Covering ground

When it comes to preparing for a long-distance bikepacking event or tour, long days in the saddle are a requisite part of physical and mental training. I'm not sure anyone has figured out an effective way around this yet — at least, not without significant butt, back, and leg pain. No matter how meticulously fine-tuned your machine of a body is, it still needs to adjust to being all hunched over and turning pedals continuously hour after long hour. But ... I've found ... eventually they do. And the results are wonderfully freeing. You find yourself thinking increasingly about "where can I ride today?" The sky (and daylight hours) are the limit! 

For obvious reasons of daylight hours ... and money ... relative proximity to where I reside is also a limit. But my goal for the next few weeks is to put in at least one, hopefully two longish rides every week, with a sub-goal to explore as many corners of the Santa Cruz Mountains as I can manage. I don't want to just ride the same two worn-out routes every week. I want to see new places. Enjoy some day tours. That's what bikes are for. The map shows the three routes I rode since last Monday — the left is my "Santa Cruz Century," the middle is a gut-buster of a gravel extravaganza that I called the "Quicksilver Grinder," and the right is a somewhat failed exploratory loop around Loma Prieta summit. I was able to cover quite a few new-to-me miles, not to mention a large cross-section of this little mountain range by the sea. 

Liehann joined for the Quicksilver Grinder. I warned him that at our comfortable day pace, this 70-mile loop was going to take nine or ten hours. I'm not sure he believed me, but meanness sets in quick. Two 2,500- and 3,000-foot climbs are packed with 16-percent-plus grades, and the second is on loose gravel, exposed to the hot sun, with rapacious little flies hovering in an insanity cloud. Six miles up the Priest Rock Trail in Sierra Azul took two hours, and I only actually hiked about a hundred meters — most of the time I was pedaling at < 3 mph. I relish in this sort of thing — spun out on some hot dirt road, drenched in sweat, clawing at the flies buzzing my ears, only to arrive at the summit with a cool breeze wafting through the brush, look out over the valley, and think, "Ah, that was so worth it!" Why do I think it was so worth it? That's a bit more difficult to articulate than the reasons why I thought it was hard. 

My accurate time estimate put us in Quicksilver in the late afternoon. I've been to Quicksilver once before and I remember the park having hills. Compared to El Sereno and Sierra Azul, Quicksilver is pancake flat, and Liehann and I thoroughly enjoyed our evening spin. We still had to ride 25 miles back through hilly suburban streets to get home, and that was admittedly less fun. We did, however, navigate the entire route solely with paper maps that had no street or trail names listed. I managed to keep the GPS turned off the entire time. It was a win on multiple levels. 

On Sunday I went for a run with Beat. He is not so interested in long day rides or tours right now (I'm still working on him in this regard), but it's still nice to get outside together. I am still adjusting — I would say not well — to California heat. I suppose I could adjust my habit of working out in the late afternoon, but morning workouts have never gone well for me, regardless of temperature. Still, I struggle when the mercury climbs above 80, and Sunday's run kept me drenched. I managed to suck down two liters of water in two hours. Drinking lots of water is one of the things I do to cope with heat, and it's not necessarily a positive thing. My head feels better but my body has to slosh through a lot of liquid while shedding salt. I basically need to figure out a strategy of not carrying so much water that I drink too much, while still having enough to stay hydrated and not run dry (which tends to freak me out.) Still, it was a beautiful afternoon, and Beat was happy with a mellow pace. 

I blocked out Monday afternoon for my second long ride. Luckily this afternoon was overcast and cool, and I had mapped out an exciting new route near a 3,700-foot mountain called Loma Prieta. The problem with creating new routes from maps and quick Google searches is that I can never be certain if my route is passable. In Alaska and Montana, the question was always, "Does this road or trail still exist or is it completely overgrown?" In California, the question is, "Is this road or trail open and legal?" The answer is usually no.

I ran into several closed signs (somewhat vaguely worded, I decided to interpret them as just prohibiting vehicles rather than bikes), and then finally a locked gate on Loma Prieta. I wasn't even planning to go to the top of the mountain, just around it. But my whole loop depended on that connection, so I had to revise. Without a GPS line to follow or maps, I struck out along a sandy road that rolled along a ridge. The steep up-and-down with sweeping views of Monterey Bay and the Salinas Valley proved to be a lot of fun despite a "no bikes" sign that someone had dubiously posted on their own property next to this public road. I descended a long way through a redwood canyon and ended up in the valley somewhere near Watsonville, meandering aimlessly because I didn't have a map. The only thing my GPS was really good for at that point was outlining the location of the sea. Luckily, vague memories pushed me toward Corralitos and Eureka Canyon, where I was able to find my way back up to Highland. I considered a quick jaunt around the downhill trails at Demo Forest, but remembered that even one loop there takes 90 minutes, and this ride was already pushing six hours, which is all I had blocked out for it.

I do love day touring. Exploring new places helps all of the hours and miles pass quickly, and before I know it, my butt is in excellent shape for some real distance. 

Lost. So lost.

I am working on improving my navigational skills. It is a terrifying prospect. In my early 20s, I leaned on friends to handle much of the route-finding on backpacking trips through Utah's canyon country. By my late 20s, I was leaning on GPS. I had my Atlas and USGS topographic maps to piece together mountain excursions in Juneau, bikepacking trips in Utah, and jeep road explorations in Montana — but GPS was always there to lend a friendly screen as I stared bewildered into the tree- or fog-obscured wilderness. Orienteering sounded to me like a not fun sport. Constant focus and translation of maps and non-specific gadgets like compasses and altimeters took away all of the fun of hiking. I like to just hike and look up. What's so wrong with that?

Lately I have been spending more time looking at maps and am beginning to read up on orienteering techniques. Completely unrelated to my map study, on Thursday I set up a plan to meet a friend in Berkeley in the late afternoon. In an effort to beat what can often be horrific traffic, I left two hours early and figured I could kill some time writing at a coffee shop. But then I thought it sounded better to head to Tilden Park for a quick, maybe hour-long run. I'd run with Ann in Tilden Park before, and I knew the general layout and a few specific trail sections. My car's GPS was not so helpful in finding a known trailhead; after accidentally crossing the first half of the Bay Bridge (yeah, I suck at freeway navigation, too), I meandered somewhat aimlessly toward the hills until I happened upon an entrance to the park. I looked at the clock. I still had time.

