Heading down to Frog Town

Photo from the 2011 25 Hours of Frog Hollow. I don't remember who sent it to me, so unfortunately I can't credit it.

On Wednesday I made another long trek across northern Nevada with three mountain bikes wedged inside the Subaru and a sharing-size package of Pretzel M&Ms to keep me company. A secret shame of mine is that I sorta love endurance driving/road trips, but not so much when anchored to Interstates because of time constraints. If I had my druthers I would take twice as long to reach Salt Lake City via a slow drive over the Sierras through Yosemite National Park, followed by a thirsty traverse of Nevada and the Great Basin on U.S. Route 50, i.e. "The Loneliest Highway." Someday. But until then I battle the hypnotic effect of I-80 with tried and true endurance-racing sleep deprivation techniques, such as sucking on M&Ms or Life Savers, and blasting myself in the face with frigid air. I only stop long enough to empty my bladder and refill my caffeinated beverage supply, and I've managed to whittle the 800-mile trip to twelve hours.

But the reason I am returning the the Beehive State for the third time in just over a month is this race that Beat and I signed up for back in May; this late-season race neither of us really trained for despite the fact we're both a bit overtrained and tired in general; this random Utah race that we've made something of a tradition just because it's so full of silly fun; this mountain bike race that just happens to also be really long and arduous, called the 25 Hours of Frog Hollow.

The 25 Hours of Frog Hollow is "The Longest One-Day Race Evah!" because it takes place over Daylight Savings Time, so the clocks fall back and add another hour to the day. And how does one make a long day last even longer? How about continually riding laps around the same thirteen-mile loop of dirt, sand, singletrack, and rocks, for twenty-five hours, at least fourteen of which are going to be pitch dark because hey, it's November. And even though this race is held in the desert of Southern Utah, it's still November, so temps can and usually do drop well below freezing at night. And no matter how much fun I'm having when my wheels first hit the sand, eventually I realize that it's 5 a.m. and the sun has been gone for twelve hours, I've probably run over at least one kangaroo rat and witnessed the disturbing carnage of many more, my fingers are frozen and my shoulders feel like someone is stabbing me with a hot fork, I've ridden a mountain bike 150 miles and am still hoping for fifty more, but there are so many things I'd rather do than ride my mountain bike, including stabbing myself with hot forks. And still, when I think back to the 23 laps and 300 miles I've already ridden in two years of Frog Hollow, my memories are filled with scenes accompanied by playful music like "Naked Kids" by Grouplove:

Yeah, racing a mountain bike for 25 hours is kinda like that ... in a magical world where the desert washes are filled with Pepsi and fairies and unicorns ride mountain bikes. I fully expect to see some fairies or unicorns in Frog Town, given this race starts only three days after Halloween.

Clearly I don't have high ambitions for this race. There's going to be some fast ladies lining up and I expect them to put in inspiring efforts as I dawdle far too much, doing whatever it is I actually do out there in mountain bike fairyland. I got on the podium last year by slowly picking my way through the field as temperatures dropped into the low twenties and some of the faster women slowed down in that water-bottle-freezing cold. I might have even won outright if I hadn't eaten a can of tuna and sent my stomach into a tailspin. It's all fun and games until someone eats a can of tuna. Then it's just unpleasantness, vomiting, and flickering moments of lucidity when all the tough realities emerge — "Actually, riding a mountain bike for 25 hours isn't silly fun. It's really hard. And I love the Jem Trail but I've already descended it thirteen times. I mean, really, Jill? Really?"

So I will stay away from tuna this year, and otherwise just focus on fun. Beat unfortunately is injured, again. He crashed his mountain bike two weeks ago and took a hard handlebar punch in the rib cage. He finally visited his doctor earlier this week and confirmed that one of his ribs is cracked. Beat's doctor knows him all too well and admitted that he can probably race his bike because there's little he can do for a cracked rib anyway. But it causes him a lot of pain, so we'll see how long he holds out at Frog Hollow. I'm glad he's still flying out here tomorrow and hope he can have at least one fun lap. In all likelihood he'll stubbornly push through a hundred-plus miles because he's just like that. His capacity for largely purposeless suffering never ceases to amaze me.

Anyway, this is just my blog post signing out for a few days. Have a great Daylight Savings Weekend, everyone. And take comfort in the fact that Election Day is nearly here, and no matter what happens, at least the election will be over. 

