Running crash

After two weeks of feeling rougher than normal, my string of illness and minor maladies were finally starting to clear up. Finally, for the first time since Fairbanks, I felt strong. I joined Beat on his long Sunday run that he unfortunately had to cut short due to lingering Achilles pain. But we were still in it for 13 miles, climbing 3,000 feet of dusty trail, wending through a tight corridor of chaparral and descending on steep, root-covered singletrack. With the hard part completed, we were coasting home on the smooth, wide fireroad, running fast enough that I could feel a strong breeze on my sweat-drenched face, when suddenly ... thud.

My body slammed into the dirt and skidded several skin-scorching inches to a dusty stop. It was a full-body superman crash without even the dignity of handlebars to launch over. I had heard of such things happening — runner crashes — but I can't say I believed in them. Aren't people just inherently supposed to know what they're doing when they're on their feet?

But apparently, I don't. There wasn't even a discernible obstacle sticking out of the ground. I had simply tripped on my own foot and hit the deck, hard.

The remaining three miles of the run were rough. I was wearing thick nylon pants that prevented road rash from tearing up my leg, but my left knee had taken the brunt of the impact and was swollen and throbbing with pain. The road rash on my hands and left arm started to sting something fierce, and I could actually see little bits of gravel still lodged in some of the larger wounds. My left elbow was swelling, too, and I could only hold my arm limply at my side. Just like that this relatively easy, strong run turned into a difficult challenge, with blood smeared on my face, skin shredded and confidence blown.

But you gotta be tough if you're gonna be klutzy.

Bikes that do the work for you

I'm being honest when I say that the number of times I've ridden a "road" bike can probably still be counted on two hands. My first two bikes were "touring bicycles" — lower-end Ibex Corridas that I rode over thousands of miles of pavement, but they had flat handlebars and relaxed geometry and couldn't really be called road bikes. I have a fixed-gear commuter that is also a hybrid of a road bike, but my experiences with drop-handlebar, high-tire-pressure, lightweight road bicycles are still limited to a few borrowed and rented bicycles on a few random rides.

I do ride pavement. I just ride it on a mountain bike. This has always worked just fine for me in the past because I lived in climates where the weather turned roads to debris-strewn obstacle courses for much of the year, and on the rare days that they were clear, I was probably out pursuing high-country dirt anyway. For my style of riding, a road bike just seemed excessive — a boutique bike, like a high-wheeler or a unicycle ... fun to play with but ultimately unnecessary.

Only now I'm living in the Silicon Valley, covered in a seemingly endless maze of smooth and winding pavement. While there are trails and open space areas here, this is decidedly roadie country. I see them everywhere — when I'm walking to the store, when I'm sitting at the coffee shop, when I'm ambling up the road on my bouncy bike. They always look so graceful and effortlessly fast, and strangely overdressed in their matching neon yellow jackets and tights. I make a solid attempt to chase them with the bouncy bike, but it usually isn't long before the gap grows larger. Since I didn't know any better, I blamed myself ("I'm slow. Oh well. Hey, is that a singletrack trail on that hillside? I better check that out!")

Beat has been telling me that I need to try road biking. He has a beautiful carbon Calfee that he doesn't really ride either, at least not since he saw the light and gave up triathlons for ultrarunning. Beat could tell you more about its wheelset and components — all I know is that it's black and weighs about as much as Pugsley's seatpost. I had been eyeing it enviously all month. Finally, today, we went to Sportsman's Basement to buy a pair of shiny white and silver road shoes, and Look cleats. Equipped with the proper attachments, I no longer had an excuse not to try out the Calfee. Beat had to ride his own bouncy bike, a Santa Cruz Blur. We decided on a route that Beat remembered as "short" from his triathlon training days, and set out.

Road bikes make me nervous. I always feel so squirrelly, teetering on those tiny wheels while I obsess about getting my foot in and out of the clipless pedals (which is always humorous because as soon as I stop thinking about it, it becomes second nature and clipless attachments have never actually caused me any problems.) We set out on Foothill Boulevard, spinning super easy. At least I thought we were spinning easy. When I looked over at Beat, he was working up a solid sweat.

At mile 11 we hit the top of a rolling descent and Beat said I should surge ahead because it would be more fun for me. "OK!" I exclaimed and clicked up the shifters. I put a little extra power into each stroke — not enough to really raise my heart rate, but just enough to power up each roller. After about what seemed like five minutes, I dropped back into the valley. I stopped on an overpass above a roaring Interstate 280, quite bewildered. "This doesn't look right." Several minutes later, Beat caught up to me, wheezing. I had overshot the turn by three miles. Yes, three miles. Beat seemed really annoyed about it for some reason.

