Finding winter

After temperatures climbed into the 40s again and my creative energy continued to decline, I decided it was time to escape Anchorage. Originally I hoped to travel to Whitehorse for an overnight bike trip with friends, but discovered too late that my car rental policy didn't allow me to leave the country. There's also the matter that Whitehorse is 700 miles from Anchorage, and although I enjoy the drive, it's risky in the winter and difficult to justify amid the limited time I have in Alaska. Fairbanks is half that distance, and there's an incredible mountain range in the middle with extensive adventure opportunities. 

On Thursday I planned to ride my bike on snowmobile trails near Petersville, in the southern foothills of the Alaska Range. It was still warm, and misty rain and fog became driving rain after I passed the Talkeetna junction. I coaxed the rental car through gray mush to a trailhead, where I'd already decided I was going to run instead of ride. I suited up, stepped out into the downpour, and sank my foot into shin-deep slush. The trail wasn't packed ice as I expected, and any attempt to "run" through this muck was going to be a cold, soggy slog. I experienced a low point there, while slogging back to my car to remove my microspikes and grab snowshoes instead. Rain pelted down and I realized that much of my malaise over the past week was linked to constant worrying about Beat. It's strange, because concerns about his well-being and emotional state on the Iditarod Trail didn't bother me nearly as much last year. I think going to McGrath with him helped put me in the right mindset about the endeavor, and also helped me feel more connected to him after he continued onto Nome. This year, it's more difficult to see big picture when I talk with him on the phone, hear his tired voice, and imagine him stumbling over tussocks and taping his feet amid endless sloggy wetness. Sloggy wetness is not something I want for him or myself, and running the slush marshes in Petersville was close to the last thing I wanted to be doing. "I don't have to do this," I thought. The sun had been shining through a small suckerhole over Willow, and even though it was becoming late in the afternoon and Willow was an hour in the wrong direction, I turned around and drove south.

Loaded up Snoots at the gate on Willow Fishhook Road and pedaled through the icy slush until it turned to ice, and then packed snow. As I gained elevation toward Hatcher Pass, soft powder filled in the gaps and the quiet hum of the wheels lightened my mood. I let a bunch of air out of the tires and climbed higher until turning pedals through soft snow was beyond my power capacity, and the remnant hints of the sucker hole sun were sinking low on the horizon, and the night drive beckoned. This ride was a welcome respite and shifted my mindset in the right direction.

Driving north, I crossed back into the storm shadow of driving rain, which shifted to sleet, and then snow. Inches piled up on the freezing-rain-slicked highway, which was almost empty of traffic save for an occasional southbound truck. A few miles north of Cantwell, I moved slightly into the shoulder as a truck went by, hit an ice slick and slammed into a snow bank. I was alone with a rental Jeep Cherokee, no shovel, and it was just before midnight. I wondered if I might have to spend the night in the woods just off the road. After twenty minutes of kicking snow and driving the car backward and forward, backward and forward, I managed to free it from the bank. By that time, it was angled just right to flip a U-turn and drive back to Cantwell. Snow was still coming down hard, and I didn't want to get stuck anywhere where I really might have to spend a night in a ditch. I returned to the closed Chevron, parked in the corner of the lot, and set up my bivy inside the car. I awoke to a snowplow scraping nearly a foot of new snow that had fallen overnight.

I did go looking for winter. I found it.


The sun came out for the remainder of the drive to Denali National Park, which is only thirty miles north of Cantwell but only had two or three inches of new snow. There was another winter storm warning in the forecast for that evening. I had been sufficiently intimidated by snowy road conditions to want to escape the mountains before the storm came in, but had enough time for a half-day hike in the park. A park ranger recommended this loop starting at mile 12 of the park road, looping up around a ridge and then dropping into the Savage River Canyon before returning on a closed, unmaintained section of the road. In hindsight, it's crazy that the park ranger recommended this hike to me. I mean, I know this is Alaska, but this is a national park, and I didn't represent myself as a mountaineer. For all she knew, I could have been a random tourist from California who was just passing through on her way to Fairbanks. Oh right, that's exactly what I was. It was a scenic hike, but parts of the route were sketch-city. I'm guessing this is a popular summer trail, and the ranger had never been up here in the winter conditions.

It was 14 degrees where I parked my car, and once I climbed above tree line, I encountered strong winds — guessing 25 mph sustained winds with 40 mph gusts. Cold wind is a condition that frightens me, and my heart was racing as I made my way along the ridge. All in all, 14 degrees with a 25 mph wind would be a typical if not pleasant condition on the Bering Sea Coast, and I had to continually remind myself of this, since I'm still planning to head that way in a week. "If you can't take this wind, then you really can't take the coast." I ducked behind a boulder to pull on a windbreaker and neck warmer, and squinted against the gusts as I pieced together wind-scoured segments of the trail down the slope.

