Living in color, part one

If I were to try to distill individual life into a trite analogy, it would be this — life is a mural, painted in moments. Our experiences are the conglomeration of colors; we smear them on the canvas of ourselves inevitably, but also deliberately. We refine our moments into memories, shaped by personal values and perspectives. We’re all artists, and we all interpret our world in different ways, different colors. But, like many, I have a tendency to lapse into easy patterns — the Bob Ross formula of simple smudges yielding blandly pleasant landscapes. And, like many, I also have on my palette a primal streak of passion, a desire to slash bold red lines across the wispy pastels. Then I stand back, astonished, as crimson paint bleeds all over my happy little trees and fluffy clouds. And I think to myself, “Now that is beautiful.”

This might be why I keep finding myself back in these places — the places with majestic mountains and charming cabins rendered in idyllic perfection — clutching my red paint. The Tor des Geants is such a place — the high route around Italy’s Aosta Valley, 330 kilometers up and down steep and imposing mountains — 24 vertical kilometers’ worth. I could spend three weeks working my way around the valley and taking in the nuances of this brilliant segment of the world — and probably should. Why try to do it in six days? It’s not a socially advancing achievement; few people care, even fewer actually understand what it really entails. It’s not something for which I’m particularly talented or even acceptably adept. I’m more likely to fail than not, and in that failure I’d be worse off than if I had never tried — physically downtrodden, possibly injured, spiritually adrift. So why? Why? My answer — those streaks of bold beauty. Those moments are worth it.

But the sacrifices start to sink in by the beginning of the second pass. I'd just spent about four hours making my way across the first twenty kilometers of the course, over the 5,000-foot ascent of Col Arp and the winding plummet into the valley of La Thuile. Sunlight shimmered over distant glaciers and saturated the greens and golds in the early-autumn grass. Unfortunately, I can’t pass through this place without seeing the ugly shadows left behind from my last visit here, a previous attempt at bold abstraction — the 2013 Petite Trotte a Leon. Here is the valley were I was finally beaten into submission, hollowed out, and filled with a black paranoia and disconnect from reality so severe that I still only remember those moments as a dream, uncertain what even took place in the physical world. Not that the line between reality and non-reality matters much anymore. It was real enough to end up slashed across my canvas in an image so visceral that it still casts shadows one year later. “I shouldn’t have come back here,” is a thought that crossed my mind. “I don’t belong here.”

Maybe that’s part of the reason for coming back. When you aim for full intensity you never know whether you’ll create darkness or brightness. Usually both. September 7 was a bright day, with a stream of happy, tired faces making their way along the cobbled streets of La Thuile into a stone building full of blueberry tarts and oranges. I sunk my teeth into fruit wedges and let the sticky juice dribble down my chin and neck, too amped up to care. The crossing of Col Arp was the kind of thing most of us would call a full, hard day before retreating happily to pizza and beers, but it was just the first of 25 or so passages in the Tor des Geants. We had a long, long way to go, and that knowledge combined with the fatigue in my legs was exquisite.

I joined the California contingent — Beat, Dima, and Sarah, along with Dima “Crankypants” from Boston, on the march toward the next 5,000-odd feet of climbing. “Wait, didn’t we just do this?” I exclaimed as the trail veered steeply toward a tiered series of waterfalls. The long descent into La Thuile had steeped my legs in a lead-like solution of lactic acid, blood, and broken muscle fibers, but the healthy climb seemed to flush all of that away again. I love a good climb, I really do. I run out of energy just like anyone, but no physical sensation makes me feel more alive than forcing my body away from the oppressive pull of gravity. Beat and Crankypants, who had both participated in PTL the week before and were as acclimated to the effort as they were worn down by it, disappeared ahead. California Dima and Sarah, who bounded past me down the first descent while I quietly scolded them for risking “quad death,” fell back. Beat and I agreed to move at our own paces in TDG, and I had a feeling I was going to find myself alone most of the time. Alone among many. The starting group of 800 or so runners was still fairly bunched together, and there were at least that many spectators and day-hikers making their way down the narrow trail as we lined our way up. This is the kind of experience you sign up for in an organized race — a chance to strive together, to share palettes with others who understand the strange and beautiful process. We seek the company, but we also quietly hope we'll eventually find ourselves alone again. “It won’t feel claustrophobic for long,” is a thought that crossed my mind.

Soon enough, we crossed a threshold in Tor des Geants that finally became "far" — far from the spectators, from the barrage of cowbell clanking, and even from the delicious orange wedges and blueberry tart triangles that were surprisingly abundant in this race. Yes, the Alps can feel far away from the hum of ordinary existence while simultaneously feeling remarkably close to modern life. I am continually astonished by these mountains, by their ruggedness contrasted against the ease at which humans seem to make their way here. How did large stone buildings spring up on the point of narrow pinnacles, guarded by slopes that require hands-over-head scrambling, and yet stocked with fresh espresso and warm beds, and occupied by 5-year-old-children playing barefoot in the grass? In the United States it's difficult to find accommodations this inviting just off the Interstate, let alone at the top of mountains. Rifugio Deffeyes is such a place, the first where it's really a pity to make such a hurried stop. But espresso and warm beds really aren't the experiences we came for in the Tor des Geants. We think about these things all the time, joke about them, yearn for them, but they're not really what we want. Not really. Not just yet.

