Friday, July 08, 2011

Great moments

Last week, my friend Bill wrote a great blog post in which he listed his "top five greatest moments." It makes an intriguing thought exercise, because by pinpointing specific moments we consider our "greatest," we simultaneously throw a sharp spotlight on the aspects of life that make us the happiest. It sounds trite but I think listing them can have a profound impact. Take the moments you felt the happiest, analyze what you learned about yourself and life, and set your sights in those directions. So I gave it some thought this week and came up with five great moments from the past decade. To make the list, they actually had to qualify as true moments — although framed by a larger experience, these were all just a few quick but vibrant seconds that reverberated with a lifetime's worth of color and energy. I don't necessarily consider them the "five greatest" or "top five" because I don't think these types of moments are quantifiable — not only are they always changing, but they're constantly re-imagined through the lens of what has happened since. But "great moments" are worth acknowledging.

Reaching the summit of Mount Whitney with my dad, August 2001: The summers of my early adulthood were marked by long hikes with my dad. He got me started on Mount Timpanogos in the Wasatch Mountains when I was 16 years old and each summer included a progressively more epic outing. In the summer of 2001, we scored a permit for a day trip on Mount Whitney. It was an intimidating prospect — 22 miles, 6,000 feet of climbing to an elevation of 14,500 feet. It was by far the most difficult single-day effort I had ever planned. I was also approaching a big intersection in my life. I had just returned from my first big adventure — a cross-country road trip followed by a two-week rafting trip down the Green River. The travels left me with a lot of conflicting feelings about adulthood, freedom and relationships. And just two days before our hike, I had interviewed for a career job as a newspaper editor in Tooele that I was poised to get. So I had a lot on my mind as my dad, his friend Tom and I marched up the barren slopes of California's highest mountain. In the process I started to open up to my dad, and he helped me feel secure when my head spun and heart raced in the thin air. Practically crawling onto the broad peak and looking out over the sweeping ridges of the Sierras was a particularly meaningful moment for me. I'll never forget the smile on my dad's face.

What I learned about myself: I feel most at home in the mountains, I relish big efforts, and I value shared accomplishments.

Cresting Bayview Hill over Homer, Alaska, September 2005: In late August 2005 I made the spontaneous and rather terrifying decision to leave my home and job in Idaho and follow my then-boyfriend Geoff to Alaska. We decided to move to Homer nearly sight-unseen because I managed to land a job at a weekly newspaper in the quirky fishing village, population 3,000. We drove directly from Idaho to the tip of the Kenai Peninsula over three long days. I felt deeply fatigued and uncertain when we rounded the sand bluffs at Bayview Hill, where I caught my first glimpse of the Homer Spit and Kachemak Bay. I remember the calm water was glowing gold in the late afternoon sunlight; yellow birch leaves lit up the hillsides and the impressively rugged Kenai Mountains wrapped around the bay. My jaw just dropped in an "I get to live here?" kind of disbelief, and I felt a wash of strong conviction that I had landed exactly where I needed to be. Although I don't regret leaving Homer and following the path that I did, my heart still flutters when I think about that place.

What I learned about myself: I thrive in the excitement of new beginnings and I love dramatic outdoor landscapes — and Alaska.

Climbing toward Rainy Pass, February 2008: Entering the 2008 Iditarod Trail Invitational, a 350-mile snow bike race to McGrath, was simultaneously the worst and best idea I ever had. I was so far in over my head that even now it's difficult for me to understand how I got through it with the knowledge and personal experience I had at the time. Everything about that adventure was so much more remote, intense and absolutely frightening than I ever anticipated, and I did the whole thing almost completely alone. I struggled and struggled and achieved small triumphs followed by crashing blows, but I just kept chipping away at it even though I was plagued with a fair certainty that I was probably going to die. (Yes, I'm more confident of my abilities in extreme conditions now. But I certainly wasn't at the time.) Despite all of this, I'm not sure any of these moments I've listed quite reach the level of pure ecstasy I felt as I plodded into the Alaska Range early on a sunny, frigid morning in February. I was so, so happy to be alive, just simply alive. But I also recognized that I was alive in one of the most overwhelmingly beautiful places I had ever seen — stark white mountains, deep blue sky, sprinkles of dwarf spruce trees and absolutely nothing else.

What I learned about myself: I really am stronger and more resilient than I ever imagined I could be, and I deeply love the wilderness — and Alaska.

Rolling into Antelope Wells at the finish of the Tour Divide, July 2009: The 2,740-mile mountain bike race was full of intense, ecstatic and triumphant experiences that all seemed to condense and collide when I coasted past the last mile marker and approached the waving arms of my mom and dad at the border. Finishing that race was a beautiful personal accomplishment, one I can never really repeat because I can never return under the same circumstances. But I can always cherish the way I set out to do this thing that genuinely seemed impossible to me, and finish with flair — arm raised in the air and a smile on my face.