The trailhead post offered free trail maps. I studied the lines and contours and determined what looked like a great five- or six-mile loop, climbing up to a ridge, dropping into a canyon, and following a creek back to the trailhead. Easy Peasy.

Disorientation set in within a half mile. There were twisty turns and unmarked trail junctions, and yet somehow I made it to the ridge, ran along the smooth and comforting rollers with lots of landmarks in view, located the turn 2.5 miles in, and dropped into the canyon. After a half mile of twisty turns through the woods, I wasn't exactly sure whether I was running west or south, or whether I was even on a mapped trail. There weren't that many other trails on the map, but there seemed to be plenty of junctions. Yes, I get it. Maps are sort of useless without a compass. Another quarter mile across a rocky creek bed and back up a steep hillside had me questioning whether I'd even started where I thought I'd started, if I was still somewhere in Berkeley, or maybe space-time had transported me to southern Oregon or an oaken hillside in the year 1886. I mean, when you feel lost, you feel lost. The ridge was still up there somewhere, so I took the first opportunity to veer onto a fire road — not signed — and began to climb up a steep, grassy hillside.

Of course the climb was about a thousand feet. Of course I ran out of water. Of course I was behind schedule. I grabbed my cell phone to call my friend — not only to inform her I'd be late, but also hopeful that if I described my surroundings, she could tell me where I was — but there was no reception. Maybe I had been transported to 1886! But no, there were the shimmering skyscrapers of San Francisco. How the hell can I be lost in Berkeley, California? How have I gone so many years and so many adventures on my own, while remaining so bad at orientation and navigation?

Finally I gained a summit with a view of San Pablo Reservoir. This was the right ridge. I just needed to find my original route. The fireroad turned in the wrong direction, and impatience had me nearly slicing through brush flourishing with poison oak, but I held off until I located an intersection. Really, not that difficult. But it's funny how panicked I become when I don't understand exactly where I am. This does not bode well for improving my navigational prowess. Not at all.

Going back the exact way I came something like five miles later wasn't even completely straightforward. I didn't remember the trail being so narrow, so steep, so brushy. Maybe I just didn't remember. Ga! By the time I stumbled back to the trailhead, I buried my face in a drinking fountain for several minutes and then sheepishly made my way through the meandering streets to my friend's house. Maybe I could tell her I got stuck in traffic and no one would ever have to know. But no, shame is probably the only way I'm ever going to get any better at this.

Weekend on the move

After several years of self-experimentation, if one were to ask me what I believe to be the best training for maximizing endurance, my answer would be back-to-back-(etc.) long days on the move, with little time for recovery in between. Doing so forces one to approach greater sustainability, while learning how to increase efficiency, more accurately interpret body signals, and build all those activity-specific slow-twitch muscles. I like to mix up my two main sports (trail running and cycling) in order to reduce repetitive motion, which, thanks to my shrinking violet attitude toward speed, has been the main catalyst of my own sports injuries over the years. (Actually, this is untrue. Clumsiness and crashing have been by far the main catalyst of my own sports injuries. Lack of natural coordination is one of the largest reasons why I have such aversion to speed.) I enjoy my cross-training volume method because it keeps me healthy for a fair number of ambitious goals while spending large amounts of time outdoors, year-round. But don't ask me how fast I can run a 5K. It is probably not a whole lot faster than one-tenth of the time I can run 50K. 

Speaking of 50K, Beat and I decided to get back on the wagon this weekend with yet another Woodside Ramble. We really enjoy running these organized fifty-kilometer trail races, which, thanks to a large and dedicated trail-running population in the larger Bay Area, happen close by nearly every weekend. They're relatively inexpensive, put together nice courses, provide useful swag (50K shirts now comprise more than half of my sports wardrobe, and race mugs and pint glasses about three-quarters of our cup collection), snacks and drinks, post-race barbecue, and a fun community. Beat makes a new friend nearly every run. I prefer to run alone for a higher percentage of the time, but I had an enjoyable chat with a woman from Calgary named Iris, with whom I share a mutual friend, Leslie in Banff. Iris was conducting her own double-trouble weekend after running the Lake Sonoma 50-miler on Saturday. 

Beat and I look a little roughed up in the starting-line photo, for good reason. We both felt significantly sleepy, nauseated, sluggish ... I haven't felt worse before a run in a long time. That's another training benefit of signing up for racing events — it motivates you to get out there regardless of how terrible you feel, and that's how you learn that things usually get better if you just give it time. 

This Woodside Ramble was tough for me because I haven't run, actually run, more than eight miles in one stretch since before the Iditarod Trail Invitational, now nearly two months ago. I love running the trails in these parks (Huddart and Wunderlich), but I was nauseated, slightly bonked because I wasn't eating due to nausea, and severely lacking in mojo during this run. Many times, even on descents, I caught myself unconsciously slowing to a walk because blah, running. I probably would have quit due to lack of interest if I'd just been out on my own time, and I'm glad I had the self-motivating perimeters of the race to stay in it. It's satisfying to learn that even "blah" legs are usually plenty strong, and the "spring slump" I've come to expect is likely less related to real physical setbacks than it is a simple failure of mojo. It's hard for me to return from Alaska to the heat and more routine outdoors opportunities of my home in California. I do enjoy it here, but any return to routine takes a period of adjustment after more engaging adventures. 

Speaking of mojo recovery, I got up bright and (not so early) Monday morning for an exciting road route I mapped out a few months ago and never got around to riding, a "Santa Cruz Century." I bumped the long ride back to Monday rather than Saturday, because I was scared enough of trying to run fifty kilometers that I wanted to do it on relatively fresh legs. This loop from my house weighed in at 105 miles with 11,200 feet of climbing, and covered quite a few new-to-me roads. I love riding secondary roads in the Santa Cruz Mountains for their narrow corridors, lack of traffic, and scenic settings. I tend to forget about frequent 15+ percent grades, teeth-rattling broken pavement, relentless hairpin turns, and surprising (for a Bay Area road route) lack of services. On a hot day like Monday (84 degrees) I actually have to haul three liters of water and most of the day's food. I only expected one gas station stop, in Felton.   

Christmas tree farm on Skyline Ridge. A bit like riding through Alaska's Farewell Burn, but about 100 degrees warmer with much prettier trees. 