There were steep, boulder-strewn drop-offs to both sides, and the trail climbed onto this narrow knife ridge that only sharpened as the route descended. There was a reasonably defined trail, but it was coated in glare ice with anywhere from an inch to a foot of feather-light spindrift on top, with crusty, thigh-deep drifts in spots. I was wearing microspikes, but the points were still slipping on the hard ice layer and rocks. Safe foot placements were difficult to discern, the drop-offs were quite exposed, wind was knocking me off balance, and the odds of hurting myself were high. I should have retreated sooner, but kept thinking the ridge would widen or I'd find a safe route off of it. When these things did not happen, it was too late because I was more frightened of returning the way I came than going forward. By that time, you're pretty much committed.

Finally, after about thirty minutes of intense scrambling where I put my poles away and took my mittens off occasionally so I could use my bare fingers to grip rocks, I saw moose tracks above a creek bed, in a spot where I could climb down and reach them. Before, from my vantage point, it wasn't apparent whether the creek below would drop safely to the river or drop off cliffs. But I figured if a moose could climb to this spot, I could crawl out. Getting off that sketch human trail and following the moose was the best decision I made all day. From there it was a fairly simple powder-bound down to the Savage River, where I located the canyon trail and walked to the road. The fear that encompassed that seven-mile hike left me exhausted. It was all I could do to trudge 2.5 miles of road back to the car and finish the drive to Fairbanks.

It snowed for most of today in Fairbanks, so my friend Corrine and I went snowshoeing through the powder on the hills near her house. Lots of fun, this hike, and not scary at all. What's funny is there's now probably too much snow here for me to ride my bike. But that's all right. Running and hiking is arguably better for my physical training right now, as it might still help my fitness for a hopeful White Mountains 100 run at the end of the month. There's a cold snap forecasted next week, and practicing setting up my bivy, working on my bike, and melting snow at 20 below will really help my emotional and mental fitness going into the coast trip. Right now, after my experience with the wind on the mountain in Denali, I'd put my confidence level at about 10 percent. Today, Beat confided in me that his own confidence is flagging severely right now, with all the new snow and wind and likely slow conditions for the next couple hundred miles. He, more than me, could use a hit of positivity, and I hope he finds it in McGrath. 

Desperately seeking winter

The past few days in Anchorage have been wet and gloomy, and I've been in a funk. It seems I've snagged myself in this emotional loop of stress about my coast trip, insomnia, and missing Beat.

I know — I'm usually so thrilled just to be in Alaska that I can easily leap over the everyday angst. But I think a combination of the weather and the fact I left California with a lot of loose ends to wrap up, have made the transition tougher. I've even met with a few friends in town, but it didn't really cut through the loneliness. Beat calls three times a day, and this just makes me miss him more. I keep refreshing the race tracker instead of focusing on what I should be doing, then lose focus altogether. I scour the one duffel bag of gear I brought with me and make little piles, trying to determine what to take to Unalakleet, where it should go on my bike, and why. Then I re-arrange the piles. I gathered everything I needed for an overnight tour here in Southcentral Alaska, and then nixed those plans because of rain. I feel wistful and wish I was just walking to McGrath with Beat, even as wet and miserable as it all sort of sounds right now.

Alas, I suppose this is what happens when you take a California dweller who doesn't even realize she's addicted to sunshine, and put her in what for all practical purposes resembles late-term break-up season in the north. I know deep down I'm glad to be here; I just have to push through the surface gloom. I've enjoyed watching the Iditarod Trail Invitational so far. A nice freeze-up just in time for the race start created hard-packed, dirt-like trail conditions, prompting another year of record times for the lead bikers. This turned out to be a narrow window that closed quickly, and now those still out there are slogging through wet snow and thawing conditions. These things are to be expected and Beat is taking it in stride, still moving well on his way over Rainy Pass.

A bout of sleeplessness last night at least prompted me to finish up some accounting I've avoided (tax season for the self-employed. I can't stomach doing it all at once, so I break it up into slightly more palatable pieces.) This was the last item on my immediate to-do list, so today I got out for what turned out to be a five-hour ride around Anchorage trails. The trail conditions were consistently bad — I effectively rode 31 miles of slush and glare ice, wearing microspikes on my boots so I could hike out the worst sections. A misty rain fell all afternoon, which had a strange effect of making the climbs feel humid and hot, and the descents clammy and frigid. I wasn't loving the ride but stuck with it, mainly because I hoped a long ride would improve my mood. And actually, it did. After three hours I gained more confidence in my studded tires and relaxed enough to find a rhythm.

