This race that I won

Even though it was only my second official ultramarathon, a mere three weeks after my first, I had ambitious goals for the Crystal Springs 50K. First, after figuring out that I could in fact travel 31 miles without coming down with "hurty foot" (which I will now regard as an official medical term for the condition of a cyclist's feet when they first take up running), I wanted to run a significantly higher percentage of the course than I did in the Rodeo Beach 50K and last half of the Bear 100. Even if it was a 4.5 mph jogging stride as opposed to a 4 mph speed hike, I wanted to emphasize consistency in running, as a test of my running endurance. Secondly, I wanted to improve my downhill stride, and try to relax so I could run with more fluidity and less pain. Thirdly, I wanted to finish with a time closer to the six-hour range — a big jump from my 6:58 in Rodeo Beach. Fourthly, I wanted some sunshine. No way was I traveling all the way to California and being shut out from badly needed vitamin D yet again. And lastly, I wanted to take pretty photos. That was most important. Even if it meant stopping occasionally so they didn't all come out blurry. The day I care more about a race result than the experience itself is the day that ... well ... let's face it, it's just not that likely.

The Crystal Springs 50K was held in the Santa Cruz Mountains south of San Francisco. I travel to California to visit Beat but the Bay area has the added bonus of ultramarathons nearly every weekend, even in the depth of winter. The weekend weather was extra chilly for the region, with overnight temperatures dropping into the mid-30s and frost forming on the higher hillsides. I dressed in what I thought was appropriate for those temps — tights and a long-sleeve thick polyester shirt, wool socks, hat and gloves, then carried a backpack with extra layers, food and water — because even in organized races I prefer to pretend I'm out for a self-supported training run, even if I end up solely eating peanut butter sandwich quarters and drinking Coke in tiny cups while my backpack dangles uselessly off my shoulders. And of course, the Californians all showed up wearing shorts and T-shirts and carrying a single bottle in their hands. It made me ashamed to call myself a hardy Montanan-former-Alaskan, but I figured it didn't matter. I was there to run my own race.

Things went great for the first 12 miles. I was running consistently, soaking in beams of sunlight where it broke through the fog, and making good time on my mile splits. I found my place in the pack but reeled in a couple of people, including the "girl in the cute plaid shorts ala Danni." Beat stuck with me and told me my pace was pretty hard, and said I should think about dialing it back. But I knew I felt good and I knew I could hold it. Even though I haven't been a runner for very long, I have enough experience in endurance efforts to sense when the bottom might drop out. However, I have a particular grating problem as a runner in the form of inexplicable midsection cramping on descents. Downhill grades cause a sensation that is best described as someone taking a dull knife and stabbing it deep under my rib cage. It's probably related to breathing and at least partly psychological, but when it flares up on long, steep downhills, I become both extremely slow and extremely irritable.

I groaned as I shuffled down the hill. Beat tried to offer suggestions and I got testy with him. He couldn't help but laugh at me. Angry race Jill is not unlike an angry toddler — too irrational and scrunchy-face cute to be taken all that seriously. Meanwhile, toddler gets more and more scrunchy faced and angry until finally she blurts out, "I just want to go into my pain cave. Why can't you leave me in my pain cave?" Beat laughed at loud. "No pain cave for you!" he said in his best "Soup Nazi" accent. I laughed back at the absurdity of the situation and accepted my role in it. I stopped and took four Advil, and over the next seven miles was able to recover my cramp from "searing agony" to "low-level ache" to "not much at all."

At mile 19, I finally perked up and started to breeze along the trail again. I reeled back in the women and a couple guys who had passed me during my sophomore slump. My feet felt light and fast against the strange sensation of running on actual dirt. The final 5-mile singletrack descent was truly fun. My cramp had abated and despite tired legs I picked up some speed, flying through the trees with feeling of effortless freedom, almost like being carried by wheels. The worst part about running is there's no coasting, and every difficult downhill reminds me of that. But if I can dial in a downhill run enough to move freely without pain or fear, it's one of the best feelings.

We strode across the finish line with 6:12 on the clock — not quite as close to six hours as I had hoped, but still a fair improvement on Rodeo Beach. Beat chatted with his friends (he seems to know most everyone in the Greater Bay Area trail running community) and I found my way over to the finisher's food table to make myself a massive turkey sandwich. The sandwich was almost the size of my head and nearly muffled out the race director's announcements from the other side of the pavilion. Then suddenly I heard him say, "Jill ... Horner." That sounded suspiciously like my name. Perhaps I finished third in my age group or something like that. I set down my sandwich and sheepishly walked to the front to see if Jill Horner was in fact me.

