Today on my run

Sunday morning arrived beneath a smear of fog. It was a typical morning-after-a-hard-workout type of morning. I hadn't slept all that well from the recovery process of the six-hour run/power-hike the day before. The sky was gray, the temperature in the low teens, and I just wanted to do December stuff like curl up with my cat, shop online for Christmas presents and make peppermint hot chocolate (this last statement is just a jab at Beat, who thinks that the mint chocolate flavor is an American abomination.) Really, I was somewhat excited to get out for another run, but Beat suggested we do a route with a much higher ratio of running to postholing than Saturday, and I knew our only real option with the time we had available was a similar route. So I agreed to return to Mount Sentinel, rather reluctantly, because it was the weekend and it was time for adventure and what the heck were we doing with this training thing?

We decided to mix it up by taking a new trail, the Hellgate Trail. We ran 4.5 miles from my house on the bike path, then started up the mountain. We were immediately surrounded by tall, snow-crusted pines that nearly blocked out the groan of I-90 traffic, directly below us. It's a starkly different view of Mount Sentinel than you get from the wind-blasted west face, and a reminder that sometimes you can see the same places in completely new ways. I tend to think in terms of travel, not trails, which is why I have a lower tolerance for mountain-bike trail systems ("but we're just doing loops around the same five square miles. We're not actually going anywhere.") So the Hellgate Trail, which was indeed a new landscape, was a nice surprise.

It was also longer trail than we expected. We climbed 1,600 feet in 2.5 miles on fairly soft snow. It was slow-going and tough. The weight of Saturday's effort started to weigh on my legs. I was also startlingly low on energy. I did my whole six-hour Saturday run in the cold on a 390-calorie bag of gummy snacks and a smallish dinner afterward. You can get away with that for one day, but by day two the glycogen stores are low and they're tough to recover if you're already going at 60-80 percent max effort. I tried to hide it from Beat, especially since he already knows much about my long history of bonking, but I was struggling a little.

When I was a winter cyclist observing runners, they always seemed impervious to the cold. But I am learning that runners too are in a constant battle with the frigid air. Legs sting where the wind cuts through tights even as sweat pours from your forehead. Fingers go numb and then return constantly. You put on mittens and then realize you can no longer feed yourself. Your Camelback hose clogs with ice and you have to bite at the chunks to access water. Your butt goes numb and never comes back, because women's butts just weren't designed to keep themselves warm.

We climbed the peak and then dropped down the backside of Sentinel on a soft but better-packed trail, for another ~5 miles. As we descended, I felt worse and worse. Finally, I noticed I was actually staggering in and out of the rutted trail. I dug a Ginger Snap Lara Bar out of my pack and gulped it down in two bites. Just like that, I perked up. As we started up the South Summit, I suddenly felt good again. I power hiked up the steep snow with renewed purpose, making a mental note that Lara Bars work for running.

We traversed over and back up Sentinel. I was actually a little surprised when I saw red light on the Rattlesnake mountains and realized the sun was setting. We had been out for nearly four hours already and still had at least another 8 miles to run. I charged up the peak in an effort to race the disappearing sun for a photograph, and was rewarded with the most spectacular sunset. "I wasn't excited about this run but it's turning out fantastic," I exclaimed. Beat pulled out the secret stash, the Haribo Fruity Pasta gummies, and we chowed down half of a bag. These candies are oh-so-delicious, but highly acidic. They were the exact same snack that turned on me angrily during the 24 Hours of Frog Hollow, and halfway down the Hellgate Trail, I experienced similar distress.

Oh, running with a sour stomach. All runners do it, which is one of the big reasons I never wanted to be a runner. (That and blisters. Oh, and because it's really hard.) I was practically groaning by the time we returned to town, and we still had four miles before home. As I staggered down the icy path, I cycled through all of the things I had learned. "This is fantastic training," I told myself. Meanwhile, the bonk monster crept back in and left me feeling woozy and silly, which is almost like being drunk and therefore slightly euphoric, in a painful way. "This is nothing like yesterday," I told Beat. "I. Feel. Spent."