What we do want are the stark slopes of Passo Alto, drenched in afternoon light, and the slow breakdown of our emotional defenses against the awe and also anguish that these landscapes can provoke. How do I put this simply? These landscapes are beautiful. They're more beautiful when I'm tired ... and the shell that's formed around 35 years of expectations begins to crack. That's the truth, for better or worse, and I gain such deep appreciation of the experiences I encounter at my most raw and exposed. It's the second best thing to being a child again, to seeing the world through an untouched and uninhibited lens. This mindset doesn't come free, or easily, at all. But when it happens, it's quite astonishing. I walked beside the boulders, occasionally running my fingers over the smooth surfaces, dipping my hands in the streams to splash clear water on my face, and feeling so wholly alive at times that I could scarcely breathe.

Then it was time to descend and do it all again. Looking back, if I were to try to define the moment I first realized there was going to be a kink in my ideal situation, it was the descent off Haut Pas. I stumbled on some rocks near the pass and managed to catch myself but knocked an elbow on a nearby boulder. "It's all right, just have to take it slow," was a thought that crossed my mind. I'd been strong on both climbs that day and passed dozens of people who were now running past me like I was standing still. Funny how being passed by others becomes such a source of frustration in a race, probably because it's a visual gauge of our own progress. Their footfalls looked so effortless compared to my clunky steps. "It's all right, just have to take it slow."

One aspect of the Tor des Geants that is difficult to convey to North American trail runners is just how relentlessly steep it is. There are a few somewhat flat, actually runnable sections on the route, and some long technical traverses, but for the most part you're either working your way up the most ridiculously steep trail you've ever been on, or down. For this reason, it's a really tough race to train for locally. Pretty much all Bay Area trails are buffed-out cruisers compared to the Alta Via of the Aosta Valley. Even trails in the Sierras, as long as you stick to the more well-established trails and not difficult-to-access high routes and off-trail scrambles, are also similarly too "flat." What I know of western Montana also includes a lot of "logging" grades and buffed trails (disclaimer: Most of what I know of Montana is from mountain biking.) I've hiked some trails in the Wasatch Mountains that better fit the bill — Lone Peak, Twin Peaks, even Mount Olympus and the west side of Grandeur Peak are good training grounds. Colorado and Southeast/Southcentral Alaska have some good spots too, of course. But most of us are stuck with inadequate training unless we make a concerted effort to mimic conditions unique to the Alps. I spent the spring training for long-distance biking and the summer riding and recovering from the Freedom Challenge. So I think it's fair to say I was woefully undertrained for what would matter most in my case — steep and rocky descending.

Still — you know what they say about hope. Springs eternal, and all that. Frustration about my crappy descending faded as soon as we started up Col Crosatie. The light was fading into the cool hues of evening, and I'd stuffed my face with a bunch of polenta at the rifugio in the valley while smiling and nodding at an older man who continued to tell me a long, expressive story in Italian even after it must have been obvious that I didn't understand a word. All of the elements of PTL that caused me so much anguish — the difficult navigation, the outright terrifying routes, the impossible cut-offs, the limited and openly unfriendly "support" — were so far entirely missing from TDG. It was all of the good and none of the bad. And of course, I knew TDG would be hard, but it was already amazing. "I can do this, I can probably actually do this," was a thought that crossed my mind.

The pitch steepened as we approached the col, rising up along a series of cables and stacked-boulder scrambles that I attacked with all the energy I could muster. I had little to lose by going hard on a climb. As I crested the pass, my pounding heart seemed to leap out of my throat, leaving only stunned silence. The full moon hung over a skyline of 4,000-meter mountains while the immediate world dropped into a purple-hued abyss below. Cool wind whisked around the pinnacles and friendly volunteers in an emergency bivouac handed out free energy in the form of shots from a two-liter bottle of Coke. It was, at least for that moment, the most beautiful scene I had ever witnessed.

As I dropped off the col, I passed a memorial to a Chinese runner who fell on these rocks and died during last year's Tor des Geants. I stared at the stone rectangle blankly for a few seconds before I realized what it was, then became all choked up at let a few tears fall as I picked up a small rock to place it near the English side of the plaque. It's good, sometimes, to let oneself operate in this state of heightened emotions, to cry for a stranger we never knew. It helps shape a new perspective on life — more bold hues to replace the cracked and faded brush strokes of complacency.

It was a long descent into the first life base at Valgrisenche, and I felt good and did some running. I reached the small village at 11 p.m., meaning the first fifty kilometers — and four vertical kilometers — of the Tor des Geants took thirteen hours, which I considered not bad at all. Still, I arrived too late to see Beat, who had just slipped upstairs to take a nap. I planned to nap as well — extreme sleep deprivation had caused no small amount of distress during PTL, and I was resolved to sleep at least some every chance I had, as long as there was still time on the clock to stop. I joined Crankypants for a dinner of champions — penne pasta, red sauce, an egg, and ham. Then I slipped upstairs for 90 blissful minutes of shut-eye before leaving town just ten minutes after Beat, resolved to catch him.

"I could maybe even push a little harder," I thought. "There's a good chance I'll need to bank the time."

I walked, cause you walked, but I probably won't get very far

I just wanted to visit the glacier ... to stand at the edge of a high frozen plain with my face to the wind until the chill whisked away the circulation in my fingers and toes and the throbbing soreness in my left knee, until I felt numb or at least something else besides raw disappointment. The cable car, under heavy construction, stopped about a hundred meters below the ice. There was a path, as steep and rocky as anything else in the Alps, winding up to the rifugio, so I followed it.

"Are you okay?" asked a Pakistani man behind me. "You do not walk very well."

"I'm okay," I replied. "I never walk very well."

"But you like to climb to the mountain?"

"Oh yes, very much so."

The man grinned through his wheezing — later he would tell me he was a heavy smoker — "Me too."

We continued chatting as we limped and wheezed to the edge of the ice, and he apologized for bothering me.

"No," I said, "It's nice to have someone to talk to. I haven't met many English speakers in the past few days."

"You are here alone?"

