Geoff crushed Wasatch 100!

"I really pushed myself to break 20 hours and came up a minute short," Geoff told me over my mom's cell phone at 11:04 p.m. Alaska time, mere minutes after he cruised in to Midway, Utah, to win the Wasatch 100. He was ahead of 260-odd runners, and a stacked field at that.

I left the house at 10 a.m. in a thick, low-lying fog, knowing the weather report called for partly clear and hoping to find the sun somewhere. I planned to hike up Mount Juneau, but at the last minute veered north for Heinzelman Ridge, my mountain nemesis. I have tried a few times to climb to this ridge and every time become lost, once hopelessly lost. Heinzelman was one of my selling points when I was trying to convince myself to buy a GPS. The approach is a maze of multiplying trails. Too many times I have pushed through thick devil's club and knee-deep swamps and wished I could just relocate my original path. I just wanted to find my way back. But finding my way to the top - that would be the ultimate reward.

If two paths diverged in a wood, I would always choose the wrong one. That is just who I am. And so it was today, following the path I chose until it petered to nothing. And in my usual elevation-hording stubbornness, I continued to press upward through the thick brush and thorns, hoping to find another trail. When that didn't pan out, I moved to turn back in defeat, but thought better of it. This time, I had GPS. I pulled it out and visualized a direct path to the tongue of Thunder Mountain. I bushwhacked deeper into the devils club swamps and blueberry bushes bulging with purple berries, calling out to the lurking bears: "Hey Bears! Sorry to trespass in your territory. I'm just looking for the human trail, and I'll be on my way."

I first checked Geoff's Wasatch 100 standings at 9 a.m. Alaska time. He had just left a place called Sessions Lift Off, at mile 28 of his run. "I should go hiking today," I thought. "Even if this fog doesn't lift." I thought Geoff's struggle called for at least a little solidarity.

Streams of sunlight started to push through the fog, and I knew I had hit the upper reaches of the clouds. I was coated to my knees in slime and mud; luckily my shoes had stayed attached to my feet in several of the deeper bogs. I assumed I'd just try to reach sunlight and turn back the way I came, following my GPS line home. I never expected to find the real trail. What were the chances that in all of this big mountain, we'd ever meet again? But as I crossed an open meadow, I saw a strip of blue plastic tied around a tree. When I approached it, I saw footprints.

My parents drove all the way from Sandy to Brighton to see Geoff off at his 75-mile checkpoint. "How many chances do you get to see this?" my mom said as she called me at work. Geoff had already come and gone, "But he had some soup and he talked for a few minutes to the checkers," she said. "They thought that was so funny that he was chatting with them. They kept telling him to hurry up because he's in first place!"

Tree line is where the fog finally let go, and for the first time I had a perfect view of the sweeping space above me and the white bright world below. The mountain tundra was splashed in fall color amid the lingering greens of summer - an intense, almost iridescent mixture of color and light surrounding the spine of Heinzelman Ridge, and I couldn't believe I found it.

My mom and I talked excitedly as though Geoff had his race in the bag at mile 75, but I couldn't shake my concern. I remember seeing him elated and strong at mile 75 of the 2007 Susitna 100. Then I passed him, several hours later, on my bike at mile 88. It was well after 2 a.m. I shined my headlamp in his face, which was strained and gray. His hat was coated in frost. His eyes had that clouded-over look of a corpse, and he didn't even say hello, as if he didn't know I was there. "How are you feeling?" I asked him. "I'm hurting," was all he said. I pedaled with him for a while, but he gestured like he wanted me to move on. "Do you need anything?" I asked. "No," he said. There wasn't anything I could do to help him, and even as my right knee popped and screamed, I had this sense that I didn't understand the first thing about hurting. That was Geoff's first 100-mile run. He fell to the snow when he reached the finish line.

"There were no low points in this run," Geoff told me at the Wasatch 100 finish line. "Even in my Resurrection Pass training run, I had low points. So this was really nice." He was audibly glowing, and I wished I was there to see it. My mom took the phone back and informed me that he was dripping sweat at it was 1 a.m. and cold and he was going to go change his clothes. Geoff's official finishing was just 30 minutes shy of the official course record. As of the time I published this blog post, an hour and 10 minutes after Geoff won the race, the second-place finisher had not come it yet.

