A moving distraction

My attention span, ugh. I think I join most of the modern world in the sentiment that social media wreaks havoc on one's ability to concentrate. And Words With Friends! What faulty wiring in my brain makes it crave a regular hit of that stupid game more than it craves chocolate or caffeine? I have been chipping away at book chapters; supposedly this is work I enjoy. And yet, writing often feels more like a test of endurance than anything else in my life. I chip and scratch and delete, and without even deciding to, find my way over to the New York Times homepage and suddenly a half hour is gone. You know how it goes. I do have my Internet-free "concentrate dammit" zones, but it's becoming a little too cold to sit outside by the pool.

On the days I do contract work, I'm more than happy to sit inside clickity clacking all day. Editing projects are wonderful; my objective is well-defined and immediate. Writing is more vague. It's a tough thing to force. And the more I resolve to chain myself to a desk and get something — anything — done, the more I feel that unquenchable desire to go play outside.

This morning, I thought to myself, "You've been hitting the training thing a bit hard over the past week. Maybe today should be a rest day. And a 5,000-word day! And a zero-word day in Words With Friends. Wouldn't that be amazing?"

By mid-afternoon, it started raining, hard. I haven't seen such a display of exciting weather in my own time zone in months, and I couldn't help but leave the confines of my workspace to stare out the window with my nose pressed against the cold glass. I thought to myself, "A little run won't hurt. Get soaking wet, maybe even blasted by some wind. It will be good inspiration for the book."

I suited up and headed out the door, and immediately felt sluggish. All morning I dealt with some gastrointestinal issues; this happens occasionally as part of the monthly cycle. But it meant most of my system had emptied out before I even hit the pavement. Clearly this wasn't a good day for a run, but the storm was already breaking up, and strips of sunshine glistened through still-heavy sheets of rain. "I'll just run slow, and start walking back if my knee hurts," I thought to myself.

I veered onto a dirt trail, and within minutes had to hoist some rather heavy adobe bricks that had formed around my shoes. This is what happens when the first rain in weeks falls onto a thick layer of moondust and dead grass. The resulting paste was at once sticky and slimy, and it was difficult to anticipate whether each footfall was going to glue me to the ground or send me into an uncontrolled slide. Clearly this wasn't a good day for a run, but there was a double rainbow forming over the Santa Clara Valley that I didn't want to miss, and anyway, even a sickly mud run is easier than writing.

There was not one, but two outhouse stops on the outskirts of Rancho. My abdomen started cramping up in a way that wasn't like a stomachache or a side stitch, but more like an actual muscle cramp stretched across my core. But I was really enjoying listening to the new Naked and Famous album, and the sun was threatening to emerge all the way out of the clouds and cast golden afternoon light over the hillsides. And anyway, it's good mental training to do an icky slow run from time to time. I headed up the Rogue Valley Trail and maybe don't want to admit how far I actually ran. Let's just say I eventually looked at my watch and realized I was going to end up chasing darkness if I didn't start back toward home and pick up the pace. But I was thoroughly blissed out by this point. The air had warmed up, I had the whole big park nearly to myself, and given more daylight, I may have decided to continue up the mountain all the same.

I strode toward home feeling inspired, filled with so many new ideas. I was going to march right to the computer and get them all down before I even jumped into the shower. But walking up the stairs, I was overcome with enough woozy ickiness that I opted to lay on the living room carpet for several minutes instead. All of those great ideas slipped back through the funnel of self-doubt, as they so often do once the luster of the run has faded. But I managed to tap out a few quick thoughts before I consumed some much-needed fructose in the form of a fruit snack. And thus, I managed to stretch distraction into a two-hour run. But I did have fun, and that kind of fun sure beats Words With Friends. 

Week 1, Nov. 11 to Nov. 17

Tracking my training is something I want to try this winter. Even though I don't have a plan or a clear set of directives, it will be nice to have a comprehensive record of my activities. My hope is to use methods that have worked for me in the past regarding multi-day efforts, and try to put in a higher volume of sustained, low- to moderate-intensity workouts for the next three months. Also, there will likely be a few Strava-PR-chasing efforts that qualify as high intensity to mix things up. Beat will probably disagree with the higher volume idea, but Beat can thrive on far less training than I can. I tend to fall apart mentally without a solid amount of time investment and preparation behind me (cough, cough, PTL.)