"I am here for the Tor des Geants ... my boyfriend runs every year. He's still out there."

The Pakistani man lives in Italy now and knew all about TDG. "This race takes a very special love of mountains," he said. I nodded my head in agreement.

"How did you hurt your leg?" he finally asked.

"I was hiking the other day and I slipped and fell. Twisted my knee. Now I have too much pain to hike anymore, but I already missed the mountains. So here I am."

Of course there was more story there that I wasn't ready to divulge, even to friendly strangers. How before the fall I'd been hiking for 180 kilometers, and things were going really well. I was staying on my pre-determined schedule, I was getting adequate sleep, I was blister-free with still-strong legs, I was even running when the terrain allowed. I was enjoying myself, I really was. Sure, there were hard moments, some difficult bouts of nausea, post-nap sleep monsters that took a while to fight off, and of course sore feet. But even the tough moments had thus far been outweighed by incredible, heart-wrenching, jaw-dropping moments of amazement. I couldn't wait to see what was next.

Then, it all fell apart. I can't reconstruct the precise moment where it started to go wrong, but there was heavy rain through the late evening, right before I reached a rolling traverse along a steep and rocky ridge line. The rain and hundreds of muddy footprints smeared the rocks in a greasy film, and suddenly I couldn't stay on my feet anymore. I was falling all over the place, legs and butt smeared in mud, fingers jammed, confidence shattered. I tiptoed along, fixated on the yawning drops beside me, passed by a constant stream of more sure-footed runners.

"It's okay. I never walk very well."

Hours trickled away, yet too quickly. I was losing too much time. Daylight came, a soft pastel glow on the rocks to compliment the sharp contrasts of the night's full moonlight. I kept looking at my phone and GPS measurements. I was just not covering ground fast enough. I couldn't face chasing cut-offs; I wouldn't. No time to sleep, no time to dry my feet. I'd be miserable. Runners kept passing. How did they stick so well to the ground? I recalled all of the falls I took in France two weeks earlier, and how I concluded they were provoked by being overcautious. Feet, come on now, pick up the pace.

Of course I made the same mistake I made two weeks ago, a bad foot placement at the top of a large ramp of a boulder. Left heel slipped out and I flailed wildly like a cartoon character on a banana peel until the foot wedged in the small crack between the bottom of the boulder and more rocks. Instinctual reaction to arrest the forward fall prompted me to swing the whole right side of my body around, wrenching the left knee badly. Went down on my butt and folded the knee into a shot of sharp pain that wasn't quite to the level of "Oh no, I'm screwed," but was shocking all the same. Stood up, collected my senses, and looked toward the seemingly endless expanse of rocks in front of me.

"I fell and hurt myself. Of course I did."

There, of course, is more to the story. But after ten more hours of battling the increasing rigidity in my knee, painful footfalls, limping, mud-slipping, boulder crawling, whimpering, screaming, and finally crying on the phone to Beat who was resting in Gressoney, I limped into the village of Niel. I'd left the previous life base, Donnas, more than seven hours in front of the cut-off, and lost every single hour of buffer while crawling over rocks. Now I had only six hours to cross Col Lassoney before the absolute cut-off in Gressoney, a painful pace that had deteriorated to something considerably slower than that, another steep descent off the col, and heavy rain again falling on the rocks. Beat had already scolded me about the egotistical stupidity of risking long-term knee damage for a race that, mathematically, I already stood a low chance of finishing now. Yet, still, I visited the race medic, hoping he'd have a magic cortisone shot that would fix everything. He noted swelling and offered to wrap my knee in a bag of ice. He'd done so on both knees for another runner who was also faced with the realities of racing cut-offs. This runner was walking even more stiffly than me, and had this fierce, thousand-yard stare fixed on a far distance while the medic stuffed six more replacement bags of ice in his coat pockets.

I felt a deep admiration for the runner's audacious fortitude, and watched in disbelief as he limped up the trail and out of sight. I knew then exactly what had to be done. I limped back to the checker table and asked them to cut my bracelet.

It would be lying to say I have no regrets. Finishing the Tor des Geants was something I very much wanted, yet I didn't do the necessary work to better my chances. I again made the wrong assumption that endurance and a little determination would be enough, writing off the level of technical skill that I clearly lack, weighed against my natural — below-average —balance and motor skills. I wouldn't go as far as to say I have no potential to complete a technical Alpine race. But without proper training, which is nearly impossible to obtain on the smooth trails of the San Francisco Bay Area, it's perhaps not realistic — and possibly reckless — to cling to hope.

But Beat can do it ... again and again and again. He finished his fifth Tor des Geants at 1:44 a.m. Saturday morning, alongside a new young Belgian friend named Pieter with whom he shared many miles. Beat frequently makes new friends during these adventures, which I think is one of the reasons he loves them so much.

And he makes it look so easy, which is partly why I ended up drawn to these Alpine "races" that are really more like mountain puzzles, and every footstep an effort to solve another problem. I like to think someday I'll figure it out. But much more than that, I'd be happy just to maintain an ability to hike unhurried distances through these fiercely incredible mountains. I lost that ability this week, one might say to greediness, although I'm still hopeful the universe will gift me with a swift recovery. Maybe after all that it isn't about speeding up, but slowing down. 

Still too dumb to quit

Well, team "Too Dumb to Quit" put their intelligence in question once again by completing yet another insanely routed loop around Mont Blanc. Daniel and Beat arrived in Chamonix at about noon on Sunday, after five and a half days of off-piste adventures of the sort that render distance and even elevation statistics meaningless. Numbers don't convey the degree of difficulty in La Petite Trotte a Leon, which is why a select few love it so much ... and the people who love them, not so much.

