PTL days six and seven

After Mont Cormet, I tracked down Beat and Pieter at a grocery store on the outskirts of Courmayeur. The scene was very "Tour Divide" — they were sprawled out on the hot concrete in front of the store and devouring a spread of chips, ice cream bars, and various cold drinks, including large cans of beer. I asked Beat if beer was such a good idea in this heat, just before embarking on the climb up Mont Chetif — a via ferrata route with chains and cables assisting class-four terrain. Beat just shrugged. Pieter said he was culture-shocked by all of the people in Courmayeur. I pointed out that it was 6 p.m., and at that very moment 2,700 runners were pouring out of Chamonix for Ultra Trail du Mont Blanc. I'd intended to hike out the river trail and watch runners and friends pass, but I wasn't disappointed that I'd gotten hung up in Italy instead.

Les Contamines was the last place to stalk Beat, and I headed out there sometime on Saturday. It was all becoming a blur, even for me. I caught up to them and another team coming down from Col d'Enclave. We only got about three sentences in, as Beat was trying to keep up with the group, but I surmised that Friday night went well for them. "We survived the descent!" Beat proclaimed, as though this was a surprise. He didn't clarify which descent he was referring to, and there were a large number of them between here and Morgex.

I climbed up to Lac Jovet and contemplated a swim, but chickened out. 

Instead I descended back to the TMB route to climb Col Bonhomme. This climb was my favorite part of UTMB, marching up the rocky trail well after midnight, with the full moon casting eerie shadows as a string of lights ascended thousands of feet into a starry sky. I wanted to see these mountains in daylight, even though I suspected the scenery wouldn't be nearly as interesting.

Shortly after I returned to Les Contamines, dark clouds sank into the valley and unloaded a week's worth of missed thunderstorms. After six days of sunny skies and hot temperatures, rain and hail slammed into the streets with impressive violence. It had seemed like Beat had finally reached the homestretch, but of course there's no such thing in the PTL. They still had two more passes to ascend, including one over 9,000 feet with steep talus and boulder scrambling that was no doubt being pounded with hail and ice.

I went to bed fretting about their prospects on this pass, but the PTL organization ultimately re-routed them and all following teams to a lower trail. As it turned out conditions were extremely dangerous, with several inches of hail freezing hard to the rocks. I suppose the organization isn't completely sadistic, although Beat was disappointed that they were denied a "full" PTL experience by one measly (horrific) pass. They ran under the arch in Chamonix just after 7 a.m. Sunday, the 12th team across the finish line out of 115 starters and 48 finishers, covering ~190 miles of horizontal distance with 87,000 feet of climbing in 142 hours and 8 minutes.

Pieter and Beat limped back to the apartment to crash, and I gave them some peace and quiet by embarking on my final hike for the week — the steep climb to Col Brevent. It's a scenic little stroll that gains 5,500 feet in five miles, and my plan was to hike uphill only and take the cable car down. I admit that a little of this was a desire to pad my week's numbers to 35,000 feet of climbing in 75 miles — so, about 40 percent of a heavily cherry-picked PTL.

I also was going to test my breathing by pushing the pace, and hoped to reach the top in two hours. But about a mile into the climb I wandered off my planned trail onto the vertical kilometer route that includes a half mile of cables and ladders. There seems to be a perfect grade for gaining elevation fast, and after that the tipping point of steepness causes slower ascents in shorter distances. Oh well. This wrong turn deflated my resolve to push hard.

It also didn't help that it was the Sunday of UTMB week, and the trails were crowded. Fast ascents don't happen when you have to wait in lines. I shared much of the vertical kilometer climb with two British guys who were going to the first cable car at Planpraz, and were super impressed that I planned to ascend all the way to Brevent. "It's only 600 more meters," I told the guys.

"You're American. Do you know what a meter is?" one guy joked.

Nearing the top. I was already thinking I should bite the bullet and run down, but this 2.5-hour ascent was far too slow, and I would be late for lunch, and I had these 16 Euros for the cable car burning a hole in my pocket.

Goodbye to another UTMB week — Beat's fifth completion of PTL since he first ventured into this madness in 2012. Every single time I saw him during this year's race, he swore "never again." But I never believe him, and he's already talking about next year. We go to Europe to see his family, so this is a bit like finding activities to do near your parents' home at Christmas. But I'm still angling for a different summer adventure. Maybe a backpacking trip in Alaska's Brooks Range, although I'm much more terrified of crossing rivers than I am of grizzly bears. But it will be good for me to face these fears.