Although Strava is convenient, I thought it would be even better to commit to one of those weekly training roundups on the blog, to more thoroughly record exactly what I did, how I felt, and any nagging pains or other issues that are causing concern. These types of posts can bore blog readers, but oh well. What good is a personal blog if it can't be used to record life? I figure Frog Hollow was officially the end of the summer season, and then the week after was a rest week — week zero. This is my activity log for week one, Nov. 11 to 17:

Monday: Mountain biking, 2:41, 23.9 miles, 3,048 feet climbing. 

This was my first real workout after crashing at Frog Hollow one week earlier. My right knee had been sore and tight all week, so I planned a mellow ride. But then I made this spur-of-the-moment decision to ride the Steven's Creek loop backward, which means climbing up the trail and then descending pavement on Montebello Road. I rarely ride the route this way, because why descend pavement instead of dirt? But I'd forgotten just how many steep, punchy climbs there are in Steven's Creek Canyon. Every hard pedal stroke would jab the wounded side of my right knee, which was painful and frustrating. I had a bit of a temper tantrum while climbing Indian Creek trail, sulked about my knee for a minute, walked for several minutes, decided to put on a jacket and discovered a package of Honey Stinger Chews left over from Frog Hollow in my pack, ate the Honey Stinger Chews, felt a little bit better, and spun the rest of the way to Black Mountain without issue.

Tuesday: Run, 0:58, 5.7 miles, 596 feet climbing

Did the typical Tuesday hour-long run from home on the Hammond Snyder Loop Trail. I kept the pace easy because I was worried about my knee. There were only a a couple of sharp jabs on the steeper climbs.

Wednesday: Run, 1:12, 6.3 miles, 1,201 feet climbing

This week was all about diverging from my usual routine. On Wednesday I returned to a loop I haven't run in months, tracing Steven's Creek Reservoir to the ridge in Fremont Older Reserve. Beat and I used to run versions of this route often in summer 2011, especially after I ripped open my elbow in a bike crash and couldn't ride for nearly two months. It was a painful injury and that pain is still what I associate with this trail system. But it is a beautiful route, especially at sunset with fingers of autumn light reaching over Black Mountain to the west. There was, oddly, no knee pain, and I shuffled all the way up a steep, half-mile-long climb that I usually hike.

Thursday: Mountain bike, 3:28, 28.8 miles, 3,603 feet climbing

Within short pedaling distance of my house is a piece of singletrack I've never ridden, despite living here for nearly three years — the upper Table Mountain Trail. On Thursday I set out to change that never-ridden status. I don't ride the lower trail often either, because it's steep with hairpin curves and a lot of roots, which require bursts of power that don't make for happy knees. I'm not really sure why I decided to do this, but my knee didn't seem angry anymore and I really enjoyed the steep, bumpy climbing. (I actually do enjoy technical mountain biking, as long as I am working against gravity and not the other way around. This goes for pretty much any sport I do.)

Once I turned onto upper Table Mountain, the singletrack dropped into a thickly forested drainage, climbed a steep, off-camber trail along a vertigo-inducing side slope, caught a quick glimpse through the trees of the Black Mountain ridge, and descended into a dark drainage again. This segment of trail is only three miles long, but it seemed to go on like this interminably. And each time I reached the crest of another drainage, Black Mountain was in the exact same spot. It felt as though I wasn't making any progress, forward or upward, because I would descend as many feet as I'd climb. It was very Twilight Zone, and as I rode through a darkening forest, the sun slipped behind the horizon and sent an eerie wash of blood red light across the sky. I was seriously spooked, which is something I don't often feel on my home trails. It was nice, actually — to be out having an adventure. But by the time I reached Saratoga Gap, I was so disoriented that I rode in the wrong direction for a while before I noticed headlights from Skyline Drive and wrestled with confusion as to why the road was on the wrong side. Oh, because I'm going the wrong way. It was pitch dark, chilly, and silent as I descended back into the canyon on the Grizzly Flat Trail, which was awesome. I should go night riding more often. If only it was more legal.

Friday: Run, 1:21, 8 miles, 1,623 feet of climbing

On Thursday night I went to get an annual flu shot, which usually makes people feel under the weather, but it seems to have the opposite effect on me. It's as though the dead virus fires up the immune system, without any of the side effects of sickness, which results in a burst of energy. I'd call it a placebo or a coincidence, but I experienced something similar last year, and didn't even think about it this year until after the fact. But for whatever reason, I felt all sorts of amazing on this run around the PG&E and High Meadow Trails in Rancho San Antonio. I didn't even try to push the pace or work hard, and still managed to float up the climb in one of my faster efforts (45 minutes), with no knee pain.

