Finding our community

The concept of community is becoming increasingly more paradoxical in the modern era. Internet, smart phones, and other sources of instant information sharing have contributed to a global community; we can feel just as connected to someone in Bangladesh as we can to the family next door. In other ways, we're more isolated than ever, distrusting our neighbors and remaining clueless about our local issues and leaders. Family and friends scatter all over the world, we change locations multiple times, and it's becoming increasingly more difficult as individuals to define where our "community" resides.

Earlier this year, a friend introduced me to Ann Trason, who is something of a legend in the sport of ultrarunning. She absolutely dominated the sport for more than 15 years, winning the Western States 100 fourteen times and setting a course record that stood for 18 years. Through the '90s, she held world records at the 50-mile, 100-K, 12-hour, and 100-mile distances. Most newer generation trail runners know her name from Christopher McDougall's book "Born to Run," where she was portrayed as a cutthroat competitor and antithesis of the easygoing style of the Tarahumara runners. After 2004 she disappeared from the sport almost entirely, although she continued to serve as the co-director of Dick Collins Firetrails, a popular 50-mile race near Oakland, until 2010. There was, of course, much speculation about why Ann stopped competing. Since she was a private person who didn't give many interviews, the speculation remained just that.

We met for lunch back in July, but then months passed before we found a weekend when we were both in town and not too busy to schedule another meeting. It was just going to be lunch, but then Ann decided to pace one of her friends at the Rio Del Lago 100-mile race near Auburn, California. She invited me to join her and help as crew. That's how I found myself driving east in Ann's Subaru on Saturday afternoon as she frantically changed clothes and organized her hydration pack in the back seat. We made it to the mile 53 aid station a mere three minutes before her runner arrived. Friends there had collected a bib for her that read "PACER" in big block letters. "Do I have to wear this?" she said with a smirk that betrayed a silliness behind her initially serious exterior. "This is so humiliating."

After she took off with her runner, Kevin, Ann's friends asked me how I knew her. I didn't feel a need to beat around the bush about it. "I'm a writer and I'd like to work on a book about her," I said. "But that's up to her whether that happens and honestly I'm happy either way. It's been great getting to know her as a friend. She's a lot of fun."

It's 2013 and, at age 53, Ann Trason is back, although not in the way most people expected. After nearly a decade away, she's become quite active in ultrarunning events this year, pacing friends and others at the Western States 100, the San Diego 100, and the Javelina 100. She also entered and finished two 100-mile races of her own, the Idaho Mountain Trail Ultra Festival in 33:24 ("It was scary," she told me. "I was sure I was going to fall off a cliff. Have you felt like that before?" Since her race happened on Aug. 30, the day I timed out of PTL, I replied. "Yes, and most recently on that exact same day.") The second was the Stagecoach Line 100 in Flagstaff, Arizona, on Oct. 19. She finished in 29:42. ("I was so cold. I couldn't see. My water bottle froze. I was second to last! But I was only disappointed because I wasn't dead last. I thought I was.")

As Ann told me her stories about struggling with technical scrambling, gnawing on a frozen water bottle valve to break up the ice, shivering in the eerie darkness of the desert, slogging along sandy trails with her friends, taking the time to soak up beautiful scenery, and feeling pangs of guilt about not living up to others' expectations, I thought, "Wow, we have so much in common!" But within this new perspective on running is the same woman who possesses phenomenal drive, talent, and success. She still holds the Leadville 100 women's record, which has stood since 1994. But I get the sense that part of her life is done now, and she's happy about that. For many of these past ten years, Ann didn't run at all, even as recreation. She recovered from injuries, participated in long-distance cycling, and tended a massive garden on her property near Michigan Bluff on the Western States course. "I have always been an all or nothing kind of person," Ann told me. "But all I ever really wanted was to run. I love running. I missed it."

