Week 4, Dec. 2 to 8

Monday: Run, 1:27, 8 miles, 1,342 feet climbing. I flew out of Salt Lake City in the early afternoon, but was able to squeeze in a 90-minute trail run with my dad before I left town. We ran an out-and-back on the Bonneville Shoreline Trail in Corner Canyon, which he'd never run or hiked before. Despite spending the rest of the week in California, Monday was by far my warmest day, with temperatures near 60 degrees and a strong warm wind out of the east.

Tuesday: Run, 0:54, 5.8 miles, 614 feet climbing. The standard Tuesday run — Monta Vista loop between 4 and 5 p.m. I like having one workout that's exactly the same every single week. In future weeks I might try to designate Tuesday as a rest day. I finally changed out my shoes this week, a pair of Hoka Mafate 2s that I've had for a while but were nearly new. And the pain on top of my left foot went away entirely. I suppose I was right about the theory that my Mafate 3s were worn out.

Wednesday: Road bike, 2:27, 33.5 miles, 3,719 feet climbing. I was woefully underdressed for this ride with temperatures in the low 30s and a downhill windchill that must have approached 20 degrees. I know I'm California soft now, but this had all of the hallmarks of extreme cold training, with numbness slowly creeping all the way up my extremities, involuntary shivering, and a dramatic drop in core temperature that took most of the evening to recover. I forget just how exhausting this process is — the rewarming took more out of me than the ride itself. It was a useful reminder for real winter conditions, to always stop and deal with body chill before it gets out of control — it's not only dangerous, but it's also a massive energy drain.

Thursday: 0:57, 6.3 miles, 942 feet climbing. For this run I met up with Chris, who is a San Jose local that I met on the flight to Salt Lake City last week. We spent the whole 2.5-hour flight talking about Bitcoin and growing up in Utah. Yes, I sat next to someone on a plane and actually made a new friend. I am not a chatty person, so this was a new experience for me. Chris is a triathlete and mainly a road runner, and I was hoping to draw him to the light side of trail running with my favorite 10K loop in Rancho while heavily talking up a 50K race in Woodside. Maybe I'll see him there on Sunday.

Friday: Run, 1:55, 10 miles, 1,988 feet climbing. I drove out to El Cerrito to meet with Ann Trason, and before our coffee date we went for a run in the Berkeley Hills. She's laid back and a lot of fun to

run with, especially after we got lost and had to crawl up a super steep, cow-stomped slope. She told a few great stories during the run but then admitted she doesn't like talking about herself later that afternoon. If we ever end up doing formal interviews, they'll likely be best on the move.

Saturday: Run, 6:27, 23 miles, 5,232 feet climbing. Pacing for 9 miles and then rambling on my own for another 14 in the Marin Headlands, at a mellow pace all around. But after standing around for much of the morning at the Stinson Beach aid station, it was a decent day on my feet, which I think is the best kind of physical Iditarod Training. There was even a strong, cold wind on the ridge tops to simulate Alaska just a little.

Sunday: Road bike, 1:46, 17.7 miles, 2,495 feet climbing. Beat played with the Snoots and I enjoyed a leisurely climb. It was another clear, cold day, with near-freezing temperatures on top of Montebello. Beat and I both brought our windproof fleece jackets to test on the descent. I admit I had to put mine on two thirds of the way up the climb, because I was too cold. We still didn't wear adequate gloves, tights, or footgear, so we still froze on the descent, although not to the extent of Wednesday. I'm definitely California soft now, but I feel like I got some real cold-weather training in this week. I also had a chance to run with several new and interesting people, which was a fun diversion from my usual solo style.

Total: 15:53, 53.1 miles run, 51.2 miles ride, 16,332 feet climbing

Beat is traveling to Germany this week to attend his step-father's funeral. My goal for this coming week is, of course, the 50K trail run on Sunday, and then perhaps a long ride on Monday. I want to start incorporating some back-to-back long efforts without the risk of ramping up running mileage too much. I'm also giving more thought to the whole tire-dragging thing, but I don't think I can deal with being that conspicuous on local trails. I wish there was a way to simulate sled dragging in a snowless climate without looking like an idiot. A heavy backpack on hills might work.  

