Labeling myself

Shadowing a coyote on the Bella Vista Trail

Recovery is predictably going slow for me this week. I am experiencing some late-season burnout, which is funny because this is early season for most everyone else in North America. Beat is already talking about plans for next winter and I can't even wrap my head around it, so I've stayed uncomfortably in denial. The truth is, when I think about racing hard or grueling epics next winter, it makes me want to withdraw from UTMB and spend my whole summer laying on the beach, writing a novel, and drinking iced coffee. For me to survive UTMB I am really going to have to be "on" during what is typically a tough season for me, the hot summer. Beat is good at being "on" all of the time; he's generally either at full throttle or zero, which is how he recovers. I am not good at zero, so I spent this week taking it easy on mellow runs and rides. I really need to get outside most every day for my mental health and productivity. But I admit even the five-mile runs have been taxing. I am coming around, though.

Feeling like a slug brought me back to this ad I encountered a couple weeks ago. It's an somewhat outdated (2010?) campaign from Pearl Izumi to sell shoes to road runners, but it's controversial message sparked a debate around a few runner blogs on the InterWebs recently:

Usually I have almost no reaction to advertising. It's a shallow form of communication that I don't connect with at all, but for some reason I had a strongly negative reaction to this ad. I should have just chuckled, "Oh, ha ha, slow losers, Pearl Izumi doesn't want you." Instead, I felt like I was back in seventh grade wearing the new Guess jeans I just bought with my babysitting money and having a group of more stylish girls accuse me of sewing the label on a fake pair of jeans. It was an interesting knee-jerk reaction to this ad, actually. Why did I think Pearl Izumi was bullying me? For starters, I don't even run marathons. In fact, it's actually one of my goals to get through life without running an official road marathon. But if I ever did run a marathon, it would probably be in a non-serious manner, on a lark, and I probably would "mosey" across the finish line because there's no way my hips and knees would stand for 26 miles of pavement pounding. So why was I so offended? Why did I care?

I think it comes down to my seventh-grade Guess jeans incident, and the mistake of trying to wear labels. I've proudly flown my cyclist flag ever since I managed to ride a borrowed mountain bike all the way to the top of Salt Lake City's Mill Creek Canyon and back without tipping over or walking the bike (full disclosure: all pavement.) But I've been reluctant to wear the label of "runner." I've been serious about the sport of trail running for 18 months now, I'm building up a decent resume on Ultrasignup, and I'm currently preparing to at least participate in one of the more prestigious ultramarathons in the world, UTMB. During my stay at the Windy Gap checkpoint in the White Mountains 100, I was telling my friend Dea about the Susitna 100 and my plans for UTMB when she said, "Oh, so are you more of a runner now?" I shook my head. "No, I'm still a more of a cyclist. I'm definitely not a runner." I laughed at what I thought was a great joke, but Dea just looked confused.

Why won't I call myself a runner? Maybe because I don't want the "real runners" to point and laugh at me. It's middle-school silly, and yet I'm insecure about it all the same. Even in my "on foot" pursuits, my end goal isn't running for the sake of running, but to efficiently traverse large swaths of "real" terrain — mountains and deserts, streams and snow. Ultimately I'd love to have the fitness, skill, and strength to take on long wilderness trails, such as the Pacific Crest Trail, or even trail-less traverses such as Alaska's Brooks Range, in a fast and efficient manner. This effectively makes me a "hiker," and yet I enjoy going out and running as fast as I can in my local, hilly 50K races (full disclosure: not all that fast.) I also spend more time riding bicycles than I do running, even when training for 100-mile ultramarathons. So what am I? A part-time-running cyclist? A fast hiker who likes to use wheels? A mountain biker who occasionally leaves the bike at home?

In coming up with a label for myself, I listed some of my strengths:

1. I am good at plodding along for hours, days, even weeks on end.
2. I am good at adapting to my surroundings and making use of what's available in changing environments.
3. I am good at being self-sufficient.
4. I am patient.
5. I am stubborn.
6. I basically have one speed but I can hold it almost indefinitely.
7. I am great at carrying extra weight. My Iditarod bike weighed 70-plus pounds, my Tour Divide bike 50-60. I can pack 10 extra pounds without blinking an eye and generally do on even the smallest training runs. My indifference to extra weight has made me an incurable packrat.
8. I can thrive in a wide range of weather conditions.
9. My body seems willing to slavishly follow the unreasonable demands of my mind.
10. I am strong.

When I compile these all together, I picture this:

A mule. I'm totally a mule. Not in the drug-ferrying sense, but in the beast-of-burden, combo runner-cyclist, stubborn-as-all-get-out sense. And yes, I totally used Photoshop to make a mash-up of a mule riding a Rocky Mountain Element. It only took 15 minutes, but it does serve as an example of what happens to my creative productivity when I am not spending enough quality time outside. I hope to get out for another five-mile jog (and I purposely use the word jog) this afternoon to spark better work productivity this evening ...

Proud to be a Jogger. And an Animal. I am Mule. 

But really, if you had to place a label, how would you define yourself? It's not an easy question to answer.

Finish and aftermath

Fatback coated in ice the morning after the White Mountains 100.