But why has she made her way back into ultrarunning, specifically? In a word — community. She wants to give back to the sport in her own ways, and re-integrate into a community that she's felt separated from for too long. She's self-described "out of shape," reluctantly testing the latest gear such as Hoka shoes ("I don't know about these things," she said. "They're like moon shoes."), and is baffled about why she's still drawn to 100 milers ("I said no more after Flagstaff," she said. "But there will probably be more.") But it seems enjoying being "back" in the sense of giving back. She's enthusiastic about sharing her knowledge and experience with the next generation of runners, through coaching, trail work, and pacing at races. She also coaches a middle school running team in Berkley, and enjoys spending time with the kids most of all.

Ann's friend Kevin finished Rio Del Lago 100 in 20:01. The following day, she and I headed out to Ruck-a-Chucky to take some photos on a course section of a 100-kilometer trail race she'd like to launch next fall. I've been experiencing a knee "lock-up" issue since my bike crash last week, so I didn't want to commit to running the whole way. We ran down a steep fireroad down to the American River and then I hiked and jogged up the Western States Trail while she ran down-trail, hoping to grab a few images at a scenic spot further down the river. By the time we got out there it was nearly noon and the light was high and flat, not the best for photography. It was a downright hot day, especially for mid-November, and I didn't have much water. I was frustrated about being somewhat crash-injured yet again, and disappointed about missing out on an opportunity to run with "the great Ann Trason." And yet, I'd already learned so much from her in the past day. Ann has had quite the journey, and this is where she's arrived — with a sense that her home, and her community, is the most important part of her life.

The Loneliest Highway

I love road trips. In a perfect world, I would always have the time, means, and energy to just ride a bicycle everywhere, even destinations hundreds of miles away. But there's also something special about getting behind the wheel of a vehicle and piloting it across states, absorbing large swaths of scenery and chunks of local culture along the way. 

I've driven all over the North American West during the past ten years, and one of my favorite crossings is Northern Nevada. This segment of Interstate 80 is often described as the most monotonous, least engaging highway in the United States, with nothing but wide-open desert plains and distant barren mountains as far as the eye can see. I disagree with this assessment wholly, but then again these are my kind of landscapes — sweeping and mysterious, with adventurous intrigue lingering on the distant horizons. Still, the twelve-plus hours it takes to drive 800 miles between Los Altos and Salt Lake City is a lot of time to spend in a car by myself. To avoid the boredom sleepies, I keep myself engaged by stopping to take short walks and shoot some photos. This is my photo essay from the California-to-Utah commute.

The view from Donner Pass during the eastbound drive on Oct. 30, looking toward Donner Lake and Truckee, California.

Interstate 80 through Nevada. There are so many mountain ranges here that I want to explore. Someday I will take the time to stay, and not just fly past.

This truck stop has really, really terrible fountain soda. I think it's the well water.

But it does have nice views.

This photo is from the return drive. While gassing up in Wendover, I made a spontaneous decision to detour off I-80 and drive a highway that I've long wanted to travel — Highway 50, also known as the Lincoln Highway and "The Loneliest Highway." Towns along this road are all at least 100 miles apart, and there's little in between but sagebrush deserts and mysterious mountains.

Highway 50 lived up to its moniker as the Loneliest Road. The small amount of traffic I encountered out there was almost disconcerting. I imagine if you traveled this highway in a bad snowstorm and something happened, there's a chance you wouldn't be found for many hours or even days.

Eureka, Nevada.

An overlook view during one of the short walks I took near a BLM area that advertised petroglyphs. I did not find the petroglyphs.

Descending into Austin, Nevada.

Much of Highway 50 is above 6,000 feet. I thought it would be chilly, but temperatures were in the high 50s and even low 60s for most of the day. I *really* wished I could be out riding one of the four bikes I had in the car, but they were too deconstructed and tightly packed to justify a joyride. Also, I was (and still am) stiff and banged up from my bike crash, which I haven't recovered from as quickly as I expected.

A salt flat near Fallon.

