Seattle deluge

Over the weekend, Beat planned to visit his friends in Seattle and invited me along since Seattle is just a puddle jump from Missoula (Missoula is significantly closer to Seattle than Juneau is, even though Juneauites cheer for the Seahawks and consider themselves a distant suburb of the Puget Sound metropolis.) We planned snowy adventures on Snoqualmie Pass so I packed a huge bag full of snowshoes, poles, extra shoes and winter clothing. At the last minute I thought to throw in a Gortex jacket. It was a good thing, because unbeknowst to me, I was flying right into the front end of the "wettest storm to hit Western Washington in more than two years."

Beat's friend, Roger, is a race planner for endurance mountain bike races and trail runs all over Western Washington. Since the storm meant the mountain roads were too sketchy for driving on Saturday, he took us on a run near Issaquah, on a ridge called Tiger Mountain. I packed my Gortex coat but also failed to ask any questions before the run. As we accelerated on the powerline access road, and I finally asked, "So how long is this loop?" Roger just shrugged. "16 or 19 miles depending on where we go." Wait, what? Since when is 16 or 19 miles a mellow little afternoon on foot? The wind and rain picked up velocity, my feet felt slow and heavy, and I hunkered down for the worst.

The run turned out to be not that big of a deal, after all. The trails were soft but solid, and even mud is a faster surface to run on than snow. We climbed up three of the Tiger Mountains and dropped down a sideslope along the ridge. Roger lost the way once and we ended up on the long course. Nineteen miles and 3,750 feet of climbing in just under four hours. It boosted my confidence about my chances of surviving the 50K race next week. I also realized that my ideal foot course would involve crazy steep climbs with long gradual descents, but a lot of climbing overall. Basically the opposite of a good mountain biking course. Anyone know of a trail race like that?

By Sunday nearly 4 inches of rain had already fallen on the Seattle area in the storm, and warm temperatures pushed the rain level above 7,000 feet, which meant avalanche danger would be extreme in the mountains. The group settled on another run in the lowlands. I was feeling a whole lot weaker than I had on Saturday, and balked at the slow-passing miles. We climbed the ridge on Cougar Mountain and dropped into the gushing streams and flooded valleys below. The deluge of rain had turned the whole trail system into a chocolate-colored stream. Even though Cougar Mountain is located in the middle of a high-population density area, the trails were nearly deserted on a Sunday afternoon. Roger and his wife Yumay were giggling about the complete transformation of an area they know well, and I was lost in daydreams about its strong resemblance to my faraway former home in Southeast Alaska.

I dragged and dragged until I heard a deafening clap from a large tree that cracked in the strong wind just as I passed it. My heart rate surged and I began sprinting toward my friends, who had been waiting for me to bring up the rear all morning long. When Beat asked me if I was finally getting warmed up (because I train for endurance, I tend to feel like crap for an hour or two and manage to perk up only after most people are ready to stop.) I admitted that my newly acquired speed was all adrenaline and it was probably going to wear off quickly, but I did manage to mostly keep up for the rest of the 2-hour, 15-minute run.

In all we ran about 30 miles over the weekend, with about 5,000 feet of climbing overall, in the midst of a storm that dumped 4 to 5 inches of rain. Yumay admitted they would have never gone out if it weren't for the combined peer pressure that flowed between the four of us. "Thanks for getting us accustomed to Northwest weather again," she said. They pointed out the run was even more fun than it would have been if it had been sunny, thanks to the puddle splashing and muddy descents, and I fully agreed. It's funny how that's usually the case.

I also tested a heart rate monitor this weekend; nearly the first time I have ever used one. On Saturday I had a max heart rate of 175 and an average of about 135. I forgot to look at Sunday's final numbers but based on observations I'm guessing an average in the 120s with a max of 215, thanks to that tree. I also tested my VO2 max at 59 according to the watch.

I think I've lived in small towns and tiny cities for far too long, and now have a digestive system that can no longer handle urban food. We refueled with sushi and Korean meals that were both delicious, but I had stomach issues all weekend. Either I have a high-functioning version of that stomach flu that is going around, or I've been seriously limited by years of bland Alaska and Montana food. Either way, I'm telling myself that it's a good thing to run a few 10s of miles, clear out the system, then charge full-speed into the super busy week in front of me that just so happens to end in a 31-mile race. Eeeeek.

P.S. If you are in the Missoula area, you should come see my presentation at the Missoula Bike Club holiday party on Tuesday evening. I will be giving an hour-long slideshow presentation about my experiences in the 2009 Tour Divide. Drop by! More information here.

Forget running ...

Look what showed up in the mail today!

Ok, Ok, so it doesn't actually belong to me, but still.

Eeeeeeee!

The art of slog

Teeth-grating pop music blared through the radio as I crept through rush-hour traffic on Brooks Street. I switched through the four stations I can pick up on my ancient car stereo and settled on the only song I didn’t recognize. I crept through one traffic light, then another, trickling ever-so-slowly toward Blue Mountain.