The director doled out medals to age group finishers, and then handed me a mug. The mug said, "First Place Finisher." I looked back at the race director, confused. First in what? He must have sensed my confusion because he said, "You're the first woman. Congratulations."

The girl in the cute shorts ... the woman in the black shirt ... there were several females that finished just a few minutes after me. But they were all behind me.

Huh.

Beat, who officially finished one second behind me, jokingly pouted. "I never win anything."

I held the mug in my hands and reasoned with it. It was a small race ... just a few dozen people ... and it was winter when not many people besides Susitna freaks are training with all that much gusto. But I was a Montanan in California, running dirt when I'm used to running on snow, running when I'm used to hiking and cycling, at a distance most people spend months specifically training for. And I won the race.

Maybe I'm not so terrible at running after all. I'll take it.

The art of go slow

Things are starting to come together for the Susitna 100. Beat and I bought our tickets to Anchorage, and shortly after that pressured friends Danni and Steve (who were both on the fence about even starting the race, and still may be) into buying their tickets as well. In my daydreams, we’re a motley foursome of Outsiders banded together, dragging our sleds across the frozen Susitna Valley. In more likelihood, we won’t be able or want to stick together. But either way, the Susitna 100 will be an interesting reunion since I already know a fair number of Alaskan cyclists on the roster. They’ll all have a chance to laugh at me as we cross paths at a pitiably distant point, since the new route is mostly an out-and-back.

I also am finally attempting to put my sled together. I hoped to do it sooner for training purposes, but as usual reality falls short of intentions. The sled I am using belongs to Geoff Roes, and is full of heavy reinforcements intended for use in the Iditarod Trail Invitational, where conditions are much colder and burlier than a typical Susitna race. But since I seem to have a talent for breaking gear, the burly sled should work well for me. I spent more than an hour on the phone with Geoff last night as he described the attachments and explained the different pieces. I failed to string both ropes all the way through the poles, so I didn’t get it completely put together last night, but did manage to squeeze all my Susitna gear inside the cover, and hope to be running with it by next week.

I am also beginning to feel more comfortable as a runner, if only just. I had a few good runs recently that boosted my confidence in both my footing and ability to maintain a more consistent speed over longer periods of time. But when Geoff asked me how my training was going, I instantly felt the need to apologize for my abilities, which are indeed still quite limited for a person aspiring to a 100-mile ultramarathon.

“I’m still low on the learning curve, but I’m improving,” I said. “My biggest issue is confidence. Also I sometimes feel really lousy for no real reason. I have stomach and cramping issues that I haven’t been able to pinpoint yet.”

“Do you ever go out and try to run fast, the kind of runs most people think of when they think of running — on the road?” he asked.

“Actually, no,” I said. “I started out with that yesterday, running 9- and 10-minute miles with the intention of upping the speed, but found myself veering off into the hills, and that turned to 12- and 14-minute miles on the fluffy snow climbs. I find I enjoy that kind of running so much more. It was still good intensity though. 80 to 90 percent for 90 minutes.”

“That’s good,” he said. “You really don’t need any speed for what you’re training for. All that matters is you get out there and put in time on your feet. It’s something I think most runners, even those who run ultras, don’t realize. By speed training, you might get your 9-minute miles up to 8:40. Twenty seconds is almost nothing over 100 miles. But everyone moves slowly when they feel like crap. If you can boost those slow-moving 20-minute miles up to, say, 15 minutes, that’s five minutes a mile. It’s huge, and easier to do. I used to emphasize speed work and all that, but now I just go into the mountains and spend more time running at slower speeds. It’s made the difference between being a pretty good ultrarunner, and being a great ultrarunner.”

It was an interesting insight into Geoff’s training that I never heard before. When we lived together, he spent lots of time running quarter-mile intervals around a high school track, lifting weights at the gym and suffering through all of his long runs on the road, because Juneau trails in the winter are nearly always covered in unconsolidated snow, requiring snowshoes and a walking-speed shuffle. While training for the 2008 ITI, he ran 25 laps around a flat, three-kilometer groomed cross-country ski loop while towing his sled. It was the same day I set out for an incredibly scenic 90-mile Pugsley ride, touring all the beautiful corners of Juneau. From my point of view, Geoff’s training habits required not only a fair dose of talent, but also a serious tolerance for tedious efforts. Which is why I never had any interest in running. It seemed completely unfun.