A distant goodbye

Just as a corporate championship race with more than a thousand participants was drawing to a close, I was a half dozen miles away on the Coastal Trail, a solo runner among the otherwise stoic cliffs. Earlier in the day, I hopped a shuttle bus and spent several hours among the crowds at Stinson Beach, cheering for runners in the North Face 50-mile Endurance Challenge — because it's fun to spectate a big race. Then I helped pace an acquaintance from Colorado who unfortunately was having a bad day and missed a cut-off at mile 36. After that, there wasn't much left to do but run back to where I started, so I took a long way, meandering along the high ridges of the Marin Headlands.

A cold wind blasted the cliffs, carrying a salty mist hundreds of feet above the crashing waves. The setting sun rendered the hillside in purple light and sharpened the chill, which, thanks to the wind, felt more threatening than the mild temperature might imply. I rounded a corner and caught a gleam from the last light of the sun in the eyes of a young bobcat, who stared at me for a long second before turning around and sauntering down the trail. Bobcat was running but with no real urgency, its long legs and big paws stirring a fine layer of dust that had been kicked up by hundreds of runners early that morning. A couple of times, the bobcat glanced back as if to say, "Are you still following me? This is my trail." I love spotting bobcats in the hills; they remind me of my imagined spirit animal, Lynx, which I conjure for comfort in times of fear and pain. After the bobcat finally darted back into the brush, I decided our brief run together was a good omen.

A few hours later, Beat texted to tell me that his mother's partner Peter had died. It was not unexpected; he had terminal cancer, but the quickness of his passing came as a surprise. And regardless of the circumstances, it's never easy to accept that someone you knew and appreciated is suddenly, simply, no longer there. When Beat and I visited his mother in Germany, Peter and I would occasionally take long walks on the paths and trails of Bielefeld. He spoke only a little English and I speak even less German, but he used our limited shared vocabulary and enthusiastic gestures to piece together a compelling portrait of the city and his life there. He was kind and intelligent and always had a sparkle in his eye, a zest for life that even a crescendo of near-constant pain couldn't dampen. He was fond of aphorisms and walking. Peter was once a very quick marathoner but unfortunately a longterm smoker; complications of smoking nearly took his legs, but he was able to save them through sheer determination and exercise. He walked nearly every day, sometimes 20 or 30 kilometers, and it was difficult to watch as cancer took this joy away from him as well. He was always supportive of Beat and me and enthusiastic about all of our crazy adventures; he treated me like a daughter-in-law despite the lack of legal definition, liked all of my Facebook posts, and greeted me with a long-armed embrace whenever we visited. And Peter absolutely adored cats. I thought about the running bobcat when I learned he was gone. Peter would have loved that story.

I will miss him.

Saturday was a beautiful day. After a deluge of rain on Friday night, the morning dawned clear and cold, with pre-dawn temperatures again hovering near freezing. I headed out to the Headlands to meet up with Shelby, a woman from Colorado who traveled to San Francisco to take part in the North Face 50, which is largest and most prestigious trail race of the year in this region. I think they have something like 500 sign-ups in each of the 50-mile, 50K, marathon, and marathon relay races, including a large number of elite and international runners. If you add in volunteers, pacers, crew, and sponsors, you have well over 2,000 people involved. Those are big numbers for trail running, which is the main reason I never sign up for this event. But then December rolls around and all the excitement drums up and I want to get involved. Shelby invited me to pace her from Stinson Beach to the finish, about 22 miles. Sadly, her stomach turned shortly before we linked up and there's not much I could do to help but sympathize. We reached the Muir Woods checkpoint just five minutes late, but it was a hard cut-off. Shelby, who's a little burnt out after a long season of racing, was cheerfully accepting of the outcome, and grabbed a race shuttle back to the start. Since my car was parked at Tennessee Woods, I decided to continue on the course and added a bonus loop after the stars came out and the cold wind really started cranking. I loved it, even though I missed most of the race action.

