Adventures, with and without anchors

Photo by Liehann Loots

This was an enjoyable but full week effort-wise. I'm hoping to pull a sort of "peak" week in two weeks, but this one will be hard to top — 28 hours, 29,178 feet climbing, 26.1 miles running and 214.2 miles cycling in all of five workouts. And yet the fun, beautiful and adventurous nature of those five workouts made them feel like no work at all — abundant playtime, tempered by above-average work productivity because I've more than satisfied my outdoor cravings and am grateful for the couch time. 

On Saturday Beat and I set out to run the Slate Creek Trail down to Portola Redwoods State Park. Portola is a place you can drive to, but we like to pretend it's only accessible by descending from the grassy spine of Long Ridge into the bowels of an ancient forest.

Portola is home to some Coast Redwoods that have seen some things in their time, including the decimation of most of their kin. A few big trees still stand, and it's always awe-inspiring to stand at the foot of primordial giants. 

We dilly-dallied on a meandering loop around the base of the park, and went to visit Old Tree, a 297-foot monster that's estimated to be more than 1,200 years old.

Beat was buzzed about the chance to touch something that's been alive since the year 800. There are very few objects of any sort in North America that are that old, and it's interesting to contemplate something so enduring as a 1,200-year-old tree. The wildfires it's seen, the storms, the earthquakes, the succession of hundreds of generations of animals, the climate changes, and finally the plague of people that chopped down everything surrounding it. I have much respect for Old Tree.

Slate Creek Trail is such a fantastic place to run — loamy soil, rich green vegetation, swoopy singletrack and the shelter of hundred-foot-high "young" redwoods. Add another to the list of trails I want to run as often as possible this coming summer ... Slate Creek, Lonely Trail, Black Mountain, the list keeps on growing. This run was sixteen miles and had 4,000 feet of climbing — not a small effort, but relatively relaxed compared to what I had in store the next day (Beat would opt to run a 50K loop around this area with Steve on Sunday, rather than submit himself to my plan.)

Meanwhile, Liehann and I headed out to Henry Coe State Park. Coe is an idiosyncratic spot in the Bay Area —an isolated and surprisingly remote enclave just a half hour south of San Jose. It's an arid place that comes alive for a very short time in the spring, and sees few visitors for such close proximity to a heavily populated valley. Coe's biggest tourism draw is the Fall Tarantula Festival, and visitors are also likely to run into rattlesnakes, territorial turkeys, wild pigs, bobcats, coyotes, and lots and lots of ticks. The topography of the southern Diablo Range is relentlessly steep, and remote enough that if you fell and broke a leg somewhere farther back in the park, it's possible you wouldn't be found for days. Coe is also mountain bike friendly, and is uncharacteristically relaxed (for California) with its rules — giving wheels almost free reign of many trails and fire roads throughout the park.

 The reason Coe isn't overrun by mountain bikers is because not everyone with a mountain bike will find this kind of riding to be "fun" — at least in terms of Type One fun. Gluttons for 30-percent grades, skilled downhillers who don't mind paying a steep price for their descents, geocachers, and dirt tourists with camping gear and no fear are the main citizens of the Coe cycling community. I can't honestly say I fit into any of these categories. I love a good relentless climb, but all some point bikes become more of an anchor than a useful machine. Unless you want to burn all of your leg matches on the first climb, hike-a-bike is usually in order. Singletrack is always steep, often loose, and cut for hikers and horses rather than wheels, so descending is also a strenuous affair. Five miles per hour is a reasonable average speed at Coe; I can maintain a running pace near that fast for long distances, and it tends to be less stressful for me than wrangling a bike. Still, hike-a-biking is a good training practice, and damn if I shouldn't take a few more chances with downhilling ... so I agreed to my first Coe outing since I visited the park with a bike in August 2011 and have been purposefully avoiding it ever since.

 It was a beautiful day at Coe, with green hills and wildflowers blooming. One aspect about Coe that I appreciate is the vistas — thanks to the relentlessly steep terrain, there are many, and at each one you can look out over the rippling hillsides and see no sign of civilization. Cities, buildings, highways, smog, and people are all safely tucked away beyond the horizon.

 We parked at Hunting Hollow and started the day by climbing 1,500 feet in 1.5 miles because, well, what else is there in Coe? My hike-a-bike muscles are clearly lacking, as my shoulders ached within minutes. I had also frozen three liters of my water to a block of ice, then stuck it in my 25-liter Salomon pack that I am testing out for biking purposes (It's a newer version of my PTL pack, which is robust and waterproof, and I am a glutton for big packs.) But the resulting looseness of the pack caused the ice block to bounce against my spine, and I soon regretted my brilliant plan to ensure cold water for the entire ride. Okay, it's going to a hurty sort of day. At least expectations were cemented early.

 Cresting a 2,500-foot hill was rewarded by a fun singletrack descent. As soon as we dropped into the woods, we were inundated with poison oak, which is flourishing in late spring moisture and had overgrown across the narrow trail like a poisonous tunnel. Yikes. Even though I was wearing pants, I skidded to a stop in front of the thickest patches so I could tiptoe through the minefield. Great, downhill hike-a-biking to go along with the uphill pushing. At least expectations were cemented early.

 The most fun sections were along the grassy hillsides, navigating barely-there trails across steep rollers. We'd plummet down one pitch and surge up the next, punching the pedals and breathing fire. I tended to lose heart while trying to pedal up the many steep fireroad climbs, but was more willing to give that extra rocket boost for singletrack, where it's more difficult to push a bike.