PTL days four and five

On Thursday I planned to drive into Italy to catch up with Beat and Pieter in Étroubles. I almost got an early start, but my friend Roger had a few hours to spare amid his own whirlwind UTMB preparations, and invited me to "the best bakery ever." I ordered a ham sandwich at 8 a.m. and struggled to speak in full sentences. I'd slept poorly again — jet lag, perhaps — and couldn't get my head together. Roger chastised me for not ordering bakery food and added an Italian blueberry tart to the order. I was grateful for the treat, but didn't tell him that these blueberry tarts remind me of some of my more nauseating moments in races like UTMB and the Tor des Geants. I still ate the tart and the rest of my ham sandwich five hours later, while sitting in the hot sun minutes before hiking another 5,000 feet up a mountain. Suffice to say I still don't have a great association with Italian blueberry tarts.

I enjoyed seeing Roger, but didn't arrive in Étroubles until 20 minutes after Beat and Pieter left. Driving through the Mont Blanc tunnel isn't cheap, and I was bummed about the missed opportunity. I figured I could catch them in Morgex later that night, until I learned the checkpoint was 40 kilometers away — which, converted to PTL miles, means 20+ hours. I did have a chance to catch up with my other friends in the PTL — Uwe from Germany, Chris from Switzerland, and Dima the Russian Bostonian — as they inhaled a massive lunch in the thin shade. Temperatures were again north of 30 degrees, which I'm told is in the 80s Fahrenheit but somehow feels like 100 in these mountains. My own breakfast-leftover-lunch wasn't sitting well, and I searched for excuses to retreat back to Chamonix. But I did pay 50 Euros to drive through that tunnel, so ...

I didn't take any photos of the lower part of the route, but much of it was a near-direct line up a steep grassy slope that was slippery when dry. No doubt it would have been an ordeal in wet conditions — the kind where you wish you had an ice ax and crampons for your summer hike. I know from experience that this kind of terrain is typical for the PTL. This is Europe, these mountains are riddled with well-traveled trails, and somehow the race organizers manage to connect the most obscure lines possible. Beat jokes that they take 60-year-old maps and base the route solely on those.

The upper part of the route joined the Tor des Geants trail, returning to stress-free travel where I could daydream about running the TDG again someday. My track record with European mountain races is awful, and that may haunt me forever if I don't finish one of them eventually. For all of its flaws, I'd actually love to run UTMB again, but qualifying and getting through the lottery pose a significant roadblock. The Tor des Geants is considerably more difficult, but it might be the race that best suits a better-trained me. When I attempted it in 2014, I was actually having a decent run up until I slipped, twisted my left knee, and sustained a partial LCL tear. That 200-mile journey still calls to me, but I have a lot more respect for the distance, and vowed that I wouldn't come back until I can figure out my breathing issues and put in a solid four months of real mountain training — which I can do now that I live in Colorado. Someday.

Speaking of breathing issues, I've had absolutely none since I arrived in Europe. I was able to engage some good, hard efforts climbing these mountains, even up at 8,000 and 9,000 feet — not all that high, but definitely within my problem zone at home. Either the medications I recently started taking are kicking in ... or I'm specifically allergic to Colorado. I did experience other allergy symptoms on the Italian side of Mont Blanc — sneezing and watery eyes — but grass seems to be more prominent there. My efforts also felt tougher when symptoms kicked in. I was thrilled to connect some of these dots, because I feel like I'm closer to figuring this out.

I climbed to Col Champillon, sat on a boulder in the slightly-less-hot-sun at 9,000 feet, and watched PTL teams pass by.

PTL teams making their way down from Col Champillon.

Looking back toward Étroubles.

I hiked back the long way on the Tor des Geants route, because I could. Screw butt-sliding down rock-strewn grassy slopes, when I can enjoy fireweed blooms and enough solid footing to look up at the scenery occasionally. I did encounter two PTL teams who took a wrong turn and descended more than a thousand feet before they realized it. They did not look happy.

I finally caught up with Beat and Pieter on Friday morning in Morgex. It did indeed take them 20 hours to travel the 40 kilometers from Étroubles, and they moved continuously during that long, difficult night. The route included a long traverse of a jagged ridge with a lot of exposure, where the supposed safe route was not obvious in the dark. Beat had a GPS track telling him one thing and sporadic PTL-placed markings telling him another, and it all looked precarious at best. They picked their way along the death ridge and then had to traverse more 50-degree grassy slopes with hardly a goat trail to place their feet. Beat edged the side of his Hokas in the loose dirt and hoped for the best. It sounded like a long, long night.