The sweet release of sleep only lasted about twenty minutes before I woke up with wrenching pain in my right big toe — the pain of renewed circulation. I endured another twenty minutes of intense throbbing and frostbite panic before I remembered that my toe had gone numb all the way back before checkpoint three, and the reason it went numb is because it was crammed against the tip of my boot while I pedaled. I tried to drift back to sleep, but then the coughing fits returned. I'd had a bunch of coughing attacks out on the trail but these were worse, searing my throat and producing crystallized chunks of phlegm that were a disconcertingly dark shade of brown. I managed to sleep fitfully for two more hours, then woke up to the sensation of shivering in my zero-degree sleeping bag. I checked the car thermometer. It was still four below outside at 8 a.m.

My plan had been to just wait at the trailhead for Beat to finish. I was too tired and apathetic to do anything else. But when I realized that this meant languishing in my sleeping bag for upwards of twelve hours, compounded by the fact that I didn't have anything to eat or drink, I decided to make the hourlong drive back to Fairbanks. I managed to catch our host, Joel, between naps at his house. Joel got into the White Mountains 100 at the eleventh hour, or more accurately fifteen hours before the race started, after five months in limbo on the wait list. Joel finished strong, in just over sixteen hours, but he too was shattered by the effort.

It was reaffirming to chat with another cyclist about what I found difficult about the race, and find out he agreed. Not many people understand what piloting a snow bike across a hundred miles of wilderness trails really entails. They see an average pace of five miles per hour and quietly scoff ... "what's so hard about that? I can run that fast." Actually, I can, too, and in many ways I believe the effort of snow biking is comparable to a trail-running effort — at least in my own experiences. Yes, snow biking has coasting, it has the potential to be faster, and it's considerably less rough on my joints and feet than running. But the energy output is still high, and I do believe that most of my struggles in the White Mountains 100 were caused by going out too hard. I wouldn't try to run a six-hour 50K at the beginning of a 100-mile ultramarathon, but that's essentially the effort level I exerted on my bike in the first forty miles of the White Mountains 100. My fitness, and indeed my genetics, just weren't conditioned to hold up to the demand.

I did collect some interesting data (if only to me) from my GPS. I have the comparisons for my pace in the 2011 and 2012 race. The 2012 race is slightly truncated because my GPS died a couple hours before I finished, but most of it recorded. Unsurprisingly my speeds were slower over the entire course, and in a fairly consistent way. To me, that proves the course was just across-the-board more difficult this year. It was! That's my story and I'm sticking too it.

After chatting with Joel I don't remember if I ate or drank anything. If I did it wasn't nearly enough. I headed back out to the Wickersham Dome trailhead to watch Beat finish. He put in an incredible effort and finished in 33 hours and 37 minutes, two hours faster than last year. He was the third of seven runners, and the second of three men. He had few issues besides sore hip flexers, and I think less post-Iditarod race fatigue than even he expected. Beat had a great race, and thought the trail conditions weren't all that bad. Well, no, not compared to the Iditarod. Ha!

It really amazes me how strong Beat is at these consistently hard efforts, recovering from them in a matter of days. Beat was essentially fine within hours after he finished, while I continued to struggle. I tossed and turned for most of the night as my heart raced and I gasped for breaths that I couldn't seem to catch. I thought I still hadn't cooled down from my hard effort, but several Facebook friends (how I love social media) diagnosed me with something much more obvious — dehydration. David Shaw, who finished the 2011 White Mountains 100 just a few minutes before I came in, wrote, "It's called volume shock. When dehydration sucks the fluid out of the blood, the blood thickens and volume goes down which means your heart has to work much harder to keep blood pressure up. You respiration rate is probably high too, another compensator. Drink and eat, drink and eat."

I took his advice, drank a lot of water, took some electrolyte tablets, and felt significantly better by the afternoon. Strange how such small changes can cause huge swings in health and well-being. And once again I revealed myself as a master of poor recovery.

This is essentially what most my friends pointed out after the race — "You're bad at recovery. You never let yourself recover from anything." I went straight from the Susitna 100 to playing hard in Alaska and the Yukon to training for the White Mountains 100. I don't really see this as a problem. I enjoyed every moment of playing and training, and didn't have any injuries or specific fatigue going into the White Mountains 100. I agree that with more focused intervals of training and resting, I could get my body to a point of being stronger and faster. But this isn't really my interest or my goal. If I had to sum up my fitness goals in simple phrases, they might be, "I want to do what I want, when I want. I don't want to be tied to a specific activity or regimen. I want to avoid injury. I want to travel long distances under my own power and have the strength and energy to do so."

Motivations for racing are as wide-ranging as the individuals who participate in races, and yet most people assume we're all the same — "We want to be faster. We want to beat others." Moving fast and placing high in race standings is certainly satisfying, but it's not why I race. I race to challenge my perceived limitations and confront my fears. I race to be part of a community, to connect with others who share my passions. I race to learn more about myself and the world around me. I race to overcome difficulties and prove to myself, again and again, that I'm capable of doing so. I race to fuel the stoke for day-to-day outdoor adventures, which collectively have provided more personal rewards than all of my races combined. Some people train to race. I race to train. I race so I can pursue adventure. As a sometimes reluctant adult, I view training as as euphemism for "go play outside."

It was 27 degrees and clear the afternoon before Beat and I left Fairbanks. I had downed six liters of water and only recently started breathing normally again when Beat decided to take the Fatback out for one last spin through the snow. He came back forty-five minutes later and described a beautiful loop that was "just a little farther than we ran the day before the race." That distance was only about four miles, so I thought it wouldn't be too outlandish to go out and enjoy one last romp in the winterlands myself.