Zaynte Creek. Much of the road cuts a precarious side-slope above a steep gorge, with aforementioned broken pavement and hairpins. I am not brave on skinny tires by any stretch of the imagination, and knotted up all the muscles in my shoulders while brake-throttling the descent. 

I stopped in Felton to fill up my water bladder with ice and buy a package of Famous Amos cookies and cheese pretzel Combos (I make the strangest gas station food choices on bike tours. I usually question them the moment I step outside.) I didn't eat anything right away because the heat was bearing down and my stomach was feeling iffy again. After Felton, I immediately had to start up another 2,000-foot climb on the relentless grades of Felton Empire Road. Ooof. 

I continued climbing through the redwood forest on Ice Cream Grade, and arrived at this small mesa that was much drier than the surrounding region, with sandstone cliffs and sparse fir trees. It looked a lot like the high desert mesas of Northern New Mexico. It's fascinating how widely climate zones can vary in short distances in this region. Spring was just beginning to arrive, with ferns emerging from the brown brush. 

It was a swift drop to the coast, with an impressive headwind blasting down Highway One. Northwest is the prevailing wind; I should have anticipated it, but I did not. At this point I was feeling fairly shattered, was looking forward to some flat miles, and was not thrilled to realize that the 25-30 mph headwinds would demand a harder fight than much of the climbing, and it was going to go on like this for the better part of 25 miles. Oooof. 

A little jog over Swanton Road allowed me to escape the coast but not the wind. It was an idyllic setting though — a shallow but narrow canyon filled with strawberry farms and happy-looking horses. 

I could not wait to turn east and start climbing into the mountains again. Even climbing a 15-percent grade is better than fighting strong headwinds on a highway. I started having similar urges to my walk breaks during the Woodside Ramble, when the legs just wanted to give up and do something — anything — else. Here's where the mantra "shut up legs" comes in handy; "you're not that weak, stop pretending and keep pedaling."

 I had this delusion that I could wrap up this ride in eight hours because, "road century." But the effort was not easier mile-for-mile than mountain biking, and with breaks the duration of the ride was creeping closer to ten hours. Ah well. It was a long climb out of Pescadaro and Alpine roads, with a 700-foot descent that I conveniently forgot about.

At least there was a nice sunset to reward staying out late.

And then the moon came out; I just missed the lunar eclipse. It was a few hours later. I expected to feel more tapped out toward the hundred-mile mark, but emerging darkness perked me up, I finally got down the ham sandwich I had been carrying all day, and the reality is I could have gone quite a bit farther. That's both the benefit and technique of building "forever pace," in my experience. The ability to keep going is the ability to keep seeing and experiencing. 

Iditarod playlist

Someone recently asked me about the music I listened to during my recent races — an Iditarod playlist. Listening to music while exercising, training, or racing outdoors is a controversial subject. Some people are adamantly against it, and those who object to racing playlists often carry the assumptions that those who need music are emotionally weak, bored, or trying to drown out fatigue and pain. They accuse us of shutting out the world, but I don't see it that way at all. I don't use music to shut out experiences; I use it to enhance them. I connect with music much in the same way I connect with wilderness, and in my view, music and outdoor experiences intensify each other in equal parts. 

 I don't listen to music all of the time — perhaps not even most of the time during a multiday effort — but I still consider it a vital part of my experience. As such, I carried four iPod Shuffles for the 350-mile trek to McGrath, all loaded up with different playlists. There was one Shuffle that I filled days before the race with mostly new-to-me music, and a few of those songs resonated deeply during the Iditarod. It became by far my favorite Shuffle, and I ended up just recharging that one (with a battery-powered charger) and listening to it throughout the seven days I was out on the Iditarod Trail. Although there were more than 200 songs on that Shuffle and well over 800 total, if I were to pick an "Iditarod playlist," this would be it. Included are photos Beat took during our time together on the trail. 

"Black Out Days," Phantogram

If I was looking for two ongoing themes in my favorite songs during difficult endurance efforts, most are either outright silly or high-energy yet tinted with sadness. I suppose it makes sense. Emotions can be greatly exaggerated out on the trail. Music gave shape to the melancholy, while at the same time outlining an underlining joy. I remember this Phantogram song first came on during the first night of the journey, as we crossed the Dismal Swamp beneath green waves of Northern Lights. The moon was out and the trail was distinct enough that I could turn off my headlamp and walk through the darkness, gazing over my shoulder at the aurora for a long while. I often sang out loud when the lyrics resonated: "If I could paint the sky; Would all the stars shine a bloody red?"

"Reflektor," Arcade Fire

The entire Iditarod Trail is lined with reflective route markers, either permanently affixed to trees and tripods, or tied around wooded lath in the snow. During the long winter nights, these reflectors capture even the dim light of headlamps from a long distance away. Finger Lake, at mile 135, is a checkpoint at the end of a long series of frozen swamps. All of these swamps look the same, and it's the kind of place where you think you've arrived about three hours before you're actually there. As we made our way through the interminable swamps, every distant reflective marker somehow convinced me it was the lights of the lodge. Of course "Reflector" provided the perfect score for every mild disappointment I experienced when I realized I was wrong: "I thought I found a way to enter. It's just a reflector. I thought I found a connector. It's just a reflector." At one point, Beat was several hundred yards ahead and I indulged in singing loudly: "It's just a reflection! Of a reflection! Of a reflection! Of a reflection! ..."

"Jump Rope," Blue October. 

"Jump Rope" is one of those songs that just landed on my iPod, and I hated it at first. It annoyed me so much. My Shuffle was usually stuffed beneath all of my clothing layers, pressed against my skin to keep the battery warm. But if I could reach it at all, I would skip this song. For whatever reason, the random song generator really liked this one; it came on a lot. One day, we were making our way over a series of snowmobile moguls on the trail and I found myself mumbling, "Up, down, up, down, up, down, yeah ... it will get hard." After that, I became hooked on the blatant motivational theme and catchy repetitiveness.