Go with the Flow

Shortly after I finished my Kokopelli Trail ride in Utah last weekend, I found myself in a position I land in frequently — trying to explain to skeptics what it is about long bike rides that I find so appealing. When attempting to verbally describe this concept while my mind is still fried from the physical demands of the ride, I often hem and haw and mutter buzz words such as "pretty" and "mountains." One non-cyclist friend speculated that she would become "crazy bored" on a six-hour solo ride; another mountain biker friend called this particular redrock canyon route "cheesy" because it lacked the necessary amount of adrenaline-pumping singletrack. "I can't really explain it," I finally concluded. "But long-distance rides are one of the few activities I can fully immerse myself in. Sometimes when I'm on my bike, I get so caught up in the movement that I let go of everything else; nothing else matters. It's liberating, really, to lose myself so completely."

A couple of days later, while chatting about music on our way home from Moab, my friend Craig shared similar sentiments as he described improvising on his saxophone. After his wife and daughter go to bed, he sometimes slips into his garage and lets the whole world disappear into the music. He's playing the instrument, but the harmony seems to be creating itself, an independent energy that pulls him along for the ride. As the conversation continued, I realized that Craig wasn't just describing the same emotions I feel during long bike rides. He was describing the same experience.

When I pointed out the similarities of our reactions to these two otherwise unrelated activities, Craig recommended I read "Flow: The Psychology of the Optimal Experience" by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. This was a fairly popular pop psychology book written in the 1980s that I had never heard of before this past weekend; strangely, as Csikszentmihalyi's theories bolster the same ideas I have been forming — and writing about — for years. "Flow" proposes that optimal experiences are formed when people focus so fully on an achieving a goal that they shed all excess distractions, and in the process experience energized attention, enlightenment, and joy. He proposes that the happiest people are those who consistently enter this kind of "flow" state, funneling all of their energy and emotions into the singular satisfaction of the moment.

"I developed a theory of optimal experience based on the concept of flow—the state in which people are so involved in an activity that nothing else seems to matter; the experience itself is so enjoyable that people will do it even at great cost, for the sheer sake of doing it," Csikszentmihalyi wrote in "Flow." Later, when describing his clinical research, he explained, "What I discovered was that happiness is not something that happens. It is not the result of good fortune or random chance. It is not something that money can buy or power command. It does not depend on outside events, but, rather, on how we interpret them. Happiness, in fact, is a condition that must be prepared for, cultivated, and defended privately by each person. People who learn to control inner experience will be able to determine the quality of their lives, which is as close as any of us can come to being happy."

And another quote that will resonate with endurance junkies everywhere: "The best moments usually occur when a person’s body or mind is stretched to its limits in a voluntary effort to accomplish something difficult and worthwhile. Optimal experience is thus something that we make happen."

It's a compelling concept that can obviously be applied far beyond the simple acts of riding bicycles or playing jazz music. A painter creating a mural, a lawyer building a case, two friends engaged in an engrossing conversation, and a worker on an assembly line are among examples of flow states described in the book. I just started reading "Flow" and am only a quarter way in (27 percent according to my Kindle), but it's been quite illuminating reading. I considered some of the times in my life during which I've entered into a fully immersive state, and the activities that generated this flow:

1. Long-distance cycling, especially in wild and scenic landscapes
2. Hiking and running, especially in physically demanding conditions or on difficult terrain (i.e. climbing steep mountains)
3. Piecing together all the components of a daily newspaper under tight deadline pressure (i.e. editing and designing newspaper pages — sadly not a high-demand skill these days.)
4. Writing

In fact, flow is exactly what has been missing from my writing lately. Reading this book has sparked consideration as to how I can get this back. For the past year, my strategy has largely consisted of aggressively pursuing the first two activities. This has kept me saturated in flow experiences and subsequent feelings of contentedness and happiness, but admittedly at the expense of more traditional productivity. Still, I feel grateful that I'm healthy and secure enough to have regular access to this enriching state — even if relatively few can understand what's so great about riding a bicycle. It means something to me — and in an existence formed by inner experiences, that's what matters.

I'll continue reading this book and working harder to apply this satisfying singular focus to other aspects of my life. But I'm blogging about it now because I believe the concept of flow can be an effective shield in the widespread battle against anxiety, depression, and discontent. It's something worth reflecting on — What activities bring you to a state where you forget about time, hunger, exhaustion, even fear? How can these activities become more of a central focus in your life? I think these are important questions. 

Love, Utah

Sunday afternoon after the half marathon, the California crew headed into Arches National Park to do some sightseeing. We decided to treat or tired legs to an easy walk, so Delicate Arch became the destination. At three miles with 500 feet of climbing, it's not nothing — but the rewards are much greater than your average three-mile hike. Despite all of my excursions into Southeastern Utah as a youth, I haven't ventured inside Arches National Park in many years, and have not hiked to Delicate Arch since I was a teenager.