Geoff's final stats for the day: 100 miles; 26,131 feet elevation; 20:07 finishing time. My final stats for the day: 7 miles; 3,254 feet elevation; 3:45 duration. Obviously, there's no way to make a comparison, but still ...

You can't beat those few moments in the sun.

Dead end

Date: Sept. 5
Mileage: 127.4
September mileage: 213.2

Today I set out to ride what I called the "Dead End Tour" - pedaling to the end of every major road in Juneau and back: Douglas Highway, Thane, Mendenhall Glacier, Echo Cove. The weather was on the nice side of mostly cloudy, so it was not hard to get revved up about heading out for a long ride. I purposely set the start time at 10:30 so I would have a time crunch on top of the distance goal. I had eight hours before I needed to be home and in the shower in time to make it to my friends' house for dinner. That meant I was going to have to keep a solid pace of 16 mph and not take more than a couple short breaks.

The pace started out hard at first; I was not feeling fantastic for most of the Douglas Island leg. But by the time I hit the mainland, my energy level started to improve. After two hours, I ate my first Power Bar, even though I didn't feel like eating it, in keeping with my vowed fuel regimen of at least one Power Bar every two hours. By the time I returned from Thane and moved into the long leg at mile 43, I felt like my day was just getting started.

The next leg, all 80 miles of it, was about as ideal as a road bike ride can be for me. It was painless without being too slow, and fun without being too easy. I was lost in thought for much of the ride, looping through an onslaught of memories and considerations and daydreams, only to snap back to reality in a rush of endorphins and realize I was climbing a hill at full bore. Without even thinking too much about it, I was keeping my odometer consistent, using the solitude time to think about my life, quietly observing the first changing colors of autumn and the elaborate cloud formations, and devouring the glut of happy chemicals that stack up whenever I turn pedals for long spans of time. It was a perfect ride ... the kind of ride in which I feel both elated and relaxed ... the kind of ride that makes me wonder why anyone would use illicit drugs when it's possible to feel this way naturally. It really didn't feel like 127 miles and it certainly didn't feel like eight hours. I had to shoot the picture just to be sure.

I walked in the door thinking, "Wow, I'm not it too bad of shape right now. Eight hours consistent and not feeling wasted, not even really feeling all that off ... I could certainly go much longer." That happy realization and the good mood it created might have lasted all evening if I just neglected to check my e-mail before heading to dinner, but no, I had to check my e-mail. I got the final word from my boss. I can't take that first full week in October off. The answer was no.

Which means no Trans Utah for me.

Talk about an enormous buzz kill. Beyond the excitement about the event itself, it's the thing that's gotten me out there in the rain and wind and eight-hour road extravaganzas, much of which I've been reluctant to do and which I've struggled through parts, but most of which has been ultimately rewarding and a huge motivator to keep me happy through the long work days, especially now that I'm living alone with four cats again. It's easy to say that I could endurance train anyway, without Trans Utah on the horizon, but it's harder in practice without that carrot on a stick. Plus, this is just another one of those things that cause me to ask myself ... why am I living alone with four cats and working so hard just to have my only reward be to work harder? Not that I'm about to join Geoff in the alternate lifestyle of living out of my car and running ultras, but the question does linger.

Maybe something to think about on my next long ride.

By the way: Geoff is out running the Wasatch 100 as of 5 a.m. MDT Saturday! I think the race is posting live results here.

My Sarah Palin experiences

I'm not about to use my bike blog to air my political views about the 2008 election or the speeches in the Republican National Convention, although I have to admit, I'm always disappointed by the weight given to the delivery of political speeches when what matters is the content, and the convictions behind the content. But no! That's not why I'm writing this quick post. I have an hour to burn before I head out for my day-long bike ride, and it seems all the cool Alaska bloggers are blogging about Sarah Palin these days, so I thought I'd take my turn, and share my own Palin anecdotes. Especially now that I'm receiving e-mails from strangers about it.