What I learned about myself: I value solo accomplishments and also adventures infused with difficulty, daunting challenges and suffering, because they make the experience that much more vibrant and meaningful to me.

Standing in the moonlight with Beat during the Bear 100, September 2010: The circumstances surrounding Beat's and my "first date" at the 2010 Bear 100 are almost too convoluted to list, but we had ended up together in the most unlikely spot and we both knew it. I set out to travel 50 miles with him even though my 2010 running miles up to that point probably didn't yet total 50. Beat was fresh off a five-day, 200-mile, sleepless epic in the Italian Alps and practically flew directly from Italy to Utah to run yet another 100-mile race a week later. We barely knew each other but agreed to the meeting because to both of us, it almost seemed like our only chance. I joined Beat right at sunset and we worked through our "first-date" introductions, discussions of physics, favorite places and meaningful adventures as we ran through the night. After a couple dozen miles, we stopped for a break in the midst of a large alpine meadow. We turned off our headlamps and let the bright moonlight illuminate the mountains surrounding us. Beat said he brought something for me, reached in his pack and fished out a golf-ball-sized gray rock infused with flecks of gold and pearl. He told me he thought of me when he collected the rock early in the Italian race and carried it the entire 200-mile distance — and 70 miles of the Bear 100. I was deeply touched by the gesture, and immediately understood what that meant for both of us.

What I learned about myself: I cherish these shared moments of clarity. And Beat is a great person to share them with.

That was fun — and provided some good personal insights that I can carry into the Tahoe Rim Trail 100 next week. What are some of your great moments?

Torturing the parents

My mom and dad came to visit me for a few days, so I did what any good daughter would do for her 50-something parents in the technology capital of America — I dragged them around on grueling athletic adventures. I took this picture during our six-mile hike in Fremont
Older Preserve in 90-degree weather.

The next day, I set them up on mountain bikes for the 16-mile-round-trip ride to Google. I rode my fixed-gear commuter to keep the pace casual. Noncyclists both, they humored me all the way up to "Vista Point," a knoll that looks out over the Kingdom of Google. On the way down the smooth gravel path, I mindlessly relaxed my legs into "coast mode" and experienced the usual blunt fixed-gear force that disconcertingly feels like my tibias ramming directly through my knee joints. Suddenly the chain jumped off the chainring, so I applied the front brake and coasted to a stop. As I started to thread the chain back on, I discovered the chainring had folded inward. There were no rocks or any sort of chainring-bending obstructions in sight. My knees felt fine but the Surly chainring was completely tacoed. It appears that the sheer resisting force of my astonishingly strong legs managed to bend a stainless steel chainring. That, or I was dealing with a loose chainring bolt or otherwise defective ring. But I'm going to go ahead and give the credit to my legs.

Either way, my fixie quickly became useless and I was the one who had to call in a rescue ride, much to the amusement of my parents. I tried to make up for it this evening by taking my dad on the 2,500-foot climb up the Monte Bello Road at sunset. Did I mention my dad's not a cyclist? He's a strong hiker and runner, but rarely rides a bike. You'd never really be able to tell if you didn't know him well. He holds his own.

Here we all are at the top of the climb. Yay Dad! They're leaving here on Friday to spend the weekend in San Francisco. I wonder why they just don't stay?
Wednesday, July 06, 2011

Play in snow

I punched out my last pre-taper training runs before the Tahoe Rim Trail 100, the details of which are mostly lost to me now. I remember the battery acid burn of the stinging nettle and the way a thick film of sweat wrapped around my skin like a dirt-streaked wetsuit. Thirteen miles on Saturday left my body as weak and tired as any 50K I've ever run. It hit 98 degrees during our Mission Peak run on Sunday. I let the heat wrap around me like a death blanket and accepted its debilitating embrace. Wow, am I slow and useless in hot weather. It's as though somewhere around 88 degrees, a switch flips and I become lazy, weak and amazingly out of shape. Training in the heat, I can almost feel the fitness draining from my body as I fantasize about treadmills and air conditioning. I really can only laugh at myself because it's just a new level of pathetic, but that doesn't change how bad I feel in the midst of it all.

Sometime between Beat being on call through Sunday, and my parents arriving for a visit on Tuesday, we found a small window of escape. We loaded up the Subaru and headed for the hills of Truckee, California, where friends of ours were staying in a cabin on the shoreline of Donner Lake. We drove through Sacramento, where the temperature had hit 107 degrees, and continued into the foothills of the Sierras, a region that enjoys a decidedly more truncated version of summer.

Independence Day brought one more training "run" on the Tahoe Rim Trail. We planned a route of 20-22 miles with our friends Harry and Martina. However, there wasn't anywhere to go nearby that wasn't mostly buried in snow above 8,000 feet. No matter. We acquired some trekking poles, ran the trail where we could, and charged the snowfields like overexcited Golden Retrievers when the running stopped. (OK, maybe I was the only overexcited Golden Retriever in the group.)