Our friend Uwe took a fall on that ridge and sustained a deep laceration near his shin. It was still bleeding hours later, and he looked quite pale. Still, he was determined to go on — this was his fourth PTL attempt, and he had yet to finish a course. This year he finally had a strong team and had already come a long way — 220 kilometers over four nearly sleepless days. One of the PTL participants at the checkpoint was a French doctor who offered to look at the wound, and used an emergency kit to stitch it up. It wasn't just a cut, it was a gaping wound, and the grabbing and stretching of remaining skin to sew it together looked incredibly painful. The stitch job didn't hold and the wound continued to bleed. It's gory, but worth documenting. This is the battle-zone spirt of PTL — a runner was moderately injured, the only person who came to his aid was another competitor, and no one was attempting to talk this sleep-deprived, effort-addled runner into making the wise decision to stop. I was a strong advocate of stopping, but only added quiet arguments. Gratefully, sanity prevailed and Uwe took up my offer to drive him to a bus station in Courmayeur while his teammates continued. I really empathize with him. Failures do haunt you, no matter how much you already accomplished, and how necessary they are.

From Courmayeur, I trudged up Mont Cormet — just a little 5,000-foot climb and descent to connect two neighboring towns all the way down in that valley. A thermometer in town registered 33 degrees — 91F — and the grass was pumping out sneeze fumes as little flies buzzed about and I ascended 3,000 feet in two miles, with the last half mile up a 40-percent grade. I'm told the Courmayeur side of the climb is completely tame compared to the Morgex side, which apparently traces one of those 60-year-old, now-nonexistent trails through steep brush. Beat and Pieter were still moving well and seemed surprisingly chipper. I guess there must be some reason Beat keeps coming back to PTL in particular. And I keep tracking them, trying to figure out what that reason is. 

PTL days two and three

With no mountain races of my own this year, I thought I'd have all this time to work on finishing details on my book and post blog updates, but I should have known better. By deciding to play "spectator" to Beat's self-supported race, I had all the same time constraints as a crew-person with none of the actual support. Between occasional work, keeping track of Beat's location, plotting my own trail route to intersect him, driving, and hiking, I rarely made time to sleep and eat actual meals — all of the local grocery stores close before 7 p.m., and who has time to sit at slow-service restaurants? I was raised with American fast food and 24-hour convenience stores, so I had no idea how to function on a less ambitious schedule. Most evenings I'd stumble back from a hike around sunset and scrounge for whatever snacks I had left over in the car. Crackers, tuna, and oranges again? Well, at least there were oranges. I'm glad I bought that two-kilogram bag of fruit on Monday. 

If I didn't find my way to some fine French cuisine, at least I gobbled down a healthy portion of French countryside. On Tuesday I had to keep a time-zone adjusted work schedule that effectively ran from 2 p.m. to 6 a.m. Wednesday morning. But that gave me a whole morning to catch Beat and Pieter near Col de Balme, along the France-Switzerland border.

 The PTL course followed the Tour du Mont Blanc "highway" — as Beat calls it — for a short distance, but true to form left the trail and shot straight up a knife ridge that marks the actual France-Switzerland border, toward Arete des Autannes. This was solid class-three scrambling with occasional sheer drop-offs, but easy compared to a lot of the terrain Beat traverses in this horror of a race. (I'll try to keep my disdain for PTL to a minimum, since the event went well for Beat, and he's proven himself capable of managing everything the organizers have thrown at him in the past five years so far. Few people seem to believe me that PTL is so terrible anyway, since I agree that much of it is fun in smaller doses, and because my complaints are always accompanied by scenic photos.)

 I came within fifty meters of the high point on the ridge, but arrived at an exposed spot with few handholds that I wasn't confident I could reverse. Oh well; this little pre-work walk was already up to 4,300 feet of climbing. Down I went.

 PTL teams making their way up the easier part of the arete.

 I caught up with Beat near the bottom of the valley. He was feeling generally good although tired, of course. They'd had a rough night descending from Mont Buet, another sharp ridge with several miles of class three and class four terrain. It was just before noon and already temperatures had shot into the mid-80s. It would remain hot and bluebird all week, until the last night. This made for a particularly tough week for the competitors, as it's harder to keep calories coming in and stay hydrated in such heat. After a day or two, this catches up with everyone. I maintain that multi-day endurance events are easier to manage in cold weather than hot, as long as you don't have to travel scary ridges in ice, snow, and rain.

 On Tuesday night I simulated the PTL experience by grabbing only about 90 minutes of sleep. By the time I finished work it was another beautiful and hot day — too hot to go back to sleep. Beat was out of day-hiking range for most of Wednesday, so I hiked from our place in Chamonix to a trail that ascends a small ridge between the glaciers Bossons and Taconnaz, ending at the point where the two glaciers meet. "La Jonction" is an incredible walk with close-up views of the ice on both sides, but it's another grunt of an effort with 6,000 feet of climbing, and again temperatures were close to 90. Pictures don't really do this hike justice, but I'm posting them anyway.

