Jill Outside

Tired legs 50K

2012-01-29T23:31:00.000-08:00

The alarm rang out at 5:15 a.m., which was of course about three and a half hours after I finally fell asleep. I glanced over at Beat, hoping he didn't hear it, or maybe he would decide sleep was worth skipping the race today. No such luck; he groaned and rolled out of bed, so I made a move to do the same. My legs hit the carpet with an audible thud that seemed to say, "Um, you're not really going to go through with this, are you?"

"Look, it's only thirty miles. It will be over before you know it."

"We hate you. You know that, right?"

"I think hate is a strong word, don't you?"

"No. No we don't. You already overworked us with fourteen hours of biking and running this week. And 18,000 feet of climbing. Why are you doing this to us?"

"Look, we're all going to feel so much worse during the Su100. This will be good practice for the real deal. I need this kind of practice to stay mentally strong when the going gets tough. You two, well, you can do what you want. But I'm going to the Steep Ravine 50K."

"We hate you."

We drove to Stinson Beach with our friends Harry and Martina, who were also running the 50K (Harry placed in the top ten and Martina finished strong even though she wanted to quit just as much as I did.) It was an absolutely beautiful morning. Sunrise washed the sky in pink light, ocean waves rolled gently along the beach, and a thick film of frost coated the ground — evidence of a pristine clear night that carried the promise of a warm day. The fifty-kilometer course featured four huge climbs and equally huge descents, utilizing a lot of rugged redwood forest singletrack, with about 7,000 feet of climbing total. Easy peasy, right legs? Right? But my legs were no longer on speaking terms with me. The silence was deafening as we started the slow plod up the Steep Ravine Trail toward.

My legs weren't the only thing that felt awful on Saturday morning. My stomach joined the protest and lurched through the first climb. Including one restroom break, it took me more than an hour to knock out the first four miles. I took a short break at the aid station near the top of Mount Tam, and I'm pretty sure I was one of the last runners to leave. By mile five, I had already fallen into "epic mode," which is what I call my mind's semi-subconscious coping mechanism for dealing with hard efforts. Epic mode is actually — initially at least — a rather pleasant feeling, a sort of out-of-body sensation with tinges of bliss. I floated down Mount Tam, happily absorbed in a stream of shallow observations: "The ocean is so blue. The sky is blue, too. Wow, I can see San Francisco! That hill is pretty."

If only epic mode could last forever. Unfortunately, it can not, and mile five of a 50K is not a good place to use it up. By aid station two, about mile eleven, I had descended all the way into grumpy mode, and a long, flat, runnable stretch that made my hamstrings burn did not help. My mood darkened even more during the climb, where, while working at what felt like near-maximum effort, other racers started to pass me. See, where I fall in with the pack, people almost never pass me during ascents. I get passed like I'm standing still on the downhills, and still I often catch and pass these same people on the climbs. Climbing is the one thing I can do. Now my stubborn legs were even botching that task. I tried to motivate the limbs, but they had no sympathy; they just burned with anger and refused to do anything but the bare minimum.

During the second descent, I started to feel a strange electric shock of pain behind my right knee. I thought it might be a pulled or torn muscle, and I stopped several times to massage it. The sharp pains became frequent enough that I had to walk nearly backwards down a long series of stairs. I contemplated the wisdom of quitting at the next aid station. After all, this was just a silly training race. Then I met Beat about mile from the thirty-kilometer turnaround. "This is really hard," I whined. "My legs hate me." He urged me to take Advil. I mumbled a wishy-washy "soon." He said, "no, now," and pulled a few pills out of his pack. I never give Advil credit for actually working, but sure enough, my tight hamstrings began to loosen up at the turnaround. As a general rule, any pain that Advil can kill is not that serious. So I really didn't have a good reason to quit at 30K. Shoot.

Then I started to perk up. The next four miles of climbing on the Steep Ravine Trail felt significantly easier than it had the first time. "See, legs, this is what we need to learn. A little fatigue and pain is not the end and the world. We can go far on fumes."

My legs remained unconvinced. After a slow descent, the fourth and final climb brought extreme sleepiness. I had to shift the mental battle from the lead legs to my heavy eyelids. With fewer reinforcements, my feet succumbed to the fatigue and I shuffled my way into the wrong side of a tree root, tossing my whole body to the ground. Luckily no serious injuries, but afterward my shoulder ached and my right shin was smeared with blood. This was really not my day. But that's one of the purposes of training, isn't it — to go out and occasionally endure bad days just to remind yourself that not everything about your hobby is sunshine and rainbows. This is the only way to continually grow stronger in our hobbies, and subsequently in our lives.

Photo by Coastal Trail Runs

Since my chosen games are mostly mental, I need the hard days to build mental strength. My legs didn't care. Legs don't have mental strength. They only knew they hurt and really needed rest, and why couldn't I just stop and rest? I finally stumbled into the finish after seven hours and sixteen minutes. My face and posture in this photo effectively tell the story, I think. I was one tired puppy. (GPS track here)

It was all just part of the plan for "peak training week." From Sunday to Saturday, I ran 70 miles with 16,500 of climbing, and biked 66 miles with 8,600 feet of climbing, for a total of 25,100 feet of climbing and 21.5 hours of time wasted completely wearing myself out. And I finished two ultramarathons. It was a good week.

I planned to take a rest day today, I really did. But it was a Sunday and a beautiful Sunday at that, and it didn't take much for Beat to coax his friend Liehann and I out for an afternoon mountain bike ride. My legs were still plenty angry, although not really hurting anymore, so I again had no excuse to stay indoors. I planned to whine and dawdle the whole way through the ride. But as luck would have it, we bumped into a couple at a stoplight who were interested in the Fatback, which Beat was riding. "My girlfriend rides it in crazy snow races in Alaska," Beat explained to them. The man looked at me and said, "Are you Jill?" Turns out we were chatting with Forest Baker, another fellow Tour Divide finisher (Forest raced in 2010.) Since only a few hundred people in the world have attempted this race, it was quite random to bump into one of them "just riding along." We all rode up Montebello Road together at a nice chatty pace, which was still close to my personal max. But it was fun to run into another endurance bike nut. He lives nearby in Sunnyvale and is planning to race the Arizona Trail 350 in April, so hopefully we will plan some long training rides together this spring.

Monday = rest day. I promise, legs. No really, I mean it this time.

Danni's playlist

2012-01-26T22:24:00.000-08:00

I've been working hard this week to make my legs as tired as possible. I only took enough time off on Monday to work out some kinks from Sunday's 50K trail race, such as the minor calf strain. I was up bright and early on Tuesday for a three-hour mountain bike ride (30 miles and 3,500 feet of climbing) and again on Wednesday for a hard-effort road climb (18 miles and 2,500 feet of climbing.) I went for an eight-mile trail run today (1,700 feet of climbing) and am planning another road ride tomorrow before another 50K on Saturday. This is my big week and this is my strategy — push just to the edge of exhaustion, incorporating cross-training to avoid injury, before an adequate period of recovery. This way I re-learn what it's like to run far on tired legs, and hopefully my muscles do too, because that's what the Susitna 100 is going to be like — tired legs, really tired legs, for a really long time.

Luckily, motivation is running high right now. My friend Danni in Montana, who is also currently in training to run the Su100, recently send me a playlist of awesome music for training. She listed each song, a few lyrics that reminded her of the race and an explanation of why she included them. For "Sail" by AWOLNATION: "This song because we have ADD, which is in part the reason for doing things like the Susitna." And "Hey Hey" by Dennis Ferrer: "This song because I could blame you for my Su habit ... It's all because I walked your way, and I should have known to stay away."

As I was pedaling to the lyrics of this song, I almost yelled out loud, "Hey, Susitna was your fault!" Actually, it was the fault of one of Danni's playlists. It was the summer of 2010, and I was preparing for TransRockies, a mountain bike stage race. Danni sent me a training playlist, and on it was the song "D.A.R.E." by the Gorillaz. I was already contemplating dipping my toes into the intimidating whirlpool of ultrarunning, and there was the song I had come to associate with my first-ever crazy endurance experience, riding my bike in the 2006 Susitna 100. "I should enter the Susitna and run it," I thought. "It will be so painful and so glorious." Afterward, I told Danni about my flash of inspiration and she admitted she had been contemplating the Susitna 100 for years. After several weeks of mutual goading between the two of us and another new friend of ours, Beat, we all signed up for the 2011 race together.

Now Danni and I are going back for the glorious and painful 2012 edition. I'm still digesting Danni's Susitna playlist (and she may not want me to share it publicly), but it did get me thinking about songs I would include on a Susitna-specific playlist. Songs with a good tempo, but not too manic, with lots of references to running and walking, self-punishment, and discovery. I also tried to keep the music more upbeat, as Danni's 2011 race took a turn for the worse when her melancholy playlist plunged her into an irreversible cycle of despair. "I've learned the hard way that my normal sad music is like poison to the weary and tired mind after a while," she wrote in her song notes.

So here is my Susitna playlist for Danni. The links will take you to a YouTube video in case you're curious and want to hear the song. I also included the lyrics that remind me of the Su. It's turned out to be a motivating mix, for me at least. I downloaded the playlist onto my Shuffle before my trail run today, and knocked out a by-far personal best on my usual Rancho route (Finishing in 1:20 what usually takes 1:30 to 1:35) Now I just need to figure out how to burn a CD and send it to Danni.

Jill's Susitna 100 training playlist:

"The Sun"  The Naked and Famous
Here it comes ... the unavoidable sun ... weighs my head ... and what the hell have I done?

"Zero"  Yeah Yeah Yeahs
Try and hit the spot ... get to know it in the dark ... get to know whether you're crying, crying, crying, oh ... can you climb, climb, climb higher?

"You Do Run"  Cocktail Slippers
You're gonna run until you can not run no more ... You are still fighting, tell me what you're fighting for.

"Specialize" Tor with Sufjan Stevens, Pete Rock and CL Smooth
I only use this type of style when I choose it ... I speak for the hardcore.

"Something Is Not Right With Me" Cold War Kids
Something is not right with me! Something is not right with me! Something is not right with me!
I'm trying not to let it show.

"Walk" Foo Fighters (Side note: This music video is hilarious)
To keep alive ... a moment at a time ... But still inside ... a whisper to a riot ... To sacrifice ... but knowing to survive ... The first to climb another state of mind.

"Alina's Place" Fredrik
Silly old parade ... where food gets thrown away ... digestive ill behavior forming.

"Little Lion Man"  Mumford and Sons
Rate yourself and rake yourself ... Take all the courage you have left ... Wasted on fixing all the problems that you made in your own head.

"You, Me, and the Bourgeoisie" The Submarines
It's time to be so brutally honest about ... The way we know we long for something fine ... When we pine for higher ceilings ... And bourgeois happy feelings.

"Higher Devotion" Jimmy Eat World
The quiet should be nice but isn't ... I guess we're going to spend the day like this ... In psychic screaming.

"Gimmie Sympathy" Metric
We're so close to something better left unknown ... I can feel it in my bones.

"Kilojoules" Freelance Whales
Well I've been making ... Some cold calculations ... Regarding our body heat ... It's not easy, believe me.

"Wrecking Ball" Mother Mother
I aim to break, not one but all ... I'm just a big ol' wrecking ball.

"History Sticks to Your Feet" Modest Mouse
All those red marks ... on our shoulders ... self back patting ... homemade trophies ... well the path only exists as tiny bricks ... We burn to release all its memory ... I've had enough with rolling boulders ... I want more moss on me.

"Second Song" TV on the Radio
Confidence and ignorance approved me ... Define my day today ... I've tried so hard to shut it down, lock it up ... Gently walk away.

"Not Like Any Other Feeling" The Thermals
When you're ascending you glow ... When you hit a dead end you know ... It's not just a feeling you get ... It's a feeling that you fight against.

"Born This Way" Lady Gaga
(I added this song as a joke for Danni, but it is an awesome song for injecting energy into drab situations.)