The afternoon was indeed painfully beautiful, with sunlight sparkling on the snow and golden light high in the spring sky. I was still low on energy but, thanks to the impact-absorbing wonder that is a bicycle, had little muscle soreness or joint pain after the race. Still, I took it easy and savored the cool air, knowing it would be my last taste of Alaska for a while. I took Beat's advice and followed the main trail as it continued to wend through the spruce forest. I pedaled and breathed, pedaled and breathed. Somehow an hour went by, and I didn't appear to be anywhere near where I started. I rode another fifteen minutes before I arrived at a mushing clubhouse that I knew was at least five miles from Joel's place by road. I had already been out much longer than I intended, wearing only a pair of running shoes, nylon hiking pants, and a soft shell over my cotton T-shirt. I cut to the road and raced home, mainly because I was chilled and needed to build some heat. Without trying I had turned an questionable recovery spin into a fifteen-mile, moderate-effort ride. And yet it didn't feel that bad. In fact, it felt kind of awesome.

Now my friends are asking me if I'm actually going to rest and recover now that I'm done with my winter season. I already have a 400-mile mountain bike race planned at the end of April, and regardless of conditioning, I'm really excited for that one. It's going to be a beautiful route across Southern California, and it's been too long since I've embarked on a bike tour. In fact, I really should start planning an overnighter to get ready for the Stagecoach 400. You know, for training. I also need to start a routine of nightly sabbaticals in the sauna. You know, for heat acclimation.

If I required an extended period of downtime after a race it would mean, to me, that I've failed in my fitness goals. If I fail in a race because I pushed my limits of recovery too far, well, that's okay. At least then I'll know what's too far.

Fade to white, part two

I didn't actually believe I was going to walk the entire rest of the race; I just needed a mental reprieve from maneuvering my bike and crashing and thrashing out of the snow and doing it all over again. I blamed my fatigue on my heart, but my mind was tired, too — tired of intense focus and anxiety. I pulled over to let a few skiers pass, gliding over the fluff. "It's too bad you don't even get to enjoy the downhill," Anchorage skier Abby Rideout said as she coasted by me. "Meh!" I called out with an exaggerated shrug as though I wasn't jealous of her effortless speed, which I was.

I hiked to the edge of the ice lakes and pulled microspikes over my boots. The ice lakes are not lakes at all but a narrow, sloping valley covered in a film of wet ice known as overflow. Overflow forms when an upwelling of ground water seeps over the surface of the snow in freezing conditions, building variable layers of ice and open water. The condition of overflow changes quickly — shin-deep slush can freeze to bumpy ice which can submerge in a new upwelling of water in a matter of hours. A volunteer had told me the ice lakes were knee-deep earlier in the morning, and since my overarching goal is self-preservation in all situations, my plan was to walk this section all along. A thin veneer of new ice shattered beneath my boots and sunk my feet to my ankles in water. Thanks to my prior frostbite experience, overflow is one of my great fears. Crunching and groaning ice echoed in the wind, an eerie chorus matched in volume by the pounding of my heart. Turns out my heart did have some oomph left — all I needed was a little more fear.

If you've read my blog for any length of time, you probably know that I enjoy confronting my fears. The ice lakes are more than a mile long, and after about fifteen minutes of anxious tiptoeing I managed to punch in fairly deep, over my right ankle. I stopped to watch the slushy water cascade over my boot with childlike fascination, exhausted as my mind was. Amid the sudden quieting of my footsteps I could hear the sounds of the environment — gurgles from water seepage, metallic clinking of wind-driven snow, and the moaning breeze. The low cloud ceiling blended flawlessly into the snow, obscuring the ground and creating the optical illusion of spruce trees ascending into the sky. The whole world was black and white except for the ice surrounding my feet, which was a bright glacial blue. Because my soft shell and base layer were soaked in sweat, the cold wind stabbed into my core with a "help, I'm alive" kind of urgency — both exhilarating and terrifying."What is this place?" I said out loud, with a genuine sense of wonder. And then, in the next breath, "I love this place." It no longer mattered that I wasn't quite strong enough. I was here.

Shortly after the ice lakes, I forgot about my silly resolve to hike it in and got back on my bike. Trail conditions were much better than they had been on the other side of the divide, but the surface was quickly filling in with new snow. I could see several ski tracks but no tire or snowmachine tread, meaning enough new powder had fallen to obscure older tracks entirely. When snow is falling that quickly, a trail can become unrideable in a matter of hours. This knowledge boosted me into hard-riding mode again. I really didn't have the stamina for it, nor the energy, because these effort levels caused me to feel pukey and made it impossible to eat anything but Gummy Lifesavers, of which I only had one package. (Note: These were regular Gummy Lifesavers, not the sour kind that made me so ill during the Susitna 100. But it is ironic that they were the only food I had that didn't make me queasy.)

This section of trail is the most fun of the White Mountains course, a gradual descent swooping through the woods beside cathedral-like spires and dramatic gulches. Sadly I was too blown to enjoy it, and also crashed two more times. After my second crash I laid in the snow for several seconds, letting the soft pillow envelop me and contemplating whether I could take a power nap right there. The chill roused me to action before I dozed off. I couldn't arrive at checkpoint three soon enough.

Checkpoint three manager Dea Huff catches a much-deserved nap in the Windy Gap Cabin. Photo by Beat.