I sure am proud of these guys, but mostly I'm just glad they're done. It's probably obvious that I don't hold much love for PTL. The course creators go out of their way to make every kilometer as difficult as possible. Steep talus, icy boulder fields, snow slopes, knife ridges, glacier moraines, frequent 35-percent-plus grades, via ferrata, exposed scrambling — basically, any terrain that doesn't fall into the "Class 5 rock climbing" range of technicality is fair game in PTL. And that's fine — it's meant to be an adventure. But combining difficult and dangerous terrain with tight cut-offs, extreme distances, and the necessary speed required to finish, create a risky environment where mistakes can cost more than just a DNF. Even small mistakes compound quickly. I feel more comfortable with Beat trekking a thousand miles across Alaska in the winter than I do about his safety in PTL.

It's all a matter of perspective, I suppose. My own experiences with this race definitely cast a long shadow over my view. But Beat loves it, so I make an effort to be supportive. And he and Daniel did really well this year. They banked a lot of time early, which worked in their favor later when Daniel grappled with a knee injury that slowed him down considerably on the descents, and Beat fought stomach issues that stripped away his energy for the climbs. To say they were shattered at the finish would be an understatement, and I still haven't heard about Beat's wilder adventures out there — but he's snoring away, so I can tell he's satisfied.

 I admit I did a lot of fretting this week, but managed to keep myself busy with both work and heavy play. While most of the PTL passages are rugged and technical, there are always four or five that organizers make a point to note as particularly difficult. One of these was Arête des Autannes, on the border of France and Switzerland. The PTL teams were actually routed around the ridge due to heavy wind and rain on the first day, so no one went over this particular pass. But I was curious, and armed with the freedom to turn around if I didn't feel comfortable, I headed back to Le Buet to check out the next 15 or so kilometers of the PTL course.

The weather was a volatile again on Friday — high winds above tree line, and intermittent thunderstorms. I reached Col de Balme, which is part of the UTMB route, and decided to take the same sneak around the mountain that the PTL teams took, rather than climb what looked like a vertical wall into ominous dark clouds. However, as I picked my way around the rocky, side-sloping route, I was filled with stoke once again and decided to try Arête des Autannes from the backside.

Chunky talus, my favorite! Actually, the truth is I enjoy off-trail exploring and would probably find most of the PTL course to be fun in the same small doses I tried this year. Still, as I approached the arête, the weather closed in again and my own self-imposed cutoff had come and gone. In order to ensure I made the last train out of Le Buet, I set an absolute turn-around time of 4 p.m.. If I could gain the ridge and descend the original PTL course, the return trip would likely be a lot faster. But low clouds were ripping along the ridge in a way that warned me winds were fierce back in France. It was raining again, and from a stance less than 500 horizontal meters (and about 150 vertical) from the top, I just couldn't find a line through the cliffs that I felt comfortable climbing. There was one steep scree couloir that looked doable, but it was well off "course" — meaning the straight line drawn by the GPS track. I had no idea how sharp or exposed the ridge would be if I needed to make my way along it, and also uncertain whether a climb deemed technical by the PTL organization would even be possible for me to descend. If I checked it out and had to turn back, that would mean likely missing the train. So I turned around, feeling defeated. Ah, PTL. Foiled again.

Rain continued to fall as I contoured back around the mountain. The route cut a thin notch into a steep side-slope, which often involved scrambling up and over small rock formations that rippled down the mountain like veins. While rising to my feet at the top of one climb, my right foot slipped out and I slid a couple of meters down the smooth, wet surface of the rock into a cluster of bushes. As I thrashed to untangle myself, I had this sense that there was nothing holding me to the mountain besides brush; the angle of the slope was steep enough that there wasn't much in the way of ground below the brush. Eek, eek, eek. It was my second major clumsy incident this week, and a scary one at that, even though I was moving about as slowly and carefully as I'm capable. (Which is to say, super over-cautious. Maybe that's the problem.) I sustained a swollen bruise on the outside of my left knee that causes sharp pain when I run (which I learned an hour later, while racing toward the train.) Strangely, walking didn't hurt at all.

Then, just as I neared the edge of Switzerland, the weather really closed in. High winds, rain, near-zero visibility. I had to put on both a synthetic puffy and a shell to stay warm. UTMB had just started and I was feeling sorry for those suckers, but as it turned out this was a localized thunderstorm and short-lived. Still, through only fault of my own, I was subjecting myself to experiences I set out to avoid this week by not racing PTL.

Friday's excursion turned out longer than I planned — another 20-mile day with 7,000 feet of climbing — so I was going to take it easy on Saturday: Relax on a longer train and bus commute to Les Contamines, eat a crepe, maybe take a mellow hike or even a gondola up to the life base at Col du Joly to see if I could catch Beat before it was time to take the train home. But, perhaps predictably, mountain stoke hit as soon as I stepped off the bus, and I was soon making my way backward on the PTL course up the steep face of Mont Joly.

The weather was much better but still not ideal — the cloud ceiling was around 6,000 feet and above that there was not much to see. I encountered a handful of the leading PTL teams and chatted for a few minutes with the Finnish team. I met one of them before the race and he struck me as stern then, but up here he had this loopy, playful demeanor. Amusing.

Then the clouds started to clear — oh wow, there are some views up here!

And this is a pretty sweet ridge.

The summit of Mont Joly, with the sign situated right next to some solar panels so selfie-taking hikers can capture the full splendor of the Alps in the background.

Although I had another turn-around deadline — as missing the bus in Les Contamines would effectively make a 25-kilometer hike on the UTMB trail my only means of getting home — I couldn't resist the temptation of a ridge walk toward Col du Joly.