 For about two miles we followed the bed of Coyote Creek. For much of the year, the creek is dry and bikers just ride the cobbles. Dab-free lines are harder accomplish when there are several inches of water, and wet feet resulted in blisters later in the day.

Riding through hub-deep eddies and over wet cobbles made for one of the most fun sections of the route, although just as exhausting as the rest of it. Only about four percent of Coe is what one might consider flat, and even flat terrain provides little reprieve from the shoulder-burning climbs and focused technical descents. I feel the need to explain my outfit since it was visibly dorky. I wore hiking pants because baggy nylon is more effective than tights at warding off brushes with poison oak and stinging nettle, as well as another (as yet unidentified) spiny plant that I'm allergic to, and causes a rash when it cuts my skin. Hiking gaiters to keep out ticks. And sleeved elbow pads because I took a hard fall while running with Beat in Portola the day before, and bashed up my right elbow. This elbow has been extremely sensitive since I ripped it open in a mountain bike crash three years ago. Now, every time I fall on the scar tissue, the resulting bruising and bleeding hurts much more than it should. It already felt like raw nerves were exposed, and I feared another fall would render the arm too painful to use. The light elbow pads were a precaution against further damage, and three Aleve pills helped temper the remnant pain from my running crash.

 We diverged away from Coyote Creek and began the climb up Bear Mountain, on a fall-line road so steep it's ridiculous. Seriously, who drives up this stuff? First you climb 1,100 feet in one mile, and then proceed along a series of heartlessly steep rollers for the next two miles to gain a mere 300 extra feet of elevation. Mean, mean, mean. Liehann took the challenge to ride most of it. I had a tough walk, having just re-upped my water supply in Coyote Creek and feeling acute soreness in my shoulders and elbow. The upper body, as usual, needs work, which is why it's good to do such silly things as hike-a-bike training ... but also why I greatly prefer my hikes without bikes.

One of the early pitches of the Bear Mountain fire road. Hard to depict the steepness, really. Liehann did walk the sections that were nearly impossible (25-percent grades on loose dirt and chunky gravel.) But he did ride most of it, arriving at the top fifteen minutes before me.

 Bear Mountain is one of those places you can look around and see nothing but oak-dotted mountains and grassy hillsides, over every horizon. It's a cool spot to stand in coastal California.

 At the top of Bear Mountain, we had traveled a whole 23 miles in nearly six hours, after much strain and only enough stops to filter water and take a few snapshots. At this rate on our original planned route, we weren't going to find our way home until nearly midnight. So we made some route adjustments and cut out some trail to finish up with a rolling fireroad descent. I won't call it a long fireroad descent, because nothing in Coe is that flat. Every mile was punctured with multiple climbs of one or two hundred feet, and we didn't really start to lose elevation until the sun was low on the horizon.

Still, it was wicked fun, after such a grueling day, to just sit in the saddle and flow, even for a relatively short period of time. The ride clocked in at 45.5 miles with 8,200 feet of climbing, nine hours total and 7:51 of that moving time (I think moving time was actually higher than that. There were probably just times I was moving so slowly that GPS thought I was stopped.) Route map here.

There's something inherently ridiculous about working as hard as you can for nine hours to ride (and haul) a bike 45 miles, and yet also something so satisfying about it. I still wonder if I'd fare better on foot, but the next time I return to visit Coe, it will probably be with a bike. 

What's next

Wednesday was the target for a mid-week long ride — before I learned about the latest California heat wave that's making the rounds in weather news. High of 92 degrees, not so comfortable any time of year, but especially rough in the early season. Since I'm training to haul weight anyway, I figured I could go full-bore with the water — a gallon of liquid, half water and half solid ice, which would offer cold water access for the better part of a ten-hour day. Crowd-sourcing ideas on Twitter had netted a great route plan from a local road rider named Janeen. Road rides around here often fit in a unique space between true road cycling and mountain gravel grinding. This was that kind of route, bouncing along broken pavement and narrow backroads between Los Gatos and Santa Cruz.

Schulties Road was seemingly in the process of converting back to forest — badly eroded dirt with broken chunks of pavement and loose gravel. My mind hadn't made the conversion from mountain bike to road bike, and I was descending way too fast for skinny tires. I somehow narrowly avoided a spectacular crash when the rear wheel skidded and slipped sideways, forcing me to throw down a shoe and drag the dirt at about 20 mph. (Thank you, platform pedals, even if you seem ridiculous on a road bike. I probably would have terrible road rash right now if I had been clipped in at the time.) After that, descending slowly with both rim brakes locked resulted in a blister on my right palm.

But I do love long rides all to myself. As the heat bore down, I slipped into a peaceful headspace, mapping out my Iditarod race report in my mind. Images of Alaska, of Beat, of ice and snow and many happy and harrowing moments filtered through the present like sunlight through the trees. Sometimes I'd come to after miles-long lapses, still rolling under redwood trees and thinking, "My, this is pretty. Wow, is it hot." I ran out of my gallon of water, just as I was climbing a short diversion out of Santa Cruz at mile 75. Coping with being out of water was easy; I just disappeared into ice dreams until I found a nice city park to refill my huge bladder and eat a sandwich. Most of the day passed like this, actually. I tend to do my best writing when I'm out on a long, solo ride or run. Sadly, it disappears as quickly as it comes, like scrawling thousands of words with an inkless pen. I suppose that's appropriate for a long ride — writing only for the moment, and nothing more.