When I first met Beat, he introduced me to the strategy of (quotes mine) “moving slowly with haste” during an ultrarun. Consistent movement has always been my approach to endurance cycling — it’s achievable, adaptable, offers its own set of challenges, doesn’t demand tedious training blocks, and becomes more and more effective as events get longer. Beat helped me see how I could do the same in an endurance run. That by keeping a steady pace through all of the highs and lows and downright despair of an effort, I could achieve distances that before seemed to me to be all but impossible. And I was intrigued, because in my view running long distances is the purest form of physical activity, and allows for the greatest access to mountain and backcountry terrain (the less gear you rely on, the less restricted you are in your movement. Skis are limited to what skis can do. Bikes are limited to what bikes can do. But feet can go nearly everywhere.) And yet I had always viewed my own abilities as woefully inadequate in this regard.

Beat’s “just keep moving” (quotes mine) philosophy really made a lot of sense, and he had the experience and success to back it up. Meeting him was the turning point to switch my views from “running sucks and is hard,” to “running is a great mode of travel (but still hard.)” Which is why it was interesting to hear that Geoff holds a similar philosophy. After all, Geoff is considered an elite in the sport of ultrarunning these days. And he does have speed in his background (I believe he has a 15:10 5K PR, and 4:29-minute mile.) But these days, he chooses to leave that background behind to slog around in the mountains for hours on end — which is also what I really love to do.

And of course, it’s all relative. I probably couldn’t hold Geoff’s “slow” pace for five miles. But his is yet another example I was able to draw on when I went out for a late-evening run shortly after our conversation. I felt great for the first three miles, running “hard” but consistently to lay down some 9-minute miles. Then the wheels fell off, so to speak. I don’t know what happened yesterday — I speculate possible cumulative dehydration, or some food that didn’t agree with me, or possibly a stomach bug — but I became quite ill. I had to stop in the woods twice and decided to cut my run short. I was shuffling back toward home, wracked with painful stomach cramps, when I looked down at my Garmin and saw I was logging an 18-minute-mile pace. “I can do better than this,” I thought. I stopped shuffling and started speed hiking. The stomach cramps began to abate. My digestive system felt more settled. And I upped my pace to 14-minute miles at a much less stressful, more solid and sustainable effort. No, I wasn’t running. But I was moving slowly with purpose. And it worked.

Across the years

I was tired on New Year's Eve. There was no one reason for it, but many excuses. It had been a long week of training, running, travel, work, reduced sleep and cold, gray, otherwise completely erratic weather. By Friday morning the sun burned so bright that I had to close my eyes when I first gazed outside. Bill came stomping into my front doorway wearing his goggles and heavy boots in the late morning. "The radio said it was negative 10 when I left my house earlier today," he said, half-playfully, half-ominously.

"Ah, doesn't matter," I said with a tinge of resentment, because it doesn't really matter what gear I have or how fit I think I am - that kind of cold makes me work hard, extra hard, every time. But the world was drenched in glistening white light and enveloped by a perfect bluebird sky. To the car-bound commuters who watched us pedal through our own billowing vapor clouds probably saw our bicycle riding as excessive — excessive because it was too cold outside, and there were parties to plan, real miles to travel and hours to count. But to us, the opposite seemed excessive — excessive deprivation of fun, like going to bed before midnight on New Year's Eve.

When I was young, I loved New Year's Eve. I loved to whisper the dying seconds in my head as the crowd counted them out loud, letting beautiful and nostalgia-tinged memories slip backward like credits on a movie screen. Then, after the screams and cheers died out, I loved to take deep breaths of the crisp, cold air and believe it tasted different. I loved the sensation of everything becoming new and different within the span of two seconds, with the stars sparkling in the winter sky and the pages wiped clean, just waiting to be filled with new chapters.