"How Can You Swallow So Much Sleep?" Bombay Bicycle Club

Sometimes, amid the physical exhaustion and encompassing focus on forward motion, I imagined the Iditarod Trail as a sentient entity that would converse with me, without prompting.  This song is a good example of how I interpret my imaginary and often abstract conversations with the Iditarod Trail. I would pose a rhetorical question like the one presented in the title, and the Iditarod Trail would answer with repetitive prodding and incessant demands — "Can I wake you up? Can I wake you up? Is it late enough? Is it late enough?"

"Good 4 It," Wallpaper

This song has a line about "zombie phone" that for whatever dumb reason made me giggle every time. It also contained more resonant lyrics than that: "How to stay alive though? How the f*** should I know?"

"Leave it Alone," Broken Bells

I had a tough morning the day we traveled between Finger Lake and Puntilla Lake, miles 130 to 165. Monotone clouds and light snow deteriorated to fog and moderate sleet, and then rain. The cold soaking weather, combined with dreary skies, lack of views in what I knew to be a beautiful region, and day three (or was it four) fatigue, sapped away any energy or willpower I could muster for sled-dragging and made the miles seem endless. This song was the perfect rainy day anthem. "Could it all be over now? We've seen it all the while ...  There's no dimension to the clouds ... And the moon and world around.  That's the heart of all my pain ...  cause I don't wanna go ... Oh the distant light ... in a hue we can't describe, still we know."

"Lies," Chvrches

This was a good marching song. I also imagined it as the Iditarod Trail taunting me, which the Iditarod Trail often did in my imagination. "I can sell you lies ... You can't get enough ... Make a true believer of anyone, anyone, anyone."

"I Gotta Feeling," The Black Eyed Peas

The day after it rained, we crossed over the the far side of the Alaska Range. Several days of warm temperatures absolutely scoured the already-dry region of snow, as well as a lot of its surface-coating ice. For fifty miles we hacked through knee-deep alder tangles, standing water on top of glare ice, bare dirt, roots, ankle-deep mud, wet swamps, tussocks, and shin- to knee-deep stream crossings. This wouldn't have been a terrible trail to backpack if it was a warm day in the summer, and we were carrying backpacks rather than dragging 45- and 75-pound sleds over endless obstacles. The sled-dragging part was always my weakness in this endeavor; I never became terribly strong at it in the best of conditions, and in the worst I was absolutely at my physical limit just to maintain forward motion on the steep rollers along the South Fork of the Kuskokwim River. We covered two miles in a good hour. In a bad hour, sometimes closer to one.

After a series of stream crossings, some of my gear had gotten wet, my shoes and socks were soaked, my sled was filled with greasy mud, my head was spinning, and I knew that the temperature could possibly drop to 30 below overnight — as it is known to do in the Farewell Burn in February. I had a complete, mucousy, blubbering breakdown spurred by paralyzing fear and frustration, that Beat was unfortunate enough to witness. Shortly afterward, iPod brought up this Black Eyed Peas song. Knowing that we were going to be spending that night sleeping on muddy ground in the Burn, with soaked feet and gear, in an area where there probably wasn't enough snow to make more water, made this song even more wistfully relatable — "I gotta feeling. That tonight's gonna be a good night." I must have repeated it eight or ten times, using the catchy beat to motivate my body to pull harder over the roots and tussocks. I sang out loud to the part where they repeated all the days of the week — "Get with us, you know what we say, say ... Party every day ... p-p-p-party every day." ... Because that's what we do on the Iditarod Trail. :)

"Last Words," Hospitality

Another haunting song that got me through some long miles. It was beautiful amid the frozen swamps, far-sweeping horizons and spindly spruce forests of the Farewell Burn.

"Army of the Damned," Lonewolf

Beat and I agree that this death metal song is the perfect anthem for walking to Nome.  But it's appropriate for all frozen-purgatory marching occasions.

"Roar," Katy Perry. 

Yeah. I pretty much had to go there.

"Team," Lorde

One the final stretch into McGrath, I operated in a dreamlike state of mind. I was slightly low on food and rationing calories, and discovered there was a peaceful place between alert and bonked, where time lost meaning, landscape features blurred, and everything seemed magical. As Beat and I traveled the wide expanse of the Kuskokwim River, we began to approach another walker who was about a mile ahead. We knew it had to be our friend Steve, who left Nikolai the previous night just as we were arriving. While in Nikolai, Steve made a phone call and learned that his father had died, and was justifiably emotional. Rather than rest in the remote village, he opted to leave not long after sunset, facing a long night on the river in order to reach McGrath and fly home. The fact that we had caught up to him many hours later, and after what had been a cold night (20 below), raised some concern. It needn't have, as Steve just needed to be alone when he left Nikolai, and had bivied for several hours on the trail. But I was worried he was distraught or in distress on top of everything else, and Beat seemed determined to catch him. We power-hiked on the verge of running for 45 minutes, and again I was at my physical limits on rationed calories and a child-like emotional state. During that hard march, Lorde's "Team" seemed to score the strange combination of stress and bliss. "And you know, we're on each other's team."

"Happy," Wrens

The temper tantrum that erupted while listening to this song is one of my most prominent memories from my first trip to McGrath in 2008. I put it on the playlist of all four of my iPods for that reason, but in the strange way Shuffles work, "Happy" did not come up once until the final day — in almost the same spot as my 2008 emotional eruption on the Kuskokwim River. Hearing this song in a similar location but very different context underscored just how different my journey had been this time around. It was a fitting finale to my 2014 playlist as well. 

Suddenly spring

 Spring is my favorite time of year in California. In this region, spring actually spans February and March; by April it's the cusp of summer, with its heat and parched hills, face-stalking flies, dusty trails, stinging nettle and robust poison oak. But for now it is still spring, and returning from white winter to hills splashed in green has been refreshing.

 Less refreshing is re-acclimating to 80-degree temperatures, discovering that SPF 15 is no longer going to cut it, and sweaty chamois. But, Alaska adventures are over and it's time to look forward to the summer projects, put in more productive screen time, and get back out there in anticipation of the rest of 2014. I'll write soon about my summer plans, but let's just say there is a lot of mountain biking *and* mountain running in my near future. This is to be the year of "forever pace," a grand experiment and one that I'm pretty excited about.