We made it back to Old La Honda Road and started up the narrow, winding corridor. This too was an easy spin so I took photographs and said hello to other climbing cyclists who did not seem inclined to chat. The Calfee climbed so effortlessly that I started to suspect there was in fact a small electric motor attached to the frame somewhere. I looked for it but could not locate it. A few more relaxing minutes passed and we were inexplicably at 1,800 feet on Skyline Drive. We put on arm warmers and launched into the most physically taxing and difficult part of the ride, the steep descent. I clenched my teeth and throttled the brakes, never quite trusting those tenuous tires to actually stick to the road around each tight corner. Finally, I held my pedals parallel and pushed my butt behind the saddle. This mountain bike pose did help a bit with my confidence.

Then we rode home. It was like a few more minutes. Beat rode beside me and said he felt knackered. Really? I looked at my GPS. We had ridden 41 miles and climbed 2,700 feet. On my mountain bike, even on pavement, that would be a tough afternoon ride. No wonder Beat was tired.

Beat asked me how I liked the road bike. I had to admit it was fantastically fun, but also kind of boring, too. Beat enjoyed a good, solid ride on his knobby tires. He got to work twice as hard while I meandered along on his light, fast road bike. I mean, what's the point of a bicycle that does all the work for you?

"The point is to go faster and farther," Beat said.

"Oh," I said. I get it now. Faster and farther. Next time, I'm going to try that.

The rough stuff

I've had a trying week of working around a couple of minor medical maladies — unrelated to cycling and running, but a disconcertingly consistent source of fatigue and pain all the same. My mind is also swimming with seemingly dozens of project ideas that I am overanxious to dive into, and the result during my "workday" is near-constant distraction — I sit down neatly at 8 a.m. to start up one thing, only to jump to another, and then another, until suddenly I look up and it's inexplicably 4 p.m. and I wonder if I've actually done anything productive at all. One thing I am actually accomplishing is that I'm nearing completion of a Tour Divide manuscript I feel fairly good about. I still need to comb through it to incorporate a few more of my editor's very good ideas, flesh out a few areas and cull others, but it's close.

I've been mountain biking and running this week as well, but in shorter blocks of time with limited intensity. Thursday was the first day I felt healthy enough to embark on a longer ride, so I set out to find a trail near my house that I haven't yet tried, the Table Mountain Trail. Beat and I had tentative evening plans and I told him it would be "two, two and a half hours tops." About eight miles into Steven's Canyon I was hit with yet another medical malady — monthly hormone poisoning, which for me usually results in two or three hours of semi-debilitating waves of nausea. Bad timing. It wasn't terrible at first, so I pushed the cramps to the back of my mind and started up the singletrack.

The Table Mountain Trail is designated uphill-only to mountain bikes, which means unless I want to break a law, I'm committed as soon as I enter it. I should have known better when the first quarter mile involved a knee-deep creek crossing and a near-vertical push 100 feet up the muddy bank. But from the top of the bank, the root-clogged trail looked fairly rideable, so I continued. The steep trail only became more eroded as I climbed, until I was trying to keep my tires out of wheel-eating trenches as I mashed up a 15-percent grade on a trail surface about as wide as a pencil. All the while, the nausea kept hitting in blinding waves. Several times, I had to stop and take swift gulps of air to mitigate what felt like an urge to pass out. (Note: These episodes are normal for me but are so short-lived that they almost never hit when I'm working out. The strenuous nature of the trail also seemed to make it worse than usual.)

I walked and then trudged, and all the while the Table Mountain Trail just kept reaching for the sky. I don't know why I expected the trail to top out at 1,800 feet before veering onto the Saratoga Gap Trail, because that is not what happened. I continued to attempt riding the eroded mess between my nausea episodes, until I really did feel physically spent. I had no choice but to trudge up the trail as it rose to 2,600 feet. Two hours had already passed when I was only halfway around my loop on Skyline Boulevard. That's when the building thunderstorm finally opened up. A stiff wind drove the chill of the already 45-degree air (that's spring in California for you, I'm told. Eighty-six degrees one day and 45 the next.) Suddenly these harsh, tiny shards of hail started pelting from the sky. If I didn't know better I would have sworn it was sleet or freezing rain. Either way, it hurt. Stinging and cold. I was not happy. Not happy. I beat a quick retreat down the road.