Admittedly, visiting Delicate Arch is on the cheesy end of the outdoor activity spectrum. The iconic landmark has been so exploited to death that now it's most common to hear things like, "Wow, that's what's on the license plates!" from fellow hikers while standing in the presence of this wholly unique entrada sandstone formation. Still, being there made me feel like a little kid again. The weather was gorgeous and we sprinted out onto the sandstone bowl beneath the arch, climbing boulders and basking in the sun.

I'm pretty sure I have a similar photograph of me and other friends sitting on this exact same rock that was taken when I was seventeen years old. I wish I could find it for comparison's sake. The whole excursion was a relaxing and satisfying addition to nostalgia weekend.

On Monday, I headed back to Salt Lake with Craig and Jen. It was Craig's daughter's fourth birthday that day, and he wanted to take her to Sand Dune Arch to play in the sand. I took advantage of the Arches stop to go for a quick six-mile sandy trail run. It was, in a strange way, my most satisfying outing of the week — even moreso than my long mountain bike ride on Saturday or half marathon on Sunday. The weekend crowds had gone home and I seemingly had the trails all to myself, revving my high gears to make good time in the sand and experiencing truly breathtaking surprise when I encountered a new arch around nearly every corner.

The Colorado Plateau is a magical place, and for me rivals the Alaskan tundra in its intimidating expansiveness and bewildering beauty. And like Alaska, the desert can be unforgivably harsh, not the kind of place many people seek to venture very far off the beaten paths. I certainly didn't venture out this weekend, but returning to these spots and looking out over these horizons reminds me that I want to come back, someday, and trace the hidden contours that have been permanently seared in my imagination. I love Moab.

By the time I returned to Salt Lake, winter had arrived, including the first real valley snowstorm of the year. On Tuesday morning I had a few hours to kill before my flight, and found myself standing near the window of my parent's house in Sandy, watching drizzling raindrops hit the sidewalk. "I want to go for a run, but it's really too cold," I told my mom. Then I had a had a moment of self-awareness when I realized that 43 degrees and raining was exactly the kind of weather I went out in nearly every single day when I lived in Juneau. The deep shame of being California-wimpified pushed me out the door, and I had a fantastic 7.5-mile power-hike/run with 3,000 feet of climbing on the Bear Canyon trail, also signed as the Orson Smith and Cherry Canyon Logging trail. Basically, I was working my way up the lower slope of Lone Peak and daydreaming about scenarios in which I had both the time and hardcoreness to ascend above snowline all the way to the summit. I love the Wasatch Mountains.

I did see a little bit of sleet above 7,000 feet elevation, which made me very excited as that's my first hit of snow this season. Winter is my favorite season, even though these days I see so little of it that I've lost nearly all of my cold-weather street cred and even tolerance (see above.) But it was a great end to a very full and rewarding last-minute trip. Thanks, Utah. 

The Other Half

When Monika started planning our big reunion in Moab, she centered it around a half marathon event, reasoning that a lot of us, herself included, were all into running now. Back in the D Street days, there was actually a whole group of runners that did not include Monika or me: Geoff, Bryan, Curt, Tricia, Anna, Micah ... But despite the appearance of converging interests, Monika hadn't convinced anyone from the original crew besides her own husband, Paul, and another friend, Kati, to sign up for the race this weekend.

Luckily she was bringing a large contingent of her own running friends from California. And just before the race, Geoff and Bryan's girlfriends, Corle and Monica, signed up as well. Then we learned there were a few extra bibs floating around. Kati's sister forgot to train, and Paul had injured his ankle and couldn't run. After some grappling it was decided that Jamie would run with Kati's sister's bib, and I was going to be Paul. Thankfully for me and my anxieties about breaking rules, Monika had registered Paul under the name "Bubu," which I presume is a Slovakian-type spelling of the pet name "Boo-boo." Still, it was better to run as "Bubu" than "Paul."

Monika called me out of my tent in the frosty twilight of 6:05 a.m. I admittedly felt groggy and grumpy about the prospect of racing. After all, I had convinced myself I was finally going to partake in a completely lazy, sit-by-the-campfire kind of weekend, and now I was waking up before dawn, with a stiff neck and sore legs from churning through the sand with a mountain bike for 52 miles and 7,600 feet of climbing the day before, just so I could pound my poor shredded quads through another 13.1 miles on pavement. Why do I do this to myself? Even when I vow to relax, I can't.