The park picnic returned me to normalcy long enough to realize that I had sustained a patchy but bad sunburn on my upper legs and hands, and a bunch of bug bites around my ankles. I was feeling feverish and bummed that I was out of cold water. Argh, summer, you are just not my ally. I called Beat to let him know that this ride was stretching out longer than anticipated (actually what really happened was a much-too-late start) and I was going to be home late, as usual. Twilight settled in as I crested the long climb up Mountain Charlie Road. Although heat remained, the lack of sun made me feel peppier, and I took a few longer diversions on the way home to stay away from traffic (and also, admittedly, to bump the distance up to 200 kilometers.) Total was 125 miles with about 11,000 feet of climbing. Only a couple of big climbs, but constant steep ups and downs. Route overview:

My training ... er, practicing plan right now calls for two long rides a week, one (and sometimes two!) rest days, and three runs. Because I opt to run with Beat as one of our favorite couples activities, these runs are typically not short or easy. My overall volume of activity is pretty high right now, but it's working well. I'm feeling stronger and experiencing fewer nagging issues, with the exception of sunburns and bug bites.

 On Sunday we joined Steve for explorations of the semi-secret trails through Teague Hill in Woodside. It was fun singletrack, steep and relatively technical for this region. We wrapped up the loop with a descent of the ironically well-established Lonely Trail. If I could practice descending Lonely Trail once a week, I would probably greatly improve my downhill running confidence — it's technical and steep but not to the level that makes me feel insecure enough to soft-step everything. Project for later.

On Monday, our friend Daniel from Colorado came to visit on business, and we went for a run to the top of Black Mountain via Rhus Ridge. Daniel is trying to convince me to stick with Hardrock this July. I suppose I haven't actually blogged much about that yet, nor what I'm currently training for  — the Freedom Challenge, a 2,300-kilometer mountain bike race across South Africa that follows a similar structure, albeit slightly more supported, as the Tour Divide. My friend Liehann had signed up for this June's event and wanted company; he's from South Africa and has participated in the Freedom Challenge before. A plan to ride with him took the edge off some uneasiness I had about being alone in rural parts of Africa. The landscape looks incredible, stark and diverse. I've never visited Africa, and this route takes riders through some definitively remote spots that will undoubtedly provide unique cultural experiences. Plus, June is winter there, which means challenging weather conditions. Frequent rain, possible snow, temperatures ranging from 20F to 90F, horrendous mud  ... just like Tour Divide! Freedom Challenge has more singletrack and more hike-a-bike sections as well.

I wrestled with it for a while but decided I couldn't justifiably turn down an opportunity to ride a mountain bike across South Africa for three weeks in favor of two days of grueling hiking/shuffling through the San Juan Mountains. Even Beat agrees, and has been amazingly supportive of the whole endeavor (he's even invented and is currently refining a little cue-sheet device to aid in navigation, which is a hugely daunting part of this race. No GPS allowed.) But Hardrock is a shot that only comes once in a lifetime, especially if you're me and don't plan to run qualifying hundred-mile races every year. I know I need to withdraw from Hardrock, but I can't bring myself to do so, as FOMO burns strong within. Schedule-wise I could participate in both, but would have no chance to acclimate to high altitude and thus almost no chance of actually finishing Hardrock. There's probably someone high on the wait list who will read this and start sending me thinly veiled death threats if I don't opt out soon. The culture surrounding Hardrock is funny like that.

Still, every day that I feel stronger on the bike, and every day that I spend more time staring at maps, and every little favor Beat does to help me get ready, have accumulated in zealous excitement about the Freedom Challenge. It's yet another amazing opportunity. I'm a lucky person, I get it. 

Practice makes perfect (fun)

 There was a time when I called the training I did "practicing." Sometimes I think I should go back to that term. Athletic training implies all kinds of complex notions —specificity, scheduling, structure, repetition, targeting, nutrition, rigidity ... Practicing, on the other hand, is comparatively simple. You want to improve something? Practice that exact thing. You want it to become second nature? Practice more.

 My friend Leah paid me a nice compliment as we climbed out of Tennessee Valley in the Marin Headlands on Thursday evening. "You seem stronger," she said. "I feel stronger," I replied. The difference between now and any other time in the past year is now I'm spending more time really practicing on the bike — putting in long days, climbing lots, carrying big packs, and piggybacking on a solid winter running base with an activity that I'm naturally stronger at. I still run during the week — keeping a base at about 15-20 miles per week — but the bike practicing has really improved since I got on the fat bike shortly after the Iditarod Trail Invitational seven weeks ago. During the winter, a nine-hour ride was fairly taxing; now I can do nine solid hours with lots of climbing and finish not even feeling sore.

Of course, the kind of "practicing" I do is what athletic trainers call base building — operating below lactate threshold as much as possible, keeping the heart rate moderate, and maintaining a steady pace throughout long hours in the saddle — i.e., not slowing down later on in the ride. It works for me to practice this, because it's exactly what I'd do every day of a multiday endurance effort . When you have little time to recover for the following day, you can't pump a bunch of lactic acid into your muscles and rev up the heart. Everything you do has to be sustainable if you can manage it (Sometimes, especially in Alps foot races, even the slowest you can possibly move is still unsustainable.) But it's interesting, because even though I'm doing nothing for my high end, the threshold of my moderate zone is increasing. I can go somewhat faster with the same effort; but, more importantly, I can go longer.