The views over Lake Tahoe were really not bad.

Of course, the going through long slushy snowfields was entirely too slow to travel 22 miles and still make it back in time for hamburgers, corn on the cob, blueberry pie and fireworks. We settled for a turnaround point about eight miles in. I basically coerced the group into bagging this 9,200-foot "peak" that was really just the highest bump on a very long ridge. Truthfully, I wanted to get a good look at the ridge because we had long since stopped following the proper trail, and I thought a clear view of the sweeping, snow-capped mountains would convince the others that we should spend the rest of the day ridge-running, no dinner and fireworks needed. As far as I was concerned, the training stopped as soon as we hit snow, and everything from that point forward was pure, effortless fun. The more rational members of the group managed to get a leash around my Golden-Retriever-in-snow mentality and drag me back down the mountain.

We still got 15 miles in just under five hours. It was a pretty solid effort for that distance. The July 4th gathering turned out to be a lot of fun. We spent a good part of the evening chatting with Harry's 89-year-old step-father about secular humanism and quantum physics. That guy was as strong and sharp as most anyone half his age — and it was very interesting to meet someone whose grandfather fought in the Civil War.

Today Beat and I went out for more expedition hiking in the form of finding the proper route around Mount Judah. We had only marginal success in locating our route. Make that no success, but we did summit Mount Judah three times during our search, and completed a lot of fully strenuous direct ascents on rugged slopes.

It was fun to escape from summer for half a weekend, although we did keep the best parts of summer — the bright yellows and purples of wildflowers, warm evenings, grilled dinner eaten outdoors, rich smells of sweet grass, charcoal smoke and sulphur powder, and a delightfully brisk submersion in a mountain lake. The thermometer hit 109 in Sacramento on the way home. Time to go stock up on portable snow, in the form of ice cubes for my Camelback bladder.
Sunday, July 03, 2011

Book excerpt: Independence Day

From Chapter 22 of "Be Brave, Be Strong: A Journey Across the Great Divide."

On July Fourth, I woke up to brilliant sunlight and crisp air. It tasted like morning in the early fall, with hints of seltzer and wood smoke. I stocked up at the last gas station in town and checked my maps for the phone number to the Pie-O-Neer café in Pie Town. I had already accepted that clinging to the hope it would be open on a national holiday was a futile at best, but I had heard entire legends formed around the pie in Pie Town. That one stop was likely my only shot at human interaction in the next 300 miles, so even a miniscule chance was certainly worth a try. Plus, I would need to restock my drinking water somehow.

At 8:30 a.m., an answering machine informed me that the café was open Wednesday through Saturday, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. They said nothing about July Fourth specifically, but at least there was a chance they were open that day. Still, even my best-case scenarios made reaching it seem impossible. Pie Town was eighty miles away. Even if there was no mud on the road, an impossible-sounding prospect in itself, my chances of pedaling that far in just over seven hours were unlikely at best. The answering machine beeped, and without planning to, I suddenly launched into a pleading message:

“Hi, my name is Jill. I’m traveling through town on a bicycle with the Tour Divide. Perhaps you’ve seen other bikers come through. Anyway, I’m calling from Grants. It’s 8:30 a.m. Saturday. I’m going to try to make it there by four, but it’s eighty miles and with the mud, well, it’s not very likely I’ll be there before you close. I was wondering if you could leave out some kind of lunch, maybe a sandwich or something, and a piece of pie, and a gallon of water, along with a check, and I’ll leave cash. I don’t even care what it is. I pretty much just need calories at this point, calories and water. Please. I’m good for it. I have a lot of cash. My name is Jill Homer.”

I set out with determination to make the 4 p.m. deadline, come what may. As the derelict highway buildings of Grants faded behind me, a bubble of emotion expanded inside my gut. I felt a strong mixture of gratitude and love, as well as loneliness, fear, and despair. I couldn’t discern where this flood of feelings was coming from. My situation was positive, even pleasant. I was rested, well-fed, and riding on pavement within sight of a town full of people. Despite these comforts, tears started to trickle down my cheeks, which erupted into streams, which erupted into open sobbing, complete with flowing snot and phlegmy gulps of air.

Whenever endurance cyclists embark on long races, people often ask us afterward about the specific moment when we first realized we could actually finish what we had set out to do. I always dismissed this question as unanswerable and misleading. To some, I would say that I knew I would eventually finish the Tour Divide when I was all the way back in Montana. To others, I admitted that I wasn’t even sure when I made the final right turn sixty-five miles from the border. But if I am truly honest with myself, those minutes I spent sobbing on my way out of Grants stand apart as a defining moment of clarity.