In the end the run took us just over five hours, with 4,000 feet of climbing and something in the range of 20-22 miles. (A lot like Saturday's run, actually, because it was pretty close to the same run.) In my typical fashion, I ate dinner and perked right back up, and felt raring to go again. I took a semi-forced recovery day with a bike commute and easy spin after work today, which in its own way was a small disaster and still involved a ~2-mile jog. (During my hour-long ride/run, I had singlespeed chain issues and took one hard fall the bike path after my studded tires skidded out on the rutted ice. The jog happened after my fingers went too numb to replace the chain on the cogs after it popped off a third time, despite my efforts to tension it.) I know I am ramping up the foot mileage fast but I still feel good, and snow is very forgiving (and extremely SLOW.) I am being mindful of muscle and joint stress and creeping injury, but learned a lot this weekend - mostly that I still have much to learn.

Good day run shine

Upon arriving in Missoula this weekend, Beat reminded me ever-so-gently that I had signed up for a 50K trail run in Rodeo Beach, California, on Dec. 18, which is (gulp) two weeks away. The point of the 50K is to see whether I have a snowball's chance of surviving the Susitna 100 on foot. But before I survive the Susitna 100, I kinda have to get through this 50K. Better get out for a training run.

Beat caught a nasty stomach flu the last time he traveled to the frigid north, and was sick for the entire past week. Saturday was his first attempt to exercise in many days, so we decided to keep it "close" to home. We planned a couple loops in the vicinity of Mount Sentinel. My goal was to stay out for at least 5 hours, but assumed Beat would cut out pretty early in the run.

The temperature was in the mid-20s, but was accompanied by the first direct sunlight Missoula has seen in what feels like many weeks (at least from my perspective. I had to travel 700 miles south and later 400 miles north to find the sun in November.) So today's weather felt like a simulation of California (at least from my perspective. Even a single layer of black polypro was too much for mid-day.) We climbed the south and north summits of Mount Sentinel.

The Rodeo Beach 50K also has something like 6,000 feet of climbing, so I advocated for more climbing even though there weren't any good climbing routes nearby. The problem with trail running in the winter, at least in the Missoula vicinity, is that you can go for a run or you can play in the mountains, but you can't do both. There just aren't enough packed trails around here, at least ones that haven't already been commandeered by skiers, so you're forced to break trail - which is much more strenuous than running, but doesn't exactly build the same muscles.

Still, it was a beautiful day to slog up University Mountain in knee- to thigh-deep powder ... beautiful enough that I didn't once ask myself how this particular slog was going to help me survive 31 miles of pounding on concrete-like trails in the Marin Headlands. I just sipped my icy water and soaked it all in.

The top of University Mountain was washed in ice. I feel a special affinity for trees perched on mountain tops - the "ghost trees" - for their ability to thrive in the worst conditions.

We powder-kicked back down the mountain and descended the Gut of Sentinel at sunset.

Beat cut off near the Hidden Treasure trail intersection, having survived four hours of run/slogging despite his ongoing battle with stomach flu.

He dropped back to town and I headed out for a solo run back up the Mount Sentinel Ridge. I turned on my iPod and climbed to reflective music by Sufjan Stevens as the winter light faded behind me.

The temperature plummeted rapidly and beads of ice formed along strands of sweat-soaked hair. I was completely content, feeling better and better as the hours fell behind me, wishing there was a way to just keep climbing, to some far-away mountain I'd never imagined I could reach at all, let alone on foot. In a direct line, the mileage I had run that day would have taken me far; the effort without the added strain of snow even farther. And the best thing about Saturday's run was its trajectory. I convinced myself that with the passing miles I could only become stronger, not weaker. I felt the surge of strength in places that had never before felt strong during a run - my feet and my knees. My legs carried me up the South Summit and back across the ridge as ice built on my head and a grin seemingly froze to my face.