How well I know Sarah: I've never actually met the woman or spoken to her, although I did pass up several Juneau meet-and-greets. I've only seen her twice walking down the street, always with young aide-type people, never with a huge body-guard contingent. A good friend of mine works right above Sarah's office in the building opposite the Capitol. She told me she can look out her window and see our governor typing away at her computer. She said if she were a sniper, she'd have a direct shot. I wonder now if she sort of wishes she took it. (Kidding, kidding.)

The eBay jet: Now we have another popular talking point, the unpopular jet purchased by the people of Alaska for one greedy former Gov. Frank Murkowski, which our hero Sarah Palin put up for sale on eBay to protest big bad self-centered government. Geoff and I actually bid on this jet last fall, pledging our eBay accounts to purchase the plane for a cool $1.4 million. Unfortunately, we did not meet the state's reserve price. Nor did anyone else. The jet never sold on eBay. I'm not sure how the state got rid of it - probably through a licensed broker.

The Bridge to Nowhere: Sarah Palin's flip-flop on this issue is inarguable. She undoubtedly told residents of Ketchikan that she supported building the Gravina Bridge before the 2006 election, then took all the federal money, said Alaska wasn't ready to build the Gravina Bridge, and distributed it to other state highway projects. One topic I'm surprised hasn't come up more is Juneau's "Road to Nowhere," a road that would do little more than carry our ferry terminal 70 miles north and cost several hundred million dollars to build. Palin also supported this project during the election, then immediately squashed all of Murkowski's hard-fought recon work and abandoned the road project as soon as she took office.

Juno from Juneau: Yup, I've even been receiving e-mails about Bristol. I'm surprised more evil liberal blogger attention isn't being paid to how strange all of the Palin kids' names are. My friend has this theory that each Palin child was named after the place where he or she was conceived. Track is a place Sarah Palin used to run around when she was a high school athlete. Bristol is a popular place to be a commercial fisherman. Willow is the Mat-Su Valley town that almost became our state's capital during the last big capital-move push. Piper is an airplane. And Trig ... he's still trying to figure that one out. Levi is a popular name in Utah, with Mormon origins. But my friend found the baby daddy's MySpace page, and he can say with confidence that Levi is definitely a product of Wasilla. Not sure what that means ...

Well, it's about time for me to go for my ride. Sorry for this random post. I couldn't resist.

Tasty Thursday

Date: Sept. 3
Mileage: 32.5
September mileage: 85.8

Brian and I had a successful day out at South Island - three silvers and a baby halibut, and enough failed action to keep us rushing around the small boat for the better part of the day. Part of the draw for me was a chance to motor all the way out to a point 20 miles south of Juneau, down Stephens Passage and along the Glass Peninsula - places I have never seen, as close as they are to my home. New space is always appealing, whether I get there on a bike or in a fishing boat, and if I can venture outside the all-inclusive border of the City and Borough of Juneau, all the better.

On the way back to town, the prop on Brian's motor spun out and broke. Brian was pretty bummed about it as we limped back into port at trolling speed. "This probably ends my season," he said. Special-order part that could take a couple weeks to come ... then the fix ... and by then the big storms of fall will have settled in. Just as I started to say something sympathetic, Brian said, "This would be like someone running over Pugsley." The quieted me down, because I finally understood what he was losing with his broken boat. It's interesting how much happiness stock we put in our toys - not that I think that's a bad thing. Just interesting.

But even Brian agreed today wasn't a bad way to end the fishing season - drifting through the mist to a point in the world that you can still have all to yourself for an entire day. That we caught a healthy number of fish during a time when no one's been catching much was a bonus. I grilled up a halibut fillet for dinner. Since Geoff left town in mid-August, I'd have to say that halibut was the first real meal I cooked for myself, and one of only about three home-cooked dinners I've eaten. There are few things more satisfying than coming home wet and cold from a long day of fishing, changing into something soft and dry (with thick wool socks), tossing up a big veggie salad with a fruit salad on the side for dessert, and pan-frying a two-hour-old halibut slab to perfection. I use safflower oil and a little lemon, salt and pepper. That's all you need. Then purposely undercook it, just a little. It's like eating a moist, warm cloud ... a cloud that's tart, rich and satisfying. Fresh halibut is hard to wreck, so for someone like me who doesn't cook, preparing something that's so delicately delicious is especially enjoyable.