As my tears began to slow and my gasps became softer, I pleaded an open prayer to entities I also felt were indefinable — to my inner strength, to my resolve, the desert, the open road and the powers that be. “Please be with me. Please stay with me. Please help me get through this.” Something about leaving Grants told me that, barring breakdown or disaster, I was going to finish the Tour Divide. Since I had no control over breakdown or disaster, I pleaded for help from anything that might.

The powers that be nodded benevolently and swept me along the smooth corridor of Highway 117. The rugged but sheer cliffs of El Malpais National Monument cast the pavement in cool shadow. After thirty-eight miles, the route joined the washboard ruts of a wide county road. The jittery corduroy soon faded into smooth but soft clay. The area had indeed been pummeled by thunderstorms the night before; blood-colored puddles glistened in the road’s many dips and potholes. As I rode, my wheels kicked up large clumps of red mud. Still, beneath the late morning sunlight, the mud had hardened just enough to roll into balls and fling away rather than stick to my bike.

“Think light, be light,” I chanted, as though sheer force of will could reduce my weight and keep my wheels floating over the jelly-like layers of mud. Atop a paper-thin veneer of solidified clay, I pedaled apprehensively but quickly, coming close to sinking into the soft mud that undulated beneath my tires, but never quite breaking through the dry layer. I smiled at the knowledge that if I had passed through the same area just a few hours earlier, I would have been mired in wet sludge. Every once in a while, the universe rewards late risers.


Just after 2 p.m., after covering nearly eighty miles in five and a half hours, I strode triumphantly into the open doors of the Pie-O-Neer café. The single-room restaurant was set up modestly with modern tables and old Western art. A guitarist and bassist strummed acoustic country ballads as couples chatted softly over heaping plates of pie. A woman wearing a ruffled apron rushed out from behind the counter and threw her arms around me in an enthusiastic hug. “You made it!” she exclaimed. “I can’t believe you made it!”

“I made it,” I said, smiling widely.

The guitarist had just finished a cover of Johnny Cash’s “Long Black Veil.” “So you’re Jill?” he asked. I nodded. “We did not think you’d make it here until late tonight,” he continued. “It rained all through the night last night, just poured. I knew that road was gone. I sometimes take my horses out there and I know how bad it can get. Even they can’t get through the mud sometimes. We thought you’d be stuck in it.”

“I thought so, too,” I said. “But it had hardened up in the sun. I got really lucky.”
“Well, anyway, congratulations on getting here from Grants in just a few hours. That’s some incredible riding.”

The woman in the apron nodded. “You should have seen Matt Lee when he came through. It was late but I let him in the door. It had been raining hard and Matt was covered in mud. He had this crazy look in his eyes and he just fell in the door mumbling, ‘I need food.’ I said, ‘I know you need food but you’re not coming in here until you clean off that mud.’ I practically had to push him back out the door. I thought, ‘This can’t be healthy.’”

I laughed. I was about to launch into my “Here in mid-pack, we have more fun” speech when she grabbed my shoulders and rushed me to a nearby table. “But you must be starving, riding all the way from Grants,” she said. “What do you want to eat?”

“Um, what do you have?” I asked.

“Well, we don’t have much. The menu’s over there on the wall.”

Before I even looked at it, I asked, “Do you have salad?”

“Well, I don’t have salad, but I have some spinach and tomatoes and other veggies in the fridge. Tell you what, I’ll make you one.”

“That would be awesome,” I said.

“And our special today is spinach quesadilla with fresh salsa. We also have a tomato vegetable soup.”

“Those sound amazing, too,” I interrupted. “I’ll have them both. And salad.”

“Do you want something to drink?”

“Um …” I wavered. I had already ordered three meals.

“Come on, the other Tour Divide guys were just knocking pops back faster than I could replenish them. What do you want?”

“Do you have Pepsi?” I asked.

“Of course,” she said.

“And you can’t leave here without trying a slice of pie,” she said.

“Of course I can’t.” I took a lingering look at the back wall, lined from end to end with towering desserts. “Um, I’ll try the coconut cream,” I finally said.

“Good choice,” she said. “That one won an award last month from a national magazine.”

As I waited for my mountain of fresh food, the guitarist asked me if I had any requests. I couldn’t think of many country tunes I even knew, so I requested more Johnny Cash —“Ring of Fire.” I imagined riding south toward the desert regions of the Great Divide as he sang, “I fell in to a burning ring of fire; I fell down, down, down and the flames went higher.”

As promised, the woman served up cans of Pepsi faster than I could knock them back, and brought me plate after plate of food, hot and fresh and brimming with all the real nutrition I had scarcely known in three weeks of a diet heavy on junk food from gas stations and greasy spoon diners. The woman asked me how my lunch was. “You have no idea how replenishing it is to eat healthy for a change,” I said. “If all Americans could feel this way after eating a spinach salad, McDonalds would go out of business. Which would be awesome, because then people like me could actually find healthy food to eat on the Great Divide.”