Also on Saturday, I was drawn in the lottery for the Hardrock 100, a 100-mile mountain run in the San Juan Mountains of Colorado next July. That text from Beat came a couple of hours before the one about Peter, as I was cheerfully running down the Marincello Trail to wrap up my long run. My response was a blunt but succinct "WTF?!?" Because of the way Hardrock divides up their entries, there were 1,010 people vying for 35 spots. Every year a runner signs up for the lottery, they're given an exponential increase in the number of "tickets" they receive. This was my second year giving it a go, so I had two tickets. People who have tried for years with no luck can have upwards of 128 tickets. Needless to say, I did not have a high chance of "winning." And if you want to increase your chances each year, you have to play the game. With only two tickets and the possibility of increasing that to four next year, I threw my name in the hat.

It was drawn. I very much want to run Hardrock. I would be a great adventure run, in one of the most spectacular mountain ranges in the United States, and the organization itself creates a family-like atmosphere that one can't help but embrace. And its very inaccessibility in terms of entry has contributed to Hardrock becoming perhaps the most widely coveted 100-mile mountain run in the world. All that said, I was forming other adventure ambitions for the summer of 2014, and Hardrock just doesn't quite fit. I might be able to make it all work with excessive adventure greediness, perhaps demanding the impossible from myself, and of course even that would be a grand experiment. Either way, I'll have to do some serious soul searching about this in the coming weeks. It would be unwise to give up what will likely be my only chance to run Hardrock. Just qualifying for this run is a whole lot of commitment that I'm not willing to wedge myself into — training for and running the same 100-mile races every year.

This has certainly been my year for race lotteries. A few months ago I applied for the White Mountains 100, thinking, "I don't really want to take on a 100-mile snow bike race so soon after the ITI, but it's my favorite race ever and I'm not going to get in anyway." I got in. Now Hardrock. It's almost as though the so-called "lottery gods" are testing the conviction I had back in September that maybe I should dial back the whole adventure racing thing, that maybe it's getting out of control ...

It's a good problem to have, of course — too many things I really want to do with my time. The problem lies in wanting to have it all.

Simulated cold

Like many, I am a creature of habit. I have the daily work routine, the foods I like, the diversions I enjoy, the routes I ride or run, the clothing I wear. Like many, my habits bring comfort, but comfort in turn brings complacency. I didn't give a second thought to my attire when I set out for a ride on Wednesday — jersey and shorts, ultralight Pearl Izumi pullover, and a day-glo vest. Roadie layers, designed for what passes for winter here in the Bay Area. Outside there was a nip to the air, and a confirmed temperature of 42 degrees at 300 feet. But it felt pleasant, pedaling hard up Highway 9 and working up a lather of sweat. Just as I crested the hill at 2,700 feet, the sun slipped below the ridge line. Suddenly the air felt ten degrees colder than it had in the shaded canyon. Condensed breath swirled around my face. I reached in the pocket of my now-soaked jersey and pulled out the only extra layers I brought with me — a knit cap and a thin pair of gloves. In front of me was seven miles of fast rolling followed by a ten-mile, winding descent. There would be no more lather of sweat, no more body heat generated by hard work — only wind chill, and the inevitable law that what goes up must come down.

The experience of cold is relative. I've felt toasty at 30 below and near-hypothermic at 45 above. It all comes down to expectation and preparation, and here in California, there's always at least one cold day in December that catches me off guard and re-teaches me that hard lesson. Wednesday was that day. The fingers went first, followed by feet, clad as they were in only well-ventilated shoes and thin socks. Then my face joined my limbs in wooden rigidity. Tingling numbness crept up my arms like a spider, until it became difficult to steer and I involuntarily maneuvered the handlebars into scary jerking motions because my muscles were no longer sending the right signals to my brain. The flash freeze. I am a cyclist prone to complacency, so I know it well.

