, coffee, and quesadillas, and we chatted about their road trip across the American West and all the miserable parts of the course that we hated while defending what a fun race Frog Hollow is — in other words, wasting clock time and soaking up lots of fun energy before we returned to our sad pit at the cold, dark, utterly disorganized Subaru.

Beat and Liehann were becoming more demotivated about the laps and I began to join in their sentiments. One more round; what's the point? At the same time, I was slipping into a happy endurance daze, daydreaming again about Alaska and Baffin Island, and giggling about nothing at all. But the dust in the air was becoming scratchy and bothersome, and my arms hurt a lot. Every hateful slab brought the sensation of being stabbed by dozens of needles. Beat and I talked about stopping after ten laps. Mountain bike racing just isn't Beat's thing and he couldn't muster the enthusiasm. I understood, and I was on board. Still, I quietly determined that 14 laps were still a mathematical possibility, and I wondered if the boys would be mad if I snuck out after the required ten were done.

Lap ten came and I was in a daze again, thousands of miles away and lost in an expanse of sheer cliffs and snow. I was climbing slower than before, and Beat was long out of sight when the jeep road veered downward into a small drainage. My mind snapped back to reality just in time to see my front wheel land in a deep rut, but it was already too late. The bike jack-knifed and slapped me into the dirt, sending streaks of pain through my left shoulder and elbow, accompanied by the burning sensation of dirt tearing the surface layer of skin off my left leg. Amid the shock of impact I didn't even realize that I'd planted my right knee into a platform pedal until I was back on my bike and pedaling gingerly up the hill, and felt warm blood soak through my sock.

My left side was stiff and incredibly sore, blood was gushing out of what looked like a deep gash on the inside of my right knee, and I was demoralized by my stupid crash. I'm just so tired of nursing blunt force injuries. People give me all sorts of well-meaning advice about how I can improve my balance, increase my skills, become less of a hopeless klutz. But sometimes I wonder why we have to fight so hard against our own natures. I am daydreamy and my mind and body aren't always on the same wavelength. Grace and coordination are not talents of mine, but I do try to work on my skills, honestly. Still, I'm a crasher. I'll probably always be a crasher. This is becoming more problematic as I get older.


I effectively walked the last three miles of lap ten, because I wanted no more beatings from the Slabs of Despair. By the time I reached the timing tent, my right leg looked like something out of a cheap horror flick, so I went to the medical truck. The EMT who mopped me up probed the gash and said I would need stitches, but it was 3 a.m. and the nearest hospital was in St. George, 40 minutes away. When I elected to opt out of the E.R. trip, she warned me that pedaling would cause the wound to continually reopen and fill with dust, complicating the possibility of infection right next to my joint. Not worth the risk, no doubt. I was out. Lap ten. 130 miles. And I hadn't even figured out the reasoning behind all of it yet.

But it was fun. The 25 Hours of Frog Hollow is always fun, and I'm grateful that I had the chance spend that time with my friends and still get in a really long, mostly enjoyable ride. Now, three days later, I'm still more sore than I have been in a long while, including after the PTL. My elbow is still stiff and the range of motion seems low, but there's no swelling, so I'm not too worried about that. My sister, who is a nurse, helped assess my wound and it still appears to be free of infection; thanks to past crashes, I've become an expert on keeping a deep wound clean.

I concede that it's been a rough year of racing for me. Neither of my Alaska races went as well as I'd hoped, I had shin splints during my first 50-miler in May, the Bryce 100 was an altitude-induced sick march, I DNF'd the Laurel Highlands 70 one week later, then fell on my face at the San Lorenzo 50K and coped with a knee injury for the better part of six weeks. Then came the PTL, the race that wounded my spirit. With the exception of what will likely be a couple more training 50Ks next month, Frog Hollow was the last race of 2013. Not my lucky year.

But I have much to ponder in the coming weeks as 2014 plans begin to take shape. And in the meantime, I'll keep dreaming about adventure.

Impulse

I don't have a lot of time for exposition, so I'll just get to the meat of my post. Beat purchased the most awesome expedition snow bike ever built, and today I took it for a test ride in Utah's San Rafael Swell.