The woman laughed. She asked me about the trail prior to Grants and I told her about how surprisingly remote New Mexico had been. A man wearing a trucker’s cap turned from the next table over and launched into a stern warning about the dangers of New Mexico’s backcountry. “There are cougars out there that hunt people,” he said ominously. “I hope you have protection.”

I pointed to the can of bear spray I had been carrying since Canada and had never even come close to discharging, unless I counted the time I pointed it at the vicious dogs of Vallecitos. “I’m from Alaska,” I said. “So I’m well versed in the defense against predators thing.” I wanted to tell him that I was far more afraid of mud and lightning, of fatigue and bad judgment, of loneliness and fear itself, but it seemed pointless to argue about the most pressing dangers of the Divide.

I spent much longer in Pie Town than I had intended, basking in the warmth of small-town friendliness and scraping up the last remnants of whipped cream from my pie plate. I was so full that I had difficulty breathing normally, but couldn’t remember ever feeling more satisfied. I sat back in my wooden chair and listened to the country band croon about an unhurried life I had all but forgotten.

In the late afternoon, the woman in the apron and guys in the band walked outside to see me off. “It’s just about closing time and we’re all headed to the lake,” she said. “But you have a great ride, and don’t hesitate to come back when you’re through these parts again. Happy Independence Day!”

“You too,” I said, shaking all of their hands. “Thanks for making the best lunch in the entire span of the Rocky Mountains.”

I left Pie Town at 4 p.m. into a brand new day. I felt like I was just waking up from a restful sleep, even though I had already pedaled eighty miles that day. “Someday,” I thought, “I’m going to be a veteran of this race and people will ask me the secret to success. I’m going to answer, ‘human kindness.’"

The roller-coaster terrain crossed the Continental Divide twice. I pedaled past ranches until the valley narrowed into a canyon. Large, triangle-shaped mountains loomed over me once again. The remote road intersected with an abandoned town site, a centuries-old Spanish mission. I got off my bike and explored the eerie remnants of a slab and mortar church, peering into the cracks of boarded windows and gazing up at a hollow bell tower.

Just beyond the town site, I entered Gila National Forest. My maps informed me: “Camping OK next 14 miles.” I pedaled beneath gnarled and grand juniper trees, rose back into the ponderosa forest, and crested the Continental Divide once again at a spectacular overlook of the San Agustin Plains below. I could see thunderstorms building over the distant mountains beyond the valley. It was still early in the evening.

“If I don’t stop near here,” I thought, “I’ll have to pedal all the way through that valley before I’m back in a spot where I can camp.” But I was feeling too incredible to stop. I launched into a gleeful descent toward the darkening sky.

The Forest Service road bisected a remote state highway and crossed onto a country road sparsely lined with private ranches. An occasional ranch house broke the monotony of the sagebrush plains, but for the most part I was wholly alone in sweepingly open space. The wind blew briskly at my side, whipping around and changing directions intermittently as booms of thunder clattered across the desert.

The thunderstorm I had seen hanging over the horizon began to close in. The bulk of the storm seemed to be moving the same direction I was, but I was approaching the dark clouds faster than they were streaming away. I glanced over my shoulder and noticed another storm approaching from behind. Sheets of rain hung like curtains beneath the black ceiling, and frequent flashes of lightning tore through the darkness.

A primal sense of entrapment gripped my core. My heart pounded. I was pedaling in a tiny window of calm, chasing one violent storm even as another chased me. If I pedaled too quickly, I would catch the first storm. If I pedaled too slowly, I would be caught by the second storm. I shivered at the prospect of both scenarios, and vowed to do everything in my cycling power to hover in the hurricane’s eye.

Shortly after I made this decision, I heard a sickeningly loud zipping sound shoot out from the back of my bike. The rear tire became more and more bouncy and sluggish until I had no choice but to stop and deal with the flat. I had been using “Slime” inner tubes, which were filled with green sealant intended to block any punctures in the tube. They had worked beautifully for the duration of the Divide, and I had yet to spring a leak that wasn’t quickly blocked, requiring only a few refresher hits from my air pump. This was the first time a tire had gone completely flat. It was my rear tire, which required the loosening of the brake caliper before I could remove the wheel. A rear flat usually took me at least ten minutes to change when I was fresh, and as many as twenty when I was hurried and frustrated. I knew I did not have twenty minutes to spare before I would be caught directly beneath a barrage of lightning and rain. I did not even have five minutes.

“Be brave,” I chanted through gulping breaths as I hopped off the bike. “Be strong.”

A thick streak of green slime coated the down tube of the frame. I was sure all the sealant had leaked out and there was nothing left to fill the hole. But it was possible that I had just sprung a larger leak that took a while to clog. It seemed worth a try to pump up the tire rather than change the tube right away. The extra time it would take if it didn’t work wasn’t going to save me from the storm either way, but if that’s all it took, there was still a chance I could outrun the air strike.