As we huddled around the picnic table shoveling in instant oatmeal and coffee, two rather strange women — strange to the point of being creepy — walked up to us holding hands. They offered to "stretch" Corle and became insistant when she declined. When I asked if they were running with us, one replied in the most sing-song voice possible, "No, we don't like to run. We like to drink tea." Turns out they were friends of friends of friends who someone invited out to our camp late the night before, and were still up after apparently "drinking tea" all night long. Rudeness of inviting them aside given how loud they were all night and how many children there were in camp, it was reminiscent of the kinds of encounters that used to happen with humorous frequency when I was 21. I had to laugh about it.

The Other Half Marathon begins at the Dewey Bridge, north of Moab, and continues contouring the Colorado River corridor on Highway 128 for 13.1 miles to Sorrel River Ranch. Of all of the highways I've traveled, Utah Route 128 is one of the most scenic. Thirteen miles of desert scenery, combined with the silly fun of running with friends, tempered my reluctance to run so far on pavement. The more serious California runners lined up with their pacing groups, but six of us started off the back near a guy holding a 3:00 pacing sign. "Just stay in front of that guy, and you'll be fine," I said to a couple of the newer runners who were nervous about finishing. The gun went off and we started fresh at about 12 min/mile pace, still joking and giggling.

My original intent was to stay with my friends, shoot photos, and take it easy on my tired legs. But after a couple of miles I lost them in the crowd and gradually got a little more caught up in the running part of the half marathon. I picked up my pace until the mile-long climb at mile eight, and struggled a bit because quarter-filled paper cups of Gatorade every two miles do not provide that much liquid for a desert race, and I was slightly dehydrated. Near the top of the climb was the access road to our campground, and I admit I considered veering off and either heading back to camp or waiting for the others to catch up. As I approached the gravel road, I saw Kati running in a tutu, and as I pushed to catch up to her I noticed a large contingent of friends standing next to the road and cheering runners on. They were so busy cheering for Kati and her tutu that they didn't even notice me, even after I made a full stop directly in front of them and took their photo. Ah, well.

The headwind picked up speed until even the downhills felt more like climbs. The short-but-steep climbs and wind-blasted descents continued all the way to mile twelve. The final mile was downhill but directly into that fierce wind, and I was sorta done having fun with this half marathon. I'm glad it wasn't a full marathon. I rolled into the finish at 2:06, having come within a few minutes of catching up to some of the California crew. I was 501st out of 1,459 finishers, and 46 out of 83 in "my" class, which was males age 30-34. Monika also told me that this is Paul's half-marathon PR now. Since my only other half marathon was the Greifenseelauf in Switzerland one year ago, and my time there was 2:07, I think it's my PR too. Yay!

Beat, however, told me that because I'm a "runner" now, I really need to get my half marathon time under two hours. Boo. I really enjoyed myself in The Other Half, and I doubt I would have enjoyed myself as much if I made a concentrated effort to shave a half minute off of every mile. When Beat asked if I *could* have shaved at least a half minute off of some of those miles, the answer was emphatically yes (certainly in the first 8 miles, but not in the last five.) "So you're not really trying," he replied. "It doesn't count if you're not trying."

This gave me an idea for a future blog post — examining the emphasis on getting faster solely for the sake of getting faster, and why this value has to be a prerequisite to being a "runner." I'm never going to win and sometimes wonder why it's so important to pick my way up through the middle of the pack. I do understand the satisfaction of personal improvement and the competitive spirit, but I feel the need to examine just how much these increments mean to me, as an individual, before I commit to something like training specifically for a faster 50K, for example. Sometimes I wonder if I get caught up in the peer pressure of "faster is always better" without acknowledging which aspects of the running experience really mean the most to me. Or maybe, as Beat says, I'm just being lazy. :-)

Either way, I had a great time at The Other Half — excellent scenic-yet-challenging compliment to the rest of the weekend. Thanks, friends.

Strange steps take us back

I was just a hair over 19 years old when I decided I hadn’t made enough new friends during my first year in college, and opted to rectify that by joining the University of Utah’s environmentalist club, Terra Firma. Yeah, I wanted to save the environment, too, but I was working two part-time jobs to buy myself the luxury of not living at home, taking a full load of classes, and I had little time for extracurricular activities. So my primary motive was making friends, but when I walked into that first meeting full of young men with hairy faces and women in sun dresses, I had no concept of how deeply this single action would shape my future. 

Just another typical evening at the D Street House. Photo from May 2003. 