Saturday: Run, 2:07, 10.6 miles, 1,984 feet of climbing

Beat has this rule about not running two days in a row when dealing with a nagging pain or injury. It's a good rule. But I felt so amazing on Friday that I couldn't wait to get back out again, and both Beat and Liehann were interested in running in the afternoon. We followed the same loop I ran on Friday, with an extra 2.6 miles because Beat and I started from home. We kept a mellow pace on the PG&E trail, but the knee started acting up about one mile from the top. I walked most of this mile while periodically massaging my knee, and the result was (unsurprisingly) not that much slower than my usual running pace. But then the full knee lockup that I experienced last week returned during the descent, which caused me to run downhill stiffly and badly (by which I mean, even worse than usual.)

Sunday: Road bike, 2:49, 28 miles, 4,561 feet of climbing

I managed to talk Beat into a road ride. We did a double Montebello Road climb at a mellow pace, to avoid hard cranking that might aggravate my cranky knee. Our friends Liehann and Trang joined us as well, but everyone had their own pace and we didn't see much of them. Beat layered up for both descents, the second time wearing a down coat, gloves, and a balaclava that he wanted to test for windproofness. He looked like he was gearing up for the trek to Nome, at 50 degrees in California. But in all fairness it does get frigid on that descent when the sun slips behind the mountains and the windchill clamps down. My muscles cooled down so much on the first descent that it took me most of the second ascent to feel fluid again. No knee pain.

This latest knee issue is strange; I haven't been able to peg it quite yet. The pain only occasionally manifests when I'm pushing hard while climbing, jabbing like a dull knife with every full bend. But then I won't feel it at all for long intervals. Saturday was the only day it started locking up again, but I thought I'd moved past that after last week, because it seemed to be related to the crash, not training. I still suspect it's just that wound, accompanying bruise, and healing involved with that. We'll see. I'm going to visit our orthopedic massage therapist again this week, so he might have some more insight.

Week total: 14:37 time, 80.7 miles ride, 30.6 miles run, 16,619 feet of climbing. 

Tis the season

There are 101 more days until the Iditarod Trail Invitational, which means winter training has officially begun. As of today, my plan is still to attempt the 350-mile distance on foot. But with that beautiful Snoots snow bike parked in my living room, I reserve the right to waffle on that decision for the next 100 days. I mean, just looking at this bike, with its shiny titanium, muscular fork, and shredder tires that make the Fatback look like a toy ... well ... it's fair to say temptation will probably taunt me daily. But for many reasons that I have mulled over since 2011, the goal is finishing on foot. That's the dream. And if I ever want to take the Snoots to Nome, there's arguably no better preparation than walking to McGrath. As Mike Curiak told me, "You already know how to ride a bike." Pushing a bike — and doing so with purpose and happy legs and no blisters — is the key to success. Just ask any biker who entered the 2012 race.

So how does one train for a 350-mile trek through the snow while living in the San Francisco Bay Area? That's a great question; if you know an answer, please let me in on the secret. Short of actual snow, the best surface to train on is soft sand, which I do not have convenient access to (it's at least an hour of driving to the nearest beaches that aren't disgusting swampy South Bay reclamation areas.) In lieu of that, I'm of the opinion that steep climbs are the best way to build the necessary muscle strength for the combined resistance of soft snow and a loaded sled. There is, of course, running while pulling a car tire. While it's not a bad idea to increase the workload on flat surfaces, I'm not convinced that tire-pulling is necessary training. Most of the 14 or so people in the world who like to run these sorts of races will disagree that it's not important, but I haven't yet had a physical issue with not specially training to pull a sled. It's just a lot more work, but doesn't seem to impact my upper body in significant ways. No, when it comes to winter racing, my major issue is feet. To illustrate, I present a photo of my 2012 Susitna feet:

Major feet fail

Bursting-at-the-seems edema, intensely prickly and painful maceration, and heat blisters(!!) from boiling my poor cankles in their own juices. What causes this? I have a few theories:

• A major electrolyte imbalance. I'm fairly certain I experienced a moderate case of hyponatremia during the 2011 Susitna 100. During the second night, I felt out-of-sorts, disoriented, and confused. I attributed that to fatigue because, well, it was the second night — and it was 20 below. But then I started to pee frequently — as in needing to stop every five to ten minutes. This went on for about an hour, and after that I felt considerably better. I've since learned that extreme cold can present a higher risk of hyponatremia, similar to extreme heat. I've resolved to be more cognizant of water and sodium intake, because dry air makes me feel consistently thirsty regardless of temperature, and during the winter I tend to overdo it on fluids because dehydration will increase the risk of hypothermia and frostbite. Ah, the fun of it all.