I breathed in and out with every stroke of the air pump, continuing to chant, “Be brave. Be strong.” As I pumped, the sun slipped beneath the nearest mountains. The sky, already under siege, burst open in an explosion of crimson and gold light. The sudden blast of color reflected off the dark clouds in a contrast so bright that the entire sky shimmered. Where sunset’s saturated light met the sheets of rain, broad rainbows swept over the desert. I counted five rainbows at one point, arched in wide spans that framed the phosphorescent clouds. And beneath the rainbow stage, steaks of lightning performed a violent ballet.

The scene did nothing to reduce the panic gurgling in my gut. But from where I sat in my shrinking window of calm, trying my best to breathe to the rhythm of my air pump, I knew that I was witnessing a moment of powerful beauty — beauty that was more even powerful than fear. I briefly closed my eyes and tried to absorb the gaping awe, primal wonder and sheer terror that nature was unleashing before me. I felt like I was clinging to the precipice between heaven and hell, and if I happened to fall, no matter which direction I went, I would be wholly absorbed forever.

I snapped my eyes back open and injected a few last shots of air into the tire. It was still fairly soft, about eighteen pounds per square inch. But I didn’t hear any more of that terrible zipping sound, and I thought there was a decent change that it would hold the air. I hopped back on the saddle and spun wildly, trying to regain the distance I had lost on the second storm. I pedaled right into the heart of the largest, brightest rainbow and its undulating electric dangers. I was still fully aware that I was the tallest object for miles, on an open plain without even a sagebrush bush large enough to huddle behind. I briefly thought about veering off on a ranch road and sprinting one or two miles to the nearest structure in search of shelter, but I fought the urge. “Be brave,” I chanted. “Be strong.”

The spectacular light of the sunset lingered much longer than I even thought possible, as though it, like me, was afraid to fade into the darker regions of eternity. It didn’t take long to catch the aftermath of the first storm. The road was coated in wet mud and two-inch-deep puddles, but the sky overhead remained mercifully dry. The second storm slowed its advance and started to veer toward the east. As it changed its course, the front storm followed. My own route turned west and began climbing back into the mountains. When I reached the mouth of a canyon, I stopped one last time to look out over the plains of San Agustin. Sunset’s crimson and orange flames were almost snuffed out, except for thin, blood-colored streaks that still bordered the horizon. Lightning continued to pierce the purple twilight, followed closely by booms of thunder. As I watched the storm march east, I noticed tiny blue flashes of light erupting from the northern horizon. They confused me at first — they were too low to be lightning, but too large and sporadic to be light from a ranch house. I squinted and realized they were fireworks, exploding over a ranch at least twenty miles distant.

“Oh yeah,” I said out loud. “It’s the Fourth of July.” I paused to focus on the fireworks as tiny streams of blue light sparkled and then faded, over and over. All the while, flashes of lightning and booms of thunder nearly overwhelmed the tiny celebration.

“Why don’t they just look up and realize that the most spectacular show is going on in nature?” I wondered. Their efforts seemed so small and pathetic in a world that was so vast and so powerful. Humans were nothing out here, nothing at all.

Darkness encompassed me with the rising canyon. For a while I could still hear the thunder from a growing distance, and then only the wind and stillness. Rainwater coated the road and the air was moist and cool. The last tailing clouds from the storms were starting to break apart. A nearly full moon rose overhead, casting a ghostly glow on an assemblage of sandstone hoodoos that bent like petrified zombies in front of craggy cliffs. I rolled out my sleeping bag on the bare dirt beneath a cluster of ponderosa pines. Moonlight filtered through a canopy of needles. With what felt like a paltry sprinkling of effort and a heavy dose of grace, I had knocked out 140 miles in the fourteen hours behind me, with only 250 more to go.

“Thank you,” I said in continuation of my morning prayer. “That was a good day.”


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Friday, July 01, 2011

Into July

I wrapped up a good training block of trail-running on Wednesday with my standard eight-mile loop around Rancho. I think the run was an encouraging indicator of thestate of my endurance. Why? Because the first two miles were awful. Honestly. I felt like warmed-over road kill. I could barely crawl up the first steep climb and involuntarily had to cut back to a walk on the next. But at mile three, my endurance burner finally kicked on and I found increasingly stronger surges of power. By mile four, I was flying* (*relative to my usual pace) up the remaining hills and pounding the downhills, logging sub-nine and even sub-eight-minute miles. (I know. But for me, on a trail run, this is fast.) I finished up the loop ten minutes faster than usual and felt like I could easily go for eight more. In the past, when I've worked to build up cycling endurance, I usually have to push through several miles of sluggishness before I reach cruise control. Feeling like crap for the first twenty minutes to an hour is just part of being a slow burner. It takes a while to get the pilot light going, but once it's on, it's on for the long haul.