I renewed my gym pass tonight and spent 80 minutes after dinner running intervals to try to burn off the pound of halibut I inhaled. I had hoped to save my money and do all of my fall training outside, but I had a change of heart and decided not to be a hero about it. I'm recognizing that training 100 percent outside during the fall is probably just a quick road to burn-out, so I'm going to take indoor breaks from time to time.

Then and now

Top of Mount Juneau, looking toward the Treadwell Gold Mine and the Gastineau Channel; U.S. Geological Survey Photographic Library, circa 1906.

Top of Mount Juneau, looking toward Douglas and the Gastineau Channel; Aug. 5, 2008.

Sometimes, we I feel like I'm approaching a threshold of change, I like to step back and think about the things that don't change.

Transitions

Date: Sept. 1 and 2
Mileage: 25.0 and 28.3
September mileage: 53.3

I blogged last week about my goal of trying to put in a heavy-duty week of harder training to see how my fitness is holding up. The training didn't go quite as planned - I had a little mental burnout in the rain on Thursday and being called in to work prevented me from completing a long ride on Friday. But overall, it has been going well. I have been seeking out hills and riding them harder, heading out earlier and riding longer, and recovering well after long hikes, which is where I get my real climbing in (and build those oh-so-under appreciated hike-a-bike muscles.)

Why am I doing all this? Well, I mentioned a month or so ago about my interest in heading down to my home state in October to ride Trans Utah. I still want to do it. My big obstacle is still acquiring the time I need off work, which I am working on (gently) with my boss, but that's still a huge 'if.' If I can get the time off work, though, I've decided I want to do it. There are a lot of reasons why I shouldn't do it, and a few more reasons why I probably won't be able to, but still the desire lingers. I have yet to get my redrock fix this year, and imagining the warm glow of evening light sweeping across sandstone vistas as I roll along a rim on my mountain bike makes me more than wistful - it makes me jittery. Until the desert isn't just something I want. It's something I need.

But since Trans Utah is hard and will kill me if I don't get the best gauge I can on my base fitness level, I have to train a little right now on the off chance I can go.

These past two days have been relatively mellow, but I am going to try to ramp it up again for the rest of the week. Dave H. posted the ride stats today, so I have a lot to motivate me:

Elevation. The low elevation is 2,500 feet. Low elevation. Where I live, if you're at 2,500 feet, you're above treeline. I do almost all of my bike training below 1,000 feet. Which means the high elevation of 10,200 feet is going to hurt. Probably a lot. Not much I can do about that now; just hoping my formerly-mountain-dwelling cells have some kind of biological memory.

44,700 feet of climbing. That's just crazy talk. But I actually think I'm in pretty good shape for climbing. Not that I've put in any 10,000-foot days lately, but I'm recovering well from my harder climbs, and I am also pretty good at maintaining a steady (read: slow) pace through varying grades. If I can somehow put up with the heat, hydration and altitude, I think I'll be OK for the climbing.

320 miles. I'd like to do it in six days or less. If I go into it and this doesn't seem at all possible, I'll go as far as I can reasonably go in six days and take the most convenient bail-out. I can honestly say that I am not headed to Utah for any kind of supreme personal challenge or race. I am headed to Utah to go to Utah. The fact that Dave H. spent the past year drawing up a specialized mountain bike tour through some of the most beautiful country in the world is the big draw.

Gear. Lots of fun stuff to acquire. There is still the question of whether or not Geoff is going to do this ride. If he doesn't, I have nearly everything I need. But I am still hoping he has a change of heart and decides to ride with me. He's worried because he's not in any kind of cycling shape; he's had a pretty tough fall training season for the Wasatch 100 and a tough one ahead for the Iditarod Invitational 350. I keep trying to convince him that even my ambitious cycling pace is still supremely mellow compared to what he does. But if he doesn't go, I'll be able to use his sleeping bag, SPOT tracker, water filtration system and my own Epic Designs bags. All I'll need to figure out is food.