I arrived at Windy Gap, mile 60, at 7:30 p.m. I had only been on the trail for eleven and a half hours but honestly, the way I felt, you could have tacked another day on to that. I was surprised when Dea told me I looked "fresh" compared to others who had been through before and also said I was the "best dressed" of the bikers. (I was wearing a sweaty jacket, freebie mittens from the Arctic Winter Games in Whitehorse, and clashing shades of blue and purple — but everyone loves my down skirt.) Dea served me her signature soup with six meatballs. I crammed the steaming chunks down my throat. My eyes watered as the food seared my tongue, but I was too hungry to wait for it to cool down. Every time I stopped moving, I felt ravenously hungry. And yet, as soon as I started pedaling again, my appetite faded behind a wall of nausea.

The trail past Windy Gap cabin the next morning. Photo by Beat.

Snow was still coming down hard after I left Windy Gap, enough so that I had no choice but to put on my goggles. I despise wearing goggles, and have discovered that the only times I can make myself wear them are when it's snowing too hard to see without them, or so windy that the chill can freeze skin in seconds. My goggles have a brown tint that rendered the already flat light into low-resolution fuzziness, like an old photograph. I think not being able to see much actually did me some good, as I could no longer see the deeper ruts in the trail and thus took no evasive action that probably would have caused me to swerve and crash into the snow bank. A few times my front tire dropped out from underneath me before I realized I was descending into a stream bed — my depth perception was so bad that I couldn't even discern six-foot dips. Finally it became dark enough to switch on my headlamp. I didn't know what was worse — a complete lack of depth or squinting through the static television effect of snow swirling through the beam. Either way, I seemed to be riding better than I had been all day. Go figure.

I reached Borealis cabin, mile 79, at 11:15 p.m. Abby was just leaving and a couple of male skiers were discussing the benefits of classic skis in this year's trail conditions. As soon as I was drawn into the discussion it turned into a debate about which year was the most difficult for the White Mountains 100. "Definitely this year, no question," I said. The first skier disagreed, arguing that the minus 25 temperatures of 2010 made the trail much worse. "Maybe if you're a skier," I said. "But bikes can handle the cold. New snow slows us down." Everyone agreed that this year was probably the year for skiers, in the unofficial competition between the three disciplines. A skier was the first to arrive at Windy Gap cabin, and if the snowstorm that followed me down the pass had come five hours earlier, a skier might have won the race. But it's amazing what strong snow bikers can do, and the top three guys, all bikers, would finish in the twelve-hour range. The lead skier finished in thirteen hours flat.

I've never seen any of this section of the race because it's always dark when I travel through here. Now I'm wondering if maybe I should just try the White Mountains 100 on foot one of these years. Photo by Beat. 

I left Borealis with one of the skiers, Brian Jackson. He took off his skis to climb the steep hill out of Beaver Creek, but even though we were both walking I couldn't even strain to keep his pace. "Your fault for bringing that heavy bike," he had joked earlier when I complained about the push up the divide. I watched Brian's headlamp fade up the hill. As far as I could tell there weren't any other cyclists in my time zone, so I figured I'd be spending the rest of the race alone.

The sky began to clear before it even stopped snowing. Through the squall I could see the moon, and then stars, and then subtle streaks of white light — the Northern Lights. Finally the snow tapered off, and then the temperature dropped precipitously. It was ten degrees above when I left Borealis, but down on the slopes along Wickersham Creek it felt at least fifteen degrees colder, possible twenty. It was definitely below zero. Before I arrived at Borealis I decided my wet soft shell was no longer keeping me warm, and traded it for a fleece jacket, then tied the soft shell around my waist. This was plenty warm for the hard climb immediately after the cabin, but let in a harsh chill as soon as I started pedaling again. By the time I decided to use my soft shell over my fleece jacket just to block the wind, it had solidified into an ice sheet. I could barely bend the coat enough to wrap it around my torso. My clothing situation was not ideal.

Luckily, I had packed my expedition down coat in my seat post bag. It was two pounds of extra gear I likely wouldn't need, but I appreciated having an insurance policy on my bike. I was already on the cusp of feeling uncomfortably cold, and temperatures were dropping. Not having any more layers would have been unnerving. As it was, I could only stay warm if I crammed some sugar into my system. Every time I felt a chill, I would choke down a peanut butter cup or a piece of Twix bar. I really didn't feel like eating, to the point where the nausea caused by swallowing made me feel dizzy, but candy worked. The kindling sparked and I'd feel warm again, for a few minutes, until it burned out. I'd waver until my teeth began to chatter and choke down another peanut butter cup. I thought about putting on my down coat but I knew I had hard climbs ahead of me, and I didn't want to pour any moisture into my insurance policy if I didn't have to.

Photo by Beat. This is where I felt the coldest. Beat recorded temperatures of 15 below in the early morning. 

This section was punctuated by a few deep overflow sections. I picked a bad line over this crossing and punched my front wheel into water all the way to the hub, soaking half of the brake rotor. This instantly froze into an impenetrable ice film, and the front brake wouldn't work for the rest of the race.

The Wickersham Wall viewed from the distance. Photo by Beat.

But even beyond the deepening cold, I was more concerned about the unseen monster looming in front of me — the Wickersham Wall. The Wall is the direct route up to the top of the Wickersham Dome, gaining a thousand vertical feet in a little more than a mile. By itself it wouldn't be a big deal, but in the White Mountains 100 this obstacle comes at mile 93 of a 100-mile race. Even after cresting the wall, the trail continues a general climbing trend on rolling hills all the way to one mile before the finish. It's brutal, just brutal.