Beat and I indulged in a "rest day" Thursday with our favorite evening sojourn — taking Fatty Fatback and Singlespeed Kim for a jaunt up and over Black Mountain. Given how many bicycles Beat and I have at home, it's pretty humorous that we regularly grab our most difficult and admittedly ridiculous bikes for a ride that features a steep, mostly paved, 2,800-foot climb and a long rolling descent on singletrack, loose-gravel doubletrack and more pavement. Even though rusty ol' Singlespeed Kim is getting up there in terms of miles (she was my Divide bike), Beat seems to like the physical challenge and simplicity of singlespeeding. I like the Fatback because, come on, how can anyone not love riding a fat bike? I challenge any cyclist of any persuasion to power those big wheels up a monster hill and not arrive at the top with a huge grin on their face.

Sitting high on Fatty Fatback makes me feel like I'm riding a horse, and always draws comments from the roadies who pass me on the climb. Today I went back to paved part of the climb for a quick 80-minute ride on my road bike (I can do the same 2,600-foot climb to the gate a full 20 minutes faster on the skinny tires.) I actually passed a couple of guys who I'm pretty sure passed me yesterday when I was on Fatty Fatback. I thought I recognized them, and they both did a quick doubletake and gave me a bit of a surprised look as I smiled, nodded and motored on by.

I have one more weekend to do a couple more longish trail runs, and then it's all taper until the Tahoe Rim Trail 100 on July 16. I'm feeling pretty apprehensive about the TRT100 right now. I think I may be even more nervous about it than I was about the Susitna 100 two weeks out. It's strange, because given that the Su100 is considerably more remote, in Alaska, in the winter, on snow, dragging a sled — it would seem the Su should be the scarier race. But before I ran it, the Susitna 100 was more of a known challenge. I mean, I had already completed the course twice on a bike. And I figured, I've already pushed a fat bike long distances through snow. How much harder could dragging a sled be? (As it turns out, it's significantly harder. But it was easy to delude myself before the race.)

TRT, however, is much newer territory. I've never attempted to travel 100 miles over rocks and dirt, in the heat and the overnight chill, up and down steep mountains, at elevations significantly higher than the one I live at. I'm afraid of hurty-foot and epic blisters and the sensation of a thousand needles tearing at my quads. I mean, I've seen these ultrarunners after 100-milers. Their feet look like ground beef and they walk as though they lost use of most of their major joints. These people are crazy. What made me think I could join them? Yesterday, a woman who is a much faster mountain biker than me commented that she'd like to try trail running but she "resembles a dying moose when I try to move at any faster than a dawdle." I thought "Yes! Yes! Me too!"

But can I take the dying moose 100 miles? In my own uniquely convoluted sense of the term, I think it will be kind of fun to try.

On a quick note, I wanted to thank everyone who purchased my book in June. Despite my late/rolling release, I sold 323 eBooks and 127 paperbacks during the month, which at 450 books is close to my stretch goal for the first month. So thanks to all. I am awaiting a new shipment of paperbacks on Tuesday, so you can still purchase signed copies at this link.
Tuesday, June 28, 2011

These little adventures

Like most people who exercise outside on a regular basis, I have standard routes. I'm beginning to learn the nuances of these routes, such as which off-camber corners force me to apply my bike's brakes, and which ones I can really let rip. I know which rocks to hopscotch on my usual eight-mile run and where to look out for deer. Standard routes are comfortable, convenient, and help boost me through tough days with their familiar challenges. They provide a great base for training, because I can compare times and how I felt and how I improved. Still, I find myself craving something different. Even if it means venturing just a few miles off that beaten path, to places where I have to brake on all the corners or purposefully operate below maximum effort because I have no idea where the hill I'm climbing ends.

Beat and I have been trying out new running routes. My recent run-loading has made it tougher to digest the idea of a daily trips to Rancho, so we've been testing out lesser-known home trails with encouraging results. On Monday, we finally connected the "Steven's Reservoir Loop," a quiet 6.2-mile jaunt up the crest of Coyote Ridge, down a winding piece of delicious singletrack and along the steep shoreline of the reservoir. Rocky cliffs, golden light and turquoise water — like a little piece of Hawaii close to home.

Today Beat was going to rest to try to stave off his cold, but then it rained. I mean, it really rained. The temperature dropped to 58 degrees and gray mist tumbled down the canyons. On the way to the post office, I heard a host on the radio complaining about taking out her rain jacket "for the seventh time since March." She said it without a hint of irony. I knew this signaled a rare summer event indeed. When I returned home Beat was just as thrilled as I was about the rain. We decided to take our evening run to the rainforest, otherwise known as Windy Hill.

The trails were mired in a strange combination of mud — sometimes slimy and slick, other times shoe-grabbing sludge, and still others as solid as concrete, but all basically the same texture and color and all unpredictable. It made for really challenging running — more about survival than a solid workout. But the landscape reminded me of Southeast Alaska in the summer, and this made me feel blissfully content.