But I've also accumulated enough cold-weather experience to know this is not the end of the world, at least at these still-forgiving temperatures near freezing with an end close in sight. At 10 degrees or 0 or 30 below, you'd never catch me venturing outside in roadie clothing. "Leave it to cycling companies to make the most useless warm gear ever," I laughed to myself as my teeth chattered audibly. My ears began to burn. My feet grew heavy. My legs felt like they were wrapped in cold meat. The capillaries on my skin tingled with electric sharpness. It was painful and yet it felt so lively, so invigorating, so real. I smiled in spite of myself, a lopsided grin that had to chisel its way through ice-hard cheeks. "This is awful. I can't wait to go to Alaska," I laughed again.

Back in the relative warmth of the valley, I jumped off my bike at a red light and started running in place. A well-bundled bike commuter rolled up beside me. "Are you okay?" she asked.

"Fine," I said, teeth still chattering. "My feet are cold, just trying to get the feeling back."

"It's supposed to freeze tonight, 28 degrees," she said. "That's cold for around here."

"Yeah," I said. "I know."

Elsewhere, winter abides. Single digits in Utah. Deep subzero in Montana. Freezing rain in Alaska. Here in California, I cuddle up in my fleece blanket and daydream about the cold, the hard-edged kind that draws every life force to the surface and sharpens the senses with renewed vitality. Habits and comfort are often good things; hubris and mistakes often are not. But when the latter gives way to the former, a beautiful cycle of experience begins to happen.

Week 3, Nov. 25 to Dec. 1

Monday: Run, 1:16, 6.3 miles, 1,015 feet climbing. I was traveling out to the city to visit a friend, so I planned a pre-dinner run on Sweeney Ridge in San Bruno. I enjoyed the route but felt horrible on this run, like my veins had been injected with liquid lead. My stomach was unsettled as well. Then I took some photos of the sunset over Pacifica, but accidentally deleted the card before I downloaded them. All in all, a wash of an outing.

Tuesday: Run, 1:02, 5.8 miles, 722 feet climbing. I took it easy because I didn't want to push possible recovery issues that resulted in the bad run on Monday. One issue I wanted to note in the training log, which I first noticed a couple of hours after this run, was a slight soreness in the top of my left foot. I don't feel it at all when I'm running, only afterward. My suspicion is minor tendonitis caused by shoes; the uppers on my birthday Hokas are pretty much falling apart. I'm guessing these shoes have about 500 miles of combined rugged hiking and trail running now, so it's not entirely surprising. But I've been pulling the drawstring laces tighter lately, because the upper feels so loose. I have a newer pair of shoes that I'll try out this week, and hopefully a higher volume of biking will help as well.

Wednesday: Hike, 2:18, 4.7 miles, 1,719 feet climbing. Leisurely stroll up Bells Canyon with Dad. I think it's fair to count this as a rest day, but with a decent amount of time on my feet. A good combination for Iditarod-specific training if you ask me.

Thursday: Run, 1:02, 6.6 miles, 323 feet climbing. I joined my dad for the classic pre-turkey-and-pie Thanksgiving neighborhood run. It was fun to follow him on his regular route as he pointed out all of the sights — yards he admires, the dead deer that has been slowly rotting next to the road for months, the spot where he once found a package of brand new socks. It was a beautiful, warm, sunshiney morning. With the exception of snow on the trails, most of this week felt like I never left home in terms of weather. I admit this was rather disappointing for Iditarod training.

Friday: Hike, 4:30, 7.8 miles, 3,214 feet climbing. Gobblers Knob with Dad. This was a strenuous outing — steep climbing on hardpack snow the first 1.5 miles, awkward maneuvering through patchy snow on a fairly level half mile, super slog through knee-deep sun crust in the trees, off trail, for the next mile, and a !!! steep ascent on rocks atop a breaking snow crust, at an elevation that my lungs did not appreciate, with a bunch of gear I shlepped up the mountain in hopes I'd find cold wind at the top (I did not), and until the last 1.5 miles the descent was not much easier. This hike had it all. The numbers are modest, but in terms of overall effort I'd put it almost on par with the long run I did in Point Reyes last week. And it was a most gorgeous day.