I ran down the North Summit ridge into a blaze of city lights, striving to let go of my inhibitions and let my legs surrender to steep gravity. I couldn't quite give in completely, but tonight I came as close as I ever have to flying on my feet.

I jogged toward home just in time to catch the tail end of a holiday parade on Higgins Avenue. I stood on the sidewalk, taking photos and large gulps of frigid air until I could no longer feel my toes, then turned toward home. I finished my run just after 6:30, for a total time of six hours. My GPS cut out early and I'm not sure of the mileage, but probably in the vicinity of 20 miles with 5,000 feet of climbing. A good day to be out in world.

Back to the learning curve

The loose snow churned under my tires as I ground up a nondescript logging road that’s steep in the summer, and practically vertical when smothered in winter powder. Temperatures dropped to eyelash-freezing levels as Bill pedaled behind me. We didn’t say much. I was breathing hard and concentrating harder, and both activities seemed to strain my sore muscles that weren’t exactly making the most of this “rest day.” All I wanted was a relaxing Tuesday night ride, but that was before we pushed our bikes through shin-deep powder on the Kim Williams Trail, pedaled over snow and ice-crusted railroad tracks and then climbed the packed snow on Deer Creek Road, all on a 37-pound Pugsley with a mere 8 psi of air in the wide tires. Finally at our intended destination — the logging road — we discovered the snow was deeper than we anticipated. Bill was struggling to hold my line with his skinny tires. I stopped to catch a breath amid a swirl of frosted air. “Everything is so much harder in the winter, everything,” I said.

The tables turned when we flipped around and worked our way back to the paved Pattee Canyon Road. Bill’s studded tires gripped the thick layer of ice but Pugsley skidded with a terrifying lack of restraint as my numb fingers pumped the brakes and numb butt cheeks clenched into a frozen knot. Halfway down the canyon, we saw Norm out for a hike and agreed to meet for a slice of pizza. We met up at the Bridge, where I shivered until my toes and ears went numb as well, then rode stiffly home. Bill has this habit of GPS’ing rides to gauge his effort, although his Garmin doesn’t measure the impact of snow and ice, which in my opinion makes a much bigger difference than distance and elevation. In three hours we rode 21.4 miles and climbed 2,136 feet in temperatures around 23 degrees. When I was training for the 2006 Sustina 100, a three- or four-hour ride was about the most I ever got myself into, except for a select few "long" weekend efforts. “Since when did three hours of sustained hard effort become a rest day for me?” I wondered.

I think about the 2006 Susitna 100 often these days, probably because I’ve recently been struck through the heart with similar fear, excitement and newness. Racing, for me, is a simple metaphor for life — it’s about living through a seeming lifetime’s worth of pain, joy, frustration, despair, exhilaration, beauty and happiness in the span of a day, or sometimes a week, or sometimes three weeks. Training is practice for life, and it’s a beautiful way to live. There is much to “train” for, because so much in my life is beautiful and rich right now — from these cold white winter days in the snow-drenched mountains of Montana, to spending time with Beat and rediscovering that passion really is amplified when it’s shared. Beat, like me, likes to drink life by the gallon and won’t apologize when others tell him that’s an excessive amount. We don’t waste much time worrying about the broad future that we can’t control anyway, but we do like to scheme and dream about future adventures — and in 2011, for both us, there’s a lot of untread ground.

Wednesday wasn’t a rest day. I penciled in a three-hour run, which seemed a reasonable increase given my base fitness and minimal time I have left to “practice” running before February. I invited Bill, who hasn’t even started his 2011 race training yet and thus can still tag along for strange, slow adventures. We jogged through town and clawed our way up the face of Mount Sentinel, where the snow really became deep. We ran down the other side through the thick powder, sometimes staggering as though we were mired in a bottomless pit of sand. If I shifted my stride to a walk I was able to hold about the same speed as I could running, but the point of the excursion was to run, so I lifted my legs out of the snow with all of the effort my jagged muscles would allow. “If the conditions are like this in the Su, I won’t finish,” I said. “At the same time, I’d be perfectly happy to average 3 mph in the Su.”