Now that I am older, I realize that time is more circular than linear, and this calendar day has always only been as meaningful as the events we ascribe to it. That's why we got out for a bike ride - not for auld lang syne, but for free passage into yet another new day, memorable in its simplicity, a clear cold day with the quiet squeak of snow on Miller Creek Road and the grumbling of my heart-rate monitor that seemed to openly declare me "overtired." We rode 32 miles in four hours. I slowed so much on the frosty descent that Beat stopped often to ask what was wrong. "Nothing's wrong," I said. "I'm tired." Couldn't he hear my raspy breath or the pounding of my heart? I glanced at my HRM: 145 beats per minute, which isn't exactly extreme intensity. I put my head down and pedaled. The Rattlesnake mountains loomed in the distance, with a barrage of tiny details as sharp as icicles in the clear air.

The evening came with a three-and-a-half-hour icy car trip to Kalispell and New Year's festivities that passed in a bit of a daze. We toasted New Year's Day at 11 p.m. for Danni's friends from Chicago, then had a more subdued celebration at midnight. Somehow two more hours passed; we toasted New Year's in Juneau, and then moved upstairs at 2:30 a.m. to collapse in a stupor. I forgot to whisper the seconds as they passed or breathe the clean air of the new year. I was just too tired.

Saturday brought more cold weather, with temperatures in the single digits and decidedly more gray. We had a long slow breakfast and then Danni and her friends geared up to go resort skiing. Beat and I longed for something quieter but weren't willing to drive my Geo more than 10 miles on the icy roads, so we took his prototype sled up to nearby Patrick Canyon and set out to run a random forest service road that we had almost completely to ourselves.

Beat had a great minimalist idea for his gear sled, using a typical storage box and racing sled skis - waterproof, light, and utilizing easy-to-replace parts. Unfortunately I had forgotten how brittle plastic becomes in the bitter cold and subsequently forgot to warn him. Every single one of his zip ties eventually snapped, forcing several in-field repairs using pieces of cord he cut off one of his mittens.

During the descent, the plastic legs holding the sled runners to the box snapped clean off. Beat worked to remove all the shards from the bottom of his sled as the setting sun shot a column of light into the sky. I can't be sure but I think this was part of a "sundog," which is the term used to describe pillars or halos of bright light caused when crystals of ice in the air diffract light from the sun. It really was a beautiful moment to stand and reflect as the deep chill crept into my meager running layers.

After the sled had been converted to a plastic box dragged by two PVC pipes, I playfully dodged the swinging obstacle as we ran down the road. We rounded the corner to an open view of an incredible phosphorescent strip of deep crimson light unlike any I had ever seen. The alpenglow shimmered radioactively on the expansive crest of the Swan Mountains, far in the distance but close enough to induce involuntary yells from both Beat and me. It was one of those moments were you gasp at the beauty, take two or three woefully inadequate photographs and stare wistfully, straining to hold onto the dying light as the magic fades as quickly as it erupted. But you feel unbelievably lucky to have been there, to have slept in, eaten a long breakfast, refused to drive farther to more exciting destinations, and had your sled break a half dozen times so you could end up in that spot, at that moment, for the most perfect end to the first day of the year. It was as though we had planned it that way all along.

The rest of the run felt fantastic. I have been a woeful downhill runner but on Saturday I hit a rare stride. My micro-spikes dug into the hard-packed snow and every step felt as confident as it did light. Beat had to manage his sliding dragging box and for once I actually surged ahead of him, wrapping up six effortless miles before the light completely faded from the sky.

By Monday, my tiredness had burned through and faded, and I felt like my old perky self again. We accompanied Danni and her Chicago friends Cheryl and Chris on a snowshoe hike in Glacier National Park.

We climbed the steep Mount Brown Lookout Trail even though we knew we didn't have nearly enough daylight to reach the top of the mountain. There was ongoing debate about whether it was easier to walk with snowshoes or without, although Danni was the only one willing to give it a try.

As we made our way back toward Lake McDonald, a shimmer of yellow light in the far distance or flakes of frost on a tree branch would jog my realization - "Wow, it's 2011 already. The new year." But most of the steps were just another day in paradise, close to the things I love and moving joyfully along an endless circle of possibilities.

Frosty face

The last day of 2010 brought clear, cold conditions. It was 6 below zero when Beat, Bill and I left my house Friday for a four-hour, 32-mile snow bike ride up Miller Creek canyon. Temps climbed into the single digits as we drove north for New Year's Eve festivities in Kalispell, and hovered near zero degrees for our sled-testing 12-mile New Years Day run up Patrick Canyon. Two beautiful days yielded some incredible scenery, including the most incredible crimson red alpenglow I've ever seen, burning up the Swan Mountains as a sundog shimmered on the opposite horizon. I'll post those photos when I have more time. But beyond the intriguing scenery and general exhilaration of exercising in the cold, there's also a humorous side-effect: Flocked facial hairs.