Saturday: Mountain bike, 3:43, 32 miles, 2,949 feet climbing. Took Kim out for a spin around the Bonneville Shoreline Trail before riding west and then north along pavement to deliver her to my sister. I was feeling nostalgic and did a lot of soft-pedaling and stopping on the trail, but burned up so much time meandering that it was all business into the wind on 12600 South. I discovered the Mountain West bike path, which is a fantastic, surprisingly empty corridor near the 5600 West meridian. Honestly, if I ever moved back to Salt Lake City, I would likely drift away from running and fall back into a bike / hike pattern, spending all of my outdoor time bike-sploring and climbing steep mountains.

Sunday: Hike, 3:06, 6.6 miles, 3,826 feet climbing. Quick "run" up Mount Olympus. I hoped to do the whole peak and back in my three-hour allotment, but I managed to drift off the well-trodden trail and spent way too much time thrashing through brush during the climb. There was a lot of ice above 7,000 feet and my well-worn microspikes were not quite up to the challenge on those grades. The final half mile to the summit is a class-three scramble and I could see the patches of glare ice continuing up the face of the mountain when I arrived at the saddle. Time was exhausted anyway so I started down from there; had to tiptoe down the ice, but ran the final two miles.

Total: 15:57, 37.8 miles run/hike, 32 miles ride, 13,768 feet climbing. Lower mileage this week, no long runs, although I think the Gobbler's Knob hike qualifies as a long effort. Besides the minor foot pain and mysteriously horrible run on Monday, I felt good all week despite spending most of it at high altitude, and despite the fact that my mother and both sisters were sick. Fun week of training, courtesy of a Thanksgiving visit to Utah. 

Thankful

Well, I'm back in Utah for the third time in eight weeks. I think my parents are starting to suspect that I've moved back in, but the goal of this trip was to see a portion of my extended family and spend a legitimate holiday with everyone in my immediate family. Since Beat and I haven fallen into a tradition of spending Christmas in Alaska, Thanksgiving has taken on a more significant meaning as a traditional family gathering. Also for this trip, I packed out a large suitcase of Alaska-specific gear with hopes that an Arctic cold front would blow in and offer ample testing opportunities. No such luck, as the weather has been clear, ten to fifteen degrees above normal, and absolutely gorgeous. Sigh. So disappointing.

Having just escaped mob madness at the SLC airport on Wednesday afternoon, with a little over two hours of daylight to spare, my dad and I took a leisurely walk up Bells Canyon. When I was a child in the Salt Lake Valley, I believed November was the ugliest month of the year. Nothing but gray skies, blah temperatures, and brown trees stripped of all of their leaves. Right? November. Blech.

Obviously, I feel a little differently these days.

Dad and Lower Bells Canyon Falls.

On Black Friday, Dad and I continued another tradition of ignoring all things Black Friday and enjoying a post-Thanksgiving slog up the appropriately named Gobbler's Knob. Temperatures on this day were in the mid-40s, which felt toasty despite my Californiafied blood. However, because of sea level acclimation, hiking at elevation always makes me feel as though I've suddenly lost a lot of fitness. Add a 3,500-foot climb, breaking trail in knee-deep slush with a sun crust, and a summit push up a relentlessly steep pitch over chunky boulders masked with thin snow, and you have all the ingredients for a fantastic workout. I love a good slog.

The snow was never quite deep enough for us to put on snowshoes, but ranged from a few inches to thigh-deep and everything in between. The snowpack on these south-facing slopes had a thick crust that was breakable enough to collapse under our weight, but condensed enough to trap our feet beneath the snow. This often made it feel like I was hiking with 50-pound weights strapped to each leg, tearing my quads apart just to lift a knee. Tough walking. It took us 2.5 hours to hike four miles.

It was worth it.

I packed my new windproof fleece jacket along for the slog with gear-testing ambitions in mind, only to reach the summit and discover there wasn't a breath of wind, and temperatures were still above freezing, at 10,300 feet. I have memories of summer afternoons on Wasatch summits that felt colder than this. We took a long lunch break, lounging in the sun and eating leftover Thanksgiving rolls for lunch, when a skier tromped up from the north side of the mountain. He was an older guy, wearing faded cargo pants and scuffed skis, with long beard and a shock of tangled strawberry blond hair stuffed beneath a trucker hat. He was aghast that we'd climbed all the way up the mountain but didn't bring skis. Then he told us a fascinating story about a massive avalanche he barely survived on the face of Gobbler's Knob — took a 1,500-foot ride and caught his arm on a tree, dislocating his shoulder but managing to stay afloat. "It was a peaceful experience, floating along on my back next to those big blocks of snow. I mean, I knew I was going 70 miles per hour, but it was like time stood still, riding with those blocks of snow."