Favorite winter gear

2012-01-24T21:44:00.000-08:00

Bella Vista Trail

Early this morning, Beat, Liehann and I rallied for a mountain bike ride before work. For me, it was a sluggish but beautiful ride. Every time I try to exercise first thing in the morning, it seems to take me at least two hours to warm up. Plus, my legs still felt mostly dead after Sunday's 50K run. But it was the most fantastic morning — calm, clear above the valley haze, and warm. Temperatures started at 40 degrees and inched close to 60 before we were done. It's the kind of beautiful, idyllic outing that could make a person forget about cold weather and winter for good — and yet I still think about winter, constantly. Recently, I've received several e-mails and questions about my planned gear for the Susitna 100. It made me think about a few unconventional items that I've discovered after years of trial and error. So for my blog today, I'm detailing my four favorite pieces of unconventional winter gear:

Camelbak vest: Preventing water from freezing is one of the toughest and thus widely-debated problems in winter recreation. Everyone has their own methods, and I've tried a lot of them — from bottles in insulated pouches to wrapping a hydration tube with aluminum insulation from Home Depot. None of these methods worked in the long term. Last year, I purchased a Camelbak Shredbak vest and removed the outer shell, turning it to a light vest with an integrated two-liter bladder. The vest is better than a backpack, because it fits snuggly against my back and there's no risk of chaffing. The hose initially came wrapped in a neoprene sleeve, which I promptly removed. I think those hose sleeves are worse than useless. They only actually insulate down to about 29 degrees, and after that they block access when ice eventually builds up somewhere inside the hose. At least with a naked hose, I can just stick the ice-blocked section in my mouth until it thaws out. I have actually successfully done this in the past with a completely frozen tube and valve. It took a while, but it was worth it.

I wear the vest over my base layer and pile any insulation layers I'm wearing over it, then thread the tube beneath one arm and up through the vest so it rests firmly against my collarbone. This way, the valve is easily accessible, even with mittens, but still well-protected from the cold. Last month in Alaska, even when we were outside for nine hours in minus 30 degrees, I had no issues with ice building up in the valve or tube. In fact, the water only cooled down to a tepid 60 degrees or so, which tasted wonderful (drinking ice water when it's extremely cold outside is about as fun as choking down hot coffee in 100-degree heat.) Two liters is plenty of volume for the Susitna 100, which has checkpoints about every twenty miles. The only drawback to this system is that I have to remove all of my insulation layers and the vest to refill the bladder. But in the case of going inside a race checkpoint, I usually do this anyway.

Sierra Designs Gnar skirt

Down skirt: During my final leg in the 2008 Iditarod, while riding my bike from Nikolai to McGrath, I got what I describe as "butt frostbite." It wasn't actually frostbite, but it was a crescent-shaped white blister surrounded by windburned skin just above my cheeks, caused by exposure to minus 20 degree temperatures and a 35 mph tailwind. When I was planning out my gear for that trip, I never considered the possibility that my butt was an at-risk region. In fact, butts are quite susceptible to the cold — if you're a woman.

It's a fact of nature: Women are built to carry more body fat than men, and this fat is concentrated in specific regions of our bodies such as butts, thighs, upper arms, and breasts. Fat is an insulator, but it doesn't insulate itself. When core temperatures drop, our body constricts blood flow to extraneous tissue — in this case, the junk in the trunk. And because fat doesn't generate its own heat the way muscles do, no amount of movement is going to warm it until blood flow returns to normal. Butts that get cold, stay cold. (Note: This is not a scientific explanation, just a theory.) But either way, just like fingers and toes, these parts need extra protection in order to stay warm when the body gets all stingy with heat distribution. Enter the down skirt.

I was not a convert until recently. But it makes so much sense. It snaps around your pants for easy application outdoors, and provides just the right amount of insulation exactly where you need it, while still allowing plenty of room for moisture wicking and movement. I have only used it running, but I believe the shorter skirts would be equally useful on a bike.

Fleece balaclava: This is perhaps the oldest piece of gear I own. I purchased it for snowboarding back in 1997 and inexplicably have not lost it yet. Because it's so old, I couldn't tell you the manufacturer or model, but out of all of the headgear I have tried, this piece remains my favorite. The important features of this particular balaclava are thick polar fleece, a loose fit so it can slide over hats and thinner balaclavas, and an adjustable face piece. I dislike neoprene masks because they're so constrictive, despise wearing tight balaclavas over my face because it's like breathing through a wet rag, and haven't tried any of those fancy air-circulation face masks. But why would I, when the simple solution works? The loose-fitting face piece creates a warm pocket that recirculates my breath and allows me to consistently breathe warmed air no matter how cold it is outside. The warmed air flows upward, which keeps my facial skin, nose and eyes warm. In extreme cold, the drawback is ice buildup. However, because the balaclava is made out of fleece, ice buildup doesn't seem to compromise its insulation value at all. The ice-lashes and snow-brows are annoying, and this system does cause goggles to fog to the point of uselessness. In windy conditions, I have no choice but to switch to goggles and a neoprene face mask.

VaprThrm high-rise sock

Vapor barrier socks: The concept of vapor barrier is simple — conserve heat by blocking evaporative heat loss. A completely non-breathable fabric creates a kind of micro-climate for the body part it's wrapped around, trapping moisture and heat in the thin layer of air between the fabric and skin. The jury is still out on how well vapor barrier systems work for jackets and pants, but I love my vapor barrier socks. I use the RBH Designs insulated sock on top of a pair of moisture-wicking Drymax socks and a pair of fleece socks. I believe the Drymax socks hold moisture away from my skin, the fleece both insulates and wicks moisture, and the vapor barrier contains moisture and heat so ice can't build up inside my Gortex shoes. I have no idea if that's what's really happening, but consider this: I finished the Susitna 100 last year, and trekked 90 miles in three days this year using this system without a single blister or cold feet. And I've had frostbite in the past, which makes my toes especially susceptible to the cold. So I think I'll stick with this system.

So there you have it, four pieces of gear that I may never give up (of course, I'm always waiting for something better to come along.) And just in case this post made you feel overly chilled, I have more photos from my mountain bike ride today:

Picking up speed on the Steven's Creek Canyon trail.

Ah, January.

Weekend at the races

2012-01-23T00:16:00.000-08:00

Four more weeks until Susitna, five until Iditarod. Beat has been busy with work and also inventing gadgets that will be useful or at least interesting during his big Alaska race, such as a thermometer that logs constant temperature readings on an SD card, customized maps for his GPS, and even his own primaloft skirt (this skirt is actually coming together quite well. Although he could find a women's skirt in his size, I think maybe he believes it will be more manly of he sews it himself. Oh, wait.) Actually, sewing does allow him to customize the skirt around the manly regions he wants to protect in the cold. But, either way, his work projects have already necessitated sticking closer to home on weekends. I doubt I'll see any more snow or cold temperatures before I return to Alaska, not that I believe this really matters. In a way, running on snow is like always running uphill, so what better way to train than on steep dirt trails in California? Yeah, still a stretch. But the "training" continues to be enjoyable, all the same.

On Saturday, Beat and I drove up to Walnut Creek for the Coastal Trail Runs Blazer Awards luncheon, so I could bask in the distinction of being the top point-earner in the women's 50K division in 2011. Coastal Trail Runs awards competitors points based on where they place in the race. In a tradition I can get behind, the Blazer Awards reward volume over speed. I ran four Coastal races last year and won three, for a total of 87 points. (This is also the luck of the draw. Some of Coastal's races are stacked with faster women, while I was the *only* woman running the 50K distance in one of the races that I "won.") No matter, I will accept my reward mug, medal and performance T-shirt gratefully. Thank you, Coastal organizers and volunteers, for a great year of racing.

I enjoy taking starting-line self-portraits, because the other runners in the photo always look so serious.

On Sunday, Beat and I headed out bright and early for our long "training" run at a fifty-kilometer race in Pacifica. The Brooks Falls 50K was the inaugural race of a new trail-running organization, Inside Trail Racing. This now makes three full-time trail-racing organizations that host ultra-distance races in the San Francisco Bay area. This means there's at least one local 50K race most weekends of the year. It's really quite remarkable, even considering the population of this region, that the trail-running community can support so many different events. I am well aware of the drama that some of these businesses are embroiled in, and don't feel the need to comment on it on my blog. But I for one support higher volumes of trail running; organizations and races are always great for getting people excited and involved. I wish Inside Trail Racing the best of success in their new venture. They did a great job with the Brooks Falls 50K. A large number of volunteers, photographers and cheerleaders showed up to work for eight hours in the 55-degree, rainy, windy weather.

The course was well-marked, although I made a few early mistakes. Amid the sometimes drenching rain and mud-slicked trails, I was so nervous about falling on my bad arm (and face) that I spent a lot of time looking at my feet and missing the ribbon markers. I overshot one turn on the descent from Montara Mountain by nearly a half mile, and probably would have run all the way to the ocean if a Good Samaritan non-race runner didn't chase me and another guy down and turn us around. I made up for my extra bonus mile by misreading another marker and accidentally cutting the course. We ran two loops on Montara and I came up with nearly equal distance readings on both routes. I did disclose my mistakes to the volunteers, and I know I wasn't the only one (from what I saw and heard, there were several creative variations of the Montara Mountain loop.) ITR was nice enough to still list me with the finishers, and I did finish with 31.2 miles on the GPS.

But amid my wrong-way course-cutting, I passed Beat without either of us knowing it, and was surprised to see him behind me when he caught up to me near the end of the second loop. We ended up mostly sticking together for the rest of the race, which was was uneventful but fun. The wind and rain added a touch of drama to the day, with cold blasts of air on the ridge, dynamic noises in the trees, and a steady drenching of rain at times. But for the most part I kept a steady "Susitna" pace (only in terms of exertion, certainly not speed. I can only dream of "running" as fast at Susitna as I can run up a 15-percent grade.) I had no issues save for mild side stitches and a slight straining of a calf muscle when I tried too hard to run uphill (even though I know, by now, that I can pretty much speed-hike at nearly the same pace.) I clocked 7,700 feet of climbing on my GPS. This was a dangerous course in that there's a lot of climbing but nearly all of these trails are runnable, both up and downhill, and I was full of energy and feeling good. My hips, which are needed for sled-dragging, really hurt after the last 50K I participated in, in which I at least jogged nearly all of it. This time, I was smart and dialed it back when I needed to. I have a bigger fish to fry next month.

It was a fun weekend with the trail-running community.

So I got into UTMB

2012-01-20T23:12:00.000-08:00

This morning, I received an e-mail from Les Trailers du Mont-Blanc:

Bonjour Jill HOMER,
Le tirage au sort a été effectué et nous avons le plaisir de confirmer votre inscription à la course UTMB®! Vous devez maintenant finaliser votre inscription, à partir du 20/01/2012 et avant le 30/01/2012.

In my just-woke-up bleariness, I spent at least two minutes trying to decipher the French words that I've never known how to read. Not that I needed to. I knew what that exclamation point at the end of the first sentence meant. It meant the race lottery came out in my favor. Oh, crap.

So what is UTMB? It's a 166-kilometer foot race around a popular hiking trail that circumnavigates Mont Blanc, beginning and ending in Chamonix, France. The trail ascends and descends more than 9,400 meters (30,800 feet) — which, in the popular vernacular of describing a boggling amount of elevation gain, is a little higher than the ascent from sea level to the top of Mount Everest. Ultra Trail du Mont Blanc takes place each year at the end of August, and is probably the largest ultra-distance trail-running race in the world. For the past three years the limit of 2,500 people have started the race. Typically about half that number finish.

So why the low finisher rate? Because the course is hard; I think harder than most newcomers who have painstakingly studied the elevation profiles would even expect. From the little that I've followed this race in the past two years (and it was cancelled because of bad weather in 2010), it seems the overwhelming reason for most of the drops is a tendency to go out too fast, and then physically blow up or mentally give up somewhere along the way. These trails are just steep, rugged, relentless, and mean, which are actually my favorite kind of trails — to hike.

The idea came to me last September as I was following Beat during the Tor des Geants, an even tougher trail around the Aosta Valley in Italy that is home to a 200-mile race with 80,000 feet of climbing. Even though he was visibly suffering each time I saw him, his eyes would brighten as he shared his latest stories of struggle and triumph. "You should run the TDG," he said to me. "You'd be good at a race like this."