Beat, who also has been sick all week (we think it's the infamous Fairbanks Plague that was going around up there) couldn't understand why I was so shattered when I walked in the door. "You were only out for three hours," he said. True, true. But sometimes you just need a really rough ride after a rough week to put things in perspective. I'll remind this to myself when I'm finally back to normal and the summer heat has returned. Being healthy in the sunshine really is pretty darn awesome.

Ride map here.

Beat's WM100 report

Beat just finished up his White Mountains 100 race report, with a spot-on observation about the competitive dynamic of these crazy winter races:

"65 racers collect at the Wickersham Dome trailhead to participate in the White Mountains 100. About half are bikers, half skiers and then there are the crazy seven, the foot people, “walkers” as the local news article had called us. That term is a sad mix of insult (at least in a 100 miler) and omen, evoking visions of elderly with walking aids that reflect just how we would feel in a day or so, when we would be reduced to just that — walkers.

The dynamic among the groups is interesting. From what I can tell, Bikers are here to compete most and foremost with other bikers, and to make sure the skiers know their place. Skiers come here to race each other, upstage bikers and hope for soft trails that would give them the edge to do so. Both think walkers are crazy and stupid for choosing such a poor form of winter travel, but there is a spark of admiration, an acknowledgement that indeed, walking is the most pure, the hardest, the most painful, the most mentally challenging. We, on the other hand, simply enjoy the fact that we get the most fun per dollar of our entry fee. Twice as much, usually."

Read the rest of Beat's report here.

Facing the fuel

Since the White Mountains 100, I have been giving more thought to exercise nutrition. I realize this is a complex issue and I personally believe that everyone has different needs and inclinations that they largely must discover for themselves. The personal philosophy I have developed over years of trial and error is fairly simple: If I am out and about for the better part of a day, I need calories. Salt, too, but mostly calories. My method for getting those calories mainly involves listening to my body, and when that fails, cramming in whatever is available.

In my early days of cycling, I was constantly battling with low energy. I carried gels and energy bars because I believed those to be the "right" foods, but when it came time to stuff one of those smashed, waterlogged, half-frozen chunks of tar in my mouth, I decided I would rather pedal around in a daze than eat my food, so I didn't eat. Some suggested I try liquid nutrition, so I sampled all kinds of milky syrupy nutritional supplements: HEED, Gatorade, Perpetuem, Cytomax, the list goes on. These products all made me feel vaguely ill after a few sips, and since my water supply had been contaminated, I refrained from drinking as well. Yes, there was plenty of low-level bonking in my early days of cycling.

As the years went by, I found energy foods I vaguely enjoyed, but often they turned on me at inopportune times. These include Shot Blocks, Clif Bars, Luna Bars, Honey Stinger Bars, Odwalla Bars, etc. Tasty one mile, and foul the next. Because of increasing warnings about the importance of electrolytes, I continued to contaminate my water with products such as Nuun and CarboRocket. These were tolerable sources of electrolytes, but during long rides they revealed my weakness: I really don't like drinking flavored water when I am working out. It's not just the sugar, nutrients and calories; I don't like my water to taste like anything but water. To the point where I will avoid drinking it if I can.

While training for the Tour Divide, I made my first real breakthrough. I understood that three-plus weeks on the trail meant I would probably be running a calorie deficit no matter what I ate. I also understood that I would often have to carry two-plus days of food in my small pack, necessitating calorie-dense options. Finally, I understood that food availability would be limited to mainly convenience stores, and I'd have to learn to digest whatever I could get, whenever I could get it. In short, I would have to become an opportunivoure.

In all my years of cycling, I have found one thing that I have always been able to eat, enjoy, and process into energy, every time, without fail — Candy! Gummy snacks, peanut butter cups, Snickers bars, M&Ms, jelly beans, chocolate, various nuts and espresso beans covered in chocolate, and quite possibly my favorite, Sour Patch Kids (OK, these technically count as gummy snacks, but I felt they deserved a category of their own.) I'm willing to acknowledge that heavily processed sugar (or high fructose corn syrup) is a dubious source of energy, but it was energy all the same. I'm not exaggerating when I say that candy, brownies and other processed sweet foods probably supplied as many as 60 percent of the calories I consumed in 24 days of the Tour Divide. I didn't die. I lost 15 pounds, developed two cavities and became severely addicted to sugar, but I didn't die.