I needn't have worried so much about it, though. I had already pedaled in survival mode for the better part of fifty miles, and the Wall was simply the next step. Plus, I had eaten so much candy in my efforts to stay warm that I actually had a little energy to spare, and felt a boost while I plodded up the foot-stomped snow. When I reached the ridge I found I could pedal uphill, even where I saw the footprints of other cyclists. This energy and alertness boost carried all the way to top of the dome, as though I was finally coming around. But by then, it was too late — I was at the one-mile-from-the-finish sign. I coasted in with a subdued sort of elation, riding my squealing back brake and wondering if perhaps I wasn't broken, and perhaps I'd never been broken. These are the questions I always ask myself after a hard effort — how much of the challenge was physical, and how much was mental. I still believe most of this is mental, and as long as we maintain the basic physical needs (food, water, warmth), most anything we deem impossible is achievable. And so I wonder ... I wonder ...

Photo by White Mountains 100.

But I was tired. I was stupid tired. I arrived at the finish at 4:47 a.m. for a finishing time of 20 hours, 39 minutes (the race started at 8:08 a.m.) I knocked on the RV that was race headquarters and announced my arrival. The volunteer must have taken a photo that I don't remember her taking, and directed me toward the warming tent. "I'm not going to the warming tent," I replied. "I'm just going to go to my car and sleep for a while before driving back to Fairbanks."

"You can sleep in the tent," she said. "There are cots in there and a heater. It's nice."

I considered this and said, "But my sleeping bag is in my car" — as though this statement should have conveyed proper logic as to why I couldn't sleep in the warming tent. Alas. I rolled out my sleeping bag in the back of a borrowed Jeep and fell into a dreamless sleep.

Fade to white

My lactic acid-saturated legs were stomping out another 31-minute-mile when I crumbled. Or, more specifically, my heart crumbled. Its once enthusiastic thumping had faded to a humming-bird buzz, and a seemingly erratic one at that. Even this 1.9 mph bike-pushing pace was driving me dangerously close to what felt like a maximum effort, and I began to wonder if my heart had the capability to quit before I did. Is this what happens when athletes blow up? I mean not just bonk, but completely implode? I had often wondered, but I can't say I've ever gone hard enough for long enough to really find out. I suspected the White Mountains were going to show me exactly what it was like to defeat myself, here in the depthless expanse of the Cache Mountain Divide, where vision fades to white and the wind drives breathtaking cold in late March. Not the best place to suddenly feel like my body was broken.

Ah, back at the White Mountains 100. My favorite race. As Beat put it, the WM100 is one of the best hundreds around — "flawless organization and hard and a ton of fun." He also called it "like the Iditarod without the drama." The White Mountains 100 traverses a scenic loop through a small mountain range north of Fairbanks. The race incorporates all of the best parts of winter endurance racing in Alaska — largely self-supported travel through the backcountry; camaraderie among a diverse group of cyclists, skiers, and runners; a spectacular range of scenery including white-washed mountain peaks, craggy cliffs, rolling hills, tall spruce trees, boreal forest and eerie burns; a chance to see the Northern Lights; unpredictable weather and trail conditions; exciting obstacles such as overflow; friendly organizers and quirky participants; Alaska-specific food (moose chili and hot Tang, anyone?); and challenging, fun mountain biking (that just happens to be on snow) — all in a "short" hundred miles. Beat and I both agree that the White Mountains 100 is worth the herculean effort just to get there — making it through the race lottery, preparation, packing and travel, all while ignoring a lack of recovery and specific training. Beat was three weeks off his grueling eight-day effort on 350 miles of the Iditarod Trail. My snow bike training amounted to a hundred-kilometer tour on Yukon's Dawson Trail, during which I regularly commented, "I'd forgotten just how hard snow biking is." Yes, the White Mountains 100 promised great things for both of us, and we were excited.

Since I've finished this race twice before, my goal was to "ride harder" this year. In 2011, I was feeling demotivated to endure much suffering after the Susitna 100, and took it pretty easy during most of the race. If it wasn't for a surprise bonk seven miles from the end, I would have coasted to my 17:55 finish. Finishing faster than that wasn't necessarily my goal this year; there are so many variables in snow biking that times are almost irrelevant from year to year. But I wanted to put in a good effort this year and see where it took me.
 
The day before the start, it snowed. A few inches of fine fluff coated the previously hardpacked trail, and before the first volunteers set out Sunday morning on snowmachines, nearly all of the course was still untracked. A single bike traveling in these conditions would only experience increased resistance while powering through the powder. But add a few dozen bikers, skiers, volunteers on snowmachines, and their accompanying erratic tracks, and you have a rutted, somewhat technical trail. For the most part these ruts are unpredictable. They grab front wheels and induce loss of control, wild swerving, and often crashing. "Snow angel" is the common term for bike-shaped holes just off the trail, and these became increasingly more frequent in the early miles of the race.

Skilled snow bikers can to some extent read the tracks and pick the most efficient line — or increase their power output and plow through them.  I expect the frontrunners were able to do this, and also didn't have as many deep ruts to contend with. By the time I pedaled through the mess, there was no hope of powering down a direct line, and yet any attempts to steer around the ruts often resulted in one of the tires washing out. This is the side of snow biking where fat tires become more of a liability, because the smoother tread has poor traction in slippery conditions. I'm already out of practice and tried to make up for my lack of skill by applying as much power as I could, basically trying to cut my own deep track through the sifted powder. This was a strenuous effort, and despite single-digit temperatures I was sweating so much that I had to take my hat off and unzip my softshell, exposing my single base layer to the frigid windchill just to cool down.