 Trying to pull myself out of White Mountains 100 and travel fatigue resulted in slow-paced plods on Thursday and Friday, but by Saturday both Beat and I were feeling more snappy and rallied for a four-hour mountain bike ride with Liehann. This was Beat's longest effort since he returned from Nome two weeks ago (was it really that recently? It feels like months at this point.) He rode the same bike I used in the White Mountains, re-fitted with 29" wheels. Beat purchased the soft-tail Moots as a mountain bike that just happened to be convertible to a fat bike, and I think this was his longest ride so far on the (decidedly slimmer) beast. He seemed pleased with the handling and agility. It is a great bike.

 Enjoying the spoils of snow biking in sunny California.

 Thirty-five miles and 5,200 feet of climbing in the "heat" admittedly felt tougher than I expected, but saddle time is my current goal, so I joined Liehann for his long ride on Sunday. We planned an 80-mile loop through Big Basin and Pescadero state parks. The winter here was exceptionally dry, but when Beat left Alaska, he took all the bad weather that had been shadowing him for two weeks and brought it home — a whole week of rain. I just missed it, bringing Alaska's unseasonably blue skies and warmth home with me, to enjoy the newly lush trails and hillsides after green-up.

It seemed cooler on the move than it was. Our lunch break in the sun quickly migrated to a lunch break in the shade, huddled in a thin sliver of a fir tree shadow — which was humorous given we were riding through Big Basin Redwoods State Park, offering a lot of places to escape the sun just below the dry and exposed ridge. For lunch I had a sad bread-and-cheese "sandwich" that I cobbled together from a relatively empty fridge in the morning. That's when Liehann pulled out an entire pound of sliced turkey and offered to share. That's an important sign of a good bike partner — the ability to complete a sandwich.

 Blasting down Gazos Creek fireroad. Photos can't really illustrate it, but this is pretty much the best descent ever, at least for a fireroad. Fast and flowing with swooping turns, steep drops, the filtered sunlight of huge redwood trees, cool shade, moss and ferns, gurgling creeks and chirpy birds to complete the tropical rainforest feel of the place. The climb back up Pescadero is equally steep, equally redwoody, and decidedly less sublime. I felt more tired and taxed than I did at any point during the White Mountains 100. But if I stopped my internal whining long enough to consider it, I realized that my legs still felt plenty strong, the head-boiling sensation would fade once acclimation kicked in, and eighty miles is really not so far. It was a big weekend — 115 miles and some 15,000 feet of climbing all told, but not a big deal. In both 2012 and 2013, I returned from Alaska feeling physically downtrodden, a mental state that carried into rough-edged summers. I'm experimenting with making this season different simply by switching up my attitude. We'll see how it plays out, but it's my new mantra: "not a big deal." No need to worry about limits if there are none.

Beat keeps asking about my Iditarod race report. I haven't started it. I'm spending my days with newspaper projects and finishing up the book about Tim Hewitt, as well as working on my book proposal for Ann Trason. With the Iditarod story, I had this idea to spend a bit more time on the writing, polish more than usual, and integrate text and photos in a more dynamic way than the blog allows. Basically, I want to make a small digital book out of it. Beat thinks there might not be enough material there, but I want to have fun with the project — after all, what's the point of writing about your own adventures if you can't have fun with the writing as well?

Since I struggle so much with finishing a full book, I'm considering the prospect of "micro-publishing" to keep the salmon wheel turning. Other authors have tried this with variable success, some slim to none, but it seems worth a shot. I recently did my taxes, and although my books are dwarfed by other sources of income, it continues to surprise me how many royalties they still bring in. This blog, which I spend hours and hours and hours on (for fun; it's my relaxation outlet) pulls in about $1,000 a year through Google Ads. The books, which I spent a few weeks writing years ago and haven't done much with since, still make considerably more than that. It's all chump change in the Silicon Valley, but it's a start. Something I really need to figure out this year, in addition to finding my forever pace, is what I really want to do as a writer/editor/publisher. Taxes make it starkly clear which efforts "pay off" and which ones really are just a hobby. I've never been one to place all or even the majority of my self worth in the things other people are willing to pay me to do, but splashes of honesty are occasionally needed when the things I've been so dedicated to just aren't working. With that said, I maintain loyalty to the downtrodden newspaper industry, and I believe even more firmly in books. 

Goodbye, Alaska, and thanks

The list of things to do on Monday and Tuesday was long, as it often is when dismantling a six-week trip that involves piles of winter gear. I hardly slept on Sunday night after the White Mountains 100, too amped up and dehydrated, gasping to push more oxygen into my thickened blood. Monday's agenda included driving seven hours from Fairbanks to Anchorage — a road trip, I discovered, that becomes decidedly less fun when sleep-deprived and operating under the reality that the adventure is behind me rather than ahead. The droopy eyes set in around Healy, and I decided a break was in order.

The tiny winter visitor's center at Denali National Park was crammed with a busload of tourists. An Asian woman demanded a larger plastic bag to cover the calendar she just purchased, and the ranger seemed frazzled as she rifled around for something to appease her. The scene did have a weird kind of frenzy to it, enough to spark discomfort. I considered turning around and leaving the national park, but the ranger kindly waved me over to ask if I needed anything. "I'm curious if the trail along the park road is packed enough for a bicycle?" I asked. "Oh, and I need to pay the entry fee."

"The road is plowed," she said, "all the way out to Savage River." She pushed a map toward me. "And there's no entry fee in the winter; we're just hoping to get more people out there."

Fifteen miles out the road, the north wind was the only source of sound, moaning softly as it rushed across the wide valley. The plowed part of the park road had been precariously icy for a car, and I could see the surface beyond the gate was pretty much a broken sheet of glare ice on muddy gravel. This didn't seem promising for a ride, but I still pulled the bike out of the back seat, only to discover the front tire was completely flat. I used my little hand pump to push test air back into it; after three minutes, it had enough volume to at least notice, but after three more, it was losing air again. "Argh, bikes," I grumbled, too lazy to fix the flat. I crammed the mechanical nuisance back into the car and pulled on microspikes instead.

Running was humorous; I haven't done much of that in the past few weeks as it is, and less than 24 hours after finishing a hundred-mile fat bike race, any "running" I attempted was more like a pained shuffle on stiff legs. I walked frequently. I wasn't even looking for a workout, far from it, I knew rest was in order. But I also knew I was in Denali National Park, out the road in late March with no one else around, and this was a rare visiting opportunity. Even if the distance I could cover on my tired legs with no bike was minuscule, what I'd see would be exponentially richer than anything seen while driving sleepy in a rental car.