 Typical trail views. And this was a very nice trail! So enjoyable after stumbling along PTL routes.

After a scramble up a broad ridge, the land effectively ends at 8,500 feet on a knob called La Jonction. Here one can only continue higher if they're willing to venture out on a chaotic jumble of ice. But it's an incredible spot to sit and eat crackers and tuna for lunch.

 Looking toward Mont Blanc, still 8,000 feet higher. The first men to climb Mont Blanc spent their first night bivvied in this spot, back in 1786. It's incredible to imagine what this must have been like in a time before mountaineering techniques and gear, traveling unroped and without ice axes or crampons, on virgin terrain with no knowledge of what lie ahead.

 This is still a common spot for winter ascents of Mont Blanc — there's even an enticing refuge building constructed on top of that black arete. I'm told that summer ascents are more rare, as global warming as reduced these glaciers to the point that they are becoming increasingly more technical and difficult, and volatile seracs pose a menacing risk.

Views into the Chamonix Valley. Despite sleep deprivation this was my best day of the week, probably because I spent the least amount of time fretting about Beat in the PTL. In the evening I had dinner with some British fat-bike enthusiasts who now live in the Chamonix valley. We were four Brits and an American eating in France at a Canadian-themed bar, which I thought was humorous, even though I resisted the urge to order poutine. We enjoyed a fun evening of discussing Brexit and Trump, the difficult and beautiful bike trails in Chamonix, and biking in Alaska. Meanwhile Beat was out on some steep and rocky mountain in Switzerland, making his way into Italy. 

Beat's jaunt around Mont Blanc

 On Monday morning, Beat lined up in downtown Chamonix for his fifth Petite Trotte à Léon. I'm still in disbelief that he's volunteered for five of these, in spite of my best efforts to talk him out of it for the past three. Friends know I am no fan of the PTL, mainly because I believe the safety margins are not acceptable. It's 180 miles with 87,000 feet of climbing, but numbers do little to describe how difficult this race can be. Much of the course is highly technical terrain from a runner's perspective — rooty off-camber singletrack, steep scree, miles of chaotic boulders, slippery grass slopes, loose dirt, exposed ridges, and class-four scrambling. Runners travel at all hours of the night in all weather, self-navigating, with limited support, and the time cut-offs prompt extreme sleep deprivation. I raced 200 kilometers of a PTL course in 2013, and still consider it one of my more traumatic life experiences. Any physical malady I've sustained has nothing on the mental devastation of four days with almost no sleep, constant stress, anxiety, and the fatigue of working at one's cardiovascular limit for 23 hours a day. Before I timed out, I had a psychotic break and lost control off my actions for several minutes, made extremely poor decisions like running through dark road tunnels with no shoulder, and for the next five months I had to wear reading glasses because my vision went blurry. There's a longer story of course, but the result is that I now *hate* PTL, and Beat kinda sorta likes it, or at least can't quit it, so there's an interesting dynamic when we return each year.

Beat and his Belgian teammate, Pieter, at the start in Chamonix. Now that Beat has finished this four times, I trust him to make good decisions, so there's less fretting these days. He and Pieter raced together in 2015 and work well together. The race organization also moved up the start time, and between that and finish time adjustments, they have 15.5 more hours than we were given in 2013. I'm hoping that removes some of that cut-off stress in a race where the finishing rate has been less than 30 percent, and 80 percent of the finishers reach Chamonix within four hours of the final cut-off. This year's course is also harder than any other year, so it may be a wash.

I didn't grab a good spot to watch the start. I still thought this photo was interesting, with the phone screens as the only thing in focus.

In 2014, I tried to make peace with my PTL demons by hiking pieces of the course while Beat raced. This proved to be an enjoyable activity — as it turns out, the PTL course in small doses is beautiful and lots of fun, even if travel remains very slow (yup, even being rested doesn't improve my moving average of 2 mph.) On Monday I linked the first few miles of the 2015 PTL route with a segment from this year so I could hike backward on the course and watch teams pass. The initial climb ascended tight switchbacks beneath a tram, gaining 2,600 feet in 1.6 miles. Then there was a chossy scramble with cables, which didn't surprise me at all, as there's usually a fair amount of that in PTL. It was a fun ascent, but not something I'd like to do after several days of one-hour sleeps with 150 miles on my legs.

Traverse from Planpraz to the ridge. As far as I know this trail was not part of any recent PTL route, which makes sense because it's too enjoyable.

Opposing peaks.

Lac Cornu.

Cute little chamois.

Lac Noir d'en Haut.

This guy wanted to pose.

Working my way down from Col de la Gliere on the cables.

Shortly after that, I encountered the leading PTL team — two Swiss guys. The first guy became excited about the Tecnica buff I was wearing and began chattering in French about the Tor des Geants. It's so embarrassing that I don't speak another language. Yet I haven't taken initiative to learn one.