Clouds continued to move through and views remained intermittent, but when they did open up, the scenery was incredible. The ridge became narrower and sharper until there were only cliffs on one side and steep, grassy talus on the other. It was often breathtakingly exposed — at one point I encountered some tape strung along the trail, and when I stepped around it I noticed a small notch of a couloir that went quite literally straight down — one misplaced step would be like stepping into a manhole that dropped two thousand feet to the bowl below. This notch cut right into the worn surface of the spine that formed the trail. Good thing someone strung up that tape. Several dozen sleepy PTL participants walked this way.

Again, fun during the day with plenty of energy. I wouldn't necessarily want to be here in the dark, which is when Beat and Daniel traversed the ridge of Mont Joly a few hours later. But he said they had a fantastic experience, with the ethereal hues of moonlight reflecting from the cliffs, and village lights twinkling 5,000 feet below. It sounded magical, and I do understand what Beat sees in this endeavor. Even I question what I actually think is going to be so different about Tor des Geants. I won't know until I try it, but I'm quite excited for my chance. Despite a couple of crashes, this week of "training" couldn't have turned out better. Although my five days in the Alps pale in comparison to PTL, it was still 75 miles with 31,700 feet of climbing. And beyond cuts, bruises, and a bashed knee, I experienced few negative physical effects. My legs weren't even sore. The feet complained as feet often do. And I made silly missteps, but this week definitely helped me find my "mountain legs" again. I'm glad I had this opportunity. It would have been far more nerve-wracking to go into an endeavor like TDG cold.

Now for a week of rest, work, and visiting Beat's mom in Switzerland. He claims that three cowbells (the "prize" for finishing PTL) are enough and he promised not to return. Even though I actually do want a rematch with UTMB (the 2012 race was rerouted due to blizzard conditions and the course I ran was very different from the "real" UTMB), I'd be just as happy to let that go if it meant no more PTL for Beat. I'm not sure I believe him, but I intend to remind him of this promise. 

On the "trail" of the PTL

Oh, PTL. I intended to post more regular updates about Beat’s progress in the race, but this week in Chamonix has gotten away from me in a big way. My phone’s sim card died and there’s nothing I can do about it because the phone is AT&T-locked (I hate phones. Up until a month ago I was a proud smart-phone holdout; I had a dumb phone that I rarely used and carried with me only sporadically, and I already miss it, so much.) So our communication is worse than it would be if pay phones were still a thing. But I digress from this retro-grouching. Beat and Daniel are still alive. In a race like PTL, that’s pretty much all that matters.

 Here’s a slightly longer summary: We flew SFO-Zurich-Geneva on Saturday/Sunday, and took a shuttle to Chamonix, arriving too late for dinner, probably sometime around 10 p.m. local time. I never weather jet lag well, and stayed awake another full night while Beat dosed himself with enough Ambien to wake up with a hangover. Bank, grocery store, packing, pre-race briefing, terrible pre-race pasta, and then the race started at 5:30 p.m. Monday — which was so blissfully early! (It started at 10 p.m. last year.) As the PTL teams zig-zagged up the first mountain, it started to rain. Then it rained a lot.

I figured I'd put in a good "training" week here in the Alps — by which I mean fortifying the mental weaponry and testing how well the legs work rather than accomplishing any real physical conditioning. So on Tuesday I boosted myself out in the deluge and climbed through tedious fog until there were no more trees, only the blurred outline of rocks, a river gushing down the trail, and fierce blasts of wind. Gusts were well above 40 mph. Any time I turned straight into the wind, I was forced to gasp through a fire hose of rain. I felt like I was drowning; I really couldn't breathe. This is what I imagine waterboarding must be like. And the whole time I felt vaguely nauseated because I knew Beat was out on steep and exposed terrain in this weather. I have this conviction that PTL is so dangerous, but then I took a big tumble while attempting to run downhill —  slipped on a wet boulder and managed a full somersault and a highly painful jarring (though luckily no dislocation) of my right shoulder. This is why I'm so cautious-to-a-fault and frightened on exposed terrain. People who make a lot of mistakes do not belong in no-fail zones. 

 So I worried about Beat, but his tracker kept creeping forward, so at least I knew he was moving. My Alaska-time-zone deadlines kept me up all night on Tuesday. As in, I actually didn't sleep at all. I was going into day four of the vacation with single-digit hours of sleep. This made for the perfect opportunity for Tor des Geants training — a long hike on extended sleep deprivation. I opted to explore the first segment of this year's PTL course, 20 miles between Chamonix and Le Buet.

 I was quite sleepy, but at least the weather had cleared and it was a beautiful day.

 Because I was traveling on unknown terrain given the stamp of approval by the PTL organization, I carried a headlamp and another spare light just in case I needed to turn around late in the one-way trip. My hard tumble the day before left me bruised and rattled, and I wasn't about to go scrambling up any class-four couloirs or cliff faces "protected" with bolted bits of twine.

The climb up to Col Brevent gets 4,500 feet of vertical out of the way fast. One final glance at the Chamonix Valley before descending into the beautiful and remote-feeling Reserve Naturelle de Passy.

 I really loved my hike through here. Big country, imposing mountains, steep trails, a satisfying burn in my leg muscles.

 And another huge climb up to Col de Salenton, elevation 2,526 meters.

New views from the top of the col. I was 9,000 feet of vertical into the day and very full of stoke at this point.

 Then came time to drop off the face of the Earth. It was the kind of descent that's a constant horizon line — you think you're on top of a cliff the whole time, and there can't possibly be a way down, but as you pick out another cairn from the rubble and peek over the edge, you can discern the only doable line down walls of stacked boulders. Ah, this is the PTL I know and (don't) love. At least this was just "classic" PTL — not "terrifying" PTL — so I didn't have to turn around and hike 15 miles back.