The first forty miles of trail traverse rolling foothills, a series of climbs and descents. I tried to take advantage of gravity any time the trail sloped downhill. In the process, I made several of my own snow angels — a humorous experience but also a lot of work to get out from underneath. There was also a lot of effort involved in wrestling the Fatback through ruts at higher speeds. It was like taking an angry bull by the horns and trying to stop it from bucking me into the snow. One guy commented that the downhills were more strenuous than the climbs, and I agreed.

During the long descent into Beaver Creek, I was shadowing another cyclist when he began to coast away from me. Just as I was searching for the courage to release the brakes, his bike bucked violently and tossed him into the air. I watched his rag-doll silhouette arc over the handlebars and lawn-dart into a snow bank. I slowed as I passed to ask if he was okay. He giggled but his laugh sounded a little like a whimper. "That was a good one." The deep snowpack is forgiving in most crashes, but I couldn't help but think about what would happen if I crashed like that in just the wrong spot or the wrong tree. I resolved to take the descents slow.


This was my ongoing obsession during the first forty miles — the condition of the trail. When it was bad I would ride hard just to maintain forward motion, and when it was better I would ride hard to catch up on my perceived loss of progress. Despite my claims otherwise, I did want to improve on my 2011 time, and I was quickly falling behind the pace. The sun emerged from the clouds for a brief few miles and the open hillsides felt as hot as a sandy desert. The air told a different story though, as I sucked it into my lungs. Cold air burns, and this effect is amplified like windchill when I'm breathing hard. My lungs already felt ragged and raw. I was working what I might call my 50K race pace, an effort I can maintain for five to eight hours although not comfortably. I pedaled along that uncomfortable edge for six hours just to reach checkpoint two, a cabin at mile 39 of the loop. My original plan was just to blast through the first two checkpoints and only collect water. But my higher-than-usual effort level made it difficult to take in any calories on the trail. I decided sit down for 15 minutes and eat a baked potato with cheese, then somehow "take it easy" and "recover" during the 2,000-foot, eleven mile climb to the Cache Mountain Divide.


Luckily the first miles of the climb were on good trail. The course entered the deeper woods where less new snow covered trail. A film crew on two snowmachines had been through recently, loosening the powder but at least evening out the ruts. I was able to zone out for a while and just climb, a favorite activity that helped reduce my stress level and brought my heart rate down. The heart of the White Mountains loomed in a distance that I was steadily drawing closer. I hoped to catch glimpse of the peaks shimmering in the sunlight. Instead, the clouds closed in around me, and it started to snow again.

By the time I climbed above the last stands of spruce, the snow squall had strengthened to a white-out and the trail had been completely wiped out by the previous day's storm. I could see the footprints and choppy ski tracks of racers who came through before, but only as faint tints of gray in the disorienting flat light. Even these subtle clues were disappearing fast under new snow. The powder on the trail was about eight inches deep. It was hard work, pushing my bike, and my GPS registered speeds in the range of 1.5 to 1.9 miles per hour. Again my heart was pounding, which made my head feel light and my stomach nauseated. Sometimes overexertion is necessary just to maintain forward progress.

I did spend some time wishing I had trained more mindfully — ran some intervals or something, just to increase my cardiovascular capabilities. I gulped down wind-whipped shards of snow and pulled my balaclava half over my mouth, trying to strike a balance between inevitable sweat from the hard effort, a lack of insulating layers because I was sweating, and the bitter cold. I didn't feel so good. I thought I could feel my heart racing toward overdrive, and this mental image was concerning enough that I stopped often to catch my breath even though doing so let in a frigid chill. Bracing myself against the wind and gasping for air was tough dose of reality for me — a realization that I was doing all I could, but my fitness just wasn't up to snuff. Could be overtraining, could be undertraining, could just be a bad day in the saddle. The reasons don't really matter in the midst of a blizzard fifty miles from nowhere. There was never any drama involved because I was part of the White Mountains 100 and help was always nearby. But when I was a small dot alone in the white intensity of the Cache Mountain Divide, I could let myself believe what I come to these frozen landscapes to believe — that forward progress isn't a choice, it's a necessity. It doesn't matter how bad I feel; my body can keep going indefinitely if it has to. As always, this is an empowering realization.

Still, maintaining requisite forward motion while feeling lousy doesn't exactly put me in a good mood, nor does it motivate me to move fast. I crested the broad pass and tried to remount my bike for the descent. I was determined to ride down the pass, which was a silly delusion when I could barely discern the trail from the deep snow from the mountains from the sky. Still, I continued trying to ride, crashing again and again over unseen ruts. During the heart-rate-pegging efforts to extract myself from snow drifts, frustration finally boiled over. I threw a little temper tantrum and resolved to not just stop trying to ride my bike down the pass, but to stop riding my bike in the race, period. This year's White Mountains 100 had been one hard effort after another and I was exhausted. I felt like I had just barely avoided a physical blow-out and I still had fifty miles in front of me with little evidence that riding my bike wouldn't continue to be just as strenuous as it had been in the first fifty. I missed the "easy" marching of competing in the Susitna 100 on foot (oh, how those rose-colored lenses of memory mask the truth.) "If the trail doesn't improve I'll just walk to the finish." And for weird reasons that are now only known to the irrational whims of fatigue, this plan made me feel so much better. I set off marching down the pass, happily prepared to push my bike for fifty miles.