Someday I will plan a bicycle tour from California to Utah on these lonely roads. Ideally it would take place during one of these colder months, because otherwise I would have to carry *a lot* of water. Even on pavement it's a hundred miles between resupplies. My kind of space.

The whys of racing

By Friday morning, racing a mountain bike around a dusty desert loop was about the farthest thing from my mind. The polished titanium Snoots, still speckled with red dirt, was propped against the nearby wall as I scoured the Internet for ideas. Is it possible to ride a bicycle on Baffin Island? I've long wondered if this land of wind-swept snow crusts, gravel bars and frozen fjords could potentially offer fat-bike friendly travel in the early spring. I'd envision granite cliffs higher and sheerer than any in Yosemite, towering over wide, white valleys, and dwarfing a solo bicycle tourist that was me in my dreams. Can fantasies like that come true? I Googled and pondered.

Then, without warning, it was time to pick Beat and Liehann up from the airport. Car packing, lunch, five-hour drive to Southwestern Utah, grocery buying, venue searching, race check-in, camp establishment, tossing open bags of food and bike parts around a Subaru Outback and calling this mess our "pit." We ate stale bagels with sliced cheese for dinner, and just like that it was time for sleep.

I laid awake in my sleeping bag for hours, thinking about Alaska. What explorations await up there? The Iditarod Trail, McGrath, maybe Nome, what else? I crawled out of the tent to crisp, near-freezing air and a sky splattered with stars, more stars than I had seen in many months. I gazed up at the Milky Way and wondered about the secret, untrammeled places of the world. Places with night skies so deep that they appear as a portal into outer space, places so inhospitable remote that they might was well be outer space. I looked around at the other pits of the race venue — elaborate canopies, trailers, RVs. The vast sky above the Virgin Rim had lulled me into dreams of distant exploration. But I was still locked in a pulse of civilization: A 25-hour mountain bike race, the temporary home of hundreds of riders and supporters, engaged in what one might consider the opposite of exploration — calculated lap racing.

Why do I race? This question has been on my mind lately, filling in the gaps in between thoughts about how to focus my career efforts and wonderings about future adventures. I questioned racing specifically because just two months ago I very much wanted to quit racing cold turkey, and even when I changed my mind about that, I could only muster passing enthusiasm for the 25 Hours of Frog Hollow. It's a fun course that I (mostly) enjoy riding, and friends from Montana, Canada, and Colorado were going to be there — a fantastic reunion. But beyond that, what was I even doing here? I don't race to try to beat people, only because I gain such minimal pleasure from that (personality thing, perhaps, Type B through and through.) I enjoy improving on my own results, but I'd ridden 13 laps here two years in a row and wasn't sure I wanted to ride more than that, because more time on the course would mean less time visiting with friends who live thousands of miles away. Thirteen laps is still 169 miles of difficult dirt riding, with a hefty climb in the first five miles of each 13-mile lap, five miles of relatively happy rolling descents, and three mildly technical miles that I've taken to calling "The Slabs of Despair."

"I will ride easy," I thought, "and see what happens." I vowed to spend some time hanging out with Keith and Leslie, but the outside goal was 14 laps.


Beat and I started out riding together and largely stuck together for the entire race. He was riding a singlespeed and would ride away on the dusty climb, but then I'd catch him on the Jem Trail descent, often in the exact same spot. We made up our own hike-a-bike sections when the energy surges required to power over the Slabs of Despair became too much to muster, and joked about how much more we enjoyed the walking at this point. I lamented my relative lack of bike conditioning — a former iron butt that's gone soft and sore, and painful pins-and-needles sensations in my arm from death-gripping the handlebars. I started to become upset about the pain in my arms, only because my legs felt fine and my energy levels were good. I was climbing well and not even all that tired, especially since we started making 30-minute stops in Keith and Leslie's warm trailer once night fell. They cooked baked potatoes, coffee, and quesadillas, and we chatted about their road trip across the American West and all the miserable parts of the course that we hated while defending what a fun race Frog Hollow is — in other words, wasting clock time and soaking up lots of fun energy before we returned to our sad pit at the cold, dark, utterly disorganized Subaru.