I forgot to ask his name, but he told us the exact date of the avalanche — February 7, 2010 — so looked up the slide he described; he wasn't exaggerating. Thanks to the wonders of Google I was able to learn more about him — turns out he's a Utah backcountry ski fixture nicknamed "The Wizard of the Wasatch" and has been employed by the Utah Avalanche Forecast Center. We didn't believe him when he said he had 3,500 lifetime ski days so far, but maybe he wasn't exaggerating about that, either. You meet the most fascinating people in the mountains.

On the way back down the canyon, we saw a bull moose foraging in the brush. You meet fascinating animals in the mountains, too.

Of course there was plenty of quality family time and pie eating between the outdoor adventures. When in Salt Lake over the holidays, there's of course the obligatory visit to the Christmas light display at the Salt Lake Temple grounds.

My Surly Karate Monkey is going to live with my sister Lisa, and today I finally put the bike together and set out to deliver "Kim" to Lisa's home in West Jordan. Of course I couldn't ride out there without taking a spin around the Bonneville Shoreline Trail in Corner Canyon. This was the trail system where I trained in the weeks prior to the 2009 Tour Divide, so taking Kim on one last ride here seemed apt. Some trail sections were muddy like this, but most were bone dry and it was another warm day. I wore a T-shirt and knee-length tights, no need for hat and gloves — although the Utahns I encountered were all bundled up.

I don't necessarily agree with the platitudes of giving thanks. It's ridiculous to dedicate just one day out of the year to gratitude, just as it would be ridiculous to designate a "happiness day." But I do appreciate the ceremonies that Thanksgiving encourages, the tradition of families coming together for the sake of coming together, and the tradition of going home for the sake of going home. Every year at Thanksgiving, my grandmother upheld the before-dinner tradition of having everyone name one thing we're thankful for. With upwards of forty people crammed in the house, this ritual would often go on until the turkey was cold and a white film had formed on top of the candied yams. Nobody loved the ritual, but we were all surprised when this year, at the age of 83, she simply forgot to request this. But I actually had a plan this year, for what I was going to say — I'm thankful for my past. For my past, the places where it resides, and everyone and everything in it. It's been a wonderful journey so far. 

Week 2, Nov. 18 to 24

Given our vague but long-term plans for the Snoots in winter touring, I don't intend to put many pavement and dirt miles on this bike, thereby wearing down expensive tires and other parts unnecessarily. But the temptation to go out and play with this fun new toy is hard to resist, even though I feel a little silly waiting at stop lights while straddling an expedition fat bike. Plus, there is the issue of being a somewhat stranger-shy introvert, riding a bike that couldn't be more conspicuous. As I was pedaling up Foothill Boulevard, at least three road cyclists on the other side of the wide street called out to me — "fat bikes rule!," "what is that?" and another greeting I didn't catch. Near the top of Black Mountain, while spinning the granny up a 15-percent-grade on loose gravel, a hiker walking down the hill wanted to ask me a dozen questions. "It's for snow," I gasped. "To ride in Alaska." And finally, "sorry, can't stop, won't be able to start again."

My main goal for the Sunday ride, besides playing with the fun new toy and confronting social anxieties, was to ride the Snoots on familiar trails to get a better sense of the handling and fit compared to my other bikes. But it is more work, pedaling this bike, and some feeble attempts at power bursts on the steeper hills made it apparent how empty my legs felt on Sunday. The combination of a big week in terms of effort, combined with a light lunch and late-day ride, brought on feelings of weakness and fatigue. I used to get frustrated with these emotions, but now I let it go. I make a conscious decision to do so. "My legs are torched. Oh well."