I find sometimes when I'm in a flow, I lose all visceral sense of time and place, residing only in each fleeting moment. This meditative state reliably leads to startling snaps back to three-dimensional reality, where surprises lurk. This moose crashed through the brush as then stopped at the edge of the trail as though waiting to cross a street. I slammed on my brakes because, yikes, moose! Then we had a three-minute standoff that carried an air of politeness — "After you. No, after you. No, after you." Finally it became clear that she was not going to continue until I was gone. Passing her was my only way forward, so I did, stealing a quick snapshot as I went by (Moose make me very nervous. But she didn't appear agitated, so I didn't sense danger.) After that I had a good laugh about forgetting completely that I was even in Alaska, let alone riding slush ice rather than dirt. I was just out for a bike ride.

Still, I think it will be good for me to get out of town, so I'm heading north on Thursday — a few days camping in the Denali area, and then Fairbanks. Beat is starting to find his flow as well. The first few days are always difficult as bodies settle into the new workload and minds adjust to the wildly swinging emotions and solitude. This is why he sets out on these journeys — to find the deep vein of strength and serenity that is often buried under our everyday angst. I could use this attitude adjustment as well. 

2015 Iditarod Trail Invitational, day one

Well, Beat has embarked on his third journey to Nome. We flew into Anchorage late Friday night and had the usual whirlwind 36 hours before the 2015 Iditarod Trail Invitational started at 2 p.m. Sunday. I'm not participating this year, which left me simultaneously relived and disappointed. I cheered for everyone at the start, then prepped my fat bike for a spectator ride out the Iditarod Trail. Trail conditions were so hard-packed and fast that I caught everyone effortlessly, even the indefatigable Dave Johnston. I ended up riding all the way to Flathorn Lake slough — 50 miles round trip — and still returned to the Knik Bar just after dark. 

It was a gorgeous day, and I was on Cloud 9 with this ride. These rolling hills of the Susitna River Valley, and this loosely distributed but tight-knit community of people, have been intricately woven in my life since 2006. Returning to this place is always intensely meaningful for me, as is participating in the "ritual" — even if only on the periphery. I don't have the time right now to write about the experience, but I wanted to post some photos of the race start: 

 Steve Ansell, Tim Hewitt, and Loreen Hewitt digest their final meals at the Knik Bar — officially "Mile 0" of the Iditarod Trail.

 Final preparations at Knik Bar.

350-mile foot racer Jason Buffington is on the right. Last March, he heated up some lasagna for me the minute I arrived in McGrath, and for that I remain grateful.

 Beat and his sled. This year he constructed a carbon pole and custom-machined (by him) titanium joints. Note his husky, Bernie, in the foreground, is along for the ride again this year.

The start of the race was warm (30F) but with a stiff breeze. Beat was prepared. 

Steve is also going for the full distance to Nome this year. Here, he contemplates 1,000 miles.

 Beat chats with Kevin Breitenbach, the defending champion of the McGrath race and holder of the 350-mile bike record.

 Jason Boon. We spent some time with him on the trail last year as well. He's one of four walkers aiming for Nome this year. There are 12 Nome racers in total.

 Dave Johnston, holder of the 350-mile foot record, racing in memory of Rob Kehrer. Rob is an ITI veteran and longtime volunteer who died last summer during the Alaska Wilderness Classic.

Saying goodbye. Note the lack of pretty much anything in Dave's sled.

 Final GPS check before the start.

 Andrea Dubenezic of Fairbanks. She accompanied Beat and me as I wheezed my way through the last 20 miles of the Fat Pursuit 200K in Idaho this past January. She's awesome ... and pretty nervous. First time on the Iditarod Trail. She'll do great.

 And they're off. The journey of a thousand miles begins ...

 Dave Johnston's son, Miles — already being indoctrinated into sled-dragging culture.

 Look at that snowless marsh. Snow cover was slim to non-existent in open areas. The surface of the trail was glare ice with a dusting of about a centimeter of powder. Further down the trail, it was sugar snow with a reasonably solid crust. Trail conditions were frequently treacherous, yet the studded-tire fat bike made riding seem effortless. I try to imagine what this race would be like seven years ago when most everyone had Surly Pugsleys with 65mm rims, and no one had studded tires. Or in the 1990s, when fat bikes did not even exist. But things pretty much don't change for the walkers. One of the many reasons why the softest spot in my heart is reserved for the foot racers.

 Jason Boon, "I'm just getting a few more things dialed in."

 3 Mile Hill, the first of many short but steepish climbs that ripple across the Susitna Valley.

 Fellow spectator Shawn McTaggart trying to catch up to her husband, Tony, and Dave Johnston. Shawn is the only woman besides Loreen Hewitt who has completed the thousand-mile journey to Nome on foot, and she's done it twice.