Still, Wednesday’s run amounted to 10 miles, not 100. According to Bill’s Garmin, we moved 10.22 miles and climbed 2,262 feet in three hours. Again, Garmin knew nothing of the deep, loose snow, which after the stacked efforts of this week made it my hardest run yet, even compared to the longer runs in Banff. I walked stiffly into my warm house and remembered exactly what it used to feel like, coming home after my 2006 training rides: fatigued, terrified, partially frozen ... and strangely — almost blissfully — content. Whereas Tuesday contained familiar hardships, on Wednesday I was back to new territory. I realize, come what may, this is exactly where I want to be. It’s all a beautiful, grand experiment, just like life.

I see a darkness

Feathers of sunlight escaped a quilt of clouds in the early afternoon. I used my usual half-hour lunch break to wander the streets of downtown Missoula, soaking in a bit of daylight before the clouds closed in and it was time to return to the desk, until 5 p.m., when the sun sets. That's when I planned to go back out for my two-hour run.

"The winter darkness is hitting me harder this year than it did last year," I confessed to a co-worker later in the afternoon.

"How is that?" he asked. "Last year, you lived in Alaska. It's lighter and warmer in Missoula."

"Actually, it's not either," I replied. "Well, I guess there's technically more daylight here. But I don't often see any of it. I go to work just after the sun rises and leave just before it sets. When I lived in Juneau, the sun set at 2:30, which was also about the time I went to work. So I had all of the daylight hours to myself, every single day. I miss that schedule. Whoever decided 9-to-5 should be standard work hours is not a friend of mine."

And the more I think about it, the more I realize how much this work schedule has affected me. At first, going out after sunset had a novelty to it. The trees carved spooky silhouettes, and darkness and moonlight cast familiar trails in new ways. I acquired a fancy new bicycle headlight, a new headlamp, a slew of batteries and red blinkies, and resolved to make the most of my new, dark world. But then the novelty wore off, replaced by a discouraging sameness. I realized there was little more to see than the narrow island of my headlamp beam, and blinking red lights from distant towers on the mountains. I started leaving my camera at home, because there was nothing to photograph. This was a telling gauge of my enthusiasm. Biking — and running — isn't necessarily about exercise or fitness for me, it's my way of exploring the world. When my camera stays at home, so does my motivation. I feel less excited and more fatigued. I look for excuses to turn around. It doesn't bother me that it's 10 degrees out as I run through wafting snow. I genuinely don't mind going out in the cold. What I'm discovering about myself is that I don't necessarily enjoy going out in the dark.

This is actually a big reason I decided to take up running, which involves less prep time, and less overall time for similar fitness benefits. Then I picked an impossible goal like the Susitna 100 to serve as my main motivator. I know I have a long winter in front of me. Perhaps I will grow to love the night, appreciating the tiny details — the mounds of snow, the flecks of ice — as much as I used to relish expansive views and blaze blue sky. Somehow, I doubt it. But I am thankful for healthy legs to carry me through the snow, for an iPod to stave off the creeping boredom, for my boyfriend and Missoula friends who are often willing to keep me company in the dark cold, and for a camera with a self-timer for those occasional creative impulses that allow me replace actual photo opportunities with personal experimentation.

It's all biking and running, and it's all good, even in the winter.

Yanksgiving

An overstuffed Subaru Forester with four adults and only one set of skis attached to the roof rack pulled up to the tiny border crossing in Roosville, Montana. The Canadian border guard stepped into the single-digit cold, collected three American passports and a Swiss passport, and boredly rambled through his routine.

"Where are you from?"

"Um, we're from Kalispell, she's from Missoula, and he's from the Bay area," said Ted, the driver.

"And were are you going?"

"Banff."

"And what is your purpose in Canada?"

"We're going to celebrate Thanksgiving." (Long pause.) "Um, American Thanksgiving."

It sounded suspicious, even to us. We smiled and held our collective breath. The border guard returned our passports and without another question, said, "Welcome to Canada."