From there the PTL course veered straight down Combe Lachenal on this talus slope that was steeper than the photograph portrays.

I decided I didn't want to do that, so I took the long way around on a nice trail.

These guys seemed pretty sick of the scree as well. This was the third PTL team.

They got up again quickly, though.

Down in the forest I crossed paths with Beat and Pieter, looking pretty good after making their way around the glacier moraines of Mont Blanc on the other side of the valley. After my 13-mile hike with 5,600 feet of climbing, I could almost understand again this strange pull PTL seems to have on a select few crazies who try it more than once. But tonight I received this text message from Beat, referring to the talus slope I skipped and the traverse around Lac Cornu:

"Brutal 40K. The scree sucked and the descent was a mess too. Food and beer and we'll push on. 37th team at the moment. Too fast."

I texted back: "SLEEP!" I doubt he'll listen.

It might be a nail-biter of a week after all.

37

I'm spending Aug. 20 in that sensory deprivation portal that is trans-Atlantic travel. It's half past noon here at the Munich airport, so I think it's my birthday in most places in the world. Nothing like sleep deprivation and lots of coffee to spur a ruminative blog post.

I feel like the universe came down a little hard this year after the hubris of last year's birthday post, where I declared that everything was only getting better with age. 36 hasn't exactly been my year of great health, and yet there's still no hard evidence that my relatively minor issues are age-related or even lifestyle-related. Sometimes people's allergies worsen and they develop asthma in their mid-30s. Sometimes people take several wrist-damaging falls on their snowboard as a teenager, and 17 years later finally incur that last damaging hit that leads to debilitating carpal tunnel syndrome. These things happen. It doesn't necessarily mean I have one foot in the grave.

These health issues did lend some valuable perspective. With my breathing problems, I occasionally feel like a 70-year-old smoker, so now I value good days so much more than I did before. Earlier today ... er yesterday ... right before we drove to the airport, Beat and I did a quick run up the west ridge of Bear Peak. It can be a very short route from our closest trail access — fewer than three miles round trip — but with a segment that gains nearly 700 feet in 0.3 miles, it's a great test of fitness. On Friday morning, the air was cool, misty, and almost autumn-like. I was taking it easy — my heart rate was moderate, breathing steady and relaxed, no gasping. We spent a few minutes at the top gazing over the fog-shrouded prairie. This easy effort turned out to be my PR on this segment that I've run more than a dozen times — sometimes breathing so hard that I became dizzy and had to sit down. Good results on runs or rides no longer seem to indicate how hard I'm working, but rather how well I'm processing oxygen on that particular day. Still, good days are now outnumbering the bad, and I feel more confident every day that my treatments are working (or at least providing an effective placebo effect.)

Because of recent asthma malaise, I've failed to fully acknowledge just how thrilled I am with the results of the carpal tunnel surgery I had in June. I think most people don't realize that carpal tunnel syndrome can be a disabling injury when it becomes severe enough, and my case went from zero to severe literally overnight. I had CTS for all of three months, and during that time I lost most practical use of my right hand. I also developed constant low-level throbbing pain that occasionally escalated to electric shocks. Now that the pain is gone, it's interesting to look back on those three months and realize how much it impacted my daily life. A lot of people live with chronic pain, and I always wondered how they could possibly cope. I know CTS doesn't come close to the worst or even typical level of chronic pain, but it did expand my perspective on living with pain. It's surprisingly easy to absorb it into day-to-day life, until you don't even notice how it affects your mood and daily decisions. No doubt I was developing into a less enthusiastic and more surly person until pain was rather quickly whisked away. I complained during recovery because it wasn't instantaneous, but it was fast enough that I noticed the difference. Now, just two months later, I'm pain-free and back to driving, hand-writing, normal typing, riding my bike, and scrambling class-five rock slabs. I owe it all to CTS surgery. Yay modern medicine.

It also was interesting to quit cycling for four months — my longest break since I a knee injury forced me off a bike for three months in 2007. Cycling is most definitely my "flow" mechanism, and losing that while uprooting everything to move to Colorado was more upsetting than I care to admit. Returning to cycling amid these recent breathing troubles and the stress that causes has been even more disappointing. I find myself avoiding cycling just to avoid the stress. It will be interesting to see where this relationship falls after another month of no cycling, as I'm unlikely to gain access to a bike in Europe.