These days, I try to adhere to a happy medium. I continue to use natural energy bars, Shot Blocks, unsweetened dried fruit and occasionally gels, because these reportedly utilize a better combination of carbohydrates and nutrients for longer, cleaner-burning energy (high octane fuel). I also often bring candy bars on rides, just in case the natural energy bars morph into unappetizing bricks, as they often do in my mind. (Because any fuel is better than running on empty.) I do eat (mostly) healthy at home, with lots of fruits, vegetables, lean meats, low-fat dairy and grains (I prefer the old food pyramid diet. It seems to work well for me.) I supplement my lack of electrolyte-supplying liquids with Endurolytes, but in all honesty, I rarely take them. I acknowledge that I live in a warm climate now, and will probably need to start paying more attention to electrolytes. But they haven't been too much of an issue in the past, not in my typical exercise weather and moderate levels of intensity.

But now I'm back to questioning my nutrition strategies. The big bonk in the White Mountains 100, the fact I now live in a warmer climate, and my ambitions in trail running have left me wondering if I need to sample new sports nutrition strategies. I still buy into the "Calories in, calories out ... it really can be that simple" philosophy (note that my views are largely influenced by the fact I was able to continue turning pedals for 24 days of subsisting on absolute crap during the Tour Divide, therefore I believe many of our bodies aren't as choosey as we'd like to believe.) However, I acknowledge that there are levels of efficiency and effectiveness within the simple act of stuffing food in my face. I'm not necessarily looking to get X-percent faster. I'm just looking for new ideas. I'm going to spend some more time thinking about it. And yes, I am asking for advice. But if anyone tells me to try Hammer's new Perpetuem Solids, I am going to go out and buy a case of peanut butter cups.

And the next day, it was summer

Bike shorts, short-sleeve shirt, sunglasses, 70 ounces of water, SPF 45 — all things I needed for my first "recovery" ride following the White Mountains 100. It was 86 degrees in Los Altos, California. Sweat beaded on my arms and streamed down my face as I pedaled up Steven's Creek Canyon. Even the thick green tree canopy seemed to provide only weak shade beneath a blazing sun. I squinted at the electric blue sky with the same kind of excitement and trepidation that many Alaskans feel during the first snows of October: "Six more months of this? Really?"

Yes, I already miss Alaska. Flying over Denali on Wednesday morning, I felt a tinge of homesickness when I realized that for the first time since I left, I have no solid plans to return to the state. Perhaps Juneau in June? For now, it's time to gear up for the long summer. There are places I want to mountain bike, local trips I want to plan, and of course I need start training for the Tahoe Rim 100. That's my next planned race, in mid-July, although I suspect there will be several 50K training races and possibly even a 24-hour-solo mountain bike race thrown in as well. I'm excited to start running again. I actually miss doing it on a regular basis, and I still have so much to learn now that snow-running is over and heat and hills are replacing it.

Recovery from the White Mountains 100 is going well. I struggled a bit on Thursday when it was 86 degrees and I had a few symptoms from a post-race cold, but today I went back out at 63 degrees and felt really strong for the duration of a 10-mile, 2,700-foot climb, and even better on the descent. I'm very pleased that I have no post-race knee pain, which I expected given my light bike training and the fact I had knee issues for nearly a month following last year's race. I think a lot of the credit for my lack of post-race soreness goes to the Fatback. Despite that fact it's Beat's bike (it still is), the Fatback fits me quite well. It rides more comfortable and feels more natural than my Pugsley. The Pugsley was a fantastically innovative bike when I purchased it in 2007, but the Fatback designers really improved on the fat bike geometry with a symmetrical design and sloping top tube. I'm also a big fan of the carbon fork. I compare the Pugsley to driving a diesel truck while the Fatback is more like a regular car — that is, more agile and maneuverable. This isn't to say I'm selling my Pugsley. As long as snow biking remains only a distant recreation possibility, I don't see any need to upgrade. (Plus, well, Pugsley and I have just been through so much together.) But as long as Beat stays interested in snow-running, I'll probably continue racing with his Fatback.

As I've said before about my gear, I carried too much. No need to dwell on it. As for what I used, I started the race with a massive foot system that included liner socks, vapor barrier socks, winter boots and overboots (in my opinion, feet can't be too warm.) I wore wind-tights and soft-shell pants (neither can legs), and vented through my upper body by wearing only a base layer and a Gortex shell that I unzipped in varying degrees to vent heat. I also had a balaclava/hat that I removed frequently. When it got colder at night, I added a fleece balaclava and gloves. That was the only extra clothing or gear I used. Yeah, I could have carried everything I actually needed in a Camelback. But, like I said, no need to dwell on it. There is of course good reason to be prepared, but I don't think being over-prepared is the smartest course of action. If I get into the White Mountains 100 next year, I hope to develop a "smart" kit based more on reality than the absolute worst-case-scenario.