For Liehann's and my Saturday ride, I designed a mountain bike tour of Santa Cruz, linking up major trail systems — Henry Cowell, Pogonip, UC Santa Cruz, Wilder Ranch, Forest of the Nisene Marks, and Demo Forest (alas, my route was 100-percent legal. Santa Cruz has a lot of trail restrictions; as a result, there's an entrenched poaching culture complete with secret trails that I am not privy to, and not necessarily interested in getting caught up in the politics.) Starting from the intersection of Summit Road and Highway 17, it's about 74 miles with 9,400 feet of climbing. Route info here.

 Liehann on Mountain Charlie Road, a narrow and rough paved road that made for a swooping descent. We started the ride with a ten-mile downhill, which was a fun indulgence. I imagined that we were shuttled to the top and would only have to do that one descent all day. The thought actually made me feel grateful it wasn't the case, because how boring would that be?

 We made an effort to navigate by map again, with limited success. We have't found great maps of the region yet — our topo maps don't include street or trail names, and it's too easy to lose track of the route amid dozens of turns in urban areas. I had a lot more success with cue sheets and an odometer, although a couple of reroutes off my original track necessitated math for the remainder of the day.

 My favorite segment of the ride was Henry Cowell Redwoods, even though stupid rules nudged us off of the trails we planned to ride. We ended up on a makeshift reroute, no real idea where we were going, pedaling a rollercoaster of ridiculously steep climbs and descents through an enchanted forest.

 Crossing the San Lorenzo River, the perfect cap to our adventures through Henry Cowell.

 Wilder Ranch was a fast but bumpy descent along a grassy hillside, with one rainforest-like diversion on the Enchanted Loop Trail.

 Contouring the coast on a sandy farm road — another favorite of mine because it's all about the scenery, which is suddenly so different. Pelicans, sculpted bluffs, surfers, salty breezes, and waves crashing on rocks.

Sand Point Overlook, about midway through the long climb up Aptos Creek Fireroad. Here's yet another favorite — soft mulch dirt, traffic-free, mellow grades that make you feel like a powerhouse, more enchanted forest, and long-range views of the coast. I was feeling fresh for having ~50 miles on the legs already. I've been experimenting by eating less on long rides, as my own way of developing better fuel efficiency (useful for when unlimited calories aren't readily accessible for days or weeks.) On Saturday, I had only had a few handfuls of fruit and nuts by the time Liehann and I stopped for a picnic lunch at hour five of the ride. That was a little too low; I was ravenous and mowed through a ham sandwich and a giant rice crispy treat. After initially feeling icky with a full stomach, I had my sugar surge and powered up that climb feeling on top of the world.

The Braille Trail in Demonstration Forest. A little on the rutted side. This area is a popular shuttle spot and it was strange not to see another rider up here on a Saturday — although it was late in the day, and cool as well (45 degrees by the time we got back to the car.) I have deeply mixed feelings about technical trails, but I'm much happier when I have them all to myself and there's no one to witness me clunking around or to come screaming from behind. Every time I attempt techy riding I give more thought to the real value of improving my skills, at my age and with my inclinations. I think, "maybe someday I'll spend real time on this." But for now, I'm primarily a "bike tourist." I like dirt, off-the-beaten path routes, scenery, and distance. And I feel less and less need to apologize for anything else that doesn't fit into the mold of a specific type of cyclist.

Late evening on Highland Way. It was the perfect way to end the day, high on a ridge with views of the many places we'd just ridden. This was an aesthetic, fun loop, and I'm glad I've invented reasons to keep on practicing bikes.

Covering ground

When it comes to preparing for a long-distance bikepacking event or tour, long days in the saddle are a requisite part of physical and mental training. I'm not sure anyone has figured out an effective way around this yet — at least, not without significant butt, back, and leg pain. No matter how meticulously fine-tuned your machine of a body is, it still needs to adjust to being all hunched over and turning pedals continuously hour after long hour. But ... I've found ... eventually they do. And the results are wonderfully freeing. You find yourself thinking increasingly about "where can I ride today?" The sky (and daylight hours) are the limit! 

For obvious reasons of daylight hours ... and money ... relative proximity to where I reside is also a limit. But my goal for the next few weeks is to put in at least one, hopefully two longish rides every week, with a sub-goal to explore as many corners of the Santa Cruz Mountains as I can manage. I don't want to just ride the same two worn-out routes every week. I want to see new places. Enjoy some day tours. That's what bikes are for. The map shows the three routes I rode since last Monday — the left is my "Santa Cruz Century," the middle is a gut-buster of a gravel extravaganza that I called the "Quicksilver Grinder," and the right is a somewhat failed exploratory loop around Loma Prieta summit. I was able to cover quite a few new-to-me miles, not to mention a large cross-section of this little mountain range by the sea. 

Liehann joined for the Quicksilver Grinder. I warned him that at our comfortable day pace, this 70-mile loop was going to take nine or ten hours. I'm not sure he believed me, but meanness sets in quick. Two 2,500- and 3,000-foot climbs are packed with 16-percent-plus grades, and the second is on loose gravel, exposed to the hot sun, with rapacious little flies hovering in an insanity cloud. Six miles up the Priest Rock Trail in Sierra Azul took two hours, and I only actually hiked about a hundred meters — most of the time I was pedaling at < 3 mph. I relish in this sort of thing — spun out on some hot dirt road, drenched in sweat, clawing at the flies buzzing my ears, only to arrive at the summit with a cool breeze wafting through the brush, look out over the valley, and think, "Ah, that was so worth it!" Why do I think it was so worth it? That's a bit more difficult to articulate than the reasons why I thought it was hard. 