And now I've spent all these words blathering about my health again, when I meant to write about the two major things that actually happened to me this year — moving to Colorado with Beat, and fulfilling a long-time dream of riding a bike to Nome on the Iditarod Trail. The seeds for this dream sprouted more than a decade ago, and occupied more space in my head than I care to admit. But it seemed impossible then, it seemed impossible every year since, and it seemed the most impossible when I stood at the starting line on Knik Lake. I'd just had too many setbacks in preparation, my training seemed inadequate, I had asthma concerns then, and the crash that left my hand mostly immobilized happened on the first day. That fact that Nome was so impossible, and happened anyway, became a magical experience. The incredible memories from the Iditarod balance out anything negative that happened this year, and then some.

And of course there's Colorado. I'm excited to be here (or there, I suppose, as I'm in Munich right now.) I still dream about returning to Alaska, and I'm not sure that desire will ever go away. But Beat and I are happy to be anchored in Boulder, where we find the best of most worlds — a beautiful place to reside, people who share our values and passions, private space, trail access out our front door, a 25-minute but nicely scenic commute to town, access to good health care, desirable and lucrative work for Beat, mountains and more mountains. I suspect the climate and possibly altitude of Colorado has contributed heavily to my asthma woes, but I'm still optimistic there's a way around all of this. Beat says he doesn't miss the Bay Area at all. I do, just a little, if I'm being honest. We made some great memories there. I miss the trail-running community, and friends, and the redwoods. And I miss Montebello Road — my go-to road bike climb. I want to return to California in November for the 100 Miles of Nowhere. Beat thinks I should substitute Flagstaff Road. But he doesn't understand. It's not the same.

My work is going well. I contract for an Alaska newspaper publisher who recently acquired the Homer Tribune — the weekly newspaper where I worked in 2005-2006. It's a little to surreal to return to the Tribune after a decade, still working with two people I worked with back then, and most everything about it is pretty much the same. Community news is a passion of mine. I believe it's vitally important, even though the tough economics of producing newspapers pushed me out of the business and then out of Alaska. This publisher has made it work, and I'm honored to play a small part. It keeps me connected to community news and connected to Alaska. Someday I will visit Barrow, and Dillingham, and Unalaska ... since I've been editing and sometimes writing about these places for three years now.

And, speaking of the Homer Tribune, the book I wrote about Homer is doing reasonably well. Between Kindle sales, paperback sales, and the Amazon lending library, I've distributed the equivalent of nearly 5,000 copies of "Becoming Frozen" since its Aug. 17, 2015, release. This is the first time I enrolled in Amazon's lending library, and I'm impressed with the program — basically, readers pay a flat rate and authors are paid a small amount for every page read. So it's low-risk for readers, and authors only get paid if people actually read their work. No tricky marketing schemes or $25 hardback duds here. It's the great democratization of the book publishing industry. Yeah, it's probably a good deal for Amazon as well. I still think everybody wins.

I like the idea of aiming to produce a book every year to increase this baseline, which is a bit like having a salmon wheel picking up fish for you when you're not even working. I have a few more ideas for autobiographical projects that may be entertaining enough to snag page reads in the lending library. It's clear I enjoy working in autobiography — not because I think my life is so uniquely interesting or worthy of intensive documentation (although I thrive on intensive documentation all the same), but because as a writer I aim to depict authentic experience. Some writers do this well through fiction, but it's much harder, and that's one of the reasons I mainly read nonfiction. So far, my ventures into fiction have been lackluster, and my efforts with biographical nonfiction have been somewhat frustrating (the book I co-wrote with Tim Hewitt was a great experience. I am having more issues with the Ann Trason project, which I don't really want to delve into right now.) I'm sure I'll branch out eventually, but right now I still have a few more stories to tell.

So, finally, the next book ... it's close to done. My editor has most of the copy and I'm planning on an Oct. 1 release. Here's the working cover:

This book is the about my March 2016 ride across Alaska, and all of those setbacks leading up to it. Thematically, it's a perfect sequel to "Be Brave, Be Strong." I've always wanted to develop a photo book, and I'm finally doing it with this one. It's a full ~70,000-word narrative with more than 200 illustrating photos. Such an endeavor is not super-cheap to produce, but I'm planning to sell the full-color signed paperback for $29.95 directly through my store. This will likely be a limited release, and the retail/Kindle version will come a bit later. If you are interested in pre-ordering the photo version, there's more information at this link: http://www.arcticglasspress.net/agp/?p=216 

So that's my long-winded, jet-lagged birthday update. I'm really looking forward to 37, and if all goes well, more of this:

Thanks for checking in.

Outside looking in

 Recently I had an enlightening e-mail conversation with another cyclist about self-defining tenets and the unsettling experience of losing these pieces of our identities. People who identify as athletes are endlessly vulnerable to health setbacks, injuries, changes in circumstance, and aging — while clinging to the belief that "there are no limits," "you can do anything you set your mind to," "you just have to work for it."

