Quiet week

I've had a fairly quiet week since I fell on my face on Sunday. I had been looking forward to getting out for some road rides and runs this week, but swelling and bruising on my arm and knee has limited me to minimal-impact activities, like taking my mountain bike on smooth-as-possible pavement rides. Even slight jarring from potholes on my bouncy bike has been enough to bring a few tears to my eyes. I feel battered. It really is humorous in a pathetic kind of way, especially when it comes time for the nightly cringe sessions needed to clean and redress the road rash, which is finally close to the point of scabbing over. I'm taking this silly running crash as the final sign from the universe that I was meant to take some real down time this month. OK, universe, you win. I'm taking down time. No more signs, OK? Because at this point I'm really itching to get out for a good long effort.

In the meantime, I really wanted to bump down those disgusting road rash pictures, so I'm posting a mid-week news update. In the week's most exciting news, Beat was accepted in the 2012 Iditarod Trail Invitational — 350 miles to McGrath on foot. I am super excited for him, and also excited for myself and potential opportunities to train with him during long backcountry hikes in the snow. Training well for this race is of upmost importance, so as far as I'm concerned, Beat's sacrifice in signing up for the 2012 ITI means I get to enjoy all the spoils of winter adventure without actually having to go through with the race.

It's true — I did not attempt to sign up for next year's race. When asked why, my short answer is that my mom would kill me if I ever entered the ITI again (ha ha.) But the truth is, I did some soul searching about it and decided it wasn't the right time. As I said, I really look forward to participating in Beat's training adventures. I also have dreams of putting together short, solo bike tour on the Iditarod Trail, possibly from Point McKenzie to Finger Lake or Puntilla Lake and back, which I could plan during the week that Beat is racing the ITI. I really wanted to plan a solo tour this past winter, and probably would have if I had stayed in Alaska. Since I'll be doing a lot of foot training anyway, maybe I can fly out a week early and try to crush my Susitna 100 foot time. Oh, the possibilities! Next year's race does promise to be an exciting one. There are 20 people who signed up to race on foot, including Geoff Roes and Dave Johnston, who has won the Susitna 100 twice.

When I wasn't cringing through my short and "too bumpy" mountain bike road rides this week, I was deeply immersed in Great Divide projects — editing photos, writing book promotional materials, playing with cover design ideas, and writing an essay for the second edition of the Cordillera. Even simple design work prompts vivid memories of those three weeks in 2009, and that's where my head has been for much of the week. Because of this, I was fairly amused to receive a fortuitous e-mail from a promoter for the movie "Ride the Divide," a documentary about the 2008 Tour Divide. He had set up a showing in Oakland and he wanted me to attend as a "special guest" to answer questions about the race.

I coerced Beat into joining me on the long Wednesday rush-hour drive to the northland. The showing was held at the Grand Lake Theatre, a quirky old movie house with ornate decorations and a balcony. I expected a low-key event, and was a little shocked when I arrived to a sold-out crowd at a big theater. I've already seen this movie four times, but it was fun to watch it on the big screen, not only for the beautiful cinematography, but also to listen to the crowd's reactions to different scenes. It found myself becoming surprisingly choked up during relatively benign scenes that depicted race leader Matthew Lee quietly riding alone through areas of Southern Colorado and Northern New Mexico. I realized that I am still deeply attached to not only my experiences in the Tour Divide, but also the regions it traverses. For the first time in two years I found myself truly believing that *perhaps* I really do want to go there again someday, in that same context. But not this year. Like the ITI, it's just not the right time.

The Q&A session was fun, but I was not prepared and didn't know how to answer questions like "why did you do it?" ("Uh, well, I had some time off and it seemed like a fun way to spend a summer.") and "who sponsored you?" (Well, I guess the Juneau Empire sponsored me, because they employed me beforehand and gave me paychecks that I was able to stash away for race funds.") A question about my "most vivid experience" resulted in a really long story about interacting with another racer after a serious truck collision on Indiana Pass. But for the most part it went well. It really is rewarding to see how other people react to images and stories from the Tour Divide, because the experience means so much to me.

And hopefully, there will be more mountain biking in my future. Sooner would be my preference.

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.