I admit it was a strange route to drive across town for. The Blue Mountain Road is just an nondescript strip of gravel snaking through the woods up a nondescript mountain. In the winter it’s gated, which means it sees little to no motorized use and therefore doesn’t offer much of a base for cycling or running. I parked next the summer trailhead. Ignoring the tracks that led to a network of ski trails I knew would be fast but short, I donned my microspikes, switched on my flashlight, and started running down the pavement. After a mile or so I turned left onto frozen gravel, which soon became packed snow. I paralleled wooden fences and open meadows before I crossed the gate, pressing deeper into the woods.

The steep canyon blotted out the moon, which was thin that night, anyway. City lights reflected off the clouds and cast a dull orange glow on the snow. My legs kept an even speed, not necessarily feeling strong, but not bad, either. I followed a well-packed foot path for a mile, until it became a loose foot path, and then just a single set of footprints that paralleled a set of ski tracks. Minutes passed even though miles really didn’t. I moved slow and steady, breathing large gulps of the moist, chilled air. I let my mind wander to the tracks, creating small stories and entire universes around them. The runner had a smaller stride than mine, probably because he was walking. I saw the faint tread of boots and imagined a hiker marching blissfully upward in the weekend’s sunlight. The skier had a dog, punching deep postholes into the ski track. But those tracks faded before the ski tracks did, so I imagined several skiers, shuffling single file beside the phantom hiker. Why did we move up this mountain, with such an unclear destination? Obviously, for all of us, that reason was exercise — the art of becoming fit. But what does fitness really mean? These are the things I ponder when I am alone, running up the mindlessly steady grade of a snow-covered mountain road.

Soon the footprints petered out, and I ran through the powder next to the ski tracks. Just before the road’s mile marker four, even the ski tracks cut a lollipop loop and ended. I looked around for a sign of a destination, but saw nothing remarkable. This just happened to be the place the last person on the road decided to quit. It occurred to me that I was now traveling farther than anyone had since the last snowstorm. I saw deer tracks in the snow and followed those. I ran a mostly straight path as the deer wove in and away from the hillside. But after mile marker five, even the deer moved permanently off the road. The snow was eerily smooth. I was alone. Completely alone.

I continued running through snow that was becoming ever deeper. I was shuffling, struggling, wheezing deeply now, and moving ever slower. Powder clung to my pants as high as my knees where I wandered into drifts. I kept up my shuffle, watching the shapes of snow-covered pine trees creep beside me, half-willing myself to believe in monsters, to believe in the exciting prospect of sinister forces lurking in the shadows. I looked up at the opaque sky. It’s orange glow was gone; the city lights had been blotted out. There was no more sign of life.

The dark outline of the mountain hovered above me. I passed mile marker six. I had no memory of just how far this road really went. Several other bits of information lingered just outside of my limited realm of comprehension — the fact that seven miles up means seven miles back, the fact that I was now working quite hard to move at walking speed or slower, the fact that it was getting late, that I had other things to do tonight, that people would worry. I only understood one thing and that was that I wanted to follow this road, as far as it would take me, as far as I could go.

Fatigue settled over me like a warm blanket. Within the fatigue, the montone shadows, the monotony of the climb, was a peace that I only find when I am in the midst of a good slog. It is difficult for me to describe — slog isn’t exactly an goal to seek out, like climbing mountains or winning races. Slog has no reward in sight, no concept of an end. Slog only begets more slog, the depletion of energy, the wearing of muscles, the creep of exhaustion and seep of intellectual capacity until it seems the only thing left in the world is slog. It’s difficult to describe, impossible to understand, but I find peace in this feeling. There is joy in the slog, just as there is joy in hardships and pain. In experiencing both the world and myself in their most basic forms, I find I can truly appreciate the beauty and complexities that lie in both the world and myself on the other side of the slog.

I find it equally impossible to explain to people why I’m training to run the Susitna 100. I’ve braced myself for criticism because no one, and I mean pretty much no one, shifts from no running at all to running a winter 100-miler in a matter of months. I expected others, especially my more experienced runner friends, to question my delusion, lack of understanding or hubris. I wish there was a way I could explain that the Susitna 100 is really not like other races. That in it’s own way, it’s no more like a 100-mile ultramarathon than it is like a 100-mile mountain bike race. Of course, in many ways it’s much more difficult than either, but how do you define difficult? Maybe, I want to expain, a “real” ultramarathon like the Western States 100 would be impossibly difficult for me compared to the Susitna 100. That the “real” ultramarathon is hard precisely because it doesn’t contain enough hardships, enough mental challenges, enough slog.

My ultrarunning friends have yet to openly step forward with questioning or criticism. But I did receive one bit of encouragement from a friend who understands both sides:

“You're doing the perfect types of runs to get ready for something like Susitna. There are so many people who try to become ultra runners who just don't understand what it really means to slog along for hours on end. You obviously understand that part better than almost anyone and I think that will be a huge benefit for you.”

More than 20 minutes went by and I hadn’t passed another mile marker on the Blue Mountain Road. I knew I was moving too slow. There would be calls and texts waiting for me back in the world cell reception. I had to go to work tomorrow. It was late. I took one last lingering glance at the ridge above me and turned around to run, slowly but with increasing speed and confidence, the seven miles back to my car.

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.