I started to think he was right. Beautiful mountain routes that reward a slow but consistent pace over a long, sleepless period of time (i.e. "scenic slogs") actually are my kind of thing. The entire reason I developed an interest in personally participating in ultrarunning (yes, before I met Beat, but only just) is because I wanted to teach myself how to travel quickly over long distances in the mountains. So far trail running has proved to be a more difficult effort than I expected — I make too many clumsy missteps, struggle with the lack of breaks (i.e. "no coasting"), and I still haven't figured out what makes my feet hurt so much over longer distances. But I do know most of my issues arise from the act of running. When I hike, well, I feel like I can hike forever. Even up very steep hills. In fact, this is one of my favorite things to do.

I have just one strength on foot, and this strength is climbing steep terrain. I also have a huge weakness, and this is descending steep or technical terrain. However, I am gradually getting better at downhill running. The more I practice trail running, the more sure-footed and confident I become. I may not be capable of ripping down steep, rocky terrain yet, but I am already a whole lot faster than I used to be. Rugged mountain races actually play to my strengths more than flatter, faster courses. And because these types of races are difficult for everyone, the cut-off times are more generous. UTMB gives competitors 46 hours to finish. Although the fast guys can scorch the course in just over 20 hours, the overwhelming majority of finishers land in that 35- to 45-hour range. Which means a lot of these people are hiking, at least a lot of the time.

Not that I have any delusion that trying to finish the UTMB in 46 hours or less is going to be a Sunday stroll. I first tried to conceptualize this kind of effort in September during a "long" day hike on part of the UTMB course. I left Courmayeur and climbed to Col de Malatra, then hit up two more cols on my return. I arrived back in town a little less than ten hours after I started, with 26 miles and 11,000 feet of climbing on my GPS — just about the exact ratio of distance to climbing in the Tor des Geants. It had been a somewhat leisurely hike. I stopped and took pictures, and once laid in the grass and ate snacks. But I was tired afterward, and I contemplated the intimidating prospect of actually attempting that same hike eight times over, with very little rest — because that, essentially, was the Tor des Geants.

And the UTMB is essentially that, four times over. When I think about completing my three-col hike four times — running more steps when I had the capability to do so, and not carrying nearly as much weight (since I was training for Racing the Planet Nepal, I hiked with a full 25-pound pack that included three liters of water) — imagining it on those terms, it seems doable. Maybe. Well, at least it's worth trying. Registering for this race began as a joke but I'm glad my name was drawn in the lottery. Not only is it held in a spectacularly beautiful location, but the race itself is an elaborate, outlandishly difficult spectacle that is unlike anything I've ever attempted. This is exactly why I want to do it.

But for now, I have to keep my head in the nearer future, and the completely different but still intensely difficult endeavor of the Susitna 100. I'm planning my last long training run on Sunday, and this afternoon I set out for a training run for that — a simple eight-mile, 2,000-feet-of-climbing loop at my local open-space preserve, Rancho San Antonio. Usually this place is quite crowded with hikers, but the today there were just a handful of cars in the parking lot. It seems the heavy rain and cold wind deterred all but a few hardy trail runners. In the open, sideways rain blew with such force that I couldn't hold my face up, but the mud was deliciously tacky and allowed me to fly downhill. These fast speeds combined with UTMB stoke made me feel incredibly giddy. The other runners I encountered looked similarly stoked, splashing mud and flashing huge grins at me. As I climbed one steep hill, I passed a woman who was descending almost out of control, swinging her arms and shouting, "Is this storm great or what?" You see, people in the Bay Area don't see this kind of intense weather all that often. We were like children playing in weather we weren't allowed to play in, and this made us feel free.

"It's fantastic," I said. "I really love it." And this was true — about running in the rain, about running, period.

I think I'm in for a great adventure at UTMB.

Just the usual ride

2012-01-19T00:14:00.000-08:00

I think every mountain biker has their "usual:" that one route they've ridden considerably more times than any other route. It may actually be their very favorite trail; more likely, it's the best option closest to home. But either way, it's a place to memorize the tiniest details — the ruts and curves, the line through the rock garden, where to let off the brakes and really let 'er rip. And it's a place to be consistently surprised by the bigger picture — a mountain range of clouds hovering over the ocean or red sunlight cast across the hillside. Most riders' regular routes have boring yet endearing names like "Tin Cup" and "The Goose." Mine is called Steven's Creek Loop.

I've ridden it so many times and taken so many pictures of the same vistas. And of course they always look the same because this is coastal California and I'm fairly certain I haven't witnessed a significant change in the landscape in the 11 months I've lived here. But truthfully, I know these hills do change because I'm here often enough to notice the subtle differences. In March the skies were gray and wet; in April and May the hills were brilliantly green. June's heat added hints of gray to the greens. July gave way to the golden age of August, when the sky was so incandescently blue that it almost burned. In October some of the trees shed their withered leaves; those that stayed turned an undaunted shade of Army green. Now the winter grass is brown and brittle. But in the low evening light, the delicate colors come to life.

I set out almost defiantly this afternoon because Wednesday is becoming a good day to go for a mountain bike ride. But truthfully, I wasn't too stoked on riding today because my arm hurt — not the injured kind of hurt, just a bruised and battered hurt. So there was no risk of damage, just irritation. I pulled on my big elbow pad even though I dislike it because it's so stiff that it essentially immobilizes my arm. Right now, a minimal range of motion is a good thing. Still, every bump in the trail felt like a bratty child repeatedly slapping a sensitive bruise just to get a rise out of me. I reached the top of the steep hill where I crashed last August and thought, "I really don't want to descend any more dirt." So I turned away from the usual and mixed it up with an out-and-back. I was happy to be pedaling uphill again.

One of my favorite things about my usual is the fact it's so quiet here. Even after dozens of rides, I still marvel at the fact I can pedal away from my apartment at the edge of a crowded valley and ascend so quickly into the idyllic tranquillity of these hills. The silence here can be almost absolute when I'm not moving; and when I am moving, I can listen to all the sounds mountain bikers love — the purr of my freewheel, crackling gravel, and a gentle percussion of wind. I usually see more deer and osprey than people, and in the winter I often don't see any people. It's come to a point of solitude and familiarity where I often talk to the deer as I pass, like chatting with neighbors. Every once in a while I bump into the more reclusive residents, the bobcats and coyotes.

"Hey, Coyote, how's it going?" The coyotes rarely even bother to feign interest. This one was especially shy. I got off my bike to subtly stalk him and see if I could capture a better photo. Alas, coyotes are more wily than I am, and he knew exactly what I was trying to do after I snuck around a tangle of bushes for a clearer view. He raised his ears and I could imagine him rolling his eyes at me as he stood up and bounded away.

And maybe I followed him up the hillside, because sometimes it's just fun to follow the trail of a coyote.

The sun began to set as I began the long but mostly smooth descent toward home. I noticed a thin film of frost had formed on the road, which was actually kind of exciting because it meant the temperature had dropped below freezing — and this was something new. Of course, it also meant I was woefully underdressed for the next six miles, screaming down pavement at thirty miles per hour.

Happily, I brought my good bike light this time.

Which was perfect for really hammering the frigid but exhilarating descent into the crowded but beautifully lit valley. A giddy grin froze on my face as my fingers and toes went numb. It's just the usual ride, and yet I love it, every time.

Creative running

2012-01-17T22:57:00.000-08:00

My minor maladies often come in bunches, usually convincing me that they're somehow related. Just about the time the swelling on my elbow finally diminished, I came down with a wretched case of likely food poisoning. I spent a long evening and night clutching the toilet and wondering if I had some kind of horrific wound infection from the superficial cuts on my scar. It is humorous what my mind can conjure up when I'm coping with a downturn in my health. By the fourth purging session, I felt extremely dizzy. I laid down on the cold floor and obsessed about flesh-eating bacteria and probable paralysis in my right arm. Honestly, I can be such a hypochondriac. Luckily I know this and keep these delusions to myself until my health starts trending upward again.

Still, arm pain and food poisoning sufficiently punctured my motivation and led to a rather deflated weekend and start of the week. I had big plans to finally hammer out a kind of "deadline schedule" for my 2012 project goals (I am discovering that my journalism background has essentially trained me to only work well under deadline pressure.) But nausea prevented consumption of breakfast and coffee, which led to more dizziness (and sleepiness) and out-of-focus staring at a blank document on my laptop screen. I finally decided my day was shot and I might as well just try to stuff down some simple carbohydrates and go for a run.

This is also the time when "training nerves" start to get under my skin. It's just a little more than four weeks until the Susitna 100. Conventional wisdom tells me that the next two weeks are crucial for hammering out the kinks in my fitness, putting in a couple more endurance-boosting long days outside, and pounding a few more miles on my soft feet. Once it's time to taper I actually feel relieved, because there's really nothing more I can do so I might as well return to my regular happy routine. But for the third and fourth weeks before a big event, I tend to experience low levels of panic that I'm completely unprepared and I need to get my butt in gear.

I didn't want to let an arm boo-boo and a tummy ache completely derail the whole week, but I knew overdoing anything wasn't going to help matters either. I settled for ninety minutes at an easy pace, and of course felt lousy the entire time. It is humorous that I try so hard, when deep down I know that these little training efforts aren't really what will give me the boost I need to finish the Susitna 100. I know that any success I might experience is going to be a triumph of my imagination rather than fitness. I already have the physical ability to drag a heavy sled a hundred miles over soft snow while wearing snowshoes. I nearly did exactly that just three weeks ago, and it wasn't really that hard. Of course doing even the same thing in one long effort is a completely different matter. (It always amuses me when people try to impress the difficulty of a 100-mile trail run by exclaiming, "It's like running four marathons!" Because, really, if it were as easy as running four marathons, there would be a lot more people running fourteen-hour hundies.) Still, it doesn't have to be impossible, either. If I imagine piecing together three thirty-mile days in Alaska, the Susitna 100 suddenly seems imminently more doable. And if I continue to imagine it as doable, it is.

One of my favorite aspects about winter ultras is the fact that even if I wanted to, there's no way I could train for them with any sort of scientific precision. There are too many variables, too many unknowns. My default setting is essentially "unprepared" no matter how well my training went before the race. I have to activate my imagination, think my way through problems, and adapt to unexpected and continuous changes in myself and the environment. It is, in its own way, a creative endeavor, just like writing. Creative running.

Still, physical fitness is the most useful tool in this creative process. And it is crunch time. I guess the best I can do is all I can do. I hope this bunch of minor maladies doesn't come in threes.

Reliable klutz

2012-01-15T23:43:00.000-08:00

Beat and Liehann, trying not to look cold because it was about 40 degrees, drizzling and windy at the ridge.

After a mountain bike crash last August left a quarter-sized crater in my elbow, I started demoing different elbow pads. After all, it took a full painful month of wet-dry bandaging to extract all (or at least most) of the gravel from that thing, and I really didn't want to have to go through that again. I briefly tried a roller blade pad — stiff and inflexible — and moved onto mountain bike armor — hot and uncomfortable. Just before a 25-hour bike race in November, I discovered lightweight pads for basketball players — basically a thin piece of foam on a sleeve. It seemed better than nothing, so I wore them a few times, but it didn't take long before I went back to arms au naturel.

Just as the pain of dragging a sled a hundred miles through frozen Alaska fades all to quickly from memory, I had conveniently forgotten all the ways in which I was kinda miserable for most of the month of August. Laying in bed with my arm propped above my head, unable to sleep ... jogging slowly with my hand in a sling ... not biking at all. All of these memories are still fairly fresh. They should be reminders of why I should wear body armor and maybe just not go outside at all, but memory is a funny thing. It manages to gloss over weeks of teeth-clenching soreness and yet acutely remembers a single moment of getting back on a bike after six weeks off, and how incredibly liberating that felt. Padded arm sleeves, on the other hand, do not feel similarly liberating.

Good thing my friend Martina remembers that I'm a klutz. Before we set out for our planned 18-mile run on Saturday, she pointed to my scar, which was covered with a blood blister I incurred after I smacked my elbow on a bathroom drawer a week ago. "Are you still wearing elbow pads?" she asked. "Uh, yeah," I said, and pulled them on for the first time since November.