Reconciliation of desire and reality seems to be the key — of course there are limits, but our experiences are beautiful regardless. Over the years, I've observed this process in friends and acquaintances. There was always some hubris in believing it wouldn't happen to me, or if it did, I'd be fine because I was already secure in my belief that there's so much more to life than scaling mountains and riding bikes. But now I'm in a summer of discontent, losing fitness in spite of my best efforts, avoiding mountains because I've lost so much faith in my abilities, and imagining what life might actually look like on the other side.

It's interesting to consider the notion of "letting go," even if I haven't arrived there yet. People around me still insist "you'll get it back," and for the most part I still believe this, too. My recent bout with carpal tunnel syndrome provided its own perspective — I was rapidly losing function in my right hand, I was constantly in pain, and it felt like a permanent condition. If it wasn't for surgery, it likely would have been a permanent condition. Instead, it was a surprisingly simple fix, and two months later, my hand is almost back to a hundred percent — or, at least it would be if I was more diligent about strengthening exercises. Maybe in two months more time, I'll be breathing just fine, I'll spend long days outdoors while feeling great the whole time, fire will again rage where right now there are only fumes, and I'll wonder why I ever lost the faith.

For now, I still have good days and bad. The good days are starting to outweigh the bad. On Friday I embarked on an incredible bike ride — incredible only because it was the first ride since winter where I finally felt reasonably strong, didn't crash, didn't wheeze, didn't stop to take puffs from my inhaler, and propelled myself through forty miles of interesting scenery. I pedaled past beautiful rock formations on Magnolia, side-eyed strange characters in Nederland, stole glimpses of big mountains on the Peak-to-Peak Highway, breathed crisp air on the Switzerland Trail, and tucked into a screaming descent toward the plains on Sugarloaf Road. It was a satisfying ride, and reminded me that my identity isn't tied up in being an athlete. It's tied up in loving the outdoors. My vision of the "other side" doesn't contain imagery of working out in gyms and indoor activity. Instead, I imagine painting landscapes and going for walks — if necessary, finding less taxing ways to enjoy the outside world. Still, if I can engage my body in exhilarating activity while moving through the world, that would pretty much be having it all.

Of course, on Saturday I went for a ninety-minute run that went so badly, Beat had to come pick me up in the car before I made it home. This gasping dizziness I occasionally experience is exactly why I'm not willing to take any big chances right now — even hiking up a fourteener seems risky. So when our friend Chris Plesko invited us on a scrambling excursion in the Flatirons on Sunday morning, I dug for any excuse to get out of it. "My hand is still too weak." "What if I get dizzy on a wall?" These were legitimate concerns, but ultimately I decided to join.

Chris guided us on a short practice climb on the First Flatiron, and then we hiked over the the Second Flatiron for a classic route called "The Freeway." This 600-foot slab ascent is rated 5.0, and thus was one of my first forays into fifth-class terrain — but it's been a long time since my initial top-rope outings in Little Cottonwood Canyon back in 2002. What's beautiful about this route is that in addition to confidence-inspiring natural features, there are plenty of exits. It's a great route for beginners, which Beat and I undoubtedly are. We're both tentative on exposed terrain and I'm prone to vertigo, but Chris was a helpful and patient guide.

Near the summit, we arrived at a needle that required a four-foot jump onto a forty-five-degree slab. I couldn't bring myself to make the leap, so Beat and Chris offered their shoulders so I could lower myself down. In the process of putting all of my weight on a few curled fingers, my right hand cramped up badly and never recovered. There was one more pitch after the jump that was the steepest pitch of the climb, and I was reeling with muscle cramps in my hand and a beginner's unwillingness to trust friction to hold my feet. Chris offered a lot of support and I'm grateful for his guidance. This was a solid venture out of my comfort zone, and it was very satisfying to reach the top. Scrambling "The Freeway" and riding from home to the Switzerland Trail feel like big victories near the end of a rather disappointing summer.

Maybe I'll get it back, but even if I don't, life is still awesome. 

Forcing my way through August

I was 1.5 miles into a bike ride on Wednesday when I stopped to take a couple of puffs from my inhaler and pull a buff over my mouth. It was 89 degrees with a strong wind. Dust was swirling through the air, which has become such a trigger that I've learned to viscerally react to it as though it were poison gas.

"I should probably turn around," I thought. But it was a rare occasion when I finally talked myself into getting on the bike. The previous days, there had been excuses. "I have too much work to do. I need to go to town today, so I should just run Sanitas. I did so well running up Bear Peak yesterday, so I should do that again."

As I lingered on the gravel road pullout debating how I could justify cutting this ride short at mile 1.5, another insidious thought popped into my mind:

"What if I'm becoming someone who just doesn't like riding bikes anymore?"