Beat and Liehann were becoming more demotivated about the laps and I began to join in their sentiments. One more round; what's the point? At the same time, I was slipping into a happy endurance daze, daydreaming again about Alaska and Baffin Island, and giggling about nothing at all. But the dust in the air was becoming scratchy and bothersome, and my arms hurt a lot. Every hateful slab brought the sensation of being stabbed by dozens of needles. Beat and I talked about stopping after ten laps. Mountain bike racing just isn't Beat's thing and he couldn't muster the enthusiasm. I understood, and I was on board. Still, I quietly determined that 14 laps were still a mathematical possibility, and I wondered if the boys would be mad if I snuck out after the required ten were done.

Lap ten came and I was in a daze again, thousands of miles away and lost in an expanse of sheer cliffs and snow. I was climbing slower than before, and Beat was long out of sight when the jeep road veered downward into a small drainage. My mind snapped back to reality just in time to see my front wheel land in a deep rut, but it was already too late. The bike jack-knifed and slapped me into the dirt, sending streaks of pain through my left shoulder and elbow, accompanied by the burning sensation of dirt tearing the surface layer of skin off my left leg. Amid the shock of impact I didn't even realize that I'd planted my right knee into a platform pedal until I was back on my bike and pedaling gingerly up the hill, and felt warm blood soak through my sock.

My left side was stiff and incredibly sore, blood was gushing out of what looked like a deep gash on the inside of my right knee, and I was demoralized by my stupid crash. I'm just so tired of nursing blunt force injuries. People give me all sorts of well-meaning advice about how I can improve my balance, increase my skills, become less of a hopeless klutz. But sometimes I wonder why we have to fight so hard against our own natures. I am daydreamy and my mind and body aren't always on the same wavelength. Grace and coordination are not talents of mine, but I do try to work on my skills, honestly. Still, I'm a crasher. I'll probably always be a crasher. This is becoming more problematic as I get older.


I effectively walked the last three miles of lap ten, because I wanted no more beatings from the Slabs of Despair. By the time I reached the timing tent, my right leg looked like something out of a cheap horror flick, so I went to the medical truck. The EMT who mopped me up probed the gash and said I would need stitches, but it was 3 a.m. and the nearest hospital was in St. George, 40 minutes away. When I elected to opt out of the E.R. trip, she warned me that pedaling would cause the wound to continually reopen and fill with dust, complicating the possibility of infection right next to my joint. Not worth the risk, no doubt. I was out. Lap ten. 130 miles. And I hadn't even figured out the reasoning behind all of it yet.

But it was fun. The 25 Hours of Frog Hollow is always fun, and I'm grateful that I had the chance spend that time with my friends and still get in a really long, mostly enjoyable ride. Now, three days later, I'm still more sore than I have been in a long while, including after the PTL. My elbow is still stiff and the range of motion seems low, but there's no swelling, so I'm not too worried about that. My sister, who is a nurse, helped assess my wound and it still appears to be free of infection; thanks to past crashes, I've become an expert on keeping a deep wound clean.

I concede that it's been a rough year of racing for me. Neither of my Alaska races went as well as I'd hoped, I had shin splints during my first 50-miler in May, the Bryce 100 was an altitude-induced sick march, I DNF'd the Laurel Highlands 70 one week later, then fell on my face at the San Lorenzo 50K and coped with a knee injury for the better part of six weeks. Then came the PTL, the race that wounded my spirit. With the exception of what will likely be a couple more training 50Ks next month, Frog Hollow was the last race of 2013. Not my lucky year.

But I have much to ponder in the coming weeks as 2014 plans begin to take shape. And in the meantime, I'll keep dreaming about adventure.