It was a hot day for January, nearly 70 degrees, and that's before we hit the oven of Rogue Valley. I rolled the sleeves over the pads but didn't take them off, although I really wanted to, and this is perhaps the first thing that went through my mind at mile 9.5, when, while running uphill along a narrow piece of singletrack cut into a steep slope, I caught my foot on a rock and started going down. My face was headed toward a veritable abyss and all I could think was "good thing I'm wearing elbow pads." Instinct directed me to grasp for the trail before I tumbled down the mountain. My right elbow smashed directly into the rock, scraping along the rough surface as my body slid a couple of inches horizontally down the sideslope.

I pulled myself up quickly and continued running, too filled with klutz's remorse to even stop and assess my pain, which was relatively immense. Martina caught up to me about the time the adrenaline wore off. I couldn't really muster more than a staggering shuffle anymore, so I had to admit I had clumsily tripped and landed directly on my bad elbow. It hurt a lot more than I thought it should. I noticed blood dripping beneath my sleeve. I pulled the pad off and sure enough, my scar looked like rotten hamburger — a mess of torn gray tissue and blood. The joint itself was cut and swollen, and turning a pale shade of purple. "Well," I said with a resigned sort of gratitude, "it could be worse. There's no gravel in there. At least I won't have to go to the hospital for a scrubbing this time."

The wound continued to throb with pain as we tried to catch up to Beat and Harry, who were a ways ahead of us. Beat finally came back down to see what was wrong, and agreed to continue downhill and get our car at home while Martina and I climbed to Black Mountain and walked a shorter route to the road. I was angry with myself. All of those easily forgotten bad memories about August trickled back into my consciousness, and I wondered how much I had set myself back. Would I not be able to ride a bike for a while? Would I have to run with my arm in a sling? Would it hurt too much to run at all? What exactly happens when you rip up scar tissue? Does it ever heal?

For most of Saturday, I was genuinely worried that I had singlehandedly undone five months of careful healing in one clumsy blow. Luckily, it does seem to just be a simple arm bashing rather than a deep wound. The swelling went down and I was feeling better this morning, so I decided to pop a few Advil and join Beat and his friend Liehann for the first paved miles of a long mountain bike ride we had been planning. Even with the full-squish bike on pavement, every tiny jolt caused enough pain that I rode most of the miles slowly with my right arm dangling. I have enough diagnosed nerve damage from the original injury that I'm not exactly sure how the healing will progress this time around. I admit not even the slightest hint of a scab has formed. The new wound isn't deep but it is still bleeding. Still, I remain optimistic that it's just a small setback, hardly worth mentioning, really. Except for this blog post ... because it's kind of a funny story, don't you think?

Afternoon spin class

2012-01-14T00:14:00.000-08:00

Back in late 2004, I had twenty-five extra pounds I wanted to lose and not a lot of enthusiasm for my bicycles (I know, I know. Life was very different for me back then.) I was also an extremely dedicated non-runner. A co-worker listened to my woes and invited me to join her for lunchtime spin class at the Apple Fitness in Idaho Falls. "Her class is hella-hard," she said of the noon class's instructor (this is circa-2004 when people still said 'hella.') "But for seventy minutes a session it will get you in the best shape of your life, I promise."

The instructor was drill sergeant. Her classes were filled with creepy death-metal-electronica fusion music alongside the Gwen Stefani. She screamed in our faces and turned up the resistance knobs repeatedly without asking us if this was okay, and then nodded in stern approval as our knees made horrible crunching noises and our faces locked in a twisted grimace. It was so not my style. But my co-worker was right. Afternoon spin class set me on a road to physical fitness that I haven't turned back from since.

I haven't belonged to a proper gym in years, but that doesn't stop me from occasionally returning to afternoon spin class. These days, I pull out the road bike, tune into motivating pop music like The Naked and Famous, and set on a steady beat toward Monte Bello Road. After a 3.5-mile warm-up, I charge full-bore into the climb as my heart rate shoots to 180. I have five miles to ascend to 2,500 feet. I hit the steep pitches hard, relax on the short descents, and try to tap a little spin class magic by setting my iPod on repeat (I just stand still but it keeps on coming, and I just stop moving but it keeps on coming, it keeps on coming so I start running) The goal is to get to the top before minute 55. My all-time best is 50:21. Someday I'll cut it below 50. I just keep on chipping away at it, still reaching for that ever-elusive best shape of my life.

But the best part about afternoon spin class: The 2,500-foot cool-down. It's a long way down.

2012 goals

2012-01-11T23:33:00.000-08:00

Recently, Beat posted his adventure goals for 2012. It got me thinking about what I want to do in 2012. Below is a list of the events I'm thinking about for the coming year. Most of these are tentative, and I'm sure others that I haven't even thought of yet will become reality. But for now, these are the dreams that get me out the door most every day. My adventure dreams. This post is merely "part one." I'll post about other goals for 2012 soon.

Susitna 100
Foot race, February 18-20
This year will be my fourth showing at the illustrious Susitna 100. I finished the 100-mile "Race Across Frozen Alaska" twice on bikes (a full-suspension Gary Fisher Sugar in 2006 and an old Raleigh with Snowcat rims in 2007. It is possible to ride snow trails without a fat bike. Not well.) Even though I had much better bikes by 2011, I still decided to leave them at home and try my chances on foot. I surprised everybody and myself by finishing, and now I want to go back and try it again. Why do I want to drag a heavy sled 100 miles across the Susitna Valley, yet again? For me, these long winter slogs are very much a mental landscape sort of challenge; one might even call it intense meditation for lack of a better term. Almost regardless of the outcome, I always emerge from my Alaska sabbaticals with a renewed sense of clarity. But I do want to improve on my 2011 finish of 41 hours and 16 minutes, and my main strategy is to avoid the two-hour breaks at Luce's and Flathorn lodges.

White Mountains 100
Snow bike race, March 25
The White Mountains 100 is easily my favorite race, ever. This 100-mile race in the mountains north of Fairbanks, Alaska, takes all of my favorite things about snowbiking: Rolling terrain, winter "singletrack," sweeping vistas, a huge climb up a mountain pass, a white-knuckle descent, cozy checkpoints, tasty hot food, awesome volunteers, potential aurora gazing ... and just enough extreme cold, terrifying overflow, and of course the 800-foot-climb-in-less-than-a-mile-Wickersham-%*$!-Wall to keep it real. I finished in 22:23 in 2010 and 17:55 in 2011. Since I won't be particularly well-trained for snow biking, and since snow conditions always dictate how these things go down anyway, my main strategy for 2012 is to minimize the weight I'm carrying in extra gear, and probably also try to cut down my checkpoint times. However, the overwhelming goal in this race is to have fun.

Stagecoach 400
Self-supported bikepacking race, April 27
I haven't taken on a multi-day mountain biking challenge since I finished the Tour Divide in 2009. Although I've enjoyed my foray into ultrarunning, I admit I miss the independence, freedom and flow that I feel on my bike. So I was excited to learn that Mary Collier, who also previously finished the Tour Divide (in 2008; she is one of the stars of the movie "Ride the Divide") and her husband, Brendan, put together a 400-mile dirt route across Southern California. The loop incorporates historic routes such as the Juan Bautista DeAnza trail and the Great Southern Overland Stage Route of 1849. Since I am now a resident of California, and since the Stagecoach 400 Web site features stunning photographs, I felt compelled to enter. My main concern for participating in this event is the likelihood of extreme heat, given that it swings around the Salton Sea, which is often hotter than Phoenix. But I figure after returning from Fairbanks, some dedicated sauna training will hopefully get me in shape for what will likely be a grand and difficult tour of the state I now call home.

The Zion 50
Foot race, May 11
This race fits in the "maybe" category, and hinges on actually feeling ready for such a thing so soon after the Stagecoach 400, and also on whether Beat decides he wants to run the Zion 100. But the course looks fantastic, through one of my favorite regions, just outside Zion National Park. This would be my first attempt at the 50-mile distance, and I'm guessing a pretty tough one for me. The elevation gain in the 50-mile course is only 3,500 feet, which puts it solidly into the "runnable" category, and the cutoff times reflect that. But it would be a beautiful challenge, and it would give me an excuse to visit my family in Utah.

The Colorado Trail
Bikepacking, July
This one also falls squarely into the "maybe" pile, and actually just popped into my head as a possibility the other day. Beat is planning to spend some time in Colorado in mid-July to acclimate for the Hardrock 100, which begins on July 13. I thought if I went to Colorado with him, and acclimated, I could potentially give the Colorado Trail a shot starting the following week (mid-July.) My plan would be a self-supported fast-tour of the bike route set in place by the Colorado Trail Race, which covers 470 miles and 65,000 feet of climbing. This wouldn't necessarily be an ITT, as I don't really believe I have a shot at Eszter Horanyi's incredible time. But my plan would be to abide by all the self-support rules, carry a Spot, and basically just give myself good excuses to keep the pace cranking when things are going well, and take a breather when they're not. I like the challenge of a determined pace, even if I'm ultimately just out for a scenic bike tour. I've long promised myself I wouldn't try to ride the Colorado Trail, which is known as much for its rugged singletrack as I am known for being a poor technical rider. But I figure if I ever want to see the Colorado Trail, I'll either have to walk all of it or some of it. I might as well ride my bike where I can, and try to enjoy the hike-a-biking as though I were simply hiking. I do enjoy occasionally taking my bikes for long walks. Since this ride would be in conjunction with Hardrock, I imagine I'd start in Durango, which is opposite of the race this year. The Colorado Trail Race begins in Denver on July 30.

Ultra Trail du Mont Blanc
Foot race, August 31
This is a HUGE maybe, given — among the many reasons why I should not attempt this even if I do get in — that there's a lottery with a little worse than two-to-one odds (to be held later this month.) But the truth is, I threw my name in the hat for what is widely considered one of the most competitive and most difficult ~100-mile foot races in the world. The 166-kilometer run around Mont Blanc crosses into three countries (France, Italy and Switzerland) on steep Alps trails with nearly 31,000 feet of climbing. Entering this thing when I have never even successfully completed a much easier trail 100-miler probably comes across as an extreme case of hubris, and it is. I blame curiosity. I was only even on the Web site to check out the much crazier race that Beat signed up for, the La Petite Trotte à Léon (290 kilometers with 22,000 meters of "positive height gain.") The adjacent site for the UTMB offered registration for qualified participants, and I thought, "there's no way I qualify." To qualify, a participant needs five points in two races. I discovered that my finishes in the Susitna 100 (4 points), Racing the Planet Nepal (3 points) and Ohlone Wilderness 50K (1 point) were more than enough to get me through the first cut. Out of sheer bemusement about the idea that a snow slog, a stage race with a heavy pack, and a 50K could qualify me for one of the toughest mountain races in the world, I signed up.

Let me just continue that I do think, with a little luck, I could finish. I would approach it from a speed-hiking standpoint and would aim to move consistently at a conservative but determined pace to stay ahead of the 46-hour cutoff. And believe me, I've done enough hiking in the Alps to understand how incredibly hard this will be. Hopefully all the hike-a-biking I do in Colorado will whip me into shape for the task, but if not, no biggie. Honestly, if I don't get into UTMB, I won't cry about it. I'll just hike the Mont Blanc loop over a much more luxurious four or five days while Beat is racing the PTL.

The Bear 100
Foot race, September 28-29
If I don't get into the UTMB, I'd still like to aim for a 100-mile trail race in 2012. The Bear 100 is ideal for me. It's tough and "climby" enough to be a good fit for a hiker like me, covers a scenic point-to-point route in my home state of Utah, and has the awesome nostalgia factor of being the race where Beat and I had our first "date." I've already run the last fifty miles of the course, so I think the hundred-miler is doable for me, although I would have to practice my running plenty over the summer in order to finish under the cut-off. Plus, my friend Danni is planning on running this race. It should be a lot of fun.

25 Hours of Frog Hollow
Mountain bike race, November 3-4
This is just a fun mountain bike party in the desert near Hurricane, Utah. It's too far in the future to really know whether I could fit it into my schedule, but I like to tentatively plan on being there all the same. I'd love to return as a solo racer and avenge my early-morning meltdown of 2011. However, I'd be thrilled if I could place as high as second, because this race becomes more popular every year. I wouldn't be surprised if a pro or two showed up in 2012. It's still a fantastic way to spend a day with some great people.