 Tony and Dave, looking fresh as a daisy at mile six.

 Biker and Mount Susitna.

 Jill loves these wide open spaces. People tell her that this first section of the Iditarod Trail is boring, and she strongly disagrees.

 Dave, still looking fresh as a daisy at mile 22 — three and a half hours after the start. Amazing sled-dragging pace.

 Bye Dave! I'll told him I'd visit after he returned from McGrath and that I'd make sure to bring him a six-pack of Budweiser. "Make it a margarita," he said.

 Snoots is sad because she wants to go to Nome.

 Beat and Steve, both looking great at mile 17. If all goes as well as it can, this will be the last time I see Beat until he arrives in Nome, hopefully under four weeks from now. This is always a tough but satisfying goodbye.

Bye Beat! Have a great trip to Nome. 

The week of gloom 'n doom

 Beat and I leave for Alaska on Friday amid grim trail and weather reports. I can't believe it's been nine years since I first fretted about "Iditaswim." (I also appreciate how this blog documents all of my famous last words, including this gem from 2006: "I'm fairly certain I could walk 100 miles given 48 hours to do so. Not that I'm about to enter this race in the foot division.")

Still, spending a healthy portion of the month of February obsessing about conditions along the Iditarod Trail has become a time-honored tradition that I can't seem to get away from, no matter how much else in my life changes. The outlook of 2015 is particularly gloomy, as illustrated by this collage of photos I compiled from Iron Dog snowmachiners and others who have been out on the trail in the past few days:

I'm currently anxiously awaiting Iron Dog Snowmachine Race reports from the coast, where I hope to embark on my 250-mile tour starting March 15. But even before then, I was planning to ride out to Flathorn Lake to cheer for the foot racers on Sunday (upper left) and venture out toward Skwentna for a shakedown ride later in the week (middle photos), and I really don't want to think about Beat attempting to cross open leads and fast-flowing overflow on big rivers like the South Fork of the Kuskokwim (lower left.) Since he took time off in March anyway, I told him we should trade in our tickets and go somewhere else, maybe New Zealand. He didn't seem to think I was serious. Why wouldn't I be serious? Really, what is wrong with us?

At least my endurance running/heat training here in California is going well. If only I had a goal to attach to this. Saturday brought my third 50-kilometer run in three weeks, the Montara Mountain 50K in Pacifica. The course is quite the quad-buster, requiring an ascent to the 1,800-foot summit of Montara Mountain, twice, and another loop with two big climbs, three times, so you compile this 7,000-foot monster with twisty descending. The event organizer, Coastal Trail Runs, calls it their second toughest course; I don't know which is the first, although I'm guessing it involves Mount Diablo. Anyway, it's a hard race, and my legs were good and tired from loading them with long runs and fat bike rides for several weeks (in past experiences, this "binge training" is what works best for me when preparing for multi-day efforts. Load them up, and soon that hazy after-50K sensation becomes the new normal and I'm okay with keeping it up for days or weeks.)

It was another warm weekend, and these brushy coastal hills are frequently exposed to the hot sun. Steep terrain also often shelters canyons from the sea breeze, so they heat up like an oven. I resorted to what is usually a mid-summer strategy of freezing a two-liter bladder of water and carrying a block of ice on my back, and still suffered in the heat. My stomach went sour and I slowed down on the second climb of Montara, fearing I might have to "walk it in." Near the top I pulled out my trekking poles for the upcoming rocky descent, and also for proper "White Mountains training," and began to perk up. Something about those trekking poles really seems to boost my spirits ... maybe because they remind me of the long slogs that I love so much.

I ended up with a 6:30 finish, which was good enough for third woman in this small local race. The White Mountains 100 is in just over a month, and I'm still on the fence about flying out to Fairbanks for the pre-race meeting. That decision will depend on what happens with Beat's journey on the mushy Iditarod Trail, as well as my own adventures in March. But right now I feel well-conditioned and excited about the prospect of a hundred-mile run in the Whites, and I hope I have a shot.

I got in one last long ride with Snoots the following day when my friend Jan invited me to join him for trail explorations in the East Bay. I expected more of a Sunday amble, but a combination of map navigation, plenty of short but brutal climbs, and tired legs stretched this ride into the "almost epic" range. We started at Lake Chabot and spent nearly six hours contouring grassy hills, rolling through eucalyptus groves, crossing cattle pastures and descending into shaded redwood forests. We enjoyed sweeping views of the canyons and only crossed a couple of small roads. It's hard to believe this whole region is a sliver of open space in the middle of the greater Oakland metro area.