People have asked me how riding a bike in the White Mountains 100 compared to running the Susitna 100. My reply has been that they really don't compare. They were night-and-day experiences — quite literally, since the Susitna 100 took an often-gruelling 41 hours and the White Mountains 100 was a fairly comfortable 18 (with the exception of the 2.5-hour grumpy bonk thrown in to keep me honest.) Cold weather was a big factor in the Susitna 100 and a non-issue in the White Mountains 100 (I had a thermometer on my bike that I occasionally checked, and would guess the temperatures ranged from 10 degrees to 34 degrees with light winds during the WM100.)

I feel satisfied with the effort I put into the White Mountains 100 — I gave it everything I had on those climbs and without serious intensity training wouldn't have the strength to go harder. With more snow biking practice I could improve my descents. But all in all I had a great race, and think it would have been perfect with a little tweaking in the nutrition department. I appreciate that my winter was capped with dynamic challenges. I think it's good to have a well-rounded mixture of goals — intense and soul-crushing like the Susitna 100, and fast and fun like the White Mountains 100. I suspect the Tahoe Rim Trail will be more like the former, so I hope to find a light-hearted mountain bike race to round it out (24 Hours of Light, anyone?)

For now, I have a long summer in front of me. It's going to be tough, but I plan to do what I can to enjoy it.

Into the great white open

Why does this make me so happy? Why do fire-singed spruce trees and wind-swept fields of snow rend my heart the way they do? What makes these northern latitudes so unique to me that I can pedal a bicycle to the base of a nondescript mountain and let myself believe I have found the edge of the world? Why do I follow a misfit community of athletes deep into these places I don't belong, and why do these difficult efforts make me feel so awake and alive? Why does this make me so happy?

"Fairbanks is a strange place," I told Beat. "I think you'll either love it or think it's super weird." Even though I've never spent much time there, and certainly not in the 40 below months, I love it. My long-term goal when I moved to Anchorage last year was to someday afford to buy a cabin on the domes above Fairbanks and spend my winters writing and cycling and my summers adventuring in Denali and the Brooks Range. Perhaps that's still my goal. "So hopefully," I said to Beat, "you'll like Fairbanks, too (wink, wink.)"

One of the things I love about Fairbanks is the tight-knit community it engenders. Cold, hard places foster that kind of neighborly goodwill — you have to help each other to survive. Last year, the community surrounding the White Mountains 100 embraced me with open arms, and this year showed almost baffling generosity to the token "Outside" contingent (Beat, me and a man from Los Alamos, New Mexico. All of the other 62 racers were from Alaska.) My friend Carlene came and picked up Beat and me, a bike box and three huge duffels at the airport at 1 a.m. Saturday morning. She transported us to our home for the weekend — race director Ed's cabin, surrounded by birch trees and big landscape windows. Carlene showed us to our own room, which prompted Beat to call Ed the "best race director ever" before he even met Ed. (Who really is the best, by the way.)

Race morning was filled with the usual fumbling and stress. The morning was mostly clear and warm, in the high teens even before the sun came up. I walked around the parking lot chatting with all of the familiar faces from last year's race, with the ulterior motive of checking out their ultra-light fat bike set-ups. I determined that I was one of only three or four other cyclists who was grievously overpacked for a single-day, well-supported race in such warm temps. I agonized about ditching my sleeping bag bivy, down coat and a few other miscellaneous items, but at the last minute decided to just haul it all because, really, "what difference does it make?" (Later, when I felt even more embarrassed about all the crap I was carrying, I told people that Beat guilted me into it because he was also overpacked and didn't want to be the only one. Beat denies this.)

In the midst of our fumbling and dawdling, Beat and I failed to notice it was nearly 8 a.m., and had to rush to the start line only to watch the pack take off in a blur of wheels, skis and snow. I "rode" with Beat for a bit, pedaling beside him until I moved ahead, then dismounting and falling behind as I struggled to hold the runners' pace while pushing my bike. In total, there were seven runners in the White Mountains 100. I didn't even see how many bikes; they were all in front of me. It didn't really matter. It was a warm clear morning, the distant mountains were out, and I had nothing to do all day but ride my bike in the snow. The churned-up trail was fairly soft, and I expected it would only get softer, but even that didn't really matter. It would just give me longer to soak it all in. I gave Beat a kiss at the top of the mile-long hill and said, "see you soon."