So I ran, limply, letting the north wind push my body into a side-to-side stagger, hardly taking my gaze off the mountains. An ice sheen over the snow glistened in the low light of afternoon, and I scanned the nearest mountains for friendly routes up to the ridge. When I spotted one, I grumbled to myself about sending my snowshoes home in the mail. But then again, a climb like that would take hours. I did not have hours. I barely even had minutes, but I felt greedy and wanted it all — for Beat to come back and for the adventure to continue ... for spring and break-up to somehow hold off a little longer ... for Alaska to not leave me, even if it had to be the other way around.

Denali National Park granted me that wish, a final beautiful memory to hold onto as I jetted back to real life and the projects that I looked forward to working on, the dry trails and mountain biking that I admit I missed, the summer adventures that I'm excited to prepare for, and of course Beat, who I missed terribly in a way that was different than when he was simply out walking the Iditarod Trail. It was time to go home. Return was a good thing, but Denali gave me the gift of holding on for a few moments longer.

I'm incredibly grateful for the privilege I had to journey through Alaska for nearly six weeks. It wouldn't have been possible without the generosity and awesomeness of friends who I owe many thanks and maybe guided bike vacations in California next time you want to escape Alaska in the winter:

Dan and Amy in Anchorage. Dan and Amy are amazing. They graciously put up with Beat and me floating in and out of their home for the better part of six weeks, using their gear room as our personal base camp, while they stored piles of stuff, baked cookies and delicious dinners, and made more airport trips than I can count. Thanks Dan and Amy; hopefully Beat and I can at least partially return the favor someday soon.

Jill in Anchorage. Jill encouraged me to join her for bike adventures and put up with my slowness shortly after I returned from McGrath. Thanks for getting me back out there!

Dave and Andrea in Willow. Spending a few days with Dave Johnston, eating "recovery" steak and sandwich dinners with him, and listening to his ITI stories was a highlight of the trip; biking to intriguing places in the region was a nice bonus.

Libby and Geoff in Juneau. I appreciate that Libby and Geoff are willing to open their "flophouse" for wayward friends like myself. It's fun chatting about the latest Juneau political gossip and watching bad reality TV. Seeing their kids significantly older is always kind of weird, but fun. They grow up so fast.

Cecile in Juneau. It was Cecile's birthday and she hosted a big breakfast for friends that I just happened to be invited to because I showed up at a group run that day. I really enjoyed meeting a number of Juneau's quirky runners; I was always on the periphery of the running community when I lived in Juneau but never involved, so it was fun to finally get to know everyone better.

Brian in Juneau. Brian has long been a good friend and always reliable for a fun night on the town. We went to see a play and enjoyed a couple of tasty dinners.

Shana in Nome. Beat and I were complete strangers to her when Shana offered to host us at her home. She and I enjoyed late nights, staying up until the small hours and chatting like old friends. The three of us hiked up Anvil Mountain together the day after Beat finished the ITI. I really enjoyed getting to know Shana and hope to visit again soon. Nome is a fantastic place; you'd never really know it unless you went there yourself.

Phil and Sarah in Nome. Phil no doubt had major Iditarod fatigue after riding the route himself in twelve days, and then hosting or greeting a number of ITI bikers and walkers that followed. Phil let me borrow his bike for a day, and Sarah prepared a delicious dinner for everyone after Tim and Loreen finished.

Craig and Amity in Butte. Craig and Amity are two friends from college that have been there for me since the very beginning. They hosted my very first Susitna 100 effort in 2006, and they're still there for a friendly stopover in a beautiful setting near the Matanuska River.

Corrine and Eric in Fairbanks. I met Corrine and Eric through the White Mountains network, and like everyone I have met through that network, are fun and generous. Corrine and Eric skied the White Mountains 100 together this year. It was their first 100-mile ski, and they finished in 31 hours. I didn't have a chance to see them after they finished, and I regret that we couldn't swap stories. But I enjoyed getting to know them better.

Joel and Erica in Fairbanks. Joel and Erica treated me to a shakedown ride before the race and a big lunch after the race.

Beat and me on top of Anvil Mountain. Special big thanks to him. :)

And of course all the others who contributed to the journey — those involved with the Iditarod Trail Invitational: Bill and Kathi, Rich at Yentna Station, Cindi on the Yentna River, Cindy in Skwentna, Rob in Rohn, the Petruskas in Nikolai, Peter and Tracy in McGrath, Wilco the Dutch filmmaker. Thanks to Ed in Fairbanks along with all the volunteers of the White Mountains 100. And many others — lots of awesome people in Alaska. I'm fairly introverted and sometimes have difficulty connecting with people, but there's something about those northern latitudes that have helped me meet many kindred spirits. Thank you, everyone.  

White Mountains, again

Find the tiny biker in the big wilderness

Six weeks in Alaska and a weariness had settled into the journey, like a bungee cord held taut for too long. I knew once I let go I was going to fall limp to the floor, sun-faded and cracked from weeks of freeze and thaw. My stretch marks spread across the state — over the streets of downtown Anchorage, up the Yentna River to the sun-kissed summit of Rainy Pass, Interior swamps and hard-frozen lakes, the magical corridor of the Kuskokwim River, McGrath, Anchorage again, Turnagain Pass and the Placer River Valley, deep snow in Denali State Park and Talkeetna, Willow, a puddle-jump flight into Cordova and Yakutat, onto gray and misty Juneau, Douglas Island, the wet pavement of Thane Road and wind-blasted ridge of Thunder Mountain, then high over 1,500 miles of empty wilderness to Alaska’s gold coast, Nome, the frozen sea, Cold War relics on Anvil Mountain, and back to the streets of downtown Anchorage. After all of that, it was time to turn north for the last leg — Fairbanks and the White Mountains 100.