Indulgence

2012-01-11T00:19:00.000-08:00

I should know myself better than this by now. I have two very nice bike lights that take all of thirty seconds to mount on the handlebars. However, I often leave these lights at home, on purpose, as though neglecting to bring lights will force me to return at a decent hour. So I leave the bike lights behind, but I do bring a small headlamp and red blinkies, because, you know, safety first.

I was little bit lost in my project today, and failed to noticed the quickly passing hours until it was already 3:04 p.m. Oh, I need to go. Slap on a long-sleeved T-shirt and tights. My running pack from last weekend's trail race and its leftover water, hat, jacket and mittens should suffice for supplies. The responsible side of me just wants to stay at home and keep writing; don't break the flow. But louder voices lodge a compelling protest. You promised we were going mountain biking today. You've been home in warm, sunny California for a week. No more excuses.

Okay, okay. What kind of ride do I even have time for now that it's what, 3:17 p.m.? Sun sets at 5:10. Useable daylight lasts until 5:30. That should at least give me time to tag Black Mountain. I pedal away from my apartment building, mind still crowded with chapter outlines and dialogue. Not that any of that stuff is really all that important, but I admit I sometimes wonder exactly why I feel so compelled to ride my bike. Daily exercise has been such a part of my routine for so many years, through so many major life changes, that I have a difficult time imagining my self identity without it. Exercise serves as both my anchor and my escape, but sometimes I wonder if it's too much of a priority. What is it exactly that drives me to cut the line to my creative juices and redirect all of my energy to simple pedaling? What does mountain biking accomplish for me that words can not?

I pedal up the steep road as guilt about stifled creativity and slow work progress gives way to the blissful mindlessness of hard effort. It's easy to ignore the more oppressive thoughts in my head when so much oxygen is directed to my muscles — one of the side effects of exercise that I cherish. With guilt and worry out of the way, I launch into the trail with renewed enthusiasm, the kind that never grows stale no matter how many times I venture outside for a simple ride. After cresting the mountain top, I briefly remember I was supposed to do something here, but can't remember what that something might be. Warm January air and rich afternoon light prompts me onward to a smooth ribbon of singletrack. The blast of chilled air and swirls of dust put a smile on my face, which is as good a reason as any to tuck in and coast all the way to the canyon.

It's there — twelve miles, 2,700 feet of climbing, and 600 feet of descending later — that I remember what it was I set out to do on this ride: Get home by dark. Wisps of pink light stretching across the sky tell me this is not a likely scenario. But I engage the high gear anyway, and get all the workout I need in twenty red-lining minutes. With my grimace factor on high, the air temperature turns from chilled to raw, and there's only enough oxygen flowing to my brain to register gasps and moans. But the rewards are unmistakable. I reach the top of Black Mountain just in time to watch the vermillion sun slip beneath a sheet of haze over the Pacific. Steeped in pink light and endorphin euphoria, I steal a few minutes of fading daylight to catch my breath.

I pull on all the warm layers in my pack, sip some leftover race water, and switch on my headlamp and blinkies now for good measure, because I'm going to need them soon. I'm not going to make it home before dark, and by the time I shower and eat dinner I'm probably going to be too tired to get any more work done today. And yet, the ride is completely worth it. I should know myself better than this by now.

Recovery run: Crystal Springs 50K

2012-01-08T22:42:00.000-08:00

At the start of the Crystal Springs 50K

I felt weak and a little off-kilter, not unlike the way I felt a month ago after I returned from Nepal. I went for a couple short bike rides, and on Thursday decided it was time to return to running. Since nothing I did in the deep snow and intense cold of Alaska can really be counted as running, it had actually be a while. I ran my standard eight-mile loop. It felt weird. I returned home with my usual attitude that forms after a hiatus of any length — "running is too hard." But it was too late; Beat had already signed us up for the Crystal Springs 50K.

Upon arriving at the start in Woodside, I learned I was currently the female course record holder for the Coastal Trail Runs race. I did not know this, nor did I feel pressured to defend my title (Crystal Springs was a smaller affair in 2010 and 2011, but this year there were 60 people starting the 50K, at least a dozen of whom were women.) But as the "defending champion" I did feel some responsibility to at least show up and give this running race my best running effort. But not too much running, because running is too hard.

The antithesis to my frosty face photos from Alaska — this is what winter running looks like in coastal California.

I hit a few snags early on in the race. I learned why leg warmers aren't more popular with runners after I had to stop several times to pull up my leg warmers after they'd fallen down, then finally just took them off. There were also a couple trips into the woods when something from that morning didn't agree with me — I convinced myself that something was running. But eventually I hit my stride and found myself surprisingly able to hold a solid pace without excessive effort. I'd already decided I was just going to run Crystal Springs "easy" because right now, maintaining my endurance motor is about the only thing I can do to improve my chances in the Susitna 100. Speed will accomplish exactly nothing toward that particular goal.

Everything motored along swimmingly until I passed the last checkpoint, 4.6 miles from the finish. I looked at my watch and realized if I could somehow log sub-nine-minute miles for the rest of the race, I might just reach something that has been a longer-term goal of mine — to finish a trail 50K in less than six hours. The remainder of the course was predominantly downhill, but in my world, that's a bad thing. I think you have to be a similarly flailing and awkward runner as I am to really understand what I mean. Even on flat pavement, seven miles per hour is about my speed threshold before I begin to feel uncomfortable, like my feet are stumbling over themselves and painful things are about to happen, and sometimes they do. Even if they're physically achievable, fast speeds frighten me enough that I'm psychologically incapable of letting off the brakes.

I crested a small hill with my GPS registering a 13-minute-mile, which just wasn't going to cut it. Just then, a song came on my iPod that reminded me of my trek in Alaska, and momentarily moved my thoughts from the vibrant sunlight filtering through the redwood forest, back to the frigid air and frozen swamps of the Susitna Valley — "The Cave" by Mumford and Sons:

It's empty in the valley of your heart
The sun, it rises slowly as you walk
Away from all the fears
And all the faults you've left behind

For a moment I could feel all of it — a hundred miles of snowshoe trekking, a reluctant sled tugging at my hips, lips cracked with windburn, swollen fingertips, a painful patch of dry skin that formed on my nose after I dozed off with my face sticking out of my bivy bag, the cold headaches, the fatigue after my long flight home, the lead weights in my legs during my difficult training run, the 27 miles of consistent running I had already logged that day. And then, in the next moment, I let it all go. And I ran.

But I will hold on hope
And I won't let you choke
On the noose around your neck

I locked in to the frenetic banjo harmony and matched my own cadence, feeling a rush of wind and adrenaline as I accelerated down the narrow, winding trail. A towering redwood canopy filtered the sunlight into a hypnotic strobe, dry leaves erupted at my feet, and I could almost taste the moist aroma of soil and green moss. Even the endless hairpin turns couldn't disrupt the exhilarating sensation of simply running without fear. Who cares if I fall?

And I'll find strength in pain
And I will change my ways
I'll know my name as it's called again

I passed several runners — a guy, another guy, a woman, two guys. One of them called out to me, "Nice pace!" "Thanks!" I shouted back. The trail disappeared beneath my feet like a conveyor belt. I felt like I could run faster, but I had a hunch I was running fast enough. That was good enough for me.

I crossed the finish line at 5:51, a personal record by 20 minutes. (Garmin stats here) I didn't win. Not even in my age group. The woman who did win shattered my course record and beat me by an hour. But it felt like a big victory, all the same.

Symphony of cold IV

2012-01-07T23:31:00.000-08:00

Movement IV, sonata

A wind gust swept shards of snow over the trench as I struggled halfway inside my sleeping bag, trying to kick my pad into place. Loud pops followed small bursts of yellow light on the Shell Lake, about a mile and a half away and a few hundred feet below our bivy spot. I was impressed by the stamina of the children, who for most of the evening had been launching an impressive arsenal of fireworks in shifts — each one lasted about as long as they could stand in the harsh wind and 15 below zero temperatures. But now it was nearly midnight and they were really letting loose.

"Three more minutes," Beat said, his voice muffled inside his own bag.

"This bag is not cooperating tonight," I growled, squinting against another stinging blast of micro-ice.

"Are you going to freeze?" Beat asked.

"Hope not. I'll let you know."

I was nearly inside my bag when I heard Beat say, "It's midnight. Happy New Year."

"Happy New Year, sweetie." I poked my head out of the bivy, sat up, and threw my torso over the wall of my trench like a beached seal. Beat heard me do this, nuzzled his own face out of his down cocoon and strained his body toward mine. With a few more lunges I successfully touched my lips to his. "Happy New Year," I repeated. "Isn't this romantic?"

"Something like that," Beat said, but I saw him smile.

As we nestled in our snug down bags in a shallow snow hole cut into the side of the Shell Hills, 2011 transitioned seamlessly to 2012. The camping trip was really just a bedtime experiment. We had actually spent New Year's Eve in a much more traditional fashion, consuming large quantities of ham and smoked salmon at the Shell Lake Lodge. We played dice with men and women wearing bulky snowmachine overalls, laughed at the children running back inside the cabin with bright red cheeks and blue lips after lighting their fireworks, and listening to a survivalist explain to us in detail the importance of knowing how to build a snow cave, finishing his lecture with the matter-of-fact assertion, "When it's 70 below, and you don't build a cave, you will die. It's not a question. You will die." (That very night, it hit 60 below in McGrath, where the race Beat will be participating in next month ends.)

The huge dinner in the crowded, overheated lodge, followed by doomsday warnings about 70 below, did take the sting off camping at -15 in a -30 windchill just a couple of miles away. I felt downright cozy, and exhausted from our ongoing snowshoe adventures, enough so that when Beat woke up several hours later and proclaimed the experiment a success, I refused to leave. "I like it here," I said. "It's nice. I think I'll stay til morning."

Our weekend in the Shell Hills was idyllic, with subtle reminders of the hardships of winter in backcountry Alaska. We stayed with Anne and her husband, Mike, in a cabin on property they've owned for many years. The cabin was basic by most standards but luxurious by Alaska standards: A single room with a loft and a wood stove in the center, a diesel heater as backup, an outhouse, gas-powered stove and refrigerator (mostly used to "warm" food after a deep freeze), and even a shower in the Arctic entry that utilized a plastic solar shower bag and lake water warmed in a big pot on the stove. Anne and Mike were very kind to let us share their space, and Anne even cooked several delicious meals. During one breakfast that featured eggs, biscuits and reindeer sausage, Beat held up the sausage and said, "So this is what happens to reindeer after Christmas."

On New Year's Eve we trekked up the Shell Hills, aiming to reach a high ridge for a better view of the Alaska Range and Denali. It was mid-day, although you'd never know it by looking at the sky. The wind blew hard, and despite the hard work in deep unbroken snow, I felt more chilled than I had yet during our trip. Before we gained the ridge, we found ourselves neck-deep in a struggle with hidden alder wells, sometimes literally. Anne eventually punched through so deep that she couldn't extract herself. She pulled her gloves off and started clawing at her snowshoes, which were difficult to reach and tangled in branches. Beat and I inched closer, trying to avoid the trap ourselves and establish a good hold for our own weight so we could help her. After four or five minutes we finally had her by the arms, leveraging both of our weight to pull her out. But not before her fingers became painfully cold, and her face was a little white — no doubt processing what she might have done and what would have happened if she had been alone. We turned around.

On New Year's Day, we decided to stick to the established route and hike toward Finger Lake on the Iditarod Trail. We went about five or six miles across wide open swamps with brilliant views of the mountains, then turned around. Despite the sugary trail and ambitious pace, it felt like an easy stroll without the sleds in tow.

We did catch a glimpse of Mount Foraker and Denali in the distance. This was actually the only bluebird day we experienced the entire two weeks we were in Alaska.

We also tried a bit of snowshoe running. Although this was mostly a shakedown training expedition for Beat's ITI bid, I learned a few things that I think will help me during next month's Susitna 100. I've already thought through a few adjustments to my kit and know exactly what I'm going to minimize (this of course will be based on the forecasted weather the night before the race.) I'm also strongly considering using snowshoes in the race. I'm definitely going to at least carry them on my sled, and will likely use them for a better percentage of the run depending on trail conditions.