• Vapor barrier socks. A great idea if you're pedaling a bike and not doing much with your feet; a terrible idea if you're running (or walking) and sweating up a storm. My feet became so deeply macerated that every step felt like hot coals littered with hypodermic needles. This has happened to me as recently as March, during the Homer Epic 100K, which I ran without vapor barrier socks. Gortex shoes and gaitors could also be a factor in holding in moisture, but the balance between breathing and insulation is a difficult one to strike. Basically, I have to figure out how to keep the feet dry without freezing my toes off. I can't depend on the damaged nerves in my formerly frostbitten toes to tip me off when things get dire, so I'll still have to err on the side of more insulation layers. My hope is to have a chance to stop, check my toes, and change into dry socks on reasonably frequent basis. It's not super fun to sit in the snow and strip down to bare feet when it's below zero, but a quick sock change could do wonders in avoiding Susitna feet.

• Too much ibuprofen — which I took because my feet hurt — but before I became a runner I didn't make a habit of tracking my intake. Now I do.

I'm convinced that "Susitna feet" will be the most likely obstacle to finishing the ITI, and therefore must be my number one priority in avoiding. After that, my priorities are: good decisions regarding weather, sleep management, calorie intake, gear adjustments (I need to avoid wearing too much. I always wear too much), snowshoe use (if I want to avoid overusing the snowshoes, I need to build up stronger ankles and arches), navigation, and a host of obstacles and annoyances that I can't even anticipate. When I take all of this into account, the actual walking part of this thing doesn't sound so hard. The legs will likely be fine regardless; they haven't let me down yet. Still, I intend to train them up as well as I can this winter, by running up all the steep trails I can find, and mountain biking. Why mountain biking? Well, if I run all the time I will probably end up injured. I don't need speed, at all, just endurance. Mountain biking keeps things fun, mixes up workloads, and still provides solid endurance building. Plus, winter will be over before I know it, and I need a good biking base for summer.

I plan to keep track of all of the "training" I do this winter through Strava — which, despite its more annoying competitive side, is a great program to track and record total hours, hours on my feet, and overall effort. I don't necessarily like using my GPS watch every time I go outside, but I'm going to try that this season and see if having a comprehensive record helps with motivation and direction. Right now, I feel like I'm in good shape to start more focused winter training. After I crashed in the 25 Hours of Frog Hollow, my right knee developed a sharp pain that slowly diminished over the next ten days. For a while I was worried about it, but the pain has faded to the extent that I'm more convinced it was just a deep bruise or some other minor tissue damage. And beyond that, I feel great. Physically, Frog Hollow was a walk in the park and then I rested for a week. I'm still babying the knee, but no longer concerned.

I still need to decide which pieces of gear I'm going to use, and what I still need to acquire. Beat and I are planning a Christmas trip to Fairbanks, where I'll have more of a chance to sort it all out. Beat has continued to make refinements to his sled, pole, and harness designs. He's put so much thought and time into these sleds that I joked about opening up a business. He said he'd "sponsor" me if I made a logo for him, and this is what I came up with:

Note: This is just a joke. Beat is not actually launching a sled-making business. But he does have quite a bit of high molecular weight polyethylene laying around the house, so, hmmm ...

Beat, of course, has the whole thousand miles on the north route to Nome to tackle this year. Recently I've heard more chatter about those bumper stickers that are so popular with runners — you know, the ones that read "26.2, 13.1, 100.2, or even 0.0" for distances that runners (or non-runners) like to race. Since I was designing graphics, I thought I should make a sticker design for Beat as well:

He reasoned that no one would get it, except for maybe a few dog sled enthusiasts and people from Alaska (1,049 is the often-cited number for the total distance of the Iditarod Trail.) Ah, well. It's an obscure endeavor, this sport — and I love it.