My accurate time estimate put us in Quicksilver in the late afternoon. I've been to Quicksilver once before and I remember the park having hills. Compared to El Sereno and Sierra Azul, Quicksilver is pancake flat, and Liehann and I thoroughly enjoyed our evening spin. We still had to ride 25 miles back through hilly suburban streets to get home, and that was admittedly less fun. We did, however, navigate the entire route solely with paper maps that had no street or trail names listed. I managed to keep the GPS turned off the entire time. It was a win on multiple levels. 

On Sunday I went for a run with Beat. He is not so interested in long day rides or tours right now (I'm still working on him in this regard), but it's still nice to get outside together. I am still adjusting — I would say not well — to California heat. I suppose I could adjust my habit of working out in the late afternoon, but morning workouts have never gone well for me, regardless of temperature. Still, I struggle when the mercury climbs above 80, and Sunday's run kept me drenched. I managed to suck down two liters of water in two hours. Drinking lots of water is one of the things I do to cope with heat, and it's not necessarily a positive thing. My head feels better but my body has to slosh through a lot of liquid while shedding salt. I basically need to figure out a strategy of not carrying so much water that I drink too much, while still having enough to stay hydrated and not run dry (which tends to freak me out.) Still, it was a beautiful afternoon, and Beat was happy with a mellow pace. 

I blocked out Monday afternoon for my second long ride. Luckily this afternoon was overcast and cool, and I had mapped out an exciting new route near a 3,700-foot mountain called Loma Prieta. The problem with creating new routes from maps and quick Google searches is that I can never be certain if my route is passable. In Alaska and Montana, the question was always, "Does this road or trail still exist or is it completely overgrown?" In California, the question is, "Is this road or trail open and legal?" The answer is usually no.

I ran into several closed signs (somewhat vaguely worded, I decided to interpret them as just prohibiting vehicles rather than bikes), and then finally a locked gate on Loma Prieta. I wasn't even planning to go to the top of the mountain, just around it. But my whole loop depended on that connection, so I had to revise. Without a GPS line to follow or maps, I struck out along a sandy road that rolled along a ridge. The steep up-and-down with sweeping views of Monterey Bay and the Salinas Valley proved to be a lot of fun despite a "no bikes" sign that someone had dubiously posted on their own property next to this public road. I descended a long way through a redwood canyon and ended up in the valley somewhere near Watsonville, meandering aimlessly because I didn't have a map. The only thing my GPS was really good for at that point was outlining the location of the sea. Luckily, vague memories pushed me toward Corralitos and Eureka Canyon, where I was able to find my way back up to Highland. I considered a quick jaunt around the downhill trails at Demo Forest, but remembered that even one loop there takes 90 minutes, and this ride was already pushing six hours, which is all I had blocked out for it.

I do love day touring. Exploring new places helps all of the hours and miles pass quickly, and before I know it, my butt is in excellent shape for some real distance. 

Lost. So lost.

I am working on improving my navigational skills. It is a terrifying prospect. In my early 20s, I leaned on friends to handle much of the route-finding on backpacking trips through Utah's canyon country. By my late 20s, I was leaning on GPS. I had my Atlas and USGS topographic maps to piece together mountain excursions in Juneau, bikepacking trips in Utah, and jeep road explorations in Montana — but GPS was always there to lend a friendly screen as I stared bewildered into the tree- or fog-obscured wilderness. Orienteering sounded to me like a not fun sport. Constant focus and translation of maps and non-specific gadgets like compasses and altimeters took away all of the fun of hiking. I like to just hike and look up. What's so wrong with that?

Lately I have been spending more time looking at maps and am beginning to read up on orienteering techniques. Completely unrelated to my map study, on Thursday I set up a plan to meet a friend in Berkeley in the late afternoon. In an effort to beat what can often be horrific traffic, I left two hours early and figured I could kill some time writing at a coffee shop. But then I thought it sounded better to head to Tilden Park for a quick, maybe hour-long run. I'd run with Ann in Tilden Park before, and I knew the general layout and a few specific trail sections. My car's GPS was not so helpful in finding a known trailhead; after accidentally crossing the first half of the Bay Bridge (yeah, I suck at freeway navigation, too), I meandered somewhat aimlessly toward the hills until I happened upon an entrance to the park. I looked at the clock. I still had time.

The trailhead post offered free trail maps. I studied the lines and contours and determined what looked like a great five- or six-mile loop, climbing up to a ridge, dropping into a canyon, and following a creek back to the trailhead. Easy Peasy.

Disorientation set in within a half mile. There were twisty turns and unmarked trail junctions, and yet somehow I made it to the ridge, ran along the smooth and comforting rollers with lots of landmarks in view, located the turn 2.5 miles in, and dropped into the canyon. After a half mile of twisty turns through the woods, I wasn't exactly sure whether I was running west or south, or whether I was even on a mapped trail. There weren't that many other trails on the map, but there seemed to be plenty of junctions. Yes, I get it. Maps are sort of useless without a compass. Another quarter mile across a rocky creek bed and back up a steep hillside had me questioning whether I'd even started where I thought I'd started, if I was still somewhere in Berkeley, or maybe space-time had transported me to southern Oregon or an oaken hillside in the year 1886. I mean, when you feel lost, you feel lost. The ridge was still up there somewhere, so I took the first opportunity to veer onto a fire road — not signed — and began to climb up a steep, grassy hillside.