Who says you can't have a little outdoor adventure in metro California?

Sure, I move slower through the unknowns, and yes, it is more risky to go trail running in the rain. But really, the ability to explore the greater outdoors is the entire reason for fitness, at least in my own personal application of fitness. Sometimes that means an enjoyable interaction with the familiar, and other times it's a blind leap to something surprising and new. But in every case it's what I enjoy most about day-to-day life, these little adventures.
Sunday, June 26, 2011

Training through the off season

I can always tell when I'm having a bit of an "off" week, because I don't blog much. Busyness and heavy involvement in activities don't curtail my blogging habit; in fact, I tend to blog even more frequently when lots of good things are going on. But this week has been a tough one. Good, but tough. I am trying to delve into a new writing project that has been slow to launch. Meanwhile, I've decided to let any marketing efforts for my latest book simmer for a while, so during the days this week, I've found myself staring bewildered at a blank document on my computer screen with no justifiable distractions for my writer's block. And then there's the running. I put in a big (for me) week of trail running, with 17.5 miles on Monday, eight on Tuesday, 32-mile road bicycle ride on Wednesday, eight more on Thursday, rest day Friday, eight on Saturday and 23 miles today. That's a 64-mile run week, with about 15,000 feet of climbing (including the ride). It only included one day of cycling in seven. Honestly, that's a lot of running for me.

But that's not what made it tough. What made this week tough was its direct correlation with a big high pressure system that brought overwhelming sunshine and temperatures in the 80s and 90s all week long. Just a typical summer week, but I took it hard. After my literal heat meltdown on Monday, it took me three solid days to recover. I felt similarly run-down, weak and pukey on Tuesday and even during my road ride on Wednesday, and it took a 10-degree drop in temperatures for me to feel closer to normal on Thursday. The rest day on Friday was a good idea and by Saturday I was back to feeling mostly like my old self, even in the same heat the crushed me earlier in the week. But it's a bit frightening to me just how awful I felt on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. This is a whole new battle for me. Dealing with extreme cold is easy; you just put on more clothing. But heat can only be fully combated with proper acclimation, which, as far as I'm concerned, means too many outdoor outings that are no fun at all. Give me extreme cold over that any day. Good thing this is my "off season" and I only have a measly 100-mile foot race that I'm training for right now.

But the weekend ended on bright notes. Beat and I finally broke down and bought the Subaru Outback that we've been fantasizing about since we drove my 1996 Geo Prism from Missoula to Kalispell in November through a blizzard, a white-knuckle experience that neither of us ever want to have to repeat. Most of my friends, my parents, and even my former employers have been razzing me to get rid of my car for years now. It's tough because I'm extremely attached to that old car, possibly as much as I am to any of my bikes, even Pugsley. Geo and I have just been through so much together. I was barely 21 years old when I bought that car, and it followed me through all the major adventures and changes in my life since then. But I accept that it's an inanimate object and a mechanically challenged one at that. And of course, a brand new Subaru can help an adventurous person get over her old-and-weak sedan real fast. I mostly bike commute around town, but we needed a good "adventure" vehicle for road trips — the kind that can handle mountains and snow once winter comes around and we're back to the "on" season.

Today I set out with Beat and our friends Harry and Martina for the week's longest run. It was actually a rather pleasant day, still sunny and warm but at least never close to the 90s. We started at the bottom of Windy Hill and climbed to Skyline. Beat recently caught a cold and Harry and Martina were suffering from various injuries, so they decided to turn back at mile 5.5. I actually felt better than I had all week long, even at the end of a heavy-loaded running week, which leads me to believe that heat really is my kryptonite and without it I can run as much as want. Ha. A woman can dream.

Of course I took today's run fairly slow and drank a whole lot of water. I filled up my water bladder twice over the 23 miles and was nearly out by the time I got home, meaning I drank nearly 200 ounces of water in five hours. I felt good the whole time, though, except for one severe side-stitch that caused me to basically walk downhill for three miles while I tried to work it out. I still have to figure out why I so often manage to get these side-stitches, regardless of temperature or distance or hydration levels or trail surface conditions, but only during steep descents.

What I really loved about today's run was traveling from Windy Hill to within a mile of my house and, with the exception of a half mile on Skyline Drive, running on trail that entire time. The San Francisco Bay area really does have an amazing open space plan. I ran along open ridgelines, wended down tight singletrack into deep canyons, jogged through intensely green redwood forests and across golden grass meadows. I felt like I was out for a quiet, rolling, 23-mile run in the mountains despite the fact that this huge metro area was merely a few miles away. It's certainly not wilderness but it's beautiful and enjoyable all the same. Now, if only the temperature would drop a few dozen degrees ...

GPS track of Sunday's run here. It's a fantastic route that I highly recommend.