... to be continued.

We interrupt this spring ...

Riding over Cache Mountain Divide in 2011. Photo by J. Rose, White Mountains 100

... for more winter fun! And a story:

When I flew to Anchorage to run the Susitna 100, I spent my first night in Alaska with a good friend who I've known since college, Chris, and his wife Becky. I had spent most of the day Wednesday at various airports or on planes. I get airsick when I travel and never eat or drink much, so I was already depleted Thursday morning when I downed two cups of coffee while chatting with Becky. She mentioned she was going to go for an hour-long ski with her dog before work and asked if I wanted to join her. I didn't have ski equipment but I pictured classic skiing as something about walking speed (because when I do it, it is), so I agreed to accompany her on foot.

I threw on a coat over my cotton hoodie and put on extra socks, a warm hat, and gloves, because it was 20 degrees outside and I was still acclimated to balmy California. We hit a groomed multi-use trail near her house, and Becky immediately took off down the pre-set ski track. She was breezing along at six miles an hour, and I had to run to keep up with her. The snow was groomed but not hard-packed, meaning every footprint punched in a couple of inches. Maintaining ten-minute-miles in those snow conditions was a full, red-lined effort for me — like running a ten-minute mile up a steep incline. Becky chatted amicably while I gasped for cold air and occasionally grunted single-syllable replies. I was extremely overdressed for that intense of an effort, so I was showering myself in sweat.

We made it about two miles down the Tour of Anchorage trail when the edges of my vision began to go dark. As the tunnel closed in, I hit a wall of dizziness so thick that I actually stopped and knelt on the trail. In the degrees of bonking, this one was a nine out of ten — one of the worst I had ever experienced. Becky didn't notice right away so I stood up and called out to her, a likely pathetic whimper. "Becky, um, Becky?" She and her malamute, Moose, slowed and waited for me to stagger toward them. "I'm sorry, I really have to turn around," I explained. "I didn't eat much yesterday, then drank too much coffee with no breakfast, and I'm completely bonked. Sorry, I just can't keep up."

Becky's face revealed a mixture of confusion, pity, and horror. Here I was, in Anchorage specifically to run a hundred miles on the snow, in a race that was less than 48 hours away, and I was apparently incapable of running two miles at what she viewed as a mellow pace. "Um, okay," she said. "I'll catch you on the way back."

As I staggered back through the woods of Far North Bicentennial Park, I continued to feel worse. My glycogen-depleted body stopped producing heat, and my drenched cotton hoodie let in a stiff chill. My head was still spinning, my heart was thumping, my teeth were chattering, the muscles in my legs were achy with dehydration, and I admit I felt scared. Was I even going to make it back to the bridge over Tudor Road? It had been a long time since my body felt that broken down, and I certainly wasn't expecting it right then, during a morning stroll while tapering for the Susitna 100.

I'm sharing this story to illustrate my point that while training and experience count for a lot, circumstance can be everything. Even though Becky will probably now and forever question whether I'm really a couch potato who makes up everything I write on my blog, I didn't let that incident upset me. I knew my major bonk was just that — a bonk — and all I needed were some carbohydrates and water, and maybe a little more sleep, and I'd be all set to run a hundred miles across the Susitna Valley. But the fact that I could be taken down so swiftly by seemingly benign circumstances was enlightening. The lessons: Never assume anything will be easy. And don't assume that unexpected setbacks make something impossible.

Beat and I are leaving early Friday morning to travel to Fairbanks for the White Mountains 100, which begins Sunday morning at the Wickersham Dome Trailhead, about an hour north of Fairbanks. I am planning to ride the Fatback and Beat will tackle the course on foot. This race could be anything and I have to approach it with an open mind. All week, overnight lows in Fairbanks have been -15 to -30, and temperatures are typically at least ten degrees colder in the Whites — and the swing is wider on clear nights. Forecasts call for a warming trend over the weekend, but also new snow on Saturday. Even if a lot of fresh snow dumps on the trail overnight, I'm still planning to start this race with a bike. I feel like I'm physically prepared for a long push and admit there would be a certain masochistic fun in trying, but I'm still hoping for hardpacked trails and lots of fun, true mountain biking.

So there could be fresh snow, it could be twenty below or colder, there could be a lot of sloping ice and even wet overflow on the trail, there could be strong winds that will push my bike like a sail as I tiptoe across the Ice Lakes, or temperatures could warm dramatically and turn the whole trail to mashed potatoes. That's the thing about winter racing — and the part I like best: You must expect anything. I'm not sure what to expect from my body as it's been a while since I attempted or even trained for this many hours on a bike. But I have a deep base in cycling, an abnormally insensitive butt, and a lot of enthusiasm. My hope, if the trail is good, is that I find the wherewithal to ride hard. I want to put in a strong race. And while I do plan to avoid bonking at mile two, I accept this and all setbacks as possible.

The race begins Sunday at 8 a.m. Alaska time. Beat updated our tracking pages for the White Mountains 100, so you can follow our progress here:

Jill's tracking page.

Beat's tracking page.