Of course the climb was about a thousand feet. Of course I ran out of water. Of course I was behind schedule. I grabbed my cell phone to call my friend — not only to inform her I'd be late, but also hopeful that if I described my surroundings, she could tell me where I was — but there was no reception. Maybe I had been transported to 1886! But no, there were the shimmering skyscrapers of San Francisco. How the hell can I be lost in Berkeley, California? How have I gone so many years and so many adventures on my own, while remaining so bad at orientation and navigation?

Finally I gained a summit with a view of San Pablo Reservoir. This was the right ridge. I just needed to find my original route. The fireroad turned in the wrong direction, and impatience had me nearly slicing through brush flourishing with poison oak, but I held off until I located an intersection. Really, not that difficult. But it's funny how panicked I become when I don't understand exactly where I am. This does not bode well for improving my navigational prowess. Not at all.

Going back the exact way I came something like five miles later wasn't even completely straightforward. I didn't remember the trail being so narrow, so steep, so brushy. Maybe I just didn't remember. Ga! By the time I stumbled back to the trailhead, I buried my face in a drinking fountain for several minutes and then sheepishly made my way through the meandering streets to my friend's house. Maybe I could tell her I got stuck in traffic and no one would ever have to know. But no, shame is probably the only way I'm ever going to get any better at this.

Weekend on the move

After several years of self-experimentation, if one were to ask me what I believe to be the best training for maximizing endurance, my answer would be back-to-back-(etc.) long days on the move, with little time for recovery in between. Doing so forces one to approach greater sustainability, while learning how to increase efficiency, more accurately interpret body signals, and build all those activity-specific slow-twitch muscles. I like to mix up my two main sports (trail running and cycling) in order to reduce repetitive motion, which, thanks to my shrinking violet attitude toward speed, has been the main catalyst of my own sports injuries over the years. (Actually, this is untrue. Clumsiness and crashing have been by far the main catalyst of my own sports injuries. Lack of natural coordination is one of the largest reasons why I have such aversion to speed.) I enjoy my cross-training volume method because it keeps me healthy for a fair number of ambitious goals while spending large amounts of time outdoors, year-round. But don't ask me how fast I can run a 5K. It is probably not a whole lot faster than one-tenth of the time I can run 50K. 

Speaking of 50K, Beat and I decided to get back on the wagon this weekend with yet another Woodside Ramble. We really enjoy running these organized fifty-kilometer trail races, which, thanks to a large and dedicated trail-running population in the larger Bay Area, happen close by nearly every weekend. They're relatively inexpensive, put together nice courses, provide useful swag (50K shirts now comprise more than half of my sports wardrobe, and race mugs and pint glasses about three-quarters of our cup collection), snacks and drinks, post-race barbecue, and a fun community. Beat makes a new friend nearly every run. I prefer to run alone for a higher percentage of the time, but I had an enjoyable chat with a woman from Calgary named Iris, with whom I share a mutual friend, Leslie in Banff. Iris was conducting her own double-trouble weekend after running the Lake Sonoma 50-miler on Saturday. 

Beat and I look a little roughed up in the starting-line photo, for good reason. We both felt significantly sleepy, nauseated, sluggish ... I haven't felt worse before a run in a long time. That's another training benefit of signing up for racing events — it motivates you to get out there regardless of how terrible you feel, and that's how you learn that things usually get better if you just give it time. 

This Woodside Ramble was tough for me because I haven't run, actually run, more than eight miles in one stretch since before the Iditarod Trail Invitational, now nearly two months ago. I love running the trails in these parks (Huddart and Wunderlich), but I was nauseated, slightly bonked because I wasn't eating due to nausea, and severely lacking in mojo during this run. Many times, even on descents, I caught myself unconsciously slowing to a walk because blah, running. I probably would have quit due to lack of interest if I'd just been out on my own time, and I'm glad I had the self-motivating perimeters of the race to stay in it. It's satisfying to learn that even "blah" legs are usually plenty strong, and the "spring slump" I've come to expect is likely less related to real physical setbacks than it is a simple failure of mojo. It's hard for me to return from Alaska to the heat and more routine outdoors opportunities of my home in California. I do enjoy it here, but any return to routine takes a period of adjustment after more engaging adventures. 

Speaking of mojo recovery, I got up bright and (not so early) Monday morning for an exciting road route I mapped out a few months ago and never got around to riding, a "Santa Cruz Century." I bumped the long ride back to Monday rather than Saturday, because I was scared enough of trying to run fifty kilometers that I wanted to do it on relatively fresh legs. This loop from my house weighed in at 105 miles with 11,200 feet of climbing, and covered quite a few new-to-me roads. I love riding secondary roads in the Santa Cruz Mountains for their narrow corridors, lack of traffic, and scenic settings. I tend to forget about frequent 15+ percent grades, teeth-rattling broken pavement, relentless hairpin turns, and surprising (for a Bay Area road route) lack of services. On a hot day like Monday (84 degrees) I actually have to haul three liters of water and most of the day's food. I only expected one gas station stop, in Felton.   

Christmas tree farm on Skyline Ridge. A bit like riding through Alaska's Farewell Burn, but about 100 degrees warmer with much prettier trees. 

Zaynte Creek. Much of the road cuts a precarious side-slope above a steep gorge, with aforementioned broken pavement and hairpins. I am not brave on skinny tires by any stretch of the imagination, and knotted up all the muscles in my shoulders while brake-throttling the descent. 

I stopped in Felton to fill up my water bladder with ice and buy a package of Famous Amos cookies and cheese pretzel Combos (I make the strangest gas station food choices on bike tours. I usually question them the moment I step outside.) I didn't eat anything right away because the heat was bearing down and my stomach was feeling iffy again. After Felton, I immediately had to start up another 2,000-foot climb on the relentless grades of Felton Empire Road. Ooof. 