Early in the run, before it started to obstruct my vision.

After the run, where Beat said I had a "Lady Gaga" thing going on. The run-frosted eyelashes were still preferable to the freezing that occurred on the snow bike ride, where continued efforts to thaw my eyelashes only resulted in large blocks of ice dangling in front of my eyes. May be time to invest in some goggles.

Hope everyone is having a great new year!

Snow makes everything tougher

The weather threw Missoula some curveballs this week — 35 degrees and raining followed by refreeze and snow, four inches of new snow, blowing blizzard and 35 mph wind gusts. Despite the ever-shifting conditions, Beat and I were able to get out on his new Fatback twice, with an evening snow run that added up to three genuinely difficult and long workouts. The interesting thing is I've been using the Garmin Forerunner he gave me for Christmas, and the numbers are a bit demoralizing. But I'm not sure what I expected. Snow adds an impressive amount of resistance to any effort, plus cold, extra weight of gear, etc. Either way, I used to come home and say things like, "That was hard! That felt great!" Now I come home and say, "19 miles? In four hours? Really?" Either way, I'm having a lot of fun with the Garmin, and even more fun with Beat's Fatback.

Beat actually let me ride the Fatback the entire time on its inaugural ride Monday, around the Deer Creek Loop. My first impressions: The Fatback's steering is incredibly nimble compared to my Pugsley, I like its more upright stance, and it's light. And beautiful! And somehow faster. I can't prove that it's faster, but I motored along effortlessly on Monday as Beat struggled. Then, when we switched back for our Wednesday ride, Beat was the one powering far ahead as I gasped for air. We may have to go for a few more shakedown rides before I can be certain that Fatback is really that much faster than Pugsley, however.

On Tuesday we went for a three-and-half-hour, 13-mile run that nearly put me on the floor due to sheer exhaustion. On Wednesday the combination of blizzard, wind chill and high wind speed made the simple bike commute to work and walk to the grocery store seem epic. On Thursday, the clouds cleared and the temperature dropped to the single digits. It seemed like a great night to get back out on the bike.

We went to check out the Rattlesnake Trails which are multi-use, but mainly used by skiers.

I have to say, skiers make lousy bike trails. ;-) OK, before I get reamed by too many skiers, I want to emphasize that there are trails in this area where only skiing is allowed, and if skiers want a perfectly smooth surface, they can go there. There were snowshoe tracks on this trail but they were faint. If I were going to be in town this weekend, I would be tempted to go for a long back-and-forth snowshoe run and "improve" the Stuart Peak Trail for snow bikes. As it is, narrow tracks on top of soft snow make for tough, technical riding.

The mantra of snow biking on soft snow: When in doubt, let air out. That is, until all of the air is gone, then you have to put more in.

Then, when you have ridden 10 miles and less than 1,000 vertical feet in two hours at a moderate to strenuous effort level, you should reward yourself with Fizzy Cola gummy snacks. Hits the spot every time.

Beat tried a vapor barrier shirt and ended up with a huge block of ice on one wrist, where most of his sweat moisture found a way to escape through one sleeve. Fun with gear in the cold! It wouldn't be the same if you didn't try something different every time.

And here are the numbers. They're not pretty. :)

Deer Creek Snow Ride

Mount Sentinel Loop Run

Rattlesnake Snow Ride

2010 in photos, part 2

The year 2010 started for me on a clear, strikingly cold night in downtown Juneau, Alaska, as a small group of friends and I walked out of the Alaskan Bar and Hotel shortly after midnight. As the chill bit in to my meager layers, I gazed up at Douglas Island ridge; its sharp edge loomed beneath an explosion of stars. I remember thinking about the possibilities that might lie beyond that ridge — a life less constricted by geography, job obligations and the shadows of personal failures. I thought about the world to the northwest. I thought about the rest of Alaska, about Anchorage. I wondered if that world would reveal itself to me in 2010. I did not yet have any concept of the adventure I was about to embark on — an incredible journey through an incredible year.