Mike Curiak's purpose-built titanium Moots fat bike, nicknamed Snoots. Proven as a top shelf expedition bike when Mike rode it 1,000 miles completely unsupported to Nome in 2010, carrying 21 days worth of supplies. Why would Mike sell such a beautiful specimen? In his words: "I've owned this bike for a handful of years. Ridden it across parts of Colorado, Minnesota, Michigan, Wisconsin, Utah, and Arizona. And yes, all the way across Alaska on the Iditarod several times. The original inspiration to build and own this bike was so that I could ride from Ross Island on the Antarctic coastline, following the Overland Traverse all the way up to the South Pole. I spent literal years of my life following this dream — getting the body, bike, mind, and all attendant parts ready. For many, many reasons, I have since decided to move onto other, more engaging projects."

Why would Beat purchase such a bike? In his words: "Because I think ahead. It's logical to pick up this bike to me. It works on all levels. I doubt you could get a bike this purpose-built made in the next five years, maybe ever (other than a one-off), and even if we wanted to have one custom-made, it would take us years to learn how it should be made. I think carbon frames will overrun the space with their inherent advantage in design flexibility and ease of production — but with that, expedition readiness can only decrease. Look at how few true innovations have happened in bike tech over the last 20 years — even in the main categories. A few people still fiddle with real innovation (two-wheel drive for example, which I could maybe see some very specific use for, but which is supposedly horribly unreliable) but that's it. And moreover, obviously this is the ONLY actually proven design that exists — because no one's come even close to the unsupported Nome trip."

Mike told me he couldn't argue with Beat's logic. Even so, for the past few weeks that Beat and I have been discussing this opportunity, I considered trying to dissuade him. Why would I choose to pass up such a bike? Because while Beat can appreciate the functionality and uniqueness of such a bike, and, ahem, afford it ... the job of actually riding the bike falls squarely on me. Oh sure, Beat will flirt with the notion of a long winter bike expedition. But in the end he will probably always stick to what he knows and loves — foot travel. I'm the one who soothes myself to sleep at night by fantasizing about riding bikes in Greenland and Baffin Island and, yes, across Alaska. But the prospect actually bringing these dreams to fruition is intimidating and scary, and owning an expedition fat bike can only nudge them closer to reality. Having possession of the Snoots is a great privilege. And you know what they say about privilege and responsibility.

I made a meager effort to talk Beat out of making this purchase. "It's way more bike than you and I need," I said. "What already have a fat bike that almost never gets ridden. Because we live in California."

"For now," Beat fired back. "But I'm thinking ahead. This bike probably won't still be available when we move to Alaska eventually."

Indeed. Possibilities are pretty endless. They could be a year or more down the road, but Snoots will be there when we decide to make those leaps.

Mike discouraged shipping this bike, so he and I made a plan to rendezvous in Utah, since I was planning to be here with my car for the 25 Hours of Frog Hollow, and Mike lives relatively close by in Grand Junction, Colorado. We met up in the town of Green River. Mike gave me a quick rundown of the Snoots' special features and set me free with this incredible bike. It was a beautiful day — 55 degrees and sunny, too beautiful not to ride. Just 11 miles west of Green River off I-70 is a narrow vein of the San Rafael Swell called Black Dragon Canyon. I steered clear of the canyon's faint jeep road to test-drive the Snoots in the places where it would shine most — the loose sand and boulders of the wash.

It was enlightening to ride this bike on terrain that it is really good at — sand — as well as terrain that I am not so good at — rocks. I was surprised how responsive this bike is — twisty maneuvers were no problem for the Snoots. Fat bikes have this way of making me feel invincible, and I found myself "sessioning" a few boulders that I normally wouldn't go near. It was no issue to lift the wheel onto ledges. "Note to self; front end looks heavy, isn't that heavy." But then I hit a flash-flood washout, a gorge about six feet deep with no way around, and struggled mightily to lift the bike over my head. The whole bike was sort of heavy. "Note to self: Not a big deal. You have difficulty lifting the carbon roadies over your head, too. Try lifting some weights once in a while." All-in-all, it's actually a super fun desert bike, too.

I rode about ten miles up the canyon, until I had climbed 2,000 feet and ended on top of a bench, riding a boring flat jeep road. Normally I love riding jeep roads, but this suddenly smooth and well-drained road just felt beneath the Snoots, somehow. It was time to turn around anyway. I had so much fun with the descent. At one point I launched off a small ledge (also unlike me) and touched down on the slickrock slab below with a dramatic bouncy bounce in both tires, which I had inflated to 10 or 11 psi. "Oops, maybe I shouldn't be riding this bike like this," I thought. But in the next breath, "Nah, Snoots can handle it. Snoots will break me before I break Snoots." Either way, I probably shouldn't be riding an expedition/touring fat bike like a dually with five inches of travel, lest I do break myself.