I was just a hair over 22 years old, and had been out of school for more than a year, when I moved in with them. “They” were a loosely organized household of ten students, an unwieldy group stuffed two-plus to a bedroom in a small house in the Avenues of Salt Lake City. We called ourselves the “Terra Firma House,” and later the “D Street House.” We've since speculated that more than thirty people called the place home for at least a short time. The rent payers were in constant fluctuation, but we were bound by our love of living cheaply and traveling to the desert whenever we got the chance. The drama level was about what you’d expect from a co-ed group of twenty-somethings crammed into a small living space. Flings sparked and faded, wild parties drew police crackdowns, couches were willfully destroyed, people moved in and moved out, but Terra Firma House lived on. 

I was just a hair under 24 years old when I left. Ironically, the "wild" period of my early twenties was also when I took my career as seriously as I ever have. I commuted seventy miles a day to my job at a small-town newspaper so I could spend long hours editing articles, driving out to accident sites to shoot photos, and interviewing local artists and businesspeople. Returning home every night to a different party ultimately proved to be more frustrating than fun. One day, I arrived at the D Street House after a long day at work to find several of my roommates dismantling a thrift-store-purchased arcade "Skill Crane" with a sledgehammer. I loved these people, and one in particular, but enough was enough. I told my boyfriend at the time that I was moving to Tooele to live closer to my job. For a time, I believed I’d never look back. 

But one thing I’ve learned about myself since that time is that I always look back, and the views are often cathartic and rewarding. For all of the tangents our lives have taken since the Terra Firma days, some things never change: We still laugh about the time a rat crawled into Bryan’s car and died a week before anyone discovered it; we still bond amid the flickers of orange light and sage-scented smoke; and we still love the Utah desert. 

For the last six months, my friend Monika, the “Rockin’ Slovakian” of Terra Firma days who now lives in San Francisco, has been planning a big reunion of friends in Moab. For a number of reasons I was on the fence about going, and as recently as one week before the trip wasn't planning to attend. But as the gathering reached a critical mass of old friends, including several traveling from as far away as Alaska, I decided to make it happen. I bought my plane ticket so late that I checked in at the same time, and made last-minute arrangements to join the group at a campsite next to the Colorado River. 

Friday night was a whirlwind — more than forty people had gathered at the group campsite, and we visited several others who opted to stay with their families in condos back in town. Children played barefoot in the sand while the rest of us huddled next to a small fire, trading the rapid-fire versions of our life stories and laughing at inside jokes. As an introvert, this kind of manic socialization is fun but extremely exhausting. By Saturday morning, while the group made plans, I started looking for an excuse to steal some solo time. 

Most of the California contingent planned to rent bikes in Moab and ride the Slickrock Trail. I looked into this possibility only to find that seemingly all the bikes in town were already rented out for the busy fall break weekend. Other friends were taking their children swimming, or going to town to pick up bibs for the half marathon the following day. Most plans had been made before I latched onto the trip, so I figured I'd just be the odd person out, stuck in camp. But as everyone was packing up to leave for the day, I noticed a bike that I recognized mounted to the top of one of the cars. My ex-boyfriend Geoff and I only had a few short minutes to catch up the night before, so I took the opportunity for an easy icebreaker — "So, you still have the old Karate Monkey?"

Somewhere in our conversation about old bike components, life in Colorado, running, and how few miles he's ridden since the 2008 Great Divide Race, I asked Geoff to let me borrow his bike for the day. We were camped more than thirty miles outside Moab and I had no way to transport the bike by vehicle, so the Slickrock Trail group ride was still out of my reach. Instead, I took off from camp by myself in search of a "touring" adventure, something that would take me to scenic and high places. I found the Onion Creek jeep road, and consequently access to one of the prettiest sections of the Kokopelli Trail.

Riding Geoff's Karate Monkey on the Kokopelli Trail put me in a nostalgic mood, and for long periods of time my mind left the sand-spinning present to travel to desert places in the past. I found myself in Coyote Gulch, anxiously searching for ways to scale a twenty-foot waterfall in Sketchers and jeans, with a forty-pound backpack. Then it was late at night in the San Rafael Swell, sitting in silence around an extinguished campfire as a rare display of northern lights streaked across the starry sky. Then it was a single-digit morning in Robber's Roost, hopping up to breakfast still wrapped in my sleeping bag after a shivering night that I half-believed I wouldn't survive.

Nostalgia is a powerful and double-edged emotion — at once uplifting and sobering, happy and sad. For me, nostalgia is a way of creating continuity with the past, an acknowledgement that everything I do holds a direct line to everything I’ve been through. It’s the reason I can sit down next to a campfire with people who I haven’t seen in as many as five years and pick up stories we left dangling back in 2004 as though no time has passed at all. 