January, "Winter of Discontent:" Through the scope of the year now behind me, I view January as a desert I had no choice but to cross. January was a difficult month. I was ambivalent about my life in Juneau, busier at work than I had ever been, and finally starting to really process the failure of my relationship that ended seven months earlier. I fell into what I can only define now as a bout of depression. I came down with the flu and used it as an excuse to essentially stop riding my bike for more than three weeks. I forced myself to get out when I could, but my loss of interest in cycling was a revelatory symptom of my state of mind, and the dose of reality I needed to start thinking more clearly about making changes in my life.

February, "Toward the Light:" A ski vacation to Banff and strategically-placed bouts of warm weather and sunshine helped lift my spirits, but my professional life remained difficult — more draining than challenging — and I continued to feel isolated by Juneau's remote location and the fact that most of my local friends were also mutual friends of my ex-boyfriend, making uncomfortable situations almost impossible to avoid. For his part, my ex maintained a friendly relationship with me. We even occasionally got out for fun hikes in the mountains, although the honesty of hindsight has helped me see how this was also unhealthy for my state of mind. February continued to dole out one amazing mountain outing after the other, which only conflicted my conviction that I needed to make significant changes.

March, "Leave the City:" A breaking point finally came when my employer laid off yet more co-workers and my boss held me on the edge of his own extreme stress as both our work loads became unsustainably excessive. Early in the month, with no real plan for the future, I put in my 30-day notice at the newspaper and announced to my friends that I planned to move to Anchorage in the beginning of April. My last month in Juneau was satisfying if a bit unproductive. I went into a frenzy — trying to leave my job as smoothly as possibly, attempting to experience everything I loved about the region, and continuing to ignore my need to train for the White Mountains 100. Over the spring equinox, I traveled to Fairbanks to ride my Pugsley in the incredibly scenic but frigid 100-mile snow bike race. I finished with a decent time, but undertraining left me with knee pain that lingered for weeks.

April, "Go Anchorage:" By April 7, I had moved my cat, four bicycles, a Geo Prism-full of clothing and gear and myself into a friend's apartment in Anchorage. Thanks to purposeful "funemployment," I had plenty of time to explore the city by bicycle, hike in the Chugach Mountains and work on my Tour Divide book. I spent most of the month visiting my family in Utah and California. While in Utah, not even a full week after I moved to the big city, another friend sent me the online job listing for Adventure Cycling Association. I consulted my friends and family about the prospect of moving to Montana before I even sent in a resume, and for the first time considered the prospect of leaving Alaska altogether.

May, "Return to Homer:" Having applied for the job at ACA, my mindset shifted from "I really need to work to make a go of it in Anchorage" to "I might actually land a job outside Alaska." Thus, instead of buckling down and working on writing projects as I promised myself I would do, I dedicated the entire month of May to traveling and exploring different parts of Alaska. Early in the month, I returned to Homer for the first time since I lived there in 2006. It was a gratifying trip — I believe I never see myself more clearly than I do while examining the pieces of my past. I realized that I loved Alaska but I did have the ability to leave it behind. I traveled to Denali National Park, biked the Denali Highway, and visited Fairbanks, where I learned I had received the job offer in Montana.

June, "Warm Welcome:" My last weeks in Anchorage were as crazed as those in Juneau, as I tried to visit all my Southcentral friends one last time, pack, ship my belongings south, travel to Cordova and hike as many Chugach peaks as I could squeeze in. I loaded up my Geo yet again and drove 2,700 miles to Missoula, arriving on the summer solstice. After a record-breaking wet spring in Southwestern Montana, the sun peeked out the day after I arrived and stayed that way for most of three months. My first 10 days in Missoula were jaw-dropping in their progression — the pieces fell into place very quickly and effortlessly. I got started at my new job, met new friends, cultivated new riding partners, discovered fun mountain biking trails and an expanse of logging roads, explored amazing and hard-to-access places like Blue Point and Stuart Peak, and enjoyed 10 spectacular sunsets while riding or hiking in the mountains. Montana was incredibly good to me in the early days.

July, "Flowing Over:" My spring indulgence in all things Alaska didn't even skip a beat as I submerged myself fully into outdoor life in Montana. My weekdays were marked by a routine of quick morning coffee and bike commuting, eight hours at the office, three- and four-hour evening "training rides" in the mountains surrounding Missoula — often with new friends — returning with the 10 p.m. sunset, late-evening dinner and collapsing into bed after midnight. I was often too exhausted to even realize how blissed-out I was. My need to train for TransRockies brought on long bike explorations on the weekends. A friend of a friend who I had never before met, Danni, invited me along for stunningly beautiful weekend in Glacier National Park. We instantly connected and I knew I had found a good new friend despite living two hours apart. Danni also immediately did two things that had a monumental effect on my life: as a self-proclaimed "lazy ultrarunner," she convinced me that I might enjoy long-distance running; and as a race director for the Swan Crest 100, she invited me to volunteer for the ultramarathon at the end of July, where I met a California runner named Beat.