On those first rolling hills, I was mostly alone. I laughed with unchecked glee as I careened and swerved down the loose descents and powered up the climbs. As I crested the top of the third or fourth hill, I had a startling realization — I was actually riding all of this. Last year, despite harder packed trails, I was frequently reduced to pushing my bike up many of the climbs. This year, I was climbing strong. Despite a winter absent of any significant bicycle training, my legs found the stamina to press into the pedals and somehow power this 55-pound bicycle with mushy 8 psi tires up hill after soft, steep hill. "Wow," I thought as a grin spread across my face. "I guess running makes me strong."

In what seemed like a short hour or two, I reached the second checkpoint at mile 38. The Cache Mountain cabin sits in a beautiful basin at the base of the White Mountains." It was so warm that some cyclists and skiers were wearing only T-shirts. I felt chilled on descents so I was still wearing my wind shell, but the hard climbing had left me more than a little damp from sweat. I didn't really mind because I was drowning in extra clothes. I honestly needed an excuse to somehow justify my 55-pound kit.

From the cabin, the course follows a 12-mile steady climb to the Cache Mountain Divide at about 3,500 feet. I remembered this as a tough section and mentally steeled myself for a long slog. Despite a 1,800-foot elevation gain with a few significant rollers, I maintained my encouragingly strong cadence. I passed the woman who had been in third position, Gail, as she and her husband, Rocky, pushed their bikes out of a steep drainage. I was in full power mode, hovering over the saddle and trying to mitigate tire slippage as I mashed the pedals. "Nice work," Gail said to me as I passed. Her verbal encouragement sparked a sort of inner competition with myself, a pressing need to ride up this entire mountain. I unzipped my coat, pulled off my hat, and grimaced with new-found resolve into the bright sunlight.

I mashed past cyclist Brian Garcia, who was munching Cheetos from a giant ziplock bag, and skier Matias Saari, who told me he was hurting. The trail lifted skyward and I continued summoning deeper reserves of power. My heart pounded and sweat streamed from my forehead and soaked hair. I was working at a solid level of high intensity that I have possibly never before tapped in a long race — that is, race pace. The high-effort bursts of energy had no reason or justification beyond the fact that they made me feel amazing — pushing so close to the edge of my abilities amid this expansive white wilderness. I finally blew up a mere quarter mile from the top, but I didn't mind. As my breathing finally calmed down and my head stopped spinning, I gazed at the snow-sculpted slopes and grinned. Matias and I stopped together at the pass and enjoyed a bit of lunch — him, a healthy-looking wrap in a wheat tortilla; me, a Snicker's Bar and an Odwalla Bar. The world was perfect, and I was happy.

Beneath a bright and blazing afternoon sun, the trail had softened up considerably. As we started down, I had to swerve around deep trenches and soft mounds left by other cyclists who also had to brake hard amid the uneven conditions. Like sporadically accelerating snowmachines, the bicycles before me had ripped up the trail, leaving it punchy and difficult to navigate even at braking speeds.

The muscles in my shoulders and arms burned as I wrestled with my squirrelly wheels. My technical snow riding skills have become seriously rusty, and several times I dipped to the side and punched my right leg into the waist-deep snow just off the trail. The third or fourth time I did this, I wrenched my knee hard, which prompted my deeper self-preservation instincts. After that, if I saw a deep trench ahead, I stopped to push my bike.

Much of my hard work on the climb up the Cache Mountain Divide was negated by downhill caution. I walked through the slushy overflow on the ice lakes and continued to gingerly pick my way around torn-up bits of trail. At my slower speeds I crashed twice — painless endos into snow banks. Brian and another cyclist passed me, as well as several other skiers. My newfound race instincts experienced bouts of frustration. As I descended, trail conditions improved, and at one point I decided just to see what would happen if I let off the brakes.

In the blur of green and white, it happened so quickly — front wheel lurched right, rear wheel jumped left, and suddenly I was buried head-first beneath my bicycle in a small tree well. My legs were tangled around the bicycle and my face was pressed against the snow beneath a barrier of tree branches. I groped for leverage with my right arm, but found nothing but bottomless powder. I pushed my left arm against the bicycle, but I couldn't muster the strength to force it off my body. "Arrrgh!" I yelled out loud. I was trapped! For several seconds I thrashed around in near panic, like a turtle on its back. Luckily, reason kicked in. I wrestled my right arm out of the snow and with both hands grabbed tree branches, using every ounce of upper body strength I could muster to pull my torso out of the snow. Then I kicked my left leg free of the bike tangle, managed to secure a foothold on the packed trail, pulled myself a little higher up the tree, and reached down to shove the bike sideways in order to extricate my right leg. For about two more minutes, I simply sat on the trail just to recover from my full-body, high intensity battle for freedom.