But time does pass. Later that night, back at camp, my friend Jen would lament that our group "doesn't do stuff together anymore. We just talk about the stuff we used to do." It's true. Even during our reunion, we took off on our own tangents before reconvening around the campfire at night. Still, to this group of friends, my own tangent — embarking on a six-hour solo bike ride — seemed to make the least sense. With all the fun activities going on that day, why would I choose to go off by myself and burn up my quads on a long, sandy climb into the La Sal Mountains? At dinner we discussed our plans for the following day, and I jumped at an opportunity to take a friend's bib and run the half marathon in the morning. Some friends joked about my agreeing to a "short" run while others teased me about going on a fifty-mile mountain bike ride while most of the runners tapered on Saturday. My friend Tricia, who effectively hasn't seen me since the days of house parties, Sketchers and jeans on hikes, and vocal disavowals of all structured fitness training, asked me whether I could have foreseen any part of what my life is like now ten years ago.

"Not at all," I replied. "I guess it's just the strange the way life works. One thing builds onto another, so slowly that you don't even notice until you look back and realize that your perspective is dramatically different."

Perspectives keep on shifting, and it's rewarding to maintain connections to the past. These people — and places — have made me who I am, and continue to help me keep sight of where I'm going.

First (and only?) training ride

Dropping into the Big Blue

My friend Jan recently took a job at a small biotech company in Seattle, and is leaving the Bay area this Saturday (booo!) It's always a bummer to lose good riding partners, but the upside is that he wanted to squeeze in one last big ride during his last week in town. Great timing, because I needed to squeeze in a long training ride for the 25 Hours of Frog Hollow before taper time encroaches. I effectively haven't ridden a mountain bike more than a handful of times since mid-August. Training for a 25-hour solo that begins in seventeen days? No time to start like the present.

Coast View Trail

Jan mapped out a big loop of trails, fire roads, and pavement around the Marin Headlands. On paper, or original route looked ambitious — but even then I thought, "Yeah, we can knock this thing out in seven hours" and even made early dinner plans with a friend in San Francisco. Ha! I should know better by now. Of all of the regions where I've dabbled in longer distance riding, the California coastline has been, by far, the most deceptively difficult. I *think* the dirt is all smooth and the elevations are all small, but I'm wrong. Somehow, I'm always wrong. A thousand feet of altitude is a huge energy drain if you have to gain it in two miles or less, on freshly graded trails. And cow-trampled, sun-dried mud is more jarring than any rock garden I've ridden. And redwoods can roll out some surprisingly large drops with their well-camouflaged roots. The California coastline is also a place where temperatures can push into the high-80s in October, but any clear day in Marin is a beautiful day.

I think it was mile eight or so when Jan and I looked at each other and both silently wondered if we were really going to go through with this. His face was already streaked with white salt and my sit bones were sore. My sit bones haven't been sore in six years, but it isn't easy to reconcile months of relative inactivity with persistent hard pressing, while climbing, just to keep the rear wheel from spinning out. Still, it was intriguing to finally link up all of these trails I've ridden and run in shorter fragments. We started at the Golden Gate Bridge and climbed up and over the steep ridge into Rodeo Valley, then Tennessee Valley, then Muir Beach, then climbed a fire road to Mount Tam before dropping down the bone-rattling spine of Bolinas Ridge. After five and a half hours, my arms were completely numb and both Jan and I were deeply fatigued. We had traveled 38 miles, it was 4:30 p.m., there were only two hours until sunset, and were still at the furthest point on our loop.

Coyote Ridge Trail

In the interest of not riding until midnight, we decided to nix a few of the trails we were going to hit on the way back, and made a dash for home on the pavement. Marin County has a nice bike route system, but I am not a big fan of urban riding — the constant stop and go, the traffic, the knee-jarring tendency to sprint away from stop signs in the big ring, the wonderful smells emanating from all of the restaurants when I am so hungry. Still, it was nice to make good time for a change — thirty miles in 2:15 including a Gatorade stop when both Jan and I ran low on water. By the end of the ride, the restaurant smells had tempted me into eating three energy bars, my sit bones had gone numb, and I was feeling great. I could have gone out for another 67-mile lap. At least, that is what I will tell myself, so I don't feel as much dread about Frog Hollow in two weeks.