I so love the San Rafael Swell. Between the ages of 18 and 19 I transitioned from a teenager who spent every weekend going to movies, seeking out obscure live music shows, and frequenting terrible dance clubs — to a young adult who spent nearly every free weekend camping with friends in the San Rafael Swell. This is the region where I cemented my appreciation of the outdoors and fell in love with the desert. Every time I visit the San Rafael Swell, I'm whisked back to the happiest moments of that time in my life.

Icing on the cake — the petroglyphs at the mouth of the canyon. I'm super excited about the Snoots, but first thing's first. Headed down to Frog Town on Friday. 

Exploring Santa Cruz

Beat and I enjoyed a quiet weekend, working on a few projects and being lazy tapering for Frog Hollow. My friend Jan was in town for the weekend, and was interested in venturing out for a mellow ride on Saturday. Jan moved to Seattle recently and has been enduring autumn in the Pacific Northwest, so he was stoked about clear sky and temperatures in the 70s. He told us about the horrors of bike commuting in the cold rain, and I was quick to commiserate. "I lived in Juneau for five years. They get three times the annual precipitation of Seattle." Jan related his trials and I joined in with back-in-my-day war stories about showing up at the office covered face to foot in road grit and rigid, refrozen sheets of ice, which is what happens when it's 32.1 degrees and you ride a bike through three inches of slush, even with fenders. I'd have to stand outside the building until I peeled off the top two drenched layers, shivering with full-on convulsions as my extremities went numb, and, Sonny, you don't know the true indignity of bike commuting until you've commuted through a winter in Juneau. 

But it's true that weather toughness is like muscle mass — it steadily gets softer and weaker the longer one lives in a friendly climate. Now I'm Californian through and through, and I don't even blink when it's 70 and sunny in late October. Yawn. 

2008 Jill would not be amused.  

But it's refreshing to view one's routines through the lens of someone who sees more rareness in opportunities. Jan wanted to ride in Santa Cruz, which is one of those places that is so close and yet feels so far away. I admit my first reaction was, "Ugh, traffic." But there wasn't any; it's less than an hour of driving, to visit a place with incredible diversity in terrain and landscapes. In just one twenty-mile ride, we climbed desert-like sand slopes, rode through a lonely eucalyptus grove stranded in a grassy plain, dropped into loamy, root-choked singletrack winding through a dense redwood forest, and skirted coastal cliffs.

Descending into the coastal fog after riding the trails and fireroads of Wilder Ranch.

Pelicans. Lots of pelicans.


More seabirds on an envy-inducing perch.

Whenever a taller friend comes to visit, we usually lend them our 18-inch Fatback, because it's our largest bike. This was Jan's first time on a fat bike and he had that giddy "monster truckin" grin on his face for much of the ride. The fat bike market is exploding right now, with exponentially more choices in frames, forks, wheels, rims and tires than there were just three years ago when Beat purchased the Fatback. This trend is also pushing fat bike design away from its snow-and-sand origins, and more into the all-terrain market, with bikes featuring tighter geometry, carbon frames, knobbier tires, suspension forks, sometimes even rear suspension. These developments annoy some "old-timer" fat bike enthusiasts, because the industry already offered bikes better suited for trail riding, called mountain bikes. I also agree that fat bikes really shine on soft and loose surfaces, and prefer my mountain bike for dirt. But I can't deny that riding a fat bike is simply fun — smile-inducing fun — whether it's on snow or dirt or pavement. Jan agreed. We managed to get Fatty off trail for a fun diversion of beach riding in a cove below the cliffs. I would try to ride sand more often if there were more accessible, longer stretches of beach in the area. But every strip of nearby coastline that I've noticed is either closed to the public, closed to bikes, or blocked by cliffs.

Skimming along the cliffs was my favorite part of the ride. Beat was on his singlespeed and spun out at a relaxed pace. A stiff tailwind helped scoot us along, so I just leaned back and coasted with my camera out.

So many pelicans! Thanks for getting us out for new explorations in our back yard, Jan.