Beat was in a bad mood when I returned home, as the slushy barrage of gloom and doom really began to flow through various social media outlets. We can only wait and see what next week holds, as is the case every year. Of course I just want him to stay safe, and hopefully have the great adventure he spends eleven months dreaming about, every year. What is wrong with us? I don't know, but the years keep passing by, and I still wouldn't trade it for anything else.

Hot town, summer in the city

 The big news this week has been the Iditarod Dog Sled Race's decision to move the race start to Fairbanks, which effectively cuts out the first half of the route and redirects dog teams on the Tanana and Yukon rivers all the way to Kaltag, some 650 miles into the Iditarod Trail. It's a big deal for Beat and others in the Iditarod Trail Invitational, which relies on the big-money events — including the Iron Dog smowmachine race — to break and maintain the trail. Without these races, the Iditarod Trail is little more than a loosely linked series of reflective markers affixed to trees, and wooden tripods. Whether or not any trail is actually broken underfoot depends on the whims of local snowmachiners, such as trappers and hunters, who might travel through before the cyclists and runners get there.

The Iditarod races were set to follow the southern route this year. After the dog sled race's announcement, the ITI made the quick decision to instead send racers on the northern route, which is at least used by Iron Dog (the snowmachiners leave on February 21. The ITI starts March 1.) The runners and cyclists will reconnect with the dog sled route on the Yukon River in Ruby, shortly before the dogs veer off the river to take a spur to the north that extends their race to a full thousand-mile distance. It will be the goal of ITI racers to *not* take this 200-mile spur, and also to avoid five miles of open river that the Iron Dog will detour around on a longer inland trail. Even in the first 350 miles, there is still Rainy Pass and a large segment of the Farewell Burn that are rarely traveled, and Iron Dog bypasses Rainy altogether. This places all the trailbreaking load — including slashing brush, moving deadfall, and building ice bridges — on the ITI and its grassroots race budget. If there's bad weather, Rainy Pass might not be broken at all, and it sounds like conditions on the western side of the Alaska Range are even more rugged than last year.

Beat of course is extremely excited at the prospect of an even higher "wilderness factor" than recent years. I wonder if he's already forgotten what it's like to break trail through hip-deep snow — which he has done, among many other grueling tasks where forward motion is hardly a given. But if there is one constant of the Iditarod Trail, it's that you can't count on anything.

These Iditarod decisions don't really affect my plans to ride from Unalakleet to Nome starting on March 15. The dogs will still go through that region at roughly the same time — I planned my window so, hopefully, the bulk of the dog teams will be ahead, as well as most of the cyclists, and the runners will be somewhere close behind. I'm still moving forward with prep for this trip: Reading through trail notes, mulling potential stopping points, planning two post office drop boxes, fretting over long-term weather reports and gear. My trip is nearly a month away, but there's still plenty to fret about.

The dog sled race is moving north because, even more so than last year, there are long sections of the route with no snow cover at all. Now that the Polar Vortex has moved in, pushing Arctic air into the eastern side of the continent, Alaska is undergoing another extended thaw. Last year, Beat and I discussed this changing weather pattern and the implications it might have for future Iditarod ventures. Of course he doesn't have weather forecasting expertise or a crystal ball, but he predicted a lot of has ended up happening: late snow, the dog sled race abandoning the Iditarod Trail, and a persistent stretch of above-freezing temperatures and rain in February. If Polar Vortex becomes an annual pattern, this could be the new norm across the wintry places of the West — low snow, extended thaws punctuated by deep cold snaps, more volatile storms and less predictable weather.

What this means for California is winter passing us by altogether. Endless summer, for real. Sure, we might still see an increase in pineapple express storms, which will help temper the almost complete loss of snowpack in the Sierras. But the people and plants are still going to bake and burn under year-round summer temperatures. I try to seek comfort from this unsettling notion by imagining that Beat and I make our escape to Alaska before it gets really bad, but this might not happen "B4ITMELTS."

Steve and Beat wanted to get in one last long run before the ITI, so we set out for a fantastic 50-kilometer loop starting near Saratoga Gap on Sunday. This route follows loamy trails through a series of parks above Pescadero Creek, rolling along grassy ridges and shaded redwood forests. With the exception of a handful of road crossings and a short jaunt through the campground at Portola State Park, it's all dirt and about 95 percent singletrack. I was quite excited for this run, even with my previously mentioned 15-percent chance of actually getting into the event I'm supposedly training for, the White Mountains 100. Even still, I signed up for the Montara Mountain 50K next weekend, which means three 50K runs in three weeks.