Yeah, so, that ... my fitness right now is poor for several reasons, and getting back into cycling after four months off has been tough. I know how lame it is to avoid something just because it's tough, but for so long the effort of cycling has felt so natural. Now that it's not, I've become bewildered and frustrated. I'm not having fun so why should I bother? It's interesting to observe these knee-jerk emotions through the scope of my wider experience.

With my current breathing issues, I have good days and bad. Over the weekend I did two runs up Bear Peak that went quite well. I've been monitoring heart rate to assess exertion levels versus shortness of breath symptoms, and both times on Bear Peak my heart rate hit the high 170s before I felt winded. On Sunday, I joined Beat for a two-hour ride that started horribly but improved toward the end — strangely, on the steepest pitch of Flagstaff Road, where my lungs opened up and my speed actually improved over flatter sections. On Monday I ran a five-mile loop over Mount Sanitas — which starts 2,000 feet lower than my Bear route — and became wheezy when my heart rate hit 151. I took a few inhaler hits and managed the rest of the run okay, but never saw anything near 178. During the Wednesday bike ride, I was also in the low 150s when I felt overly winded and needed to stop just two minutes into a climb.

So, it's been a little all over the place and I can't really blame biking. It's just disappointing to have such low motivation levels and find myself making all kinds of excuses for activities I used to love, in beautiful and exciting new places where I'm lucky to live — just because I don't feel great when I'm doing them.

For that reason I forced myself farther into the Wednesday afternoon ride, climbing and descending seemingly endless steep dirt roads while gasping through snot and tears. Oozy face is another reaction I have to allergies. Really, my sneezing, watery eyes and congestion were never this bad in California, even ignoring more recent asthma issues that also affected me there. Something here in Colorado just really doesn't like me. And I assuredly don't like it. I wasn't having fun on this ride, and wanted to quit. But that question — "What if I'm becoming someone who just doesn't like riding bikes anymore?" — was more disturbing than my symptoms, and propelled me forward.

I dropped toward Gross Reservoir as thunder rumbled overhead. This storm moved in quickly — just a half hour earlier the sky was blue. Clouds opened up and for five minutes it rained hard, tamping down the dust and cooling the air. It continued to sprinkle, and for the rest of the ride I felt considerably better. Drawing cool, moist air deep into my lungs felt incredible — I could actually feel a substantial difference between breathing deeply, and whatever it is I do the rest of the time. It's as though I subconsciously stifle my breathing when there's "poison gas" in the air, taking shallow little breaths that leave me feeling oxygen-deprived.

Anyway, between monitoring the pollen forecast and my heart rate, detecting absolutely no difference when altitude changes, and the considerable positive effect of rain — I'm now 95 percent convinced that my breathing issues are allergy related. Either that, or there's a strong placebo effect in believing they're allergy related. I'm now 14 days into my new allergy treatments, which need time to take effect.

I also only have one more week to endure August in Colorado. Beat and I leave a week from Friday for our annual trip to Europe. It will be quite interesting to test my fitness there. Beat is again racing both PTL and TDG, but I don't have anything planned this year. It will be the first time since 2011 that I don't have some crazy mountain race on my calendar (I have finally for the most part conceded that crazy mountain racing isn't really my thing, even if I were healthy and fit.) I was going to join an English acquaintance for a fast-packing-type hike around last year's Ultra Trail du Mont Blanc course. He recently sustained a serious knee injury, so we had to cancel the trip. I have been quite disappointed about it, even though I'm not sure I'm fit enough to attempt this 104-mile route in three to four days (the UTMB limit is 46 hours, which I discovered is a tight cutoff for me on this steep and often technical route. 72 hours when you're planning to sleep is not much more.) Still, it was the endurance element of this trip that really had me looking forward to it. Admittedly my friend did most of the planning and I don't have much to go on if I decide to head out solo. I'm still considering it — just download my GPS track and maps from last year's race, bring a sleeping bag and bivy sack in case all of the refuges are booked up, and hope for the best. After three years of trying (2012 finish on a shortened UTMB course, 2013 DNF in the PTL, and 2015 DNF at UTMB) I have yet to make a full loop around Mont Blanc, and I swear this will haunt me until I finally do it. But my odds aren't great this year either so ... we'll see.

Of course I'm still excited for this trip, even if I just dawdle around on day hikes. I'm hoping that by having no crazy mountain races in which to horribly fail, I will be stronger and more stoked when I return to Colorado in September. At that point, I need to really focus on winter training if I want to have any hope for my hardest endeavor yet — the Southern Route of the Iditarod Trail.

First, I need to get farther than 1.5 miles into a bike ride without feeling like crap. I remain uncertain, but cautiously optimistic.