Beat has been hard at work on gear for his upcoming walk to Nome. Now that he knows exactly what he wants, he's been designing, building, and sewing a lot of it himself. He started from scratch on this year's sled (version 6.0), built from a sheet of ultra-high-molecular-weight polyethylene. The lightweight sled is five feet long, with a built-in shield silnylon cover that doubles as a bivy sack. The front flap allows venting while keeping out snow, and there's a plastic dome at the head to keep fabric away from Beat's face when he's sleeping. The rear section rolls back into the sled with a VX21 fabric flap. I crawled inside and it was cozy in there, like a warm cocoon rather than the suffocating coffins that closed-up bivy sacks usually mimic. Innovative stuff.

There are more pictures of Beat's Nome sled at this link. There are probably only a couple dozen people in the world who'd appreciate a good, lightweight, sleep-in pulk, but who knows? Maybe this stuff will go the way of the fat bike someday. 

Fun in the pre-season

Even amid frigid winds and fog so thick it was visibly streaming sideways, I felt a tinge of disappointment when Leah suggested we skip crossing the Golden Gate Bridge and instead keep our Wednesday evening ride on trails within San Francisco city limits. She was feeling under the weather and I understood her reluctance to go out for hard climbs and descents on the exposed ridges of the Marin Headlands, but urban trails? How fun could those be?

We wound through the forested corridors of Golden Gate Park on sandy singletrack, then cut south toward Mount Sutro, a small greenbelt beside the University of California San Francisco. Foggy daylight faded to blue-tinted twilight as we climbed a narrow trail through a dense eucalyptus forest. Drooping branches and frayed bark captured the fog, which rained down on us as fragrant precipitation. It was a seriously spooky place, made more so by the fact that we were bound on all sides by urban jungle. I couldn't help but imagine creepers lurking in the shadows. We rolled over the 908-foot peak — one of San Francisco's "seven summits" — and descended back into the dark and spooky woods on a muddy, rocky, twisting trail.

It was so much fun. I admit I headed out to the city hoping Leah would put the hurt on in the Headlands, and I'd have to burn up all my matches keeping up with her. That would have been a great training ride. But I'm glad we went on an adventure instead. After all, what is training besides an excuse to continue having adventures?

I've had a lot of fun with my "training" this week — doing what I felt like doing, plugging into Strava, making efforts to crack some PRs. On Sunday I was especially sore after the Coyote Ridge 50K — which was the most I've run, actually run, in quite a long time. Beat and I set out for a "post 50K" Montebello climb where he nearly broke his own PR and I struggled, rolling up about 10 minutes later. That was not what I wanted; I wanted to be more like Beat, who by now thinks a 50K run ain't no thing. For the next few days, I set out to do better.

On Monday, I had a decent 18-mile road ride around Mount Eden and Redwood Gulch, and cracked a few Strava PRs. But on Tuesday I only had time for a run. Every Tuesday, I'm working on deadline and lucky if I can squeeze in an hour from door to door. I have a 5.5-mile road and trail loop that I often run if I have time, and it's become my Tuesday routine. This Tuesday was the first in a while that I managed a run without IT band pain flaring up. About a mile and a half from home, I realized I was making sort of good time, so I decided to tack on an extra 0.7 miles and try to break my 10K "personal record."

My PRs for short distances are all embarrassing. I feel very awkward when I try to run "fast" — for me, this means anything in the 7:xx-minute-mile range — and since I'm convinced forced speed is a quick ticket to injury for someone like me, and it doesn't really enhance my goals of developing longer steady-state endurance, I never try. My 5K PR is still 31:52 (!!), established in the only 5K event I've ever run, back when I was not even remotely a runner, at the 2006 Sea to Ski Triathlon in Homer, Alaska. I've since run five consecutive kilometers faster than that, of course, but never as an actual 5K distance, which I think is a prerequisite for a PR.

Anyway, my 10K PR was 57:14, the fastest I've run my favorite 6.2-mile trail loop at Rancho San Antonio (which has 960 feet of climbing, I might add, if that makes this 10K time any less pathetic.) The goal for the last 3K of this Tuesday's loop (which has 680 feet of climbing) was to get that time below 55 minutes. I ended up running a couple of laps around my apartment complex at 7:30 pace but just missed it — 55:05. It was all quite silly but fun. It doesn't mean anything, but I was really enjoying myself.