It's all good training, but if I wanted truly useful bike expedition training, I would go push my fat bike up hills. I actually did this on Wednesday, riding Snoots to the Table Mountain Trail and engaging in a truly awful push, gaining 2,000 feet of elevation with gooey mud collecting on the tires, baking temperatures in the shade, and seemingly hundreds of black flies swarming in my face. I spun over to Sanborn for a swoopy fun descent on the John Nicholas Trail, but it was not enough swoopy fun to repair my disillusionment about pushing my bike here in muggy California. Aw, running is good training too.

Back to the Pescadero loop. Temperatures climbed into the low 80s on a breezeless afternoon. I'm not the best in heat when I'm acclimated, but in mid-February when I'm trying to prepare for Alaska adventures, summer weather comes as a particularly unwelcome challenge. Humidity was relatively high and we were all drenched in sweat less than a mile into the run. We struggled to keep our core temperatures down with sips from a three-liter bladder of water that needed to last, because there was only one reliable water stop along this entire route, at mile 23. Steve came down with stomach problems early, and occasionally needed to sit down on the trail when he became dizzy.

Several of these trails are not all that popular with hikers and off-limits to cyclists, which means they don't see much maintenance. Recent wind and weather events left them battered, with frequent large downed trees, piles of twigs and branches strewn about, and several inches of dried leaves covering all manner of foot-catching obstacles. Beat declared the soft carpet of leaves to be "good Alaska training." I found the conditions to be mentally taxing, although engaging. Even walking was tricky at times, and running at all meant having to think fast, because I stumbled frequently. The heat and technical trails forced us to keep the pace slow, which was good for legs that were already tired from a fairly ambitious week of training. I actually felt pretty good for most of the run, despite the withering heat. I love to visit these tranquil forests of the Santa Cruz Mountains.

I plan to keep the White Mountains dream alive with one more week of aggressive run training, before I switch all of my focus to preparing my mind and gear for the coast tour. Every so often the thought pops into my head that this Unalakleet to Nome ride is something I'm actually going to try, which is ... unsettling. Especially when these thoughts come as I placidly walk to the store beneath the hot February sun. "It might be a hurricane of ferocious cold. I have not even the remotest notion of what that's going to be like." But these dreams — dreams of intense experience and renewed perspective — are what keep me battling the encroaching gloominess of change, and what keep me striving through the endless summer. 

Sometimes it does get easier as you go

The night before the Golden Gate 50K, Beat came down with a fever. He was bummed because he had to miss out on the long run, and I was disappointed because these local trail races are more fun with him — even if we don't run together, there's still all the enjoyment of post-race afterglow, eating burned lentil soup and watermelon, sharing trail stories with other runners, and indulging in creaky laziness for the rest of the evening. Ah, post-50K veg-out. Is there anything better? 

Still, as usual, I didn't want to miss out on the pre-post-race fun. As I drove toward San Francisco in the morning darkness, a dam in the sky burst and torrents of rain followed. Even with wipers at full velocity, the view through windshield was a violent blur. Wind rattled the car and the city streets were eerily empty, even for a Sunday morning. I picked up Steve at a deserted bus stop. We crossed the bridge into Marin while discussing our parking and bib-pickup strategy to avoid standing forlornly in the deluge. 

This course looping around Golden Gate Recreation Area was my first-ever ultramarathon, in December 2010. The first two miles from Rodeo Beach follow a segment of the Coastal Trail that I haven't visited since, and jogging up a muddy stream with other hooded runners made me feel warm with nostalgia. "Aww, there's the old bunkers. Aww, I remember this view. Aww, I wasn't even a runner back then. Ha, I had no idea what I was in for."

We climbed Wolf Ridge into a wind tunnel, watching breakers explode out of the sea hundreds of feet below. Despite warm Rodeo Beach nostalgia, I was not feeling well, with a hollow pit in my stomach and wobbly legs. I considered whether I was developing Beat's fever, and ate some fruit snacks. Nothing seemed to boost my flagging energy. Oh well, it's going to be one of those days. I now know this feeling all too well; December 2010 was a long time ago.

(Waterlogged photos. You know that thing where your camera lens gets wet, and all of your clothing is too wet to do anything about it?) Heading out of Tennessee Valley, I started chatting with folks and followed a group of about eight runners in the wrong direction along the Pirate's Cove loop. I even wavered at the trail intersection for several seconds, analyzing course markings, arguing with a guy about it, and still deciding his inclination was the right one. (I'm terrible at reading color-coded ribbons. Give me a GPS track or even a map, and I will make better decisions than I do on ribbon-marked courses that I perhaps have even run several times.) I realized the mistake out about a mile and a half down the trail when fast runners started coming the other way, but figured since we were still running all of the same 5.6 miles of trail — only in reverse — and since we weren't in contention to win the race, it wasn't a big deal.