 The White Mountains 100 felt a little like something carelessly tacked on at the last minute, although I'd been planning to race it since I found out I "won" the entry lottery last October. I did enter that lottery, even though I knew that at best I'd be stale (if not injured) after the 350-mile march to McGrath, and even though I knew it meant an extra week in Alaska after Beat needed to return to California. But how could I not enter the White Mountains 100? It's difficult to describe why it's is the best race ever, but it really is. Fun community, superb organization, dedicated volunteers ("I can't get rid of them," race director Ed Plumb said of those that kept coming back. "It's harder to volunteer for this race than it is to race it.") And the course is sublime — a hundred-mile loop through an Interior Alaska mountain range that really does feel far away from anything, but just happens to contain stellar trails courtesy of the Bureau of Land Management. It fosters the kind of experiences that draw a person back again and again, hoping to recapture some of the magic. It felt greedy in every way to remain in Alaska to race the White Mountains a fourth time, but I was grateful for the opportunity.

Sunday morning dawned clear and frosty, about 5 degrees and completely calm on the often windy Wickersham Dome. I felt strangely at ease as I stepped out of my car and looked out over the rounded hills, bristling with pipe-cleaner spruce trees and drenched in pink light. The White Mountains have become a familiar place, more like a distant friend rather than a sinister wilderness filled with things that could kill me (the place is still filled with things that could kill me, but it's funny how familiarity breeds comfort.) I had no expectations for race performance, having spent the winter training for a week on my feet dragging a sled 350 miles to McGrath, and being four weeks off of doing just that. I joked that slogging was all I was good for this season, and the only way I'd do well in the race is if it turned out to be a "bike push" year. All pre-race indications pointed to the opposite. Lack of new snow, warm daytime temperatures, and cold nighttime temperatures promised well-packed, fast trails.

Late March at Latitude 64 means nearly 14 hours of daylight, and the sun was already high in the sky when the field of 65 took off at 8 a.m. I started near the back and spent the first mile riding beside faster runners — Joe Grant, who was carrying a pack that looked to be about the size and weight of the vest I wear on six-mile trail runs near my home in California, and Houston Laws, a cheerful young guy from Juneau who I met a few weeks earlier. I have to admit that I sort of envied the runners. That's also tough for me to explain. I love riding bikes, I'm built to ride bikes, and this year's course conditions all but promised to be the best yet for bikes. But there's something raw and compelling about setting out to cover a hundred miles on foot. You all but assure yourself a full spectrum of emotions and experience, not to mention the time to fully soak in the vast landscape. Someday I'd like to come back and run this course. I hope when it's my chance to do it, I enjoy an equally runnable year. This race could actually work quite well as a "fast" 100-mile course for a runner like me. But it could just as easily be a sled-and-snowshoe year, and take 48 hours.

 But I digress, because yay bikes! Beat's awesome Moots machine floated over the hardpacked trails, maintained great traction on the climbs and confidence-inducing suspension down the mogul-rippled descents. I must have been pedaling the thing because last I checked no one installed a motor, but the burnt spruce forests flashed by, and in what seemed like no time at all I reached checkpoint one, which is something like 17 miles into the race. Seventeen miles! In the Iditarod Trail Invitational, seventeen miles was more than a third of a very long and hard day. I munched on some Oreos and left the checkpoint with Max Kaufman and Amber Bethe, who turned out to be the men's ski and women's bike winners in this race. Wow, I was feeling fast!

  Amber stayed in my sights until the Cache Mountain cabin, which is 39 miles into the race. Thirty nine! I couldn't believe I was there already. It felt early in the day, and it probably was (I wear a GPS watch but rarely use it to actually track the time.) I had no concept of how fast we were really moving, and assumed it was mid-afternoon, as it usually is by the time I arrive at Cache Mountain (it was actually around 11:45 a.m.) Amber left quickly and I re-upped my water bladder and mulled the baked potato with chili that I promised myself I wouldn't eat. ("But it sounds so tasty. And I feel great. But it's a hot day. And Cache Mountain Divide is a long, strenuous climb, and heavy food in the stomach is a bad idea.") I settled on two cookies and checked out something like five minutes later, which is just nutty for checkpoints as nice and inviting as White Mountains cabins. But it was a beautiful day and there was still much awesome riding to be had.

 I rode much of the climb with a woman from Anchorage, Laurel Brady. We were nearing a half century on fat bikes loaded with a decent amount of gear, and my legs were finally starting to feel the burn. The early part of the climb is more gradual, and Laurel easily outpaced me on that section. Every time I pushed the pace to keep up with her, sharp pains grabbed my left knee and my legs became exponentially heavier. But if I backed off just a little, back to my own pace, the knee settled in and the pedaling felt natural again. I suppose if you train for long-distance endurance and a "forever pace," that's exactly what you'll have — one pace. If you want the speed it up, you need to train at something faster once in a while. Who knew?

 But the truth is, I am blissfully content at forever pace. It's one thing to feel fast, and another to feel like you can propel yourself enormous distances without pain or fatigue. I guess I'm more of an exception in the racing crowd, but it must be obvious by now that I'd choose the latter over the former.

As Laurel and I crested the sun-drenched summit of Cache Mountain Divide, I was entering a near perfect flow state. Miles were unraveling behind me and stunning mountains were unfolding before me, and I was an entity beyond myself, almost void of self-consciousness, a cyclist and only a cyclist, pedaling into a place of pure joy.

 Flow state can only persist when the mind is completely calm, which isn't always possible amid the inherently scary surroundings of Alaska backcountry still locked in winter conditions. Still, even the scary sections were known, and the weather was unbelievably friendly. There was no wind on the ice lakes, and only the thinnest film of standing water. Even though I know these "lakes" are simply a creek bed that fills with layers of overflow, the cracks and groans in the breakable top layer make my heart flutter every time.

 I brought microspikes to wear on my boots so I could walk the ice sections. The ice lakes went on for about a mile and a half, and I even ran a bit because I was feeling good. Of course, Laurel came fearlessly riding by, expressing disbelief that I did not have studded tires (I wanted to get all old-timey on her ... "Back in my day, fat bike tires didn't even have tread, let alone studs, and there was only one to choose from, way back in 2007.") Of course, she was riding glare ice and couldn't slow down to wait for my response.

 The descent off Cache Mountain Divide is pretty much always a vat of mashed potatoes. This year was better but not an exception, and the lead pack had ripped up the trail enough to leave wheel-throwing ruts. Just like previous years, I had a couple of spectacular crashes, tearing down the trail at 25 mph, spotting a deep rut, swerving to avoid it, catching the edge of a tire and launching into the air with hope in my heart that my body would find the cushion of a snow bank and not a tree. Both times I did land in a soft bank and got up laughing. This is why I prefer snow biking — even crashing is fun.