 And at least there were cute baby ibex to keep me company. I imagine that in a past life I was an evil mountain goat, I did something bad, and was doomed to come back in my next life as a clumsy human with a fierce love for mountains and decidedly below-average talents when it comes to traveling this terrain. But it was a wonderful day. I noticed on the way down that I had none of the leg fatigue that I usually have on my day hikes in the Alps, despite a 13-mile, 6,000-foot effort the previous day and the 20-mile, 9,000 feet over much more difficult terrain on this day. It seems the Freedom Challenge has left me with great leg endurance; if I can keep my feet happy (and more importantly, keep the earth below them) during the Tor des Geants, maybe I'll be okay.


On Thursday, I took the bus into Italy to catch Beat and Daniel in Morgex. Despite weather and other hardships, they're making good time on the course and feeling relatively good. They've had some tough nights — 100 kph winds and rain on a high ridge on the first night, and a class-four scramble with an exposed ridge traverse on Col d'Annibal. The usual. The navigation is also tricky this year, with lots of off-trail travel, lost-in-translation route descriptions, and a GPS track that mainly just connects distant points with straight lines.

This is what you get when you ask tired people to smile. See that mat on the left? That's where they were permitted to sleep for a few hours in Morgex. No blankets, no pillows. Just a hard mat in a loud gymnasium. Yup, that's the PTL I know and (don't) love. 

 I had a bus to catch but I was able to accompany them for four miles out of Morgex. It was an enjoyable segment — essentially a friendly road walk, and it was nice to spend stress-free time with the guys. They had a good sleep and two meals in Morgex, so they were feeling pretty good.

Bidding them goodbye at the rifugio Arpy. This next segment of PTL has more than 6,000 meters of climbing in 60 kilometers. Even Daniel, who lives in Colorado and has climbed a large number of mountains in that state, was trying to wrap his head around what it meant to climb 20,000 feet in just 36 miles. I really don't like to think about it ... because there's almost no way to parse those numbers without throwing in some "terrifying PTL." So I'll likely wake up a bunch tonight in cold sweats and a need to refresh Beat's tracking page. Oh, PTL. 

Lessons from PTL

2013 PTL start in Chamonix. Photo by Joe Grant

Beat and I head to Geneva and then Chamonix on Sunday afternoon, just enough time for him to grab a few last-minute supplies, attend a pre-race briefing, and start Monday's Petite Trotte a Leon properly jet-lagged and travel weary. I finished up my packing rather effortlessly, having streamlined the process enough that I can fit three weeks of travel and one major multiday race into a small suitcase and carry-on (my secret: I just use nearly the same supplies and gear for every endurance race I do, winter or summer, bike or foot. Works!)

Beat has a case of pre-race jitters and rightly so. Mine can hold off for a couple more weeks. While Beat races the PTL I'm going to take buses around the valley and attempt trace pieces of this year's PTL course as my one week of TDG "training." Some of my friends have hinted at whether I feel regret for not attempting to avenge my PTL DNF from last year. No. None. I have no intention of ever returning to PTL. It wasn't right for me. It was both too arduous and too dangerous relative to my personal abilities and skill set. With a similar geographical location, distance, and elevation profile as the Tor des Geants, some might wonder how the two races could be all that different. Granted, I have only seen what amounts to about 20 percent of the TDG course — but all of these sections were comparable to the easiest passages of PTL. The *easy* stuff in PTL was incredibly steep trail and boulder fields. The hard stuff was bolted cliff faces, exposed scrambling, loose boulders, avalanche chutes, extremely slippery mud or scree slopes, steep snow fields, and other types of terrain where, while not technically "climbing," were technical and often exposed enough that any mistake had very serious consequences. It was all doable, but the speed at which my teammates and I had to approach that stuff to feel remotely secure ensured that we were near or behind every single soft and hard cut-off, from kilometer 30 on. This cut-off chasing ensured we couldn't find time to sleep, eat, or even collect snow for water (I ended up with mild frostnip on the tips of my fingers from clawing frantically at the frozen crust because I had been out of water for three hours and was parched, but needed to catch my teammates before they hiked out of sight, since I was the only one navigating.) We held on for 92 hours and 200 official kilometers (about 145 GPS miles) before I slowed down too much to accompany my teammates as we chased the checkpoint two cut-off. My race ended in a genuine psychotic episode that I still can't explain (although I think it was something similar to an anxiety attack.) Much of the experience was a nightmare, a true nightmare, and I never, never, never want to go back.

So will TDG be all that different? Enough so to take an experience I hated and flip this whole thing around to become something I love? Ha, who knows? That's part of the strange and wonderful reasons why we run. We can't explain it, so we just run with it, and let the story sort itself out in the aftermath. I did learn many valuable lessons during PTL, several of which I think I can use to improve my chances of a positive experience in TDG.

1. Fear is powerful. I know this, but I need reminders, a constant mantra to keep the monster at arm's length and force myself to rationalize my way through tough situations rather than flail at them in an emotional whirlwind.

2. Food is important. For the more disconcerting symptoms I experienced in PTL — dizziness, blurred vision, intense nausea, and hallucinations — I initially blamed lack of sleep. In hindsight, I think the more likely culprit was lack of food. I'm not sure I even realized how little I was eating, but it couldn't have been much — we were cut off from meals at two support stations, each about twenty hours apart, and the two meals we ate during the four days of the race were both reheated TV-dinner-style plates in both quality and quantity. Other than that, I had what was in my pack, which with one resupply amounted to maybe 6,000 calories total, for four days. There were two instances where we went through a town and stopped by a refuge when my teammates grabbed a quick snack and I opted to curl up on a chair and nap, because I had become obsessed with getting more sleep. Those types of low-rolling bonks are difficult to detect but swift to deteriorate. I sure was a mess on the last day.