However, two of the women I was with became quite upset about it, and I spent most of those miles explaining why I thought our direction was the more difficult direction anyway, describing the trail ahead, and conceding the embarrassing admission that even though I studied the course map minutes before the race started, and knew these Marin Headlands trails well, I still went the wrong way. Whatever steam any of us had for the first five miles of the race sputtered out altogether in this section. We just hiked through the tepid deluge and assured other runners that we were wrong and they were right. Only after we returned to the aid station and started on the return loop — in the right direction — did it come up in conversation that the women I was running with were from Canada.

"Oh, you're Leslie's friend!" I exclaimed to Iris. "I thought you looked familiar!" Leslie is a mutual friend in Banff, and Iris and I actually spent much of last spring's Woodside Ramble 50K running together. Iris travels down from Canada once or twice a year for a warm-weather double-header, and had run a 50K in Auburn the day prior. Funny that it took us more than an hour to realize we already knew each other. We continued up Marincello Trail at a conversational pace.

Once we had cleared the crowds, I also pulled out my trekking poles, which I brought to contend with muddy descents. I love trekking poles. You know how, when you're running, there's always that lingering sensation that you're about to tip over? No? Is it just me? Well, trekking poles are my secret weapon against perceived imbalance. With stabilizers in each hand, I get a confidence boost that actually does a lot to improve my performance. I would probably use them for most of my long runs. However, I do wish I possessed better running skills, skills that don't require crutches ... and I do feel self-consciouses about the general consensus among American trail runners that once you pull out the walking sticks, you are a hiker, get out of the way slow-poke. (Note: I am a proud hiker.) For these conditions, poles seemed like a particularly good idea.

I reached the 30K point at Rodeo Beach with 4:05 on the clock. The wind was still blowing at gale force, but the rain had diminished to sprinkles and there were even hints of blue sky and sunlight to the south. Even though I had still only eaten a few Shot Bloks here and there, I was starting to feel more energetic and found new resolve. Golden Gate wasn't the easiest 50K race, with its 6,700 feet of steep climbs, muddy trails, and show-stopping wind — but I really should try to pull it off in under seven hours.

Plunging poles into mud, I propelled myself back up Wolf Ridge and down into Tennessee Valley. The aid station had since blown away, so volunteers set up a small feed station in the hatchback of one of their cars. Climbing up Marincello, I caught up to Steve, who had rolled his ankle and was limping slightly. I offered him my trekking poles but he turned them down. Although I would have gladly given them up, to be honest, I would have missed them. At this point I was feeling fresh and energetic, and credited the poles. They completed me. I powered up the trail, picking off runners one by one.

Views of the city opened up across the San Francisco Bay. I surged down the rocky trail, running an 8:xx-minute-mile pace while plunging my crutches into the mud. One of the runners I passed caught back up to me at the last aid station while I was nibbling on Shot Bloks. "That was something!" he exclaimed. "You looked like you were skiing!"

I passed about a dozen runners in the final eight miles, and most said something about my trekking poles. Contouring the ridge above Bonita Cove, the curving trail occasionally veered into wind gusts so strong that they'd stop me in my tracks, braced against a wall of air. I always had to realign myself before I could move forward again, gasping to draw oxygen into my lungs. The wind wasn't going to give an inch of respite, but it was gratifying to feel so great at the end of a long run — especially when I felt so lousy for 18 miles. Many people would give up on a bad run long before that point. I might have as well had I not committed to the 50K. You think, "I'm tired and I'm only going to become more tired if I keep running." But sometimes ... you don't. Sometimes, it really does continue to get easier as you go.

I held up my poles for the final two miles on pavement and did my best sprint to the finish, arriving in 6:33. This means I wrapped up the last difficult 20K in under two and a half hours. For doubting whether I'd even finish under seven hours at the 30K point, it felt like a decent comeback.

It's a good reminder, too, about the rewards of pushing through obstructions. Great experiences await on the other side of the wall.

Saturday again?

Time again for a weekly blog update? Occasionally I wonder if I'm going to become another one of those dinosaur bloggers who quietly fade to black (or that one post from six years ago that stays at the top of the page forever and ever. They always begin with: "Wow, so I haven't blogged in a while." And that's how it ends.) Most of the outdoor and cycling bloggers I used to follow back in the day now only update their sites infrequently if at all. I used to write in this space nearly every day; now it's closer to once a week. The blog is a dying medium, and I mourn that fact as much as anyone (As much as I use social media sites, they're all really just blogs with fewer choices in worse formats. I genuinely despise Instagram.) Still, it's admittedly become more difficult to maintain momentum, perhaps because of waning interest from readers, and departures of friends. Why must I love only outmoded communication mediums? (Oh, newspapers. I will stay loyal forever.)

