A relaxing day at the beach

I'm not sure I could ever get excited about training for a calculated, reasonable fitness goal — not when there are outlandish adventures to be had. And, like many milestones in life, it's not even so much about the outcome of the outlandish adventure as it is about the journey there. The preparations. The training. How do you train for an outlandish adventure? With smaller adventures, wherever they can be found and woven into the fabric of daily life. Fitness for the sake of fitness? Sure, that's great. But fitness for the sake of adventure? There's the hook for something meaningful.

Now that it's winter training season, I'm hoping to put in weekly long, leisurely paced runs and/or hikes. The very best part of this goal is asking myself, "Okay, where do I want to run this week?" For more than a year now, I've followed Leor Pantilat's fantastic adventure running blog, and at this point I must have twenty of his route ideas saved in my "Life List" file. The guy covers big miles on jaw-dropping routes across Northern California and the High Sierra, taking fabulous photos along the way. One of the more local runs is his Point Reyes Pilgrimage, a 24-mile, figure-8 loop through the hills and along the coast of this National Seashore. I recruited our friends Harry, Martina, and Steve to join us for the Saturday outing.

The weather couldn't have been more sublime. Sixty degrees, clear skies, comfortable humidity, no wind — not even an errant breeze. Summers on the Northern California coast are frequently cool and foggy, but winters here have a higher frequency of clear and warm weather. The best part about this mix-up of seasons is, summer is still the busy season for tourism. During the fall and winter, beautiful days such as this can be enjoyed in relative peace and solitude.

Descending the Woodward Valley Trail toward Drakes Bay.

Leor's route had spurs leading out to a few beaches, but he noted that some of these beaches were only accessible at low tide. We knew that high tide was right in the middle of the day, but there wasn't much we could do about it — we also only have nine hours of daylight to work with this time of year. Still, we scrambled along the rocks of Sculptured Beach with tempered hopes that we'd be able to attain access to Secret Beach.

Within a few hundred yards, we were debating whether it was worth wading through this keyhole. Currents are strong in this region and can rip a swimmer out to sea without much warning. If you lost your balance in the wrong wave at the wrong time, things could go bad in a hurry. We opted to turn around.

There was still fun scrambling to be had, though, even if it wasn't completely necessary.

There was 4,300 feet of climbing on this route, but by far the most strenuous part of the run was jogging through the sand along the shoreline. Despite mild temperatures, my face and arms cascaded sweat. Steve and I joked about working this hard for 350 miles of Alaska snow while wearing primaloft body armor and towing a 30-pound sled, and then stopped laughing because it wasn't a joke. This is actually how tough the ITI is going to be, pretty much the entire way. I try not to think too much about it on a beautiful November afternoon on a beach in California. At least I have a justifiable excuse to come back here soon.

Arch Rock. Running toward this cliff, I thought, there's no way we're ever going to get around that. Lo and behold, there was an arch under Arch Rock, allowing us to slip under the cliff and climb up a drainage on the other side.

Martina and Harry are both recovering from injuries and opted to skip the second ten-mile loop. We left them on Arch Rock and began the long climb back to the ridge.

While we nibbled on snacks above Wildcat Camp, Steve said, "This is why I became a trail runner. I wanted to have the fitness to just run and hike places like this all day, without it being a big deal." Yes. Exactly that. It doesn't have to be outlandish, extreme, epic, whatever superlative you feel like using — it can just be a relaxing day at the beach.

We crossed Wildcat Beach to Alamere Falls. When we arrived here, there were at least two dozen other people milling about the area. We ran 15 miles to this point and had only seen a handful of people so far all day, so the crowds shattered our illusions that Point Reyes, despite its proximity to San Francisco, is a hidden secret of an idyllic coastline. But the falls were a gorgeous destination, and the point were we turned to run north again.

The Glen Trail was a fun romp through a lush Douglas Fir forest, with more green than I have seen in a while. It was a great day. Thanks, friends. And thanks to Leor for the inspiration. I can see Point Reyes becoming a pilgrimage of our own.

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. 

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.