I continued climbing through the redwood forest on Ice Cream Grade, and arrived at this small mesa that was much drier than the surrounding region, with sandstone cliffs and sparse fir trees. It looked a lot like the high desert mesas of Northern New Mexico. It's fascinating how widely climate zones can vary in short distances in this region. Spring was just beginning to arrive, with ferns emerging from the brown brush. 

It was a swift drop to the coast, with an impressive headwind blasting down Highway One. Northwest is the prevailing wind; I should have anticipated it, but I did not. At this point I was feeling fairly shattered, was looking forward to some flat miles, and was not thrilled to realize that the 25-30 mph headwinds would demand a harder fight than much of the climbing, and it was going to go on like this for the better part of 25 miles. Oooof. 

A little jog over Swanton Road allowed me to escape the coast but not the wind. It was an idyllic setting though — a shallow but narrow canyon filled with strawberry farms and happy-looking horses. 

I could not wait to turn east and start climbing into the mountains again. Even climbing a 15-percent grade is better than fighting strong headwinds on a highway. I started having similar urges to my walk breaks during the Woodside Ramble, when the legs just wanted to give up and do something — anything — else. Here's where the mantra "shut up legs" comes in handy; "you're not that weak, stop pretending and keep pedaling."

 I had this delusion that I could wrap up this ride in eight hours because, "road century." But the effort was not easier mile-for-mile than mountain biking, and with breaks the duration of the ride was creeping closer to ten hours. Ah well. It was a long climb out of Pescadaro and Alpine roads, with a 700-foot descent that I conveniently forgot about.

At least there was a nice sunset to reward staying out late.

And then the moon came out; I just missed the lunar eclipse. It was a few hours later. I expected to feel more tapped out toward the hundred-mile mark, but emerging darkness perked me up, I finally got down the ham sandwich I had been carrying all day, and the reality is I could have gone quite a bit farther. That's both the benefit and technique of building "forever pace," in my experience. The ability to keep going is the ability to keep seeing and experiencing. 

Iditarod playlist

Someone recently asked me about the music I listened to during my recent races — an Iditarod playlist. Listening to music while exercising, training, or racing outdoors is a controversial subject. Some people are adamantly against it, and those who object to racing playlists often carry the assumptions that those who need music are emotionally weak, bored, or trying to drown out fatigue and pain. They accuse us of shutting out the world, but I don't see it that way at all. I don't use music to shut out experiences; I use it to enhance them. I connect with music much in the same way I connect with wilderness, and in my view, music and outdoor experiences intensify each other in equal parts. 

 I don't listen to music all of the time — perhaps not even most of the time during a multiday effort — but I still consider it a vital part of my experience. As such, I carried four iPod Shuffles for the 350-mile trek to McGrath, all loaded up with different playlists. There was one Shuffle that I filled days before the race with mostly new-to-me music, and a few of those songs resonated deeply during the Iditarod. It became by far my favorite Shuffle, and I ended up just recharging that one (with a battery-powered charger) and listening to it throughout the seven days I was out on the Iditarod Trail. Although there were more than 200 songs on that Shuffle and well over 800 total, if I were to pick an "Iditarod playlist," this would be it. Included are photos Beat took during our time together on the trail. 

"Black Out Days," Phantogram

If I was looking for two ongoing themes in my favorite songs during difficult endurance efforts, most are either outright silly or high-energy yet tinted with sadness. I suppose it makes sense. Emotions can be greatly exaggerated out on the trail. Music gave shape to the melancholy, while at the same time outlining an underlining joy. I remember this Phantogram song first came on during the first night of the journey, as we crossed the Dismal Swamp beneath green waves of Northern Lights. The moon was out and the trail was distinct enough that I could turn off my headlamp and walk through the darkness, gazing over my shoulder at the aurora for a long while. I often sang out loud when the lyrics resonated: "If I could paint the sky; Would all the stars shine a bloody red?"

"Reflektor," Arcade Fire

The entire Iditarod Trail is lined with reflective route markers, either permanently affixed to trees and tripods, or tied around wooded lath in the snow. During the long winter nights, these reflectors capture even the dim light of headlamps from a long distance away. Finger Lake, at mile 135, is a checkpoint at the end of a long series of frozen swamps. All of these swamps look the same, and it's the kind of place where you think you've arrived about three hours before you're actually there. As we made our way through the interminable swamps, every distant reflective marker somehow convinced me it was the lights of the lodge. Of course "Reflector" provided the perfect score for every mild disappointment I experienced when I realized I was wrong: "I thought I found a way to enter. It's just a reflector. I thought I found a connector. It's just a reflector." At one point, Beat was several hundred yards ahead and I indulged in singing loudly: "It's just a reflection! Of a reflection! Of a reflection! Of a reflection! ..."

"Jump Rope," Blue October. 

"Jump Rope" is one of those songs that just landed on my iPod, and I hated it at first. It annoyed me so much. My Shuffle was usually stuffed beneath all of my clothing layers, pressed against my skin to keep the battery warm. But if I could reach it at all, I would skip this song. For whatever reason, the random song generator really liked this one; it came on a lot. One day, we were making our way over a series of snowmobile moguls on the trail and I found myself mumbling, "Up, down, up, down, up, down, yeah ... it will get hard." After that, I became hooked on the blatant motivational theme and catchy repetitiveness.