I am finally getting to a point where I'm mostly done and satisfied with my latest book project (I have not yet written the final chapter. I like to wait until I've cut through all the previous chapters so I can try to wrap up the loose ends.) As usual, I'm unsure what I should do with this book. Should I move toward publishing? Should I pitch the manuscript to publishers? From a financial standpoint, I actually think self-publishing is the way to go. Traditional publishing advances have become almost laughably small, and the digital marketplace works best with fewer middlemen. Over the past few years, my books have brought in a small but steady income that multiplies with each book I release, because the older books' sales have stayed consistent. If I just had like ten or twelve of these out, rather than four, I might no longer need to work on spec or on contracts for newspapers. (Just kidding, newspapers. I love you, newspapers.) At the same time, I'd like to branch out to a different and possibly wider readership, and I think this project has that potential. But query letters — for anything — can seem like such a waste of time. Time that could be spent writing. (I should have finished so many more books by now. But I really do agonize over these projects. I'm not quite capable of just cranking them out.)

On the Jill Outside front: My resolve to ride Snoots throughout the month of February prompted me to discover a few new backyard trails. I routinely ride my road bike during the week, but didn't want to slog out my usual pavement routes on the fat bike. Instead I headed to Fremont Older, which is a small open space preserve only 2.5 miles from my building. Despite its proximity to home, I usually just pass by here en route to other places, and in four years I'd never even visited the southern half of the park. As it turns out this was an unforgivable oversight — Fremont Older offers a tight little network of swoopy singletrack, rolling hills, and lovely overlooks. There are also some quad-busting climbs. The access trail gains 550 feet in one mile, and I plan to return at least once a week to ride hill repeats on that segment. After all, the purpose of riding Snoots in California is to build better big-bike strength. Churning through loose gravel up steep hills is the best I can do to mimic difficult snow conditions in Alaska. However, it's tough to pass up everything else Fremont Older has to offer — contouring grassy hillsides and gawking at the Santa Clara Valley bathed in evening light.

Recently, discovered that I'm higher on the White Mountains 100 wait list than I expected to be. I'm second on the list and there are twelve runners, which means that if I show up in Fairbanks in late March, I have a reasonable (but not certain) chance of landing a spot in the race. I'm almost embarrassed to admit how excited I became upon learning this. If I had to make Vegas odds, I'd place the chance of honing in on a no-show at about 20 percent. And it involves planning travel to Fairbanks (although this trip would be fairly easy to make as an extra leg between Nome and Anchorage.) So ... it's a long shot. Still, my reaction was, "Oh, I need to start training!" And suddenly, I had invented a valid excuse to embark on weekend long runs. Yay!

Between Sunday and Friday I managed 40 miles this week, starting with a great 18-mile loop along redwood-shaded singletrack above Woodside with Beat and Steve. Beat and I embarked on another superb run together on Thursday — 10 miles to the 2,800-foot summit of Black Mountain and back amid 40 mph gusts. A Pineapple Express storm was barreling toward the Bay Area, and we were plowing directly into a wall of wind. I ran a fairly easy pace and managed to keep up with Beat until the final steep pitch, and logged my fastest time yet (1:56 — first under two hours) for the round trip.

On Friday the storm rained down with a vengeance and I ran seven miles in precipitation falling at at rate of 0.5 inches per hour. I was so drenched that my baggy running shorts rode up above my underwear line and would not go back down, and I had to wring out some things before I could walk back into the building. I can't say I want to go back to having this kind of weather be a part of my life most of the time (cough, Juneau) ... but I sure do miss it. And every Californian knows we need it.

Beat and I signed up for the Golden Gate 50K on Sunday, which is expected to see a combination of this heavy drenching rain and high winds (two inches of rain and 60 mph gusts are both in the forecast for the coastal mountains north of San Francisco.) I am also inexplicably excited about the prospect of a long muddy slog amid all this interesting weather. Being drenched in 55 degree weather with that kind of windchill is sure to provide a tricky gear challenge. I might even need to pack a hat and gloves.

Some people train so they can race. I'm the kind of person who races so I can train. I realize that I could "train" as much as I want without needing an end goal. But I maintain that the end goal is the best part. It keeps a sort of narrative playing in the background — a promise of great adventure that lies just beyond the end of this 5.6-mile Tuesday loop that you really don't feel like doing this week. But if the promise of adventure is out there, you can feel yourself running toward it, relishing the sweet spring flavors in the air, feeling the soft mud give under your feet, and scheming an intriguing 50K route for Valentine's weekend. Because, training.

Even if the White Mountains 100 doesn't pan out, I'm already pretty stoked on February.