These pages should also depict the speed of our progression. Mine will be a series of fat-bike riding and pushing, with hopefully more miles of riding: 

And Beat's page will be a series of run, trudge, rest (I wouldn't expect to see much resting from him. Possible some from me.)

There will also be updates at the White Mountains 100 site, as well as photos and other info about the race. I may post before the race begins but if I don't have a chance, I wanted to put the links up now. Wish us luck. 

Woodside to the sea

You know what I love about road biking? How much distance and elevation it enables me to cover during relatively small efforts. Some days, I like a good challenge. Others, I simply want to cover miles, view new scenery, and taste different air. Today I had errands in Palo Alto, so I decided to head to Woodside and point my road bike west. I had three hours, so today's goal was "what can I see in three hours?"

I rode up and over Skyline Ridge and down Tunitas Creek Road, a thin ribbon of pavement wending through the redwoods. The weather was almost unrealistically perfect. I was wearing a thin long-sleeved shirt and a pair of tights, and I was comfortable during both the climb and the descent — never hot nor cold. After seven miles of mostly coasting on a smooth surface amid a temperature equilibrium, I began to have a strange sensation that I wasn't even there — that I was somehow distant from this place, sitting on a stationary bicycle and watching tree trunks stream by on a movie screen.

That is, until I neared Highway 1. I could smell the honey sweetness of mustard fields in bloom, and taste pungent sea salt wafting on a light breeze. The sun emerged from a thin veil of clouds and cast the hillsides in rich light. I rode along the highway until my watch read 1:22, and then turned to find an overlook on the cliffs above the Pacific.

I found a place hidden in plain sight by a rusty old gate and a rough gravel entry. I sat and ate an Odwalla Bar, slowly so I could better taste the infusion of salt and savory ocean air. Waves crashed into the shoreline a hundred feet below the cliffs, distant enough to sound like purring. I watched a solo walker stroll barefoot across the sand. The baby blue Pacific yawned over the horizon, fading imperceptibly into the similarly blue sky. It was a peaceful place, and it made me feel happy, enough so that I could have laid there all day. It seemed strange that I ran a quick errand, rode my bike for ninety minutes, and somehow ended up here. So close and yet a world away.

Still, I only had three hours and a long way to climb, so I set back out toward the mountains. Up and up and up toward the crest of Skyline, then back to Woodside. It didn't seem like all that much work, which is why it was pleasantly surprising to upload my ride stats find out I rode 35 miles with 5,500 feet of climbing. That kind of distance and elevation would take me the better part of a day to cover on foot, but the road bike makes it too easy. It almost feels like cheating — if it wasn't so wonderful. 

Spring fever

Leah and I coasted down Steven's Creek Canyon in a splatter of mud and explosion of green. Green everywhere — wrapped around tree trunks, saturating the canopy and littering the trail. Interesting weather pounded Monte Bello Ridge during my training rides and runs all week — gale-force winds, soupy fog, heavy rain, and even sleet. And somewhere in there, while I was squinting against the sharp moisture and rewarming my numb fingers in a drenched set of mittens, spring came, and suddenly the winter-muted landscape turned green.

The last remnants of what passes for winter around here are still holding on at the higher elevations. After the sun came out during our lunchtime run, Beat and I could see a film of snow on the peaks across the Bay. But spring fever hit me hard this week. I've been scheduling May visits from friends,  and scheming strategies for the Stagecoach 400, including a potential training weekend in April. I'm mulling a summer full of mountain binges that I've deemed necessary to train for the Ultra Trail du Mont Blanc. And I'm wondering if I can squeeze a mountain bike tour between it all, sometime during the summer. Besides UTMB in late August, most of my summer calendar is still a blank. I feel driven to keep it that way as long as possible so I can continue to dream and scheme, anticipating that adventure is inevitable. Times are good. Spring is here. Winter is done.

But wait ... it's not. Three weeks in Alaska followed by a return to a greened-up California set off the seasonal transitions in my brain, but the reality remains that Beat and I are still headed back to Fairbanks this week for the White Mountains 100. There's going to be lots of snow and it could be 20 below. Which is awesome, really — but right now, hard to comprehend. Today I found myself sorting through potential gear for the scorching-desert Stagecoach ride and contemplating a trip to the sauna to begin my heat training. I was just about to start boxing up my winter gear when the rational side of my brain finally prodded me: "You need those tights! You need that puffy! White Mountains! Twenty below! Twenty belooooow." Yikes.

In other news, I've taken up running again after a nearly month-long hiatus following the Sustina 100. Beat seemed to recover from the Iditarod in no time. He endured one week of a low-level cold and revved-up appetite, and then he was back on his feet, cramming in a few tune-up runs for the White Mountains. Yes, Beat is actually planning to run a hundred more miles on snow this weekend. If I understood it, I'd try to justify it, but I don't. But he looked fairly strong out there today, given he looked like this just two weeks ago:

(In this photo, Beat is thinking "Fairbanks will feel like a sauna after what I've been through." By the way, he has started posting his ITI race report with an awesome play-by-play map on his blog.  Also fun from the Web this week was a cartoon by EJ Murphy on iRunFar depicting my own Iditarod superfandom.

During my own training runs, my legs have felt slow but strong, like I could climb up a wall. I think this is a good indicator that I'm actually in decent snow biking shape despite a deficit of actual conditioning. I'm going to keep telling myself that, because I'm actually pretty nervous about the effort I'm facing on Sunday-Monday. But I'm determined to pedal hard, with the promise of spring to drive me forward.