August, "Lone Peak:" August brought the TransRockies mountain bike race, where my friend from Banff, Keith, and I rode together in seven increasing gruelling but beautiful stages across the Canadian Rockies. The stage race was a fun vacation — a fully-supported mountain bike tour from Fernie, British Columbia, to Canmore, Alberta, with the added bonus of challenging riding and enough hike-a-bikes to fill a year. After TransRockies, I immediately started a routine of trail running along with biking, in an effort to introduce my legs to the impact of running. The failing health of both of my grandfathers also prompted the first of several trips back to Salt Lake City to be with my family. I hiked to Lone Peak and contemplated my relationship with my grandfather, the ever-expanding scope of our lives, and our tendencies to return to our beginnings, in the end.

September, "Long Roads:" September was filled with fun adventures: Traversing a high mountain ridge in Glacier National Park, a Labor Day snow ride in the Swan Mountains, hiking with my sister in Utah, and climbing the highest mountain in Idaho with friends from Missoula. In the middle of the month I traveled to Las Vegas for the national bicycle industry conference, Interbike. This was a startlingly negative experience for me — the combination of long hours, bad food, no exercise, no sleep, smog, heat, crushing crowds and other pressures left me feeling frazzled to the point of mental exhaustion by the end of the week. I all but stuck out my thumb to find an early exit from Vegas, as part of a convoluted scheme to meet Beat in northern Utah during the Bear 100. The daunting maze of logistics fell serendipitously into place and I showed up at the mile 50 checkpoint in Logan Canyon mere minutes before Beat arrived. Having no idea what to expect and no real plan, I agreed to join him for the remainder of the race as a "pacer," although the real intention for both of us was a chance to share engaging conversations, a physically challenging effort and heart-rending mountain beauty as we got to know each other. Running and hiking 50 miles and nearly 12,000 vertical feet in the process would have felt effortless had I not developed semi-debilitating pain on the bottom of my right foot. Regardless, I still view it as the most romantic first date ever.

October, "Autumn:" October was a blaze of warm colors and light. I can truly appreciate a Rocky Mountain autumn now that I've spent four autumns in Juneau, where October brings an average of 16 inches of rain in one continuous cold, gray, month-long drizzle. (Southeast Alaskans don't measure their hardiness by how many winters they survived, but in how many autumns they've survived.) Beat and I worked to develop a weekend relationship, where our weeks were still filled with regular life obligations, work and training, but weekends provided opportunities to explore each other's worlds. I took him for night bicycle rides in Montana, a climb to Lolo Peak and a run in Blodgett Canyon. He introduced me to the Silicon Valley and planned a backpacking trip in the very rainy Yosemite National Park (a small taste of autumn in Southeast Alaska, and more than enough of a reminder.)

November, "New Ground:" Beat and I started the month by signing up for the 25 Hours of Frog Hollow, a mountain bike race in Hurricane, Utah. Despite having even less experience on a mountain bike than I have as a runner, Beat put in an impressive six laps and 78 miles for Team Swiss Miss; I rode 10 laps and 130 miles. I cemented a admittedly misguided resolve to participate in the Susitna 100 on foot, and shortly after began more focused running training. My early efforts were dogged by small injuries, and I struggled. Beat continued to visit Missoula on weekends as temperatures dipped below zero degrees, a harsh inception for Beat's first real experience with winter in more than a decade. We traveled to Banff for Thanksgiving, marking my seventh visit to my third "home" (behind Salt Lake City and wherever I happen to live at the time.)