3. Sleep might not be as important as I thought. The jury's out on this. I think the sweet spot is four hours per 24-hour period, and acceptable mental functionality can be had in three. Less than that might bring the stalking-wolf hallucinations and blurred vision back. I have a hunch that I will not be able to afford even this much sleep, but a lot can be accomplished with short naps at times that the sleep monster hits. I am considering carrying a light bivy system for trailside snoozes.

4. The input of other people does help keep me centered. I had teammates in the PTL. Their low points were not my low points and vice versa. I think we moved slower overall because of this, but the company of others also helped stave off the meltdowns (Evidenced by the major meltdown I lapsed into as soon as I was alone.) I will not have teammates in the TDG, and I have asked Beat not to stick with me as I think this is an experience I need to tackle on my own. That said, I do hope to make some trail friends.

5. Dry feet are happy feet. During PTL, both of my teammates were burdened with terrible blisters, and they expressed jealousy in my "perfect mountain feet." I've never had much success finishing anything with hurty feet, so my only option is to keep them happy. I do this with diligent reapplications of Beat's homemade, moisture-repelling Hydrolube, and by removing my shoes and socks at absolutely every stop, even if it's only five minutes. It's worth it. Enough time on feet leaves them beaten up no matter what, but a lack of open sores helps greatly.

6. Shut up legs. I have yet to develop a leg pain that persists for more than a few days after a race is over. Horrible shin splints from the seven days of the Iditarod Trail Invitational included. I have a fairly good sense now of all the pains I get that are not long-term injuries, just short-term irritation.

7. Losing one's mind ... avoid at all costs. So I had what I think was an anxiety attack after I already understood that my race was over and I was making my way into the Aosta Valley on the fourth day of PTL. I got "lost" and went tearing blindly through the woods, with what felt like no rational control over what my body was doing. It was very unnerving and downright scary. Not worth it. If lack of sleep sends me down this path in TDG, I've vowed not to let it go this far.

Regardless it's going to be a wild ride and I'm actually very excited for the Tor des Geants. There are still two weeks to go. In the meantime, I'm going to be tracking Beat and his teammate, Daniel, in the PTL. And, similar to past TDGs, plan to check out small sections of the terrain he's experiencing ... with the wonderful freedom of knowing this time, if I don't like it, I can turn around. 

35

 My birthday is this week. It's my 35th. This also marks three and a half years of living in California; both numbers baffle me. It's not that I feel young — I've been more of an "old soul" ever since I was actually young — but I just can't believe that half of a decade has passed since I climbed on top of Mount McGinnis to embrace my thirties. "It's such a cliche but it's true that once you hit 30, the years really start slipping away," I told my friend Leah as we headed out to Big Basin for a ride on Saturday. She reminded me that I've filled these California years with adventures, which is one of the reasons they've gone by so fast. I actually think routine is what really makes our perception of time speed up, because days that are filled with sameness are the ones that tend to disappear. I have plenty of habits, but also a sense of curiosity that injects sparks of wonder into even the mundane days. Wonder is what keeps me young. It's certainly not my skin, because 35 years around the sun has not been kind to that.

We enjoyed a fantastic ride on Saturday. It's been a while since I coaxed Leah out to the Peninsula, but I had a fun idea for a loop through Big Basin — descending the steep and narrow spine of McCreary Ridge, rolling along the coast, and climbing Gazos Creek fire road. I thought if any trails around here had even the faintest hint of tackiness left, those sheltered by sixty-foot redwoods would. I couldn't have been more wrong. I don't think it's rained around here since sometime before my last birthday, and the parched ground has been stirred up to a chunder that resembles granola mixed with powdered sugar. Leah is back in training for cross season and I told her that she'd probably be fine with her cross bike, but the McCreary Ridge descent was loose and sketchy. There were a few instances of chunder-surfing with a locked rear wheel, some downhill hike-a-bikes, and blasting through curtains of cob webs and moss dust on a baked-mulch descent to the coast. I don't think McCreary Ridge sees much use, by anyone.

It was a beautiful afternoon at Waddell Beach. We still had to make our way up Gazos Creek on a steep dusty road ripped up by logging truck traffic, the kind of surface that keeps you close to red-lined even in granny gear — but if it wasn't for that obligation I probably could have relaxed here for a few more hours. This is probably something I'll do more frequently someday if I have the privilege to get really old — sit on a beach and stare at the ocean.

I'm wrapping up some final training runs before we head to Europe for Beat's third year of PTL, which starts next Monday. Today I headed up Black Mountain to hike the steeper pitches with my trekking poles. I haven't done much trekking pole training recently, but I don't think that matters. I use them frequently and juggle them well when I'm running; I've had a lot of practice yet. I've been trying out the Hoka Stinson trail shoe; put about a hundred miles on them so far. This is my first venture into a different model of Hokas since I found the Mafate 1 in 2010 (I like to joke that I'm not a Hoka convert — more like a native born, since I ventured into running while using Hokas.) I like the Stinsons but I'm worried the durability may be lacking; I've already torn the tongue twice and fear for the mesh outers on rocky Alps trails. I have one more new pair of Mafate 2s and may break those in for Tor des Geants. My older pair of Mafate 2s has nearly 950 miles. I was going to try to push them to 1,000, but the now-bald soles are beginning to separate so I may have to accept their early demise.