On Thursday I set out on a double-climb of Montebello Road. I have this long-term project in mind that I call "One Hundred Miles of Montebello" — ten consecutive climbs and descents of a local road that climbs 2,000 feet in five miles, for a century with 20,000 feet of climbing. Everyone I tell about this dream thinks it's a horrible idea, but I'm determined to see it through someday, even if I can't con anyone into joining me. It would be at least a twelve-hour ride, so more daylight is needed, and it also would be more likely to motivate for if I'm engaged in focused bicycle training — I'm thinking it's a project for next April or May. So the hundred-miler is a ways off, but I've never even done a double-back of Montebello Road. Today was as good a day as any to start practicing for my project.

The double went really well. I tapped into my steady-state endurance, kept a good pace but didn't push into the red zone, and wrapped up the ride with 28 miles and 4,400 feet of climbing. Later I plugged my GPS data into Strava and learned I cracked my own all-time top ten list on this climb that I ride all of the time — twice! No PRs, but I'm stoked about how generally strong I feel right now.

This whole long training post was really supposed to be a lead-in to a question that some have asked me — what's next? Recently, I was reminded of an essay by Terry Tempest Williams. For the life of me I can't locate the direct quote, but to paraphrase, Williams wrote, "For every person there is a land with which one resonates above all others." For me, this is that land:

Alaska. Winter's Alaska, with all of its wild, white, open space. This, specifically, is the Iditarod Trail. Or even more specifically, it's a perfectly groomed segment of the Iditarod Trail near Finger Lake that I had the pleasure of riding in February 2008. A lot has changed since then, but one thing that never seems to change is how deeply this imaginary line has needled its way into my identity. I dream about it often; I find it entering my thoughts when I am scared or elated, joyful or lonely, inquisitive or bored. For a number of reasons, I haven't attempted to return to the route over the Alaska Range since I contracted frostbite on my foot in 2009. Nearly five years have gone by. I kept my runaway dreams at bay with patches: two amazing runs in the Susitna 100, three exhilarating rides through the White Mountains north of Fairbanks, a reluctant but beautiful sled run in the Homer Epic 100K. Next year, 2014, it's time to go back to the 350-mile journey to McGrath. And this time, I decided to attempt the route on foot.

I made this decision back in April when I signed up for the Iditarod Trail Invitational. I've since wavered back and forth on this. For the entire month of September, I was so demoralized by my experience at the PTL that I wasn't sure I wanted to go to McGrath at all. Then October came, my attitude and strength flipped a 180, and Beat started prodding me about the prospect of going to Nome on a bicycle. "You will love it so much," he said, and I suspect he's right. But I'm not ready, not yet. And yet, if I do aspire to ever ride a bicycle beyond McGrath, I should probably practice by riding a bicycle to McGrath once more.

Before PTL, I was much more confident about my decision to try this route on foot. It's not that I don't love snow biking or that I'm not a significantly stronger cyclist than I am a runner (I do and am.) What I was looking for in this endeavor was authenticity in the experience. It's difficult to describe, but on foot everything seems to happen more immediately and directly. There's nothing else to lean on, nothing else to blame, no mechanical boosts, no imaginary companions (I admit I become emotionally attached to my bikes.) It's just me. Taking a bicycle to McGrath remains one of the most difficult things I've ever done, and I can't even fathom how much harder it's going to be on foot. But a large part of me really wants to find out. Finishing the 2012 Sustina 100 on foot, alone, on my terms, has been my most rewarding running accomplishment yet. I had an incredible experience in that "short" race two years ago, and want to pursue a similarly raw and authentic experience in 2014.

However, I know that the rewards in a walk to McGrath are going to largely reside in post-race reflection. Walking to McGrath stands a good chance of being awful while I'm doing it. The ride to McGrath can be just as awful, but it also has a better chance of being a lot more fun. As Beat likes to joke, "Bikers complain about bad trails but that's the only time it sucks for them. It always sucks for runners." That's obviously an overly simplistic way of characterizing biking versus hiking — but there's some truth to this as well. Dragging a sled to McGrath is a lot like pushing a bike for 350 miles.

Beat says I need to decide soon, and he's right about that. The "pre-season" officially ends after the 25 Hours of Frog Hollow, which is just over a week away. Then I really have to buckle down and start preparing for winter. It's scary and exciting ... and I'm glad I rose out of my post-summer malaise in the nick of time.