And it's funny, but since I started making a choice to shrug off fatigue, these "empty leg" rides have become some of my favorite rides. Don't get me wrong, I love those strong days when all systems seem to be firing on high and I feel like I can conquer anything with ease. But the weak days have their own quiet appeal — a decision to let go of the illusion of control, sit back, and see what happens. Enjoy the rich colors cast by the afternoon sun. Listen to some Regina Spektor. What I've found is a serene, Zen-like state that quiets the chatter in my mind and propels my body forward all the same. Meditative movement. It's a great thing to practice for those long hauls.

Monday: Road bike, 2:28, 33.5 miles, 3,800 feet climbing. Highway 9 to Page Mill. I climbed Highway 9 faster than I intended, because there were two long sections of construction. I hate to feel like I'm holding up traffic in the single lane, so I try my best to keep up. Drivers may feel like they're inching along at 15 to 20 miles per hour up a 9-percent grade, but it feels like hyper-drive into the pain cave on a road bike.

Tuesday: Run, 1:01, 6.6 miles, 688 feet climbing. Typical Tuesday run through the Monta Vista substation to Rancho, but as an out-and-back instead of the loop. I didn't push hard on the hills because I was still wary of the bike crash knee injury, but the pain didn't return once this week. Maybe it was the wound all along, and it's finally healed enough to no longer be a concern.

Wednesday: Run, 2:16, 11.4 miles, 1,652 feet climbing. Started out in the pouring rain, some of the trails were bogged down in sticky/slippery clay mud, and I did not feel well. The truth is, I felt really bad when I started out, enough that I made my first pit stop at Trader Joes, which is a whole 0.25 miles away from my apartment. Normally I would opt out in a case like this, since running in such a state is unlikely to yield many fitness benefits. But given what I'm preparing for, I feel it's important to practice the art of moving forward when I feel bad. And then a strange thing happened. I never felt markedly better, but I did slip into that meditative movement state, got buzzed on the endorphins and the novelty of the weather, and ended up running much further than I even intended before I started out. I did pay for this effort, though, in the form of feeling spaced out and depleted for the rest of the evening.

Thursday: Road bike, 1:30, 17.5 miles, 2,702 feet climbing. Felt fine the next day, though. I usually bounce back quickly from tough workouts, unless that workout involves relative "speed" and have to recover from muscle micro-tears and other actual physical damage. This was just the usual Montebello Road climb, at a good recovery pace.

Friday: Road bike, 1:15, 18.5 miles, 1,925 feet climbing. I only had one Highway 9 construction zone sprint during this ride. My heart rate probably did climb into the 180s, which reminds me that I should try to sync my heart-rate-monitor with my current GPS so I can gauge intensity. I do get spurts of high intensity in nearly every workout I do, just by nature of choosing routes with a fair amount of elevation gain. But I like to keep the high-intensity bursts organic instead of calculated, because I'm not actually training to get faster. I'm training to get more efficient — which translates to faster — at a sustained multiday effort.

Saturday: Run, 5:45, 23.5 miles, 4,377 feet climbing. The Point Reyes Run that I blogged about yesterday. We kept the pace casual and made plenty of stops, but I felt great the whole time. There were a few instances of a strange sensation in my right knee, which I can't even describe as pain — more like a flash of instability, perhaps an anticipation of pain. But it never actually hurt. Beat and Steve started laying down some relatively fast miles for the final five miles as I tried to keep up, and there was about 1.5 miles total of beach running that was reasonably strenuous.

Sunday: Fat bike, 2:45, 25 miles, 3,384 feet climbing. Perhaps a little ambitious for the day after a long run, but this turned out to be a rather enjoyable if bonky ride.

Total: 17 hours, 94.5 miles ride, 41.5 miles run, 18,533 feet climbing

This was a big week. I'd be lying if I said I can't feel it, but it is interesting how painlessly it can all pass at the right pace. That said, it's probably best to dial back a bit this coming week. I figure that will happen anyway with Thanksgiving travel and festivities. I'm headed to Utah to spend the holiday with my extended family, and hoping to get some hiking and winter gear testing in the mountains while I'm there. Crossing my fingers for an Arctic cold front. Sorry, Sara. 