"How Can You Swallow So Much Sleep?" Bombay Bicycle Club

Sometimes, amid the physical exhaustion and encompassing focus on forward motion, I imagined the Iditarod Trail as a sentient entity that would converse with me, without prompting.  This song is a good example of how I interpret my imaginary and often abstract conversations with the Iditarod Trail. I would pose a rhetorical question like the one presented in the title, and the Iditarod Trail would answer with repetitive prodding and incessant demands — "Can I wake you up? Can I wake you up? Is it late enough? Is it late enough?"

"Good 4 It," Wallpaper

This song has a line about "zombie phone" that for whatever dumb reason made me giggle every time. It also contained more resonant lyrics than that: "How to stay alive though? How the f*** should I know?"

"Leave it Alone," Broken Bells

I had a tough morning the day we traveled between Finger Lake and Puntilla Lake, miles 130 to 165. Monotone clouds and light snow deteriorated to fog and moderate sleet, and then rain. The cold soaking weather, combined with dreary skies, lack of views in what I knew to be a beautiful region, and day three (or was it four) fatigue, sapped away any energy or willpower I could muster for sled-dragging and made the miles seem endless. This song was the perfect rainy day anthem. "Could it all be over now? We've seen it all the while ...  There's no dimension to the clouds ... And the moon and world around.  That's the heart of all my pain ...  cause I don't wanna go ... Oh the distant light ... in a hue we can't describe, still we know."

"Lies," Chvrches

This was a good marching song. I also imagined it as the Iditarod Trail taunting me, which the Iditarod Trail often did in my imagination. "I can sell you lies ... You can't get enough ... Make a true believer of anyone, anyone, anyone."

"I Gotta Feeling," The Black Eyed Peas

The day after it rained, we crossed over the the far side of the Alaska Range. Several days of warm temperatures absolutely scoured the already-dry region of snow, as well as a lot of its surface-coating ice. For fifty miles we hacked through knee-deep alder tangles, standing water on top of glare ice, bare dirt, roots, ankle-deep mud, wet swamps, tussocks, and shin- to knee-deep stream crossings. This wouldn't have been a terrible trail to backpack if it was a warm day in the summer, and we were carrying backpacks rather than dragging 45- and 75-pound sleds over endless obstacles. The sled-dragging part was always my weakness in this endeavor; I never became terribly strong at it in the best of conditions, and in the worst I was absolutely at my physical limit just to maintain forward motion on the steep rollers along the South Fork of the Kuskokwim River. We covered two miles in a good hour. In a bad hour, sometimes closer to one.

After a series of stream crossings, some of my gear had gotten wet, my shoes and socks were soaked, my sled was filled with greasy mud, my head was spinning, and I knew that the temperature could possibly drop to 30 below overnight — as it is known to do in the Farewell Burn in February. I had a complete, mucousy, blubbering breakdown spurred by paralyzing fear and frustration, that Beat was unfortunate enough to witness. Shortly afterward, iPod brought up this Black Eyed Peas song. Knowing that we were going to be spending that night sleeping on muddy ground in the Burn, with soaked feet and gear, in an area where there probably wasn't enough snow to make more water, made this song even more wistfully relatable — "I gotta feeling. That tonight's gonna be a good night." I must have repeated it eight or ten times, using the catchy beat to motivate my body to pull harder over the roots and tussocks. I sang out loud to the part where they repeated all the days of the week — "Get with us, you know what we say, say ... Party every day ... p-p-p-party every day." ... Because that's what we do on the Iditarod Trail. :)

"Last Words," Hospitality

Another haunting song that got me through some long miles. It was beautiful amid the frozen swamps, far-sweeping horizons and spindly spruce forests of the Farewell Burn.

"Army of the Damned," Lonewolf

Beat and I agree that this death metal song is the perfect anthem for walking to Nome.  But it's appropriate for all frozen-purgatory marching occasions.

"Roar," Katy Perry. 

Yeah. I pretty much had to go there.

"Team," Lorde

One the final stretch into McGrath, I operated in a dreamlike state of mind. I was slightly low on food and rationing calories, and discovered there was a peaceful place between alert and bonked, where time lost meaning, landscape features blurred, and everything seemed magical. As Beat and I traveled the wide expanse of the Kuskokwim River, we began to approach another walker who was about a mile ahead. We knew it had to be our friend Steve, who left Nikolai the previous night just as we were arriving. While in Nikolai, Steve made a phone call and learned that his father had died, and was justifiably emotional. Rather than rest in the remote village, he opted to leave not long after sunset, facing a long night on the river in order to reach McGrath and fly home. The fact that we had caught up to him many hours later, and after what had been a cold night (20 below), raised some concern. It needn't have, as Steve just needed to be alone when he left Nikolai, and had bivied for several hours on the trail. But I was worried he was distraught or in distress on top of everything else, and Beat seemed determined to catch him. We power-hiked on the verge of running for 45 minutes, and again I was at my physical limits on rationed calories and a child-like emotional state. During that hard march, Lorde's "Team" seemed to score the strange combination of stress and bliss. "And you know, we're on each other's team."

"Happy," Wrens

The temper tantrum that erupted while listening to this song is one of my most prominent memories from my first trip to McGrath in 2008. I put it on the playlist of all four of my iPods for that reason, but in the strange way Shuffles work, "Happy" did not come up once until the final day — in almost the same spot as my 2008 emotional eruption on the Kuskokwim River. Hearing this song in a similar location but very different context underscored just how different my journey had been this time around. It was a fitting finale to my 2014 playlist as well.