Snowshoes serve as a great equalizer for many different kinds of trail conditions, and worked well to stabilize my stride and provide a flat platform to kick my feet off, avoiding the muscle fatigue and mental frustration of uneven, punchy snow (and almost all snow trails have this quality to some degree. I could see evidence of the kind of footing that bothers me in Anne's deep and often off-camber footprints, compared to my shallow and even snowshoe prints.) Snowshoes are not popular with winter runners, possibly because they're heavy and somewhat awkward, but I still think the benefits outweigh the drawbacks for me. I used mine for the entire trek, and it got to the point where I was so comfortable with them that I forgot I was wearing them.

On our final day at Shell Lake, we planned to fly out early, but a thick ice fog moved in and blanketed the entire region. Mike just barely got out in his small plane, and didn't think he'd be able to return to make the shuttles as planned. We called an air taxi service but they were also tied down by the fog. Because the oil heater had already been shut off and the wood stove only had enough oomph against the extreme cold to keep the cabin at 50 degrees or so, we retreated to Shell Lake Lodge. The lodge is maintained by Zoe, a woman in her late 60s who, with help from her son, Hank, keeps the lodge running all year long. As you can see from the mountain of firewood out front, that's not an easy task. Zoe was very sweet, served us up New Year's leftovers for lunch, and repeatedly called the air taxi pilot to relay weather reports and updates.

I went on an exploration safari, and spent quite a bit of time watching the chorus of birds out in front of the lodge. These Alaska Chickadees displayed an impressive activity level amid the frigid temperatures. It was 18 below zero when I shot this picture.

The fog lifted off of Shell Lake and temperatures continued to plummet. I watched the thermometer at Shell Lake Lodge drop to -22 and then -23. The pilot was in a rush to make several scheduled runs and said there was no way he could pick us up before dark, and would have to reschedule for morning. Beat and I were disappointed by this news, as we had a red-eye flight back to California that night. Of course, we had only ourselves to blame for cutting our schedule so close. In Alaska in the winter, you can't really count on anything working out the way you hope.

I thought the pilot saying there was no way he would come that day meant there was no way he would come that day, so Beat and I set out across the lake and into the hills to find some sun and frost.

Frost gives everything a delicate, almost ethereal beauty.

Then back across the lake as the sun went down, carrying the temperatures even farther down with it. When we returned to the lodge, Anne told us the pilot was going to make it after all and we better hurry and get ready to go or he was leaving without us. Whoops. This is another thing I learned this weekend about Alaska bush culture — nothing is certain until it's certain.

And just like that, we let go of a week of deep-cold adventure with a one-hour flight in the disappearing light. I have said goodbye to the Susitna Valley this way before, in this exact same plane, the day that I was evacuated from Yentna Station with frostbite in 2009. But instead of the cold finality of that goodbye, this one felt more like a warm hello. Thank you, Alaska. I will be back.

South Pole on a bike

2012-01-06T13:10:00.000-08:00

I will post my last Alaska symphony piece soon, but recently I've been participating in several social media discussions about a woman who is currently attempting to use a bicycle to reach the South Pole, and I wanted to distill these discussions on my blog.

Helen Skelton, a 28-year-old British television personality who I admittedly had never heard of before last month, is currently in the process of traveling 500 miles in Antarctica using an ice bike, skis, and a kite, toward the South Pole. In doing so, she's raising money for a charity called Sport Relief and also bringing the adventure and intrigue of Antarctica to thousands of young fans. It's a laudable goal with a few holes that immediately caused me to react with suspicion rather than the admiration she certainly deserves.

First of all, the media coverage surrounding this effort (at least initially) presented her expedition as an attempt to break "the world record for the longest ride on snow." This has since disappeared from most the coverage, almost certainly because too many North Americans called them out for conveniently ignoring the successful 1,000-mile rides to Nome, Alaska, on the Iditarod Trail. The southern route records are held by the husband-and-wife superteam Jay and Tracey Petervary, and the northern route records by Tracey Petervary and Mike Curiak. Curiak has also pioneered the only known self-supported snow bike expedition of that distance, successfully riding to Nome without a single resupply in 2010. Since the Iditarod Trail is entirely ice and snow (or, at its very worst, wind-scoured frozen tundra), any claims to the longest bike ride on snow, currently, would have to take place there.

Another aspect of Skelton's expedition that gave me pause is the fact that she has little to no cold-weather or snow-biking experience. She has a few crazy adventures on her resume, including a high-wire walk between the chimneys of Battersea Power Station, in London, and a solo kayak voyage down the length of the Amazon. The kayak voyage is especially impressive, but it does make one wonder what that has to do with managing a wide variation of equipment and survival techniques in the extreme environments of Antartica. True, she does have a large television crew and support team that presumably will come to her aid, as well as a guide who will be biking and kite skiing with her. But media coverage has practically praised her complete lack of preparation and experience, and her blog included descriptions of her first time winter camping, ever, just two months ago, and this gem about her bike: "I've tried it out on sand and it didn't work very well but the experts tell me it will definitely work better on ice and snow. It better!"

The bike she chose is another curious part of the expedition. It's a custom-built Hanebrink all-terrain bike, with several modifications that take extreme cold in account. However, it appears the designers failed to take into account the fact she will actually have to ride it in Antarctic conditions, which involve uncompacted wind crust, bottomless sugar snow, sasturgi (wind-blown ridges of snow that are similar to sand dunes), chunks of ice, and other technical obstacles. The 40-pound bike features a frame made from aluminum aircraft tubing, the components are simple and purposely sturdy, but the wheels are what the designers say are the key — a small wheelbase with eight-inch tubeless tires. The tires are steel-belted to add sturdiness and presumably prevent flats, because there's almost no chance she'd successfully repair a tubeless flat in extreme low temperatures. The tires and wheels combined weigh upwards of nine pounds each. Presumably they're so small to avoid weighing much more, because small wheels are usually a handicap when negotiating technical terrain.

"They're a lot like the tires for golf carts," one of the designers, Kane Fortune, told the BBC. "They are designed to leave the smallest impression as possible, so the grass on the green isn't damaged."

The problem is, Skelton isn't trying to leave golf course grass undamaged. She's trying to steamroll over incredibly difficult terrain features and float atop dry, sugary snow — while dragging an 82-kilogram sledge. It seems strange to me that with all of the research now out there on larger wheel-base snow bikes, and the fact that they have been extensively tested in extreme conditions and are now commercially marketed, that Skelton and her team would choose to use what amounts to 1990s sand bike technology. Although I'm not the expert on the mechanics of bicycle riding, I have a hard time envisioning how Helen and her guide are even propelling those things forward. All I can see is those little wheels spinning deeper and deeper trenches into the brittle crust as the sledge holds them in place like an anchor.

There is also the matter of what happens to the components of a bicycle in the extreme cold that Skelton will almost certainly encounter in Antarctica. In 2004, Mike Curiak and his friend Pat Irwin set out to scout a remote route in the Yukon that resulting in them spending several days pushing through temperatures in the negative 50s. After their struggle to survive, the Anchorage Daily News ran a piece about their trip in which Mike explored their mechanical failures.

"At 40 below zero, we started to have tube failures," Curiak wrote. "We had WTB (Wilderness Trail Bikes), Kenda and Avenir tubes with us, and they all pulled apart at their seams. The flats were so prevalent that we no longer had to look at our thermometers to know when the temp had hit minus 40. After the race, a product manager explained to me that 40 below zero falls a bit outside of the design parameters for bicycle inner tubes."

Skelton's bike has tubeless tires, which will mitigate the problem of exploding tubes. But the fact remains that rubber rendered inflexible in the cold can crack. Any air it is holding can escape. Even steel belting can't necessarily prevent this. And the fact is, no one has really extensively tested bike performance in extreme cold. Curiak noted all sorts of mechanical problems that the Anchorage Daily News reported:

• At 25 degrees below, the suspension seat post on his bike froze solid.

• At 30 degrees below, the headsets on the bikes started to freeze, making it hard to turn the handlebars.

• At 40 degrees below, the tube failures started.

• At 47 degrees below, the plastic head on his tire pump shattered.

• At 52 degrees below, the headsets on the bikes became so stiff that the handlebars wouldn't turn more than 10 degrees.

• At 55 degrees below and colder, it was time to forget riding and start pushing, because tubes wouldn't hold up at these temperatures and patching them was impossible.

• And at 60 degrees below, the only thing that mattered were the words of Hudson Stuck: "One must keep going."

Curiak has, in my opinion, already pioneered the current best possible system for a long self-supported snow bike expedition during his 2010 ride to Nome. He rode a titanium Moots frame with standard 26" 100-mm rims and used no trailer or sledge, instead adopting a more minimalist approach and piling up everything he needed on his bike using a rack and pannier system. With this system he successfully rode 1,000 miles to Nome without resupply, carrying all of his food, fuel and survival gear from the start.

Admittedly, Nome in the winter is a less extreme situation than an expedition to the South Pole at any time of year. Weather is almost certainly milder, a trail is generally set in place, and there are evacuation options if things go wrong. But Curiak's 2010 ride is currently the most ambitious winter bicycle expedition ever undertaken, and no one has yet successfully piloted a bicycle self-supported all the way from the Antarctic coast to the South Pole (which, in my opinion, must be the parameters for the first official bike ride to the South Pole.)

It would be wonderful if a woman were the first person to do it. However, I don't think that woman will be Helen Skelton. I do wish her the best, hope she raises a lot of money, inspires a lot of kids, and has an amazing life experience. I admire her adventurous spirit, and the fact that despite all of the obstacles, she is still charging forward all the same.

I just threw this photo in for fun. A blog friend, Claire, sent this to me from "Down at South Pole" back in 2008.

Symphony of cold III

2012-01-05T23:52:00.000-08:00

Movement III, minuet

I woke up in the night with an unexplainable sort of ice cream headache. It was mild but it was definitely there, scooping away at my skull. Anne had told the Northwoods owners we wanted our cabin to be "hot," and they definitely cranked up the heater. It had to be at least 75 degrees in the room. I was down to my underwear and still drenched in sweat. The heat woke me up several times and twice I stepped outside just to cool down. That didn't take long.

And yet, even in the overheated cabin, I had a cold headache. This fact so perplexed me that I eventually got up to find my little hairbrush/mirror combo that I use as a camp hair de-tangler, switched on my headlamp and examined my forehead. Small red spots speckled the skin around my eyebrows; in the flat light it looked like a few might even be forming blisters. I concluded I had probably mildly frostnipped my skin while I was sporting the ice unibrow the previous day. That didn't necessarily explain the headache, but it did fixate my attention on other cold-related maladies: My scratchy throat — raw from breathing -35 air all day even though I filtered it with my balaclava; and my fingertips — sore and a little swollen from gripping a cold camera and going numb while I repeatedly tried to thaw my ice-lashes. Cold has a way of being hard on bodies in ways you don't immediately realize. "My legs and hips are sore, too," I thought. I acknowledged that may have had more to do with 56 miles and 16 hard hours of sled-hauling than it did with the cold.

It was 15 below and still pitch dark when we set out in the morning, a little later than we hoped, just before 9 a.m. The temperature felt downright comfortable after the previous day — a credit to the adaptability of human bodies, even as delicate as they are. The first hints of dawn arrived just as we emerged from the wooded swamps along Lake Creek onto the wide-open plain of the Yentna River. In Alaska winter racing circles, the big rivers are often dreaded for being "flat" and "boring" and "going on forever and ever." I actually love trekking the big rivers, even more than I do wending through the woods. They fit my aesthetic of stark open spaces, places so big that I can watch as the world opens up around me. I looked north to see hints of salmon-colored light rippling on the jagged Alaska Range, south to round mountains as they reflected deeper shades of gold, west to rows of birch trees glittering with hoarfrost, and all around as the Yentna cliffs grew closer, pinching the flow of a great river that was presently as quiet as anything can be. I imagined a rush of water under our feet, roiling and crashing against a thin veneer of ice. When I realized this was exactly what was happening, I had to stop thinking about it, because it made my knees feel weak.