A relaxing day at the beach

I'm not sure I could ever get excited about training for a calculated, reasonable fitness goal — not when there are outlandish adventures to be had. And, like many milestones in life, it's not even so much about the outcome of the outlandish adventure as it is about the journey there. The preparations. The training. How do you train for an outlandish adventure? With smaller adventures, wherever they can be found and woven into the fabric of daily life. Fitness for the sake of fitness? Sure, that's great. But fitness for the sake of adventure? There's the hook for something meaningful.

Now that it's winter training season, I'm hoping to put in weekly long, leisurely paced runs and/or hikes. The very best part of this goal is asking myself, "Okay, where do I want to run this week?" For more than a year now, I've followed Leor Pantilat's fantastic adventure running blog, and at this point I must have twenty of his route ideas saved in my "Life List" file. The guy covers big miles on jaw-dropping routes across Northern California and the High Sierra, taking fabulous photos along the way. One of the more local runs is his Point Reyes Pilgrimage, a 24-mile, figure-8 loop through the hills and along the coast of this National Seashore. I recruited our friends Harry, Martina, and Steve to join us for the Saturday outing.

The weather couldn't have been more sublime. Sixty degrees, clear skies, comfortable humidity, no wind — not even an errant breeze. Summers on the Northern California coast are frequently cool and foggy, but winters here have a higher frequency of clear and warm weather. The best part about this mix-up of seasons is, summer is still the busy season for tourism. During the fall and winter, beautiful days such as this can be enjoyed in relative peace and solitude.

Descending the Woodward Valley Trail toward Drakes Bay.

Leor's route had spurs leading out to a few beaches, but he noted that some of these beaches were only accessible at low tide. We knew that high tide was right in the middle of the day, but there wasn't much we could do about it — we also only have nine hours of daylight to work with this time of year. Still, we scrambled along the rocks of Sculptured Beach with tempered hopes that we'd be able to attain access to Secret Beach.

Within a few hundred yards, we were debating whether it was worth wading through this keyhole. Currents are strong in this region and can rip a swimmer out to sea without much warning. If you lost your balance in the wrong wave at the wrong time, things could go bad in a hurry. We opted to turn around.

There was still fun scrambling to be had, though, even if it wasn't completely necessary.

There was 4,300 feet of climbing on this route, but by far the most strenuous part of the run was jogging through the sand along the shoreline. Despite mild temperatures, my face and arms cascaded sweat. Steve and I joked about working this hard for 350 miles of Alaska snow while wearing primaloft body armor and towing a 30-pound sled, and then stopped laughing because it wasn't a joke. This is actually how tough the ITI is going to be, pretty much the entire way. I try not to think too much about it on a beautiful November afternoon on a beach in California. At least I have a justifiable excuse to come back here soon.

Arch Rock. Running toward this cliff, I thought, there's no way we're ever going to get around that. Lo and behold, there was an arch under Arch Rock, allowing us to slip under the cliff and climb up a drainage on the other side.

Martina and Harry are both recovering from injuries and opted to skip the second ten-mile loop. We left them on Arch Rock and began the long climb back to the ridge.

While we nibbled on snacks above Wildcat Camp, Steve said, "This is why I became a trail runner. I wanted to have the fitness to just run and hike places like this all day, without it being a big deal." Yes. Exactly that. It doesn't have to be outlandish, extreme, epic, whatever superlative you feel like using — it can just be a relaxing day at the beach.

We crossed Wildcat Beach to Alamere Falls. When we arrived here, there were at least two dozen other people milling about the area. We ran 15 miles to this point and had only seen a handful of people so far all day, so the crowds shattered our illusions that Point Reyes, despite its proximity to San Francisco, is a hidden secret of an idyllic coastline. But the falls were a gorgeous destination, and the point were we turned to run north again.

The Glen Trail was a fun romp through a lush Douglas Fir forest, with more green than I have seen in a while. It was a great day. Thanks, friends. And thanks to Leor for the inspiration. I can see Point Reyes becoming a pilgrimage of our own.