And thus began our holiday in Canada that our Canadian friends dubbed "Yanksgiving," because in the Great White North, the harvest holiday is celebrated in October, not the frigid end of November. That didn't stop them from inviting Danni, Ted, Beat and me up for a four-day weekend full of hiking, running, tons of food, running, candy, more food, running, huge 70s-theme disco extravaganza party, food, and plenty of sunshine.

We woke up early Thursday to a daunting blizzard of a Thanksgiving storm. The trip required a 120-mile drive from Missoula to Kalispell in my 1996 Geo Prism with its summer tires and general lack of stamina. Early in the morning, the snow on the road was so thick I couldn't tell pavement from fields from sky. Everything was a monotone gray in the pre-dawn darkness. My abs hurt from being clenched so tight during the four-hour drive, and more than once we came seconds away from just turning around and giving up on the entire weekend. But we kept at the slow crawl north, trading Geo for the Subaru in Kalispell, and by the time we crossed into British Columbia, bright light began to shine through patches of blue sky.

What can I say? Canada loves me. I've been back to this country enough times now that the weather hasn't been fantastic every time, but my ratio of sunshine and nice temperatures is still well above average. Beat had never been to Canada before, so we made a point to stop at Tim Horton's for Thanksgiving "dinner." It was just a regular day at the donut shop in Invermere, with nothing containing turkey on the menu. We made up for it by eating turkey jerky in the car, then headed for a night hike up Sulphur Mountain almost immediately after arriving in Banff.

On Friday morning, Leslie, Beat and I went for a run on the Spray River trail. The Spray River trailhead is the beginning of the Great Divide Mountain Bike Route, and the parking lot is the starting line of the Tour Divide. For all the times I've been to Banff, I actually haven't been back to the Spray River trail since June 2009. It was fun to return to the familiar scenery, now drenched in snow and winter light.

The Spray River trail itself was quite soft, which made for a surprisingly strenuous 11K run, on top of another 6K or so we did in town and around the nearby woods. (Note to skiers: Yes, this is a multi-use trail.) I felt like I was working harder for less speed than the night before, when we gained 2,500 feet in 5 kilometers, also on snow. It was a revealing run — both that winter training should emphasize time on feet, not mileage, and that trail conditions will actually have to be pretty good for me to have a chance of finishing the Su100 on foot.

Keith ("my TransRockies partner"), Beat, Leslie and I went for a tour of downtown, including a trip to a specialty wine store where Beat and I disinterestedly paced around the periphery, and an international candy shop where we greedily purchased at least 20,000 calories of sugar.

On Friday night, the Canadians came over for Yanksgiving dinner, which Leslie graciously cooked in its near entirety: An whole turkey, yams, scalloped potatoes, Brussels sprouts, rainbow vegetables, corn, cranberry sauce, and fruit crumble.

On Saturday we got outside for a big effort, and Banff handed us a perfect bluebird day. First stop was Sulphur Mountain.

Looking out over Banff and the Bow River Valley. That little mound in the center of the picture was to be our next stop — Tunnel Mountain.

Beautiful country in the summer and winter. I figured out I've visited Banff a surprising seven times since my first stop in June 2009. I often visit the same trails, and I still can't get enough of them.

Leslie and her friend Iris stand on top of Sulphur, trying to stay warm. I felt like a bit of an impostor among all of the real runners.

Here is a view of the Bow River Valley from the top of Tunnel Mountain. I'm not sure about the total distance we did, but it was about 4,000 feet of climbing and descending, mostly on packed snow trails, in just over four hours (with some tourist sightseeing on top of Sulphur.) The temperatures all weekend were seasonable, with highs near -8C and lows around -17C. My left foot hurt afterward, probably from running with an ankle brace, but it was my longest run yet and I think it went well.