As we approached the tiny village of Skwentna, I felt a giddy sort of excitement. On what was starting to feel like my own nostalgia tour of the Iditarod Trail, I remembered the Skwentna Roadhouse as the place where I took my first long break during the 2008 Iditarod Trail Invitational. I had arrived just before 2 a.m., having ridden my loaded Pugsley ninety miles in twelve hours — for me, an unfathomably fast pace. I shared a small meal with Jay Petervary (dinner for me, breakfast for him) and moved upstairs to dry my clothing and take a short nap. I remember standing in front of the bathroom mirror, scanning my face for signs of frostbite, and seeing only an expression of mixed pride and astonishment. I couldn't believe what I had set out to do. I couldn't believe I was doing it. It was, for that moment, my greatest accomplishment.

"I like Skwentna," I told Beat. "I was happy there." That it had taken me two and a half days to reach a place I once pedaled to in twelve hours didn't matter. I was glad to be back, and on these terms — older, possibly wiser, definitely slower — it felt right. We shook off our frost and stomped inside. The owner, Cindy, was wearing a bath towel on her head and appeared to have just woken up, which made perfect sense to me, being that it was the more civil winter hour of 11:45 a.m. She and her husband only bought the lodge about a year ago, so she wasn't there in 2008. But she was excited to see the three of us all the same. "You're our first runners for the year!" she exclaimed. She offered us all-you-can-consume Christmas cookies and coffee, which we warned her was a dangerous gesture given our status as cold and hungry runners. Cindy just laughed and directed us to the plates.

We ordered grilled cheese and fries for lunch and chatted with a local man, a former contractor from Anchorage who was now living full-time in a cabin he built on the edge of the river a couple years earlier. "I don't have a boat, so I just spend the whole summer here," he said. "I don't leave except to run freight in the winter. I love it. I'm glad I did it."

We grinned and nodded although I think everyone was wondering exactly he did all summer long, how he avoided cabin fever, why he didn't become lonely or cold or scared. The usual things that we civilized folk tend to wonder when one of our own sloughs off the frenetic lifestyle that we all work so hard to achieve and sets out to find his or her own version of happiness. I admired the guy for doing what he wanted to do, even if most people viewed it as strange and even fruitless. That is, after all, exactly how most people would view what I was doing out here.

I was sad to leave Skwentna, mostly because it meant we only had seventeen or so miles left in our trek before we reached Shell Lake. Although I started out thinking our plan was ambitious for what was essentially just a training run, by the end I was startled by just how doable it was. I mean, we were walking thirty miles a day, in conditions that made every step nearly as difficult as a solid run. We were outside for eight hours or more each day in temperatures that never even flirted with rising above zero, working just as hard to keep our bodies warm as we did to keep them moving, and rarely did we stop moving. It had been hard, but in other ways, so simple. I enjoy the process of occasionally reducing my existence to moving, eating and breathing. It reminds me just how simple existence really is, in the end, and at the same time so rich and meaningful, even if it's impossible to define its meaning.

This observation carried some insight about why I love Alaska so much, because in Alaska I see reflections of my own sense of meaning everywhere I look. The snow portrays a fleeting beauty, the open swamps a lasting wisdom. The trees and animals are perseverance, enduring the worst of winter for the rich reward of summer. The mountains are the great unknown, that powerful force that will always drive me forward. I realize that all of the entities exist in lots of places in the world, but they do seem to resonate deeply for me in these northern latitudes. I'm perfectly content to live where I do right now, but Alaska remains a wonderful place to visit.

We climbed into the Shell Hills, brushed with the pink light of another sunset. Those seventeen miles seem to go by in what felt like a single breath, a dream. I was entirely surprised when we dropped onto the windswept ice of Shell Lake and pressed against the wind toward Anne's cabin. Before going inside, we stopped to light Beat's stove and melt some snow, so he could practice the process of making water in cold temperatures at the end of a long, sweaty day. The experiment went well, but I was still hesitant to walk in the door, almost searching for excuses to stay out longer. I reminded myself that we still had a full New Year's holiday to spend at Shell Lake, and our adventure certainly wasn't over yet.

A symphony of cold II

2012-01-05T00:43:00.000-08:00

Movement II, adagio

I leaned against the railing of the cabin's balcony and looked up at the muted sky. The morning was so still that I could hear a hundred variations of silence. Low moans carried from the direction of the distant city. The quiet stirrings of nearer creatures also were startlingly amplified; I heard the squeaking footsteps of an animal as though it was walking right in front of me, although it may have been a half mile away. The cold air itself seemed to emit the ever-so-faint harmony of chiming. I imagined ice particles brushing against each other like tiny glittering bells.

The proprietors at Luce's Lodge were very sweet and got up at what is an ungodly early hour in Alaska's December — 7 a.m. — to make us a huge breakfast of eggs, meat, pancakes, coffee and orange juice. We wolfed it down as Anne urged us to load up on butter because, "in these temperatures your body needs fat." Although I'm of the opinion that fast-burning carbohydrates are still the best fuel source for both heat generation and energy, and don't even particularly like butter, I slathered it on anyway. I wanted all the help I could get.

The porch thermometer still read 20 below — a small grace offered by the cloud cover that moved in overnight, because it could have dropped a lot lower. I asked the proprietor what he thought that meant for the temperatures on the trail. "Definitely 30 below," he said. "Probably 35 below in spots. There are some cold holes on the river."

I have what I feel is an adaptable but effective outfit for a wide range of cold temperatures. Over the years I've ditched all of my wool for synthetic layering head-to-toe. Synthetics in my experience are more forgiving when damp and also dry faster. For a base layer I wear a polypro shirt and light fleece tights. The mid-layer is a furry fleece jacket and wind tights. On top of that goes the down skirt and a Gortex shell. I've used soft shells in the past but I prefer Gortex because it's such an effective wind blocker, and this one has lots of zippers for venting. If I begin to overheat, I just open up the full-length pit zips and chest zipper, and effectively pour the excess moisture out. I also naturally vent a lot through my head and hands. This results in crazily iced up balaclavas and hats, but these things are "cheap" weight-wise, and I can afford to carry a few extra to exchange after one becomes damp. I still rarely change these out because fleece hats are warm even after they've turned to ice helmets.

For my hands, I used a pair of pogies on my trekking poles that Beat sewed out of a synthetic sleeping bag. In non-windy conditions, the pogies were all I needed. They enabled me to go bare-handed for nearly the entire trip, 35 below and all, which is why I was able to take so many photos and stuff my icy face with so many tasty carbohydrates and sips of water from my deeply buried Camelback vest. Photo-taking and food are my best coping mechanisms — the key to feeling healthy and happy the entire time. On my feet go Drymax socks (pure, blister-preventing gold), fleece socks and vapor barrier socks, with Gortex trail running shoes and knee-length winter gaters. Even with my prior frostbite damage, I never had issues with cold feet. On the morning of 35 below, I did add a primaloft puffy sweater to my ensemble. This proved to be unnecessary and ultimately a mistake of overdressing, but I didn't realize it at the time. I mean, really, it was 35 below.

Sure enough, as soon as we dropped onto the river, the temperature fell from "dark side of the moon" to "outer space" levels. It definitely felt 15 degrees colder. Anne announced that she was going to have to "trot" to stay warm, which meant she would be running. I tried to follow her lead, but the heavy breakfast sloshed in my stomach like a load of bricks, and I quickly grew dizzy from the effort. I pulled out my GPS to see what speed I was "running" atop the loose sugar snow: 4.2 miles per hour. If I really amped up I could push it to 4.5, but that felt like full-intensity sprinting. Everything moves slower at 35 below, but the energy inefficiency of trying to "run" in these temperatures, on this terrain, was almost baffling. I'd have to expend twice the energy and muscle effort for a measly one extra mile per hour. I yelled out to Anne that I was never going to keep up. She agreed to meet us at an off-trail oasis called the Northwoods Lodge, which she thought was about 20 miles away. She didn't know what it looked like or exactly where it veered off the trail, only that "there's probably a sign."

Beat didn't seem to mind the walking pace, but he did appear uneasy with the temperatures, which trickled into our clothing like ice water every time we stopped. Steep river bluffs walled us in, trapping cold air like a prison. When we passed side canyons and sloughs, a stream of new cold air would hit us like a blast from an air conditioner. Even the creeping daylight did little to warm the morning. After six miles we passed a friendly sign advertising coffee and food. Anne's footprints indicated she clearly went on without stopping. Beat started walking toward the building to make sure Anne's footprints weren't up there. I held back, keeping my eyes fixed on the top part of the sign: "Yentna Station."

"We should probably keep moving," I said. "Anne kept going."

Beat agreed that we should probably shouldn't fall too far behind Anne, but asked me if I wanted to go in and get warm. I did, but still hesitated. How could I explain this? It was Yentna Station where in 2009 I struggled in front of a weak wood stove, trying to remove the boot that had frozen to my foot. It's where I endured the agony of thawing frostbitten toes and coped with the crushing disappointment of dropping out of my second ITI 350 and ending my great Alaska adventure before it even really began. The proprietors at Yentna Station were nothing but nice to me, but it's still difficult to return to the place where I spent one of the worst nights of my life.

Beat saw my face and understood. "You don't have happy memories here, do you?"

The miles rolled on. Beat and I didn't talk much, retreating into our introspective worlds that close in amid these expansive landscapes. The clouds began to thin and the weak December sun made its lazy arc over the southern horizon. I watched the golden orb creep beside me through the tips of frost-crusted birch trees, casting its heatless light amid a skeleton of shadows. The weak rays were already trending downward, the sun setting without even making a real effort to rise. It made me think of a visit from an old friend, someone I no longer knew well. We shared a brief, superficial chat and parted again too soon, filled with a sad sort of yearning for the days when we were close.

Silence held on throughout the day. We only saw a handful of snowmachines, freight drivers hauling loads of fuel and lumber at creeping speeds, although not as slow as us. They all gave us friendly waves but let their helmet-masked gaze linger for a few too many seconds, no doubt intrigued by these odd ice-crusted figures trudging up the river. I have been told that the "bush" Alaskans who occupy this region are often suspicious of human-powered travelers, uncertain of their motives and baffled as to why we'd choose such an obviously inferior method of travel. Dog teams have carried humans up these valleys for centuries. The "iron dog" snowmachine added even more power and efficiency for a fraction of the effort. Bush pilots buzz overhead in ski planes that can land and take off from any snow-covered pond. Humans have always been weak and slow, and no one is so poor or needs to travel so badly that they should venture out on foot at 35 below.

And yet I felt inexplicably, almost mindlessly, happy. I sometimes glanced back at my sled, still trailing behind me like the loyal pet I was beginning to picture it as, even though its runners still scraped across the snow like two pieces of sandpaper. My shoes and poles squeaked loudly in the cold snow. It made me think of a friend chatting amicably but nonsensically, which was all right with me, because I wasn't really in a frame of mind to listen to words. My thoughts were often as blank as the river snow, thinly cut with a trail of memories. I simply breathed and walked, breathed and walked, and when the happy started to slip away, I stuffed another piece of icy candy into my mouth.

Beat for his part seemed to be enjoying himself, and commented that it was "heating up" even though I'm pretty sure it was still 20 below. Twenty miles went by without a sign of a lodge, and the daylight again began to disappear. Anne was now far enough ahead that some snowmachines had gone through after her, and we had a difficult time picking out her footprints. The wind began to pick up and for the first time all day, I felt a chill. I reached to zip up my Gortex coat and realized that my primaloft sweater was fairly wet. The wicking fleece jacket below was still dry, but the sweat had all consolidated in the puffy sweater. This wasn't a disaster. I could always take it off and let it solidify to an ice ball, then put on one of my dry layers if I was still cold. But the essential loss of the puffy was a bit of a mental blow, given our plan to camp out that night. I was quickly reminded of the universal truth — that no matter how well things are going in Alaska, they can turn bad in the blink of an eye. Things certainly hadn't gone bad yet, but the razor-thin closeness of potential diaster gave me a jolt of fear.

We were 28 miles from Luce's Lodge when we saw a sign on the other side of the river. I waded over to see an advertisement for the Northwoods Lodge, and another that said Skwentna — our potential destination that night — was still 12 miles away. We had originally planned to bivy somewhere in between, but darkness was sinking in and carrying with it new ungodly cold temperatures. We walked a mile up Fish Creek to find the lodge and Anne, who arrived forty minutes before we did. I removed my layers in a shower of frost as Anne informed us that the lodge owners believed temperatures out on the river would reach 40 below or lower overnight — the outer limits of our sleeping bags and definitely in that "struggle to survive" zone.