By the time I made it to the Windy Gap cabin, mile 60, I was feeling a little frustrated. Dea, the wonderful volunteer who made a last-minute grocery stop to ensure five meatballs for all racers because the race organization had planned for three and it "wasn't enough," served me a steaming bowl of meatball soup. "The trail is getting soft and tough," I complained in spite of myself. "You pretty much just have to power full speed to get through the rough patches, but riding fast is risky. I crashed four times." I hoped the trail would set up more with the inevitable freeze of nighttime, but at the same time, I wanted to maximize daylight to see as much of the course as possible. I packed up quickly and left.

The route followed Windy Creek down a narrow canyon surrounded by sheer cliffs and craggy ridges. The trail conditions improved, and on smoother snow I found myself swooping through the forest at 10, 12, even 14 mph. The canyon opened up, revealing bigger mountains and wider valleys speckled with the twisted silhouettes of black spruce trees. I had seen none of this scenery last year because by the time I went through here, it was dark. It was the first time that I realized I really must have been moving faster than I was a year earlier, and this new encouragement prompted me to pedal harder. Clouds sunk in but daylight remained, revealing ever more mountains and valleys. My bicycle moved seemingly effortlessly, allowing me to relish the bombardment of beauty and freedom. I climbed out of Windy Creek and dropped back into Beaver Creek, arriving at the mile 81 checkpoint a mere two hours and 20 minutes after I left Windy Gap. Last year, this same section of the race had taken me a grueling four hours and 10 minutes, and I arrived at the Borealis cabin half-frozen and nearly shattered in the middle of the night. This year, it was still light at 8:30 p.m., and I felt strong and fresh. The Fairbanks race was being so kind to me this year. What had I done to deserve this fantastic treatment?

I ate a cheese sandwich and chips at the Borealis cabin and checked out with Brian Garcia around 8:45 p.m. Twilight had descended over the sky, and the nearby domes were shrouded in a thick ceiling of ominous-looking clouds. Flurries were starting to fall on the trail. "Oh no, snow," I muttered as Brian and I packed up. "I wonder how much it's going to snow?" he replied. "Hopefully not a lot." Still, my optimism didn't flag. We were less than 13 hours into the White Mountains 100 with only 19 more miles to go. I convinced myself if I could just hold the pace, I stood a good chance of finishing the race within the 16-hour range, an almost unthinkably fast time for someone like me. As we climbed out of Beaver Creek, Brian surged ahead but I held back — I knew the big climb was coming, and wanted to save some energy. I stopped at the mile 89 trail shelter because I hoped to see my friend Robin. She wasn't there yet, but for good measure I drank a couple cups of hot Tang and ate several handfuls of Fritos as I chatted with the volunteers. By this point, snow was falling hard, at least an inch had accumulated on the trail, and the new tracks through it made for uneven riding once again.

Then, just like that, I hit the wall. Brian and I were leap-frogging each other as we pedaled toward Wickersham Creek and the looming if unseen "Wickersham Wall." The Wickersham Wall is a direct trail up the Wickersham Dome, gaining more than 800 feet in less than a mile. On already soft trails covered in a couple inches of loose new snow, it sometimes feels as unclimbable as its impossibly steep namesake, a vertical face of Denali. I could see Brian's headlamp rising like a slow elevator toward the sky, followed by that of skier B. Young. I briefly pedaled toward them but quickly hit red-line. I got off my bike and started pushing, but after only a few dozen steps, I red-lined again. My heart raced and head spun until I nearly vomited, and I was forced to stop and catch my breath. I took a few more steps and red-lined again. I took another break. Pant, pant, push. I felt dizzy and exhausted. "Oh crap," I thought. "I bonked."

I dug into my food bag, which was surprisingly depleted. I started the race with about 2,500 calories — not counting checkpoint food — and cut it down to a few bars, some dried fruit, and a bag of Haribo Brix (gummy snacks.) I tore open the Brix and started stuffing them in my mouth. They tasted like fruity bursts of joy and took the edge off my nausea, but the urge to vomit returned as I continued to push my bike up the wall. I was locked in a struggle just to reach my body's lowest gear, which was still too high. Pant, pant, push. Break, eat, push. Pant, pant, push.