 After the initial steep grades off the Divide, the trail follows a rolling descent beside craggy limestone cliffs.

 It's a little like miniature Alps. In past years of the White Mountains 100, the sun was already starting to set by the time I reached this section of the course. With the glaring mid-day light and blue skies, I was beginning to understand just how fast these trails were carrying me this year.

Coasting down the canyon, eating bagel chips out of my "gas tank" top tube bag, and soaking in some rays. At Windy Gap, mile 62, it still felt ridiculously early in the day and I was almost too full for the famous meatball soup that they serve at that checkpoint. But I ate a little because it's the kind of indulgence I just can't let myself pass up. In the interest of full disclosure, I have to admit that I don't even think the meatball soup is all that good. It's just frozen meatballs in broth with plain white rice. But in 2010, the first running of this race, I arrived at Windy Gap at dusk, feeling shattered after a hard push up the Divide, followed by a terrifying crossing the ice lakes without microspikes through three to six inches of standing water on top of glare ice, a fierce crosswind blowing my bike like a sail, and temperatures around 10 below. A volunteer, Dea, who has since become a friend, handed me a Styrofoam bowl with thin soup and three meatballs. I slurped it up while it was still too hot to swallow, an amazing elixir of life and energy, and sheepishly asked if I could have some more. "No," she said with a strain in her voice, probably because she had been asked that same question by many that day. "There's only enough for everyone to have one serving." The rationing earned her the unfortunate joking moniker "Meatball Nazi," which stuck even though she personally assured there has been enough for everyone to have six meatballs every year since. And I now have a permanent wistful place in my heart for the Windy Gap meatball soup.

 Back to flow state, winding through the narrow corridor of Fossil Creek. Miles continued to roll away, and I was so focused on the simple task of pedaling that my mind seemed to leave my body altogether, floating somewhere above the moving bike to play its own filmstrip of near and distant memories.

 Often my thoughts turned to the reality that I would be leaving Alaska soon, and what this past month and the things I experienced here meant to me.  I was so lost in thought on this 20-mile segment that it passed in what truly felt like an instant. A burst through space-time and suddenly I was at Borealis, mile 82. Perennial checkpoint four volunteer Carleen has also become a friend, and served up ramen soup. I still didn't feel terribly hungry (my body must have been mindlessly snacking on something while I floated along), but asked her if she'd put extra flavor powder in it, because I was feeling quite salt-depleted. It had been a hot day for the Whites — although probably never above freezing, close to it — and I was overdressed with two pairs of tights, fleece and vapor barrier socks, and gaiters. My thick fleece jacket was my only wind-blocking layer, which felt necessary when riding "fast." But the whole combo was causing me to sweat a whole lot, and I was both overheated and dehydrated — and this was the first point in the race I actually acknowledged that. In truth I was riding pretty hard. I was racing, as hard as I could, within reasonable happy knee range and my own cardiovascular limits. This was also about the first point in the race I acknowledged that fact as well.

I drank as much water as I could stomach and re-upped my supply before leaving checkpoint four. Acknowledging a race mentality left me wondering just how far in front of me Laurel was by now. Amber was undoubtedly hours ahead at this point, but second place might be within reach (at the time, I didn't yet know that my friend Erica Betts got into the race at the last minute. She was first on the wait list and drove all the way out to the start of the race, hoping for a no-show, which there was! I'm thrilled she got in as she trained hard over the winter and had a great race in the Whites.) Since I never saw Laurel at the checkpoint, I was surprised when I got my answer just a few miles later, approaching a rider in a black jacket on the climb to the low ridge between Beaver Creek and Wickersham Creek. Truly a racer, she looked over her shoulder and cranked up the pace.

 I passed her by blowing past the non-mandatory trail shelter checkpoint at mile 89, but wasn't granted a Lance Mackey-like sneak-through because the volunteers spotted me on the trail and called out to get my number. Hee hee. Laurel again passed me while I walked across the overflow of Wickersham Creek. We started pushing up the Wickerhsam Wall together and I exclaimed, "This is my favorite part!," which is such a bald-faced lie. The Wickersham Wall — an 800-foot climb in less than a mile on often loose and punchy snow — has single-handedly broken me more times than any other segment of any other race. I broke down in tears on this climb in 2011, for reasons I don't even remember. But I've since dragged a sled up this thing at 20 below, and in truth it's a pretty short hike-a-bike in the grand scheme of things. The knee wouldn't let me stay in the saddle this time either, but the surface was relatively hardpacked and I briefly considered running with the bike, as a move like that might be my last chance to gain an edge in the race. But I'm not quite willing to act that ridiculous in the name of racing, so Laurel and I walked up the hill together.

 We reached the top and I sort of knew that was it for racing. Although the remaining six miles of the course is rolling hills that gain overall elevation, there wasn't enough climbing left to catch Laurel. She took off as soon as the trail reached rideable grades, and my feeble efforts to follow resulted in fierce knee pain. I did briefly consider whether my knee could hold out for six miles of sprinting without permanent damage, but that instantly seemed like a stupid question. "Or, you know, I could just enjoy the last six miles because it's a beautiful evening and the sun's still out and I feel great." Back to flow state, happy, excited be finished but also wishing that somehow this could continue for another hundred miles.

 I rolled into the finish at 7:34 p.m., for a time of 11 hours and 34 minutes. I was the fourth woman; Laurel finished third two minutes before me, Erica was second in 10:47, and Amber won in 10:33. The fastest male cyclist, Josh Chelf, torched the course in 7:53. This was an amazingly fast year for bikes; I was 24th overall and still finished nearly an hour before the first skier, Max. My own previous best time on this course was 17:55 — but chopping more than six hours off that doesn't mean a whole lot. I wasn't necessarily smarter or stronger this year, just luckier. Snow and weather conditions are pretty much everything in winter racing, which is one of the things I love about it! It was pretty awesome to finish in the daylight, with friends who I know to be fast riders still hanging out in the finish line tent eating brats. But still, I did miss out on the Northern Lights, 10-below overnight lows, and eerie silence of a night in the Whites. I had an amazing ride and a lot of fun, but not quite the full spectrum of experience that I like to seek in these endeavors.

Oh, White Mountains, I will be back. On foot? Don't hold me to any promises. ;)