December, "Runaround:" December was a crazed month, with six-hour training runs, a trip to Seattle, traveling home for Christmas, and my first official ultramarathon, a 50K trail run in Rodeo Beach, California. Busy at work, busy for the holidays, busy packing and unpacking, and preparing for whatever comes next. As December draws to a close, I'm struck by how markedly different this last month of the year has been from the first — January was quiet, contemplative and sad. December has been a whirlwind of new experiences, emotions and possibilities, with scarcely enough extra room to breathe let alone process events as they happen. If I used a single word to describe 2010, it would be "Change." I had at my fingertips a life that I knew, beneath the darkness, I really did love. But in an effort to move away from the darkness, I chose to leave it all behind and strike out into the unknown with no plan or insight into how it would all turn out. I loved Juneau and Alaska but I don't regret leaving. 2010 taught me that as long as I open my heart to change, beauty and love will follow wherever I wander. 2011 can only bring more change, more new adventures, and I'm excited about the endless possibilities. To the new year!

2010 in photos, part 1

Each December I have a tradition of picking my 12 favorite photos of the year, one for each month, as a year-in-review exercise. This year was particularly difficult because 2010 has been such a dynamic year that simply picking pretty photos to summarize each month doesn't really achieve the reflection I'm looking for. So I'm doing a two-part series. Part one is simply my favorite photos of each month. This doesn't mean these photos are technically or aesthetically the best (as I begin to dabble with better equipment, I'm finally starting to understand just how limited my scratched-lens Olympus Stylus camera really was.) No, these photos are simply my favorite for various reasons. For part 2, I picked photos that I believe best represent the events of the month — the photos that capture my thoughts and impressions now that the year is done. Look for that post soon.

January, "Hell Storm:" A fierce winter gale whips a fury of snow near the wooden cross on Mount Roberts in Juneau. I like this photo because it reminds me of the incredible windstorms I often experienced during my mountain excursions in Southeast Alaska.

February, "Summer in February:" My friends mull whether to ascend West Peak again or drop over the cornice to the right while hiking on Juneau's Hawthorne Ridge during a warm 50-degree afternoon in late February. I like the snowshoe prints down the face of the peak, as well as the highlights on the snow that betray the balmy nature of the day despite the wintry landscape.

March, "My Back Yard:" My last residence in Juneau was perched near the shoreline of Fritz Cove, so this scene was literally the view from my back yard. I took this photo in the late morning just as the fog started to lift over Auke Bay, revealing this floating dock and the tip of an island ridge.

April, "Moving North:" While driving from Skagway to Anchorage, I made a spontaneous stop to hike Gunsight Mountain. I took this photo from a saddle below the peak, overlooking the Chugach Mountains and a frozen river to the south.

May, "Bold Ptarmigan:" My stay in Southcentral Alaska was brief but rich with experiences. By May I was already grappling with the prospect of moving away from Alaska and often went on long solo excursions to process my thoughts. I took this photo of a curious ptarmigan on Bold Ridge near Eklutna Lake during a long afternoon of mountain biking and ridge hiking.

June, "Cordova:" I took this photo of a stream near the Copper River during a solo bike trip to Cordova. I like the textures in this photo as well as the dramatic sky (in fact, most of these photos I picked for the skies.)

July, "St. Mary Fire Lookout:" Evening descends over St. Mary Peak during a quick after-work hike with Dave. This photo represents everything I loved about my early days in Montana: the truly big skies, dry trails, rich light and warm summer nights.

August, "TransRockies:" Keith rolls over the Continental Divide, crossing from British Columbia into Alberta during stage three of the 2010 TransRockies bicycle race. Again, fun mixture of shadows and light on the alpine tundra, in a truly incredible place to ride a bicycle.

September, "Glacier Traverse:" Danni is dwarfed by the Rocky Mountains in Glacier National Park during a huge 25-mile, 12,600-feet-of-climbing, cross-country traverse of a ridge in the southeastern corner of the park. This hike with my Kalispell friends (Danni, Dave and Brad) ranks as one of my top five favorite excursions of the year, with the 50 miles of the Bear 100, bike trip to Cordova, 140-mile Denali Highway Classic and White Mountains 100.

October, "The Last Day of Summer:" Beat descends Lolo Peak into a blaze of autumn-gold larch trees on an unseasonably warm day in early October.

November, "Golden Hour in Frog Hollow:" One of the best things about participating in a 25-hour race is that you get to see the dynamic ways light and shadows change the landscape over the course of a day. This is the sunset lap during the 25 Hours in Frog Hollow, near Hurricane, Utah.

December, "Dressed in White:" Beat hikes down the frost-coated University Mountain during an afternoon run. Missoula, like Alaska, doesn't see all that much sunlight in the winter, so any rare appearance of the sun has a tendency to bring on a blissful sort of outdoor mania.