Saturday night offered the overall purpose of the journey, which was not, in fact, to celebrate an American holiday, but to celebrate several milestones (a 40th birthday, 20th anniversary, and nursing school graduation) with our friends Dave and Brenda. They threw a huge '70s-themed party up at a ski resort. I didn't bring a costume and so I had to cobble together something that ended up being more of an '80s ski bunny look. What you can't see in the photo are my white moon boots, which were the best part of the costume by far. We ate cupcakes and danced into the night, and my ski bunny outfit was perfect for walking the mile-plus home from the bus stop. Fun weekend. I'm always thankful to visit my "home" in Banff.

How to go for a run at 0 degrees

Not only am I new to the idea of running as a form of physical training (rather than as a last-ditch method to catch a tight flight connection), I am new to dressing for comfort in cold weather while running, necessary knowledge to have when training for a cold-weather race. Last night provided the perfect opportunity for gear testing: Low, low single digits dropping into the negative single digits.

Step 1: Never start a run without taking advantage of an opportunity to test some new, preferably slightly ridiculous cold-weather strategy, such as ways to keep water from freezing solid. Taping a Camelback bladder to your skin can work, as long as you're not opposed to carrying around a cold, sloshing water baby.

Step 2: If you are using a more traditional method for protecting water and gear, such as a wedging a backpack inside of a coat, make sure you can actually fit your coat around all of the crap you want to wear and/or bring with you.

Step 3: Don't forget the loose final pieces such as gloves, hat and headlamp. Don't worry that you look like you're about to go deep-sea diving. In a way, this is essentially what you are doing.

Step 4: After warming up by running through the city streets, don ice creepers for the run up the mountain. If you are a mitten user, it is preferable to practice this step a few times before you go out into the Arctic cold.

Step 5: Be sure to look around and enjoy the views. After all, you could be inside a warm building, jogging on a treadmill as you sip herbal tea and watch "Dancing With The Stars."

Step 6: Run, run, run. Don't stop running. This is crucial for circulation since you are only wearing running shoes and a single pair of socks in order to avoid blisters (and even then, if you are new to running, you may still manage to return home with bloody socks from toenails that you forgot to clip because, well, you're new to running.)

Step 7: Don't make the mistake of believing you're done after you've descended the mountain. After all, you still have three miles of cool-down (way down) before you return to the safety of home. Note: This is a surprisingly long way when you don't have wheels.

Step 8: Relish in the fact you spent two hours and 15 minutes braving the elements, which is actually much more fun than simply exercising. Vow never ever to bother with treadmills or trainers again, and begin plotting tomorrow's run.

... It's DARE

I expected to feel something like euphoria after completing the Sustina 100, but found the experience to be closer to the opposite of that. Geoff loaded my bike in the back of the truck as I stood in the bright sun with my head lowered. My skin felt clammy and chapped, my lips and mouth parched. Geoff gave me a Diet Pepsi, a special treat, but the cold liquid tasted like fire and sea water — a result of extreme electrolyte imbalance, mild nutritional deficiencies and of course dehydration. I was out of energy but I had no appetite. Geoff produced a cold pizza — he purchased it the evening before when he expected me to finish around 2 a.m., not 10 — but I couldn't even choke down a full slice. We drove in mostly silence an hour back to Palmer, where I peeled off my still-wet clothing and prepared to take a shower. My hair was wet and so knotted around my hair band that I couldn't untangle it. My bloodshot eyes stared back at my blotchy face in the mirror. I tried to yank my hair free until I broke out in tears. Every muscle in my legs throbbed. I felt like I had deliberately thrown my body into rush-hour traffic, and finishing the Susitna 100 seemed just as masochistically useless.