Alcatraz Island, the Bay Bridge, and San Francisco

We ended up with 66.4 miles and 8,083 feet of climbing (map here.) This likely will be my only big training ride before Frog Hollow, as I made a last-minute decision to purchase a cheap plane ticket and fly to Utah for yet another weekend. A bunch of my college friends have been planning a big reunion in Moab. I was originally not planning on going, because my fall travel schedule was already loaded, most of those trips involve Utah, and because I felt guilty about neglecting my work and spending less time with Beat, who also wanted to plan a long training ride this weekend. However, the Moab gathering really started to fill out, and now it looks like most of my good friends from college, as well as several people I haven't seen in eight-plus years, are going to be there. It should be a great reunion; it's always fun to reconnect with people who knew you when you were 20 years old.

Several of these friends are running a half marathon on Saturday, but biking isn't part of the plan. I'm sure I'll do some hiking with my friends and maybe grab a trail run or two, but yeah — here's to another weekend of not training for Frog Hollow. At least I got one good ride in.

Winter of discontent

Cache Mountain Divide during the 2012 White Mountains 100: So bonked, so tired, so having the time of my life

In late February 2013, Beat is going to load up his sled and set out from Knik Lake, Alaska, and walk toward Nome — 1,000 miles on the Iditarod Trail. For many reasons, such an ambitious undertaking is well beyond my scope right now, and yet the desire to find an Alaska adventure of my own burns deep. On the whole, I'm an adaptable person who could happily change a lot about my life — but, as of yet, I feel unwilling to let go of my annual winter "pilgrimages" through the wildernesses of the Far North. Why this particular activity has become so deeply woven through the fabric of who I am, is still a mystery to me. But a winter without Alaska is still as unthinkable to me as a summer without mountain biking. If I *had* to choose one to give up, well ... most of my biking friends would probably not be happy with my answer.

Happily, Beat's month-long commitment to Nome will likely give me a lot of time to work with in winter 2012-2013. Less happily, my usual, convenient and fun solution of racing is not an option this year. The three races that have played the largest role in my personal development — the Susitna 100, the White Mountains 100, and the Iditarod Invitational 350 — are all unavailable to me this year. I do believe the Susitna 100 will be back someday, and I've mostly been able to let go of the ITI 350, but the White Mountains 100 lottery outcome has been hard for me to cheerfully accept. I admit I was one who didn't understand why some runners are so devastated when they fail to make it through the Western States or Hardrock 100 lotteries. What's the big deal? There are lots of other opportunities. But now I get it. It's hard when you've been part of a small community for three years, channeled so much effort and devotion toward one event, and suddenly you're shut out. I understand why it has to work that way. It's still hard.

So the question remains: What to do? I appreciate the votes on my blog poll. The results were interesting:

Rainy Pass during the 2008 ITI 350: So frightened, so destroyed, so loving every minute I'm alive

"Independent, self-supported bike tour of the Iditarod Trail from Knik Lake to McGrath," 107 votes (31%): A longer, self-supported snow bike tour in Alaska is something I've been considering since late 2009. The main reason I haven't followed through is because I moved away from Alaska, and now lack what I consider to be the necessary conditions to adequately prepare for such an adventure. Attempting 350 miles of the Iditarod Trail on my own would be, in my opinion, considerably more difficult than participating in the race. I would have to be absolutely prepared for every contingency because there are no bailouts. I would have to carry all of my food and fuel, at least seven days' worth, from the start. I would have to prepare for camping every night, in potentially horrific weather conditions. There are a few lodges in the early miles where I could book a room and buy a hot meal, but beyond mile 165, I would be deep in the wilderness and completely on my own. There's also the issue of the short window when such a tour is even possible. Basically, the whole Iditarod Trail only exists for a few short weeks in late February and March. It's almost impossible to plan an independent tour and not bump into either the human-powered or the dog sled races. These two race organizations do so much to facilitate the maintenance of the Iditarod Trail that I do feel it's important to not get in their way. For all of these reasons, I admit I'm still more intimidated by the prospect of such a tour than I am drawn to it.

One of my ideas when I first started considering this in 2009 was to launch an initial "shakedown tour" on the first 165 miles of the trail, closer to "civilization" but far enough out that I could still make a day trip over Rainy Pass and see a lot of amazing scenery. At this point, having never done a longer winter outdoor camping trip, this is probably a better idea. Another idea suggested by Phil in Nome was to fly out to a village much farther west on the Iditarod Trail, connect two points, and see some incredible and completely new-to-me country. This, in some ways, would be more manageable than a McGrath tour since I could mail myself food packages to all the villages along the way. I could arrange it to finish in Nome and wait for Beat there. This is also, of course, an intimidating and probably expensive prospect.