"And, well," Anne said. "They knew we were coming up the river and they already started heating a cabin for us this morning. I don't know about you guys, but I don't have to practice being miserable."

It was settled before it was settled. This was, after all, our vacation, and setting back out to camp on the river when there was a perfectly good cabin at our disposal would only confirm our craziness. I couldn't wait to get my hands on some hot chocolate.

A symphony of cold

2012-01-03T18:31:00.000-08:00

Movement I, allegro

Even the air seemed frozen in place, a thickly compressed stillness that shattered as I darted toward the outhouse wearing only my running shoes, a base layer shirt and underpants. I didn't suit up for the 4 a.m. chore because I so feared the deep cold that I wanted an extreme test run before the consequences expanded exponentially out on the river ice. Sure enough, the thermometer next to the heated entryway of Luce's Lodge already read 23 below zero, Fahrenheit. On clear nights, this thick, cold air sinks into the river basins like a rock. I expected it was ten degrees colder on the trail just fifty feet below the lodge. Were we going to see 40 below before dawn emerged — at least what passes for dawn in December in Alaska?

But my more immediate concern was a full-body revolt against the 90-degree temperature swing just outside the door. I could almost feel the blood in my extremities retreating toward the hidden refuge of my core. The fragile cells trapped on the surface of my skin sprung to full attention, struggling to fight the blood's escape through their rapidly diminishing armor. It was a full-blown riot that penetrated the fragile realities of my warm-blooded nature and unleashed a more primitive, abstract kind of energy that never fails to stir my soul. Every molecule in my body was vibrating — naked, exposed, and alive.

My brain joined the fight by urging my numb arms and legs to start flailing, an erratic dance that reflected the simultaneous elation and desperation I was experiencing. I knew a heated cabin was just meters away, but that didn't stop the panic of cells that understood on a fundamental level exactly what dying feels like. They raged and screamed at the curious part of my brain that continued to urge in a gentle voice, "Wait, just wait. There's no real harm yet. This is really quite interesting. I'm kinda sorta wondering just how dead we can get." But of course, primitive survival instincts easily won that intellectual battle. I finished my business and raced back to the cabin before my core temperature started dropping. I still had to shiver beneath the covers for several minutes before my fingers found the wherewithal to at least tingle.

The Luce's Lodge experiment left me feeling simultaneously exhilarated and terrified. It was madness, really, that I was going to take conditions that my nearly naked body could barely survive for five minutes, and with the minimal use of technology, fitness and intellectual prodding, push through the extreme cold for hours and even days. But I had just been out there — for 26 miles, actually — walking away from the safe haven of the ice-coated Parks Highway and into Southcentral Alaska's deep-frozen backcountry. Our ambitious plan had us trekking overland to Shell Lake, a distance of about 90 miles, in three days, followed by day trips and New Year's celebrations launched from a primitive cabin above the lake. We dragged behind us all of the necessities for such a trek, including food, fuel and survival gear. We hoped to camp out if conditions were conducive to "fun winter camping." But if temperatures tipped the scales toward "struggle for survival," we agreed we would invest the extra miles and money to seek refuge in commercial wilderness lodges. This was, after all, our vacation.

Our friend from Anchorage, Anne, along with Beat and I, launched from Deshka Landing on Wednesday, December 28, in light snow and a "balmy" temperature of 5 below zero. The air still held a sharp bite as we fumbled with last-minute sled assemblies and gear adjustments. It was after 10 a.m. and still only the faintest hints of first daylight managed to penetrate the ice fog. It would be dark again by 4 p.m. I wrapped a series of layers around my body and finished it off with my new down skirt, currently my favorite piece of gear as it provides the perfect combination of heat-venting and protection for the cold-weakest part of my body, my butt. Beat eyed the skirt jealously and expressed his desire for a piece of gear that would similarly protect the front side of his undercarriage. "I should just wear a skirt like that," he said. "Who cares? I'm already out here. It's not like I need to assert my masculinity."

I had a hunch that minus 5 might be the warmest temperature we would see all week. As we shuffled toward Mount Susitna — now fairly well-known territory for me — I was filled with anxiety about the unknowns. The unknowns of independence. Honestly, the main reason I like winter "racing" is because an organized event means someone is probably looking out for you, even if only on a base level. Out here in the "pre-season" of December's darkness, we weren't even likely to see much cursory snowmachine traffic. We were truly on our own. I was also anxious about the unknowns of the forecasted cold snap and what that meant for long-term exposure to low temperatures. Some of my friends who live in milder climates often fail to understand the depths cold can reach. They say to me, "Once it drops below 30 degrees, isn't it pretty much all cold?"

"Well, yeah," I reply. "But you know the difference between 30 degrees and 90 degrees? You can feel that, right? Well, that's the difference between 30 above and 30 below."

Even in the minus-single-digits, the snow was sharp and dry enough that the runners on our sleds dragged through it like sandpaper. I felt like I was pulling a reluctant dog — in that way animals make their bodies inexplicably heavy when they don't want to move, so too do sleds on frigid snow. But this was new snow, still soft and powdery enough that every huffing step resulted in a heel-deep posthole. I faltered for about a quarter mile before I stopped to strap on my snowshoes. Beat and Anne, who are both runners and therefore prefer to cling to the hope of running, continued on trail shoes alone. For all of us, moving at 3.5 miles per hour was intensely hard work, the kind that makes my ten-minute miles up steep trails in California feel like woefully inadequate training. But at the same time, hard work produced our own personal bubbles of heat, a safe haven of warmth in the stark and terror-rimmed landscape. As long as we could keep moving — and stuffing down the calories to to keep our furnaces cranking — we actually had much less to fear. This is a kind of self-reliance I cherish — that even the best in insulating technologies can still be matched by human perseverance. Of course I was still grateful for all the heavy gear I dragged in my sled in case things went horribly wrong — after all, I don't trust my perseverance to those extremes.

We arrived at Luce's Lodge just before 6 p.m. It had already been pitch dark for more than an hour. We struggled to hoist our sleds up a steep embankment toward the oasis of warmth. Bright lights illuminated the cabin and a friendly Christmas tree sparkled in the front window. I nearly teared up with nostalgia. The first time I saw Luce's Lodge was as the mile 52 checkpoint in the 2006 Susitna 100, my first endurance race. The race volunteers plucked me out of the darkness at a similar time in the evening, gave me drinking water, told me I was doing fantastic even though my eyes were bloodshot and my clothing soaked from a disheartening rainstorm. I think often about that race. To some extent, I feel like every big endurance challenge I've embarked on since has in some ways reflected a desire to duplicate my novice experience — the intensity, the hardships, the raw beauty, and the personal triumphs over fear and weakness. Of course I can never again return to the same wide-eyed naivety that made the 2006 Susitna 100 so soul-awakening. But I can return to these places that still fill my heart with happy memories, and remember exactly what it was like to feel so afraid and so alive, all at the same time.

But the minute we stopped, the bubble of warmth broke and reality punched back through. It was cold, really cold, and getting colder. At least for now, Luce's had hot chocolate and warm chili, and a pre-rented cabin already heated up for us, so we wouldn't have to think about trekking as many as forty miles the next day, deeper into the backcountry, in temperatures down to 40 below, toward a possible overnight bivy in the wilderness. These were all realities we didn't really need to think about. Not yet, at least.

So much white

2011-12-28T00:36:00.000-08:00

Less than 24 hours after we arrived in Anchorage on the winter solstice, it started snowing and hasn't really stopped. What looks to be at least three feet of new fluff has fallen at our friend's house near Hilltop Ski Area. Combine that with temperatures in the teens and single digits, December's dearth of daylight, and the fact that all of this new snow has fallen on a base of what appears to be a solid sheet of ice. Our friends around town greet us with a partly sympathetic, partly gloating "welcome to winter."

I reply with a smile, "We came here for winter." But I don't mask the fact that this has been an adjustment. This kind of winter makes even small efforts feel huge. On Christmas Day we went out for a "run," breaking trail with the snowshoes. We covered about six miles in a little over two hours (and yes, we did "run" some), did a lot of sweating in our minimal layers at 11 degrees, and came home exhausted. Some of that exhaustion was caused by heavily working a lot of muscles we're not used to working, and some by fighting off a chill we're not used to fighting. People who train their bodies in winter conditions have an advantage over people who reside where the livin's easy. It's simply a different game.

We were driven to get out as much as possible, if only to adjust our bodies to Alaska's harsh environment. But after several days of such efforts, it became obvious we would have to taper if we expected to have any energy for our big trip. We went to visit my long-time friend Craig in Palmer and planned a quick and easy hike to Hatcher Pass. We climbed the exposed slope in single-digit temps with a stiff wind, resulting in a windchill factor of about 15 below. The hike itself was short and sweet, about 90 minutes. But its meandering nature, followed by a leisurely two-hour lunch in a wood-heated lodge that was not very warm, left my whole body deeply chilled. The sedentary battle for body heat completely drained me of energy. It was a useful reminder about the paradox of winter travel — the more one moves, the less one's body has to "work" to stay warm. You're tired and it's cold? Just keep moving. Stopping will only make the overall fatigue worse.

Beat and I are both feeling nervous but excited about our three-day trip starting Wednesday morning. The plan is to leave from Deshka Landing and follow river trails toward Shell Lake, about a hundred miles away, over three days. We'll be dragging all of our supplies in sleds, including stoves and fuel, but will likely utilize a couple of backcountry lodges for some water and food. This is the "luxury" section of the Iditarod Trail, where a few outposts of civilization remain. But it's still "out there" in every sense of the phrase, a roadless region through a vast swath of mountains, swamps and boreal forest, with only a spattering of log cabins. In most Californians' understanding of remote, it might as well be the moon.

I savor these stark landscapes with a palette of emotions that remain difficult to describe with words, but the closest one is "love." I love being out here, even if it's a terribly difficult place to be. All of this new snow, which is still falling as of nine hours before our planned departure, is supposedly going to be followed by a cold snap. That's right, it's not quite "cold" yet. The current weather forecast indicates a likelihood that we'll see temperatures below -20F on the rivers as we stomp over all this soft new snow. Beat and I have both seen this before, and we're preparing for it, but the possible scenarios remain intimidating. Traveling an average of 35 miles a day is, by comparison, quite easy. In fact, it's the easiest way to stay warm.

Way back in January 2008, when I was preparing for my first Iditarod 350, I wrote this paragraph to sum up my feelings about a winter camping experience. I was referring to endurance racing, but it fits just as well with an expedition-style tour of backcountry Alaska in December:

"This multiday winter endurance racing thing is completely crazy. On the surface, it looks hard. Then you peel back its rigid veneer only to find an inner layer of hard. And even as you chip away at its core, you continue to find layer upon layer upon layer of hard. Every part is hard.

And I love it."

I still do. I may never be able to adequately describe exactly why, but I do. And I continue to try.

Just a Lazy Christmas Eve

2011-12-25T00:25:00.000-08:00

Twas the morning before Christmas, and deep in the Mat-Su Valley,
Six intrepid sightseers were getting ready to rally.

Their snowshoes were packed in the truck with great care,
Knowing thigh-deep fresh powder awaited them there.

The hikers were nestled snug in the cab with their coffees,
While the thermometer on the dash dropped below zero degrees.

But with mittens and balaclavas and frozen gumdrops to snarf,
The group set out in the frost for a long winter's march.

When out of the fog they arose with surprise,
To see a whole world emerge beyond ice-crusted eyes.

Up Lazy Mountain they trudged like molasses,
Sweating in frigid air and fogging their glasses.

The low solstice sunlight on new-fallen snow,
Gave a luster of summer to the fog bank below.

When what between two layers of clouds should appear,
But a spread of Chugach Mountains, brilliantly clear.

And a peak in front, so wind-swept and crazy
They knew in a rapid heartbeat it must be Lazy.

A strenuous 3,500 feet they had climbed,
To stand in the wind and breathe something sublime.

They didn't stay long lest their toes become frozen,
But were ecstatic with the Christmas gift they had chosen.

They sprang down the mountain on cold pillows of fluff,
Wondering if one Lazy