I planned a longer run today and assumed it would be tedious so I downloaded some new music and settled in for a grind. But what I found was this cool, almost autumn-like breeze wafting along the ridge, a cape of sea fog draped over the mountains, and rich evening sunlight that reflected off the golden hillsides with a mesmerizing shimmer. I shuffled along with my trekking poles and cackled at Weird Al's new album, which I downloaded because until recently I didn't even realize Weird Al was still making new music, but he was one of my favorites when I was 12 and listening to Weird Al makes me feel young. As it turns out, his parody of Imagine Dragon's "Radioactive" makes a great running song, even if it's about being "Really Inactive."

"I'm giving up. My energy is shot. I'm never moving from this spot."

Singing and clicking my poles and just like that, 17.5 miles with 4,100 feet of climbing was done. Maybe it's true that once you hit 35, even the miles start slipping away before you notice. 

Dog days

August is the month for reluctant training, stirring up clouds of dust from the chunder trails, wiping the burn of salt from my eyes, and running without water for eight miles in the midst of a 20-mile run in 85-degree heat because my region is in exceptional drought and the groundwater taps are dry. Through it all, I wonder why I so ambitiously signed up for a late-summer race. But I know the reason. Registrations for these things always take place in January, when California's outside temperatures are tolerable and spirits are still fresh. (I wouldn't call my January legs fresh, however, since I'm usually in training for some hard Alaska race. But at least the legs are peppy in January, because they're going to Alaska.)

Then late summer comes around and the legs are tenderized, spirits over-ripened, and the consequences of January ambition ... those are still the same.

I actually wouldn't mind hibernating through August. One of these years I probably should. But I really do want to participate in the Tor des Geants, and so I need to do at least some physical preparation. Since mid-July I've been aiming to balance more frequent rest days to continue recovering from the Freedom Challenge, slow runs and hikes to add a little more spark to the legs, and some cycling as well because I do really like cycling. Slow is all I've been able to accomplish, but both my speed and energy levels are improving with every run. Since I'm not experiencing much in the way of overtraining symptoms besides being slow, this ongoing improvement suggests that I'm not burned out — I'm just out of shape. It makes sense. I did focused running training through March, which developed into a routine complete with pace expectations. Then I turned to long-distance cycling for three and a half months. I can't just expect to pick up where I left off with running, regardless of how much cycling I did in the interim.

I've been analyzing the data from the Tor des Geants course because — while I am slowly regaining fitness — in truth my only real chance of finishing this race is to go in with a well-understood plan that I can use to crack a whip on my less-than-peppy legs. I never make race plans because plans fall apart, every time — but PTL last year taught me that if I don't adequately judge my abilities against the cut-offs, I'm going to end up chasing them for four days and DNF anyway.

The Tor des Geants is 205 miles with 78,740 feet of climbing. That's an average elevation change of 768 feet per mile, but the reality is usually north of 1,000 feet per mile with the occasional flat section thrown in just to really piss off your feet. Yes, that is a higher average than Hardrock and yes, the TDG is twice as far, and yes, my plan is to hike the entire thing. There may be an occasional shuffle on the infrequent lower grades just to mix up muscle use, but personal experience has taught me that — unless you happened to be named Kilian or are sponsored by Salomon — a focused power-hike is both more enjoyable and more efficient over a long enough period of time. The most common reason people drop out of the Tor des Geants is because they went out too fast and tore up their feet, crushed their knees, and shredded their quads. They didn't think it was too fast. It was probably slower than they'd ever run in their lives. But it was too fast.

Still, to actually finish the Tor des Geants in its 150-hour cutoff, you still need to cover 33 miles per 24-hour period. At a glance, it doesn't seem that bad. A 50K a day? Pacific Crest Trail thru-hikers do that all the time! But what's contained in that 50K is what matters. The first 49 kilometers, for example, has 13,110 feet of climbing. (When analyzing run data I often think it terms of kilometers of distance and feet of climbing. It think this is because I grew up with imperial units of measurement but focused the bulk of my running on either 50Ks or Euro-races, so I visualize kilometers.) But to reiterate, that's 49,000 meters of horizontal with 8,000 meters of vertical change, otherwise known as the takeoff angle of a jet. The whole course is more or less like this for 330 kilometers. You can see why I would love this, right? It's a foot race more or less designed for strong and determined hikers. I only wish I was in better shape.

But I am trying to figure out how capable I might be at any given section so I can design a plan with expected rate of travel along with the best, or at least most strategic, places to rest. To do this I tapped my four-time finisher boyfriend for recommendations and then dredged up old Strava data from some hikes I've done on the course. There are 25 prominent "peaks" on the course and I've seen seven of them, some several times because the timing for a crewperson in the Tor des Geants usually works out to hit the same places year after year. Here's a profile of one of my favorites, Col Pinter:

Why, yes, that is 4,500 feet of climbing in 3.5 miles. So fun! Probably even more fun after 120 miles of slogging through much of the same. The blue line is my pace chart. Not sure why it fluctuates so much (guessing stops to catch my breath) but the higher ends are probably most accurate. Shooting for 25-minute miles seems an ambitious but worthy goal. I realistically have to keep my overall moving average below a 30-minute mile to make this work, while still finding the necessary time for sleeping, feet-drying and repair, and eating ... in that order. (Actually eating is the most important thing in an endeavor like this and the hardest to keep up with. That's actually another very common reason people drop out of a multiday event ... they just run out of gas. Low calorie intake was likely my biggest physical setback during the PTL and greatly exacerbated my psychological meltdowns.)

Here's another fun one, Col Loson, and the reminder that there are definitely going to be some 60- and maybe even 90-minute miles in the mix. This is why I'm doing the math even though I doubt I'll be able to adhere even loosely to any kind of race plan. But I have experienced pieces of this route, and feel like these previews will help me set reasonable expectations for myself. The Tor des Geants will be the kind of 90-percent-mental mindgame that I both love and fear the most. Three and a half more weeks to go.