2012 "Pecha Kucha Mountain" fat bike weekend: All of the fun, none of the suffering.

"Snow bike or sled tour on the Denali Highway, Resurrection Pass, and other shorter routes in Alaska," 90 votes (26%): Yes, it is possible to have an adventure in the Far North without resorting to a big sufferfest. I admit I like the challenge of more "extreme" adventures, but I also like vacations that are driven toward fun. The awesome women who invited me on a snow bike tour of the Dawson Trail last March — Jenn and Sierra in Whitehorse, and Jill in Anchorage — are all interested in putting together another tour this winter. One idea I had was the Denali Highway, 135 miles of somewhat maintained snowmobile trail in the shadow of the eastern Alaska Range. There are two lodges along the way to help minimize the suffering, although there is one 65-mile stretch with no commercial structures. Depending on weather and trail conditions, this could either be a very long day or a long two days. I'm not sure how far my friends want to venture into the suffer zone.

There are other possibilities for great tours as well — the 48-mile wilderness trail on Resurrection Pass, snowmobile trails around Homer, and the Denali Park Road, although I'm not sure whether that's maintained at all during the winter. There's also the White Mountains loop in Fairbanks, and of course lots of options in the Susitna Valley. I could certainly spend a happy month seeking out 2- to 3-night snow bike and snowshoe/sled tours, working on my book, riding my Fatback around Anchorage, and hiking a few small mountains. Wait ... why am I considering anything else? Oh, yeah, because I would genuinely miss my annual slogfest. If nothing else, I'm likely to be very lazy the rest of the winter with nothing to train for.

The Dawson Overland Trail, home of the Yukon Quest and Yukon Arctic Ultra. It is beautiful.

"Suck up the exorbitant fee and run the Yukon Arctic Ultra on foot," 45 votes (13%): This is one race I would love a shot at running. Paying for it, however, is not nearly as enticing. For whatever reason, the YAU is considerably more expensive than any other winter race I've participated in, and I mean considerably. The price of the 100-mile event is basically insulting. The 300-mile or 430-mile events might be more justifiable, but again, these distances would be extremely hard, especially because if I race this winter, I want to do so on foot. The YAU is notorious for cold weather and bad trail, enough that winter cyclists have all but abandoned this race (I looked at the results from last year, and they were all runners and skiers.) Plus, it's in early February, so it takes place before I'm going to be in Alaska, making travel another considerable expense. As much as I'd love to run this race, it's out of my price range this year. Perhaps my Yukon friends and I will be able to organize another independent trip on the Dawson Overland Trail, which I'd love to see again. I will mention in this section that I am strongly considering registering for the Homer Epic 100K. It's an awesome course that utilizes the snowmobile trails where I used to ride my mountain bike when I lived in Homer. However, regardless of how I approach that race, I'm not sure it will become a focus.

Walking the Yentna River in December 2011: I will say this, there's a lot of time to think out there. 

"Buckle down and finish writing a book for crying out loud," 57 votes (16%): I'm happy that this option received even more votes than the single winter racing option in my poll. It means there are a few out there who care whether or not I ever actually finish my book project(s). With all the fresh inspiration I was seeking in Utah, I've been trying to sit down and work on it this week. It's tough to explain, but my mind feels so "mushy" much of the time and my writer's block persists. I'm convinced this is a result of devoting so much energy to my outdoor pursuits and travel, and also having what is in reality so much time to work on my writing. I'm a journalist; I honestly work better under impossible deadlines. Well, this winter I'm vowing to set some impossible deadlines for myself. Having no sufferfest to train for might, in the end, be the best thing for me. This isn't to say I'm giving up on the possibility of a longer tour. But maybe it won't be so devastating if it can't happen.

"Experiment with speed work and see if I have a 'fast' 50K in the old legs," 23 votes (6%): I mentioned in my last blog post that I wouldn't mind aiming for a ~5:30 50K, acknowledging that I would need to focus my training in order to achieve this. This and the Homer Epic 100K could the efforts I train for in California while planning other short Alaska adventures. The problem is, the race I'd like to train for, Crystal Springs 50K, is in early January — right after Beat and I return from a dark and cold training weekend in Fairbanks. It's not the ideal taper for a fast 50K. I might look into other trail races and keep this possibility on the table.

The Douglas Island Ridge in Juneau, Alaska, in November 2009: Fleeting beauty worth experiencing

"Nothing, winter is for hibernating," 15 votes (4%): We'll just have to agree to disagree.