In the following days, with my body battered and the edges of my spirit worn soft, I attempted to get back on my bike and ride again. At first, I felt only a vague sense of transformation. As my distance from the Susitna 100 grew, the initial shock and pain of the race slowly replaced itself with a warm feeling of enlightenment and purpose, not unlike a religious awakening after a long fast. My memory intensified the beauty and emotion of the experience until I had to actively block my mind from a constant barrage of daydreams. When I closed my eyes, I only saw wind-swept tundra and snow. I felt like I had crossed a threshold, one that I could never return from. As I recovered, I followed the progress of another race — a little-known ultra-endurance race called the Iditarod Trail Invitational. Everything about the ITI captured the still-sharp edges of my imagination, and the words of the participants spoke to my new state of mind. Steve Reifenstuhl, who was in the process of running the 350-mile race to McGrath in 2006, wrote this about finishing the 2005 race:

"The edge with which I am dancing is where the mind can make the body perform beyond what is believed to be possible. It is spiritual, it is dreamlike, it penetrates to my core and when I come back from it, I know I was there, and it beckons for months afterward ... At the finish line in McGrath, the physical and the emotional unite in a crescendo of emotion, pain, elation. The "other" becomes a memory. This unique reality has been reached by the passage of miles, time, physical exertion, psychological strain and sleep deprivation. It is so close to me, yet a world away."

In 2007, I went back to the Susitna 100 much more prepared — except for I was overtrained, and finished the race with stage 3 chondromalacia in my right knee that kept me off my bike for more than three months afterward. In 2008, I took the quantum leap to the 350-mile race to McGrath, grossly underexperienced and underprepared, and finished the race after what is still the most intense six days of my life. In 2009, I returned to the race to McGrath with much more experience and preparation, and contracted frostbite on my right foot within the first 60 miles. Later that summer, I finished the 2,740-mile Tour Divide after 24 days of physically exhausting, often painfully lonely pedaling, convinced I had my fill of adventure racing, finally, and I didn't have to do it any more.

The temperature was 8 degrees and 25 mph winds plunged icy flakes of snow like daggers into my skin as Beat and I slipped micro-spikes over our shoes and started up the exposed hillside on Monday evening. After our seven-hour snow-bike adventure on Sunday, my legs felt heavy and sore. Something similar to wet concrete and cold acid pumped through my veins. I adjusted my face mask to block the fierce windchill, lowered my head and shuffled behind Beat up a gravel road where I've ridden my mountain bike several dozen times. Powder snow drifted like sand under my feet. I was running, but only barely. Climbing this hill had never been so hard. We turned left and traversed the face of Mount Sentinel as an eerie blur of city lights glowed through the blizzard below. We reached the ridgeline where the full Arctic blast roared through Hellgate Canyon. With hands and spikes on ice-crusted rocks, we picked our way up the mountain. Beat said it felt like mountaineering. I felt like I was slapping my own legs with a spiked paddle. It had been barely a week of mild running and hiking since I started to recover my sprained ankle, and already my body was seriously sore and tired. The cold was not much of a concern for me. But my speed was. Our 12-mile loop was going to take three to four hours at my pace, something a little beyond the cold-weather and physical exposure both Beat and I felt was prudent for a weeknight training run. We turned back. I stumbled several times. We returned after an hour and 40 minutes — an amount of time that would be a "short weekday quickie" if it were a bike ride — and I felt spent.

On September 1, after much mutual goading, my friend Danni and I both registered for the 2011 Susitna 100. The simple action of hitting "send" on the Web site filled me with the same raw anticipation that I felt five years ago, the same anxiety and excitement of the prospect of venturing into almost completely unknown — and for me, completely ridiculous — territory. Yes, I've finished the Susitna 100 twice (on a slightly different course, but still in the same region.) I still sometimes dream of it, with jolting lucidity, when my mind slips into the gray spaces between wakefulness and slumber, and I remember the childlike awe and wonder. I want to return that space, back to the beginning, with a similar state of mind. I want to venture far out of my comfort zone. I want to leave my bike at home, the one tool that has gotten me through so much. I want to strike out into the tundra with only my own body to rely on, maybe with my friends Danni and Beat, or maybe alone, to see the windswept Dismal Swamp in new light, with new eyes.

In other words, I want to run the Susitna 100. On foot.

And after a fall marked with more injuries than actual training runs, continuing struggle with simple efforts, and a general complete lack of running experience, I have absolutely no reason to believe I can even attempt it, let alone finish it.

But I had no reason to believe it in 2006, either.

And this just gives me all the more reason to dream ...