Behind me, two lights slowly approached from below. I convinced myself they belonged to Rocky and Gail, and tried to use that as motivation to push harder. "You're going to lose third place," I told myself, as if that mattered. My body certainly did not care. I felt awful, dizzy and exhausted, and I just wanted to sit down for a minute or 45. I stuffed Brix in my mouth and urged my legs to push onward. When my arms became too tired to hold themselves up anymore, I leaned against my handlebars and pushed against the impossibly heavy backward force with my collarbone. Every time I thought I was near the top, the trail only became steeper, with my headlamp illuminating only an endless climb into the black void. Snowflakes fell in large chunks. A bubble of frustration welled up in my throat.

Just as the trail reached a small plateau, the headlights finally caught up to me. They both belonged to Dave Shaw. "Mind if I walk with you for a bit?" he asked.

"As long as you want," I said. "I'm pretty bonked. I'll probably have to walk the rest of the way."

"It's gotta start downhill soon, right?" Dave asked.

"Perhaps," I said. "But I'm not letting myself get too hopeful."

Dave eventually got back on his bike and started riding. I tried, several times, but the effort was just too intense. It felt like I was attempting to sprint even though I was scarcely moving. The last miles crawled onward in a bonked-out blur, tinged with occasional moments of growling frustration. I ate most of the Brix, about 350 calories worth, and an Odwalla Bar, but they didn't seem to make a dent on my empty gas gauge. I finally slumped into the finish line a full 40 minutes after Brian but only 10 minutes after Dave — so I now conclude that I limped through my bonk OK. It was 1:55 a.m., for a final time of 17 hours and 55 minutes. It wasn't even close to the 16-hour range, but at the same time, I certainly couldn't be disappointed about a sub-18-hour finish. I flashed Carlene a subdued smile as she waved pom-poms in front of her own sleepy grin.

I chatted with other finishers in the heated tent before rolling out my sleeping bag in the snow. I caught a couple hours of deep sleep and then Dave woke me up because he was heading home. I took the ride back to Fairbanks, took a shower, ate some food and returned to race headquarters to wait for Beat. I chatted with the race volunteers and mulled the reasons for my bonk. I had been eating what seemed to me to be an adequate number of calories, with food that had worked quite well for me in numerous past events. And the entire time, I felt great, until I didn't. I talked it over with others, and what I concluded is I spent much of the race working at a higher intensity than I'm used to, taking in a lot more water and sweating quite a bit more than I usually do in a winter endurance effort. I was probably low on both electrolytes and calories despite sticking to my planned food intake. Yet another one of those learning experiences. I don't regret the way I executed the White Mountains 100. What would be the point of "racing" if we didn't push and sometimes exceed our own limits?

I really enjoyed my day at race quarters, watching the behind-the-scenes action and cheering on the remaining racers. Anne Ver Hoef had an infectious grin as she wrapped up her second-place, first-woman foot finish. Then Emily Schwing came in on skis and burst into tears. "I don't even know why I'm crying," she bawled, and I think everyone in the circle could feel the weight of her accomplishment. Around 5:30 I decided to start hiking out the trail to meet Beat.

The landscape took on an entirely new look following the snowstorm. The once-green spruce trees were now a ghostly white, and golden sunlight glowed through a weak layer of remaining clouds. As the hustle of race headquarters faded and my solitude crept back in, I felt a rush of strong emotions — awe at the expansive beauty of the region, joy for my presence there, pride for Beat's accomplishment and also my own ride, and gratitude for the race organizers and volunteers I had spent the afternoon with. It all came together in a trickle of perfect moments, the flowed into a lasting impression: This makes me happy. This is something I'm certain of.

I caught up to Beat about 3.5 miles out, just as he crested the Wickersham Dome with another foot racer, Kevin Vig. Beat was smiling wide but one of the first things he said was "&#@#*%! Wickersham!" ... so I knew he had a tough time on the Wall, too. Beat said the race was much tougher than the Susitna 100, but he too was impressed with the beauty of the region. "Let's just buy a cabin in Fairbanks," he joked, and I grinned. Mission accomplished.

I walked with Beat and Kevin to the finish line, where they finished together in 35:41. The volunteers, who had been awake for more than 36 hours, showed just as much enthusiasm for Beat and Kevin as I would have expected for the front-of-the-pack. I realized that why I go to these places — stark and demanding, lonely and difficult — and why I'm so happy in these places, is because it's in these places I find greatness — in myself, in the people I love, in the people I meet, and in everything surrounding us.

(For a map of the course and my GPS stats, click here.)