Bike. I have to figure out how to get my Karate Monkey in prime shape and in Utah. Given how much I despise Fed Ex, this is not going to be easy.

I have prepared much less for much longer bike tours and made it through OK. I think this could be a humbling and exhilarating experience, whether I do it alone or with Geoff. So I really hope it can work out.

Lost on Blackerby Ridge

There are a lot of gray areas to the state of being lost, but the moment of realization is always definitively clear. Gut-piercingly sharp and as heavy as lead, it's the moment you realize what it means to have absolutely no idea where you are.

To have no idea whether you're moving forward or back the way you came.

To have no idea which way is safe and which way is going to drop you straight off a cliff.

To have no idea what's more than five feet in front of you, because everything beyond that is fully shrouded in fog.

And it's hard not to panic. It's hard.

And I probably would have panicked, however briefly, however unjustified it would have been. I probably would have panicked had I not been hiking with a friend who I had invited (i.e. tricked) into heading up with me early this morning because "the fog is supposed to burn off. It did yesterday. It will today." I would have panicked if he hadn't been there, having equally no idea where we were, and following me with full faith.

I did not want to lose face. So I gulped it down. I death gripped my GPS. Even viewed from the 500-foot setting, my dotted path was a mess of curvy, crossing lines created when my friend and I lost each other briefly. There were times we double-backed. Then we would move forward a little more. We were so close to the base of the peak I have wanted to reach since 2006, but it was always too far away. Today, we were close. So close. I could see it. On my GPS screen. But everything else was fog. Just fog.

But it wasn't until shortly after I decided it was still too far away for today and turning around that the reality of the fog sunk in. The line of the wide ridge was invisible. Its rising and dropping contours were distant memories. We were nowhere. And it was so disorienting that I only had to turn around once, and suddenly I didn't remember whether I had made a 180-degree turn, or a 360. I did not know if I was facing up the ridge or down it, or maybe looking off to the side toward an unknown drop-off. There was no discernible trail, no landmarks. There was only my GPS, and its confusingly erratic dotted line that marked the way we came, so I had to follow it.

After a mile or so of successfully sticking to my electronic "trail," I became overconfident and stopped paying attention. We diverged off a side ridgeline and walked down it until we came to a sloping dead end. We were dropping too far. I held up by GPS and saw the big "Y" it had drawn. I had no idea how far the ridge dropped below us, or whether it was possible to reconnect. So, with panic bubbling back up my gut, we backtracked.

After that, I did not take my eyes off GPS. Hiking was like playing a video game, trying to trace the existing line as perfectly as possible and losing hard-earned anti-panic points any time I veered too far away from it. I loved that dotted black line. I love my GPS.

And I hate being lost. It's interesting how unsettling it is even when you have a GPS or compass - it's the sinking feeling that you are no longer able to rely on yourself. You are no longer in control of your situation. I have no doubt that had I not had the GPS with me, we would have been wandering in circles on top of that ridgeline until the clouds lifted or night fell, whichever came first. And I can all-too-clearly imagine the urge to panic in a situation like that ... well, did I mention I love my GPS?

I love my GPS.

And I've learned my lesson about hiking in fog. I had no concept before of just how truly disorienting it is. Plus, it's pointless. Nothing to see, no reason to go. GPS told me that we ended the day with 5,700 feet of vertical elevation gain and about 12 miles of hiking (its slow-moving mileage readings never seem even close to accurate, so I usually go by map estimates.) The whole debacle took seven hours, but it was pretty mellow aerobically. Add to that my three hours of Mount Jumbo on Saturday, with 3,300 of climbing and five miles of walking, and I've had a full weekend. Feels like my "high-impact" fitness is right where it needs to be - knees feel strong, legs feel strong. Hip flexors are a little sore (my hips seem to be a particularly weak point in my weight-bearing fitness. Need to work on those.) But the thing I feel best about is just being off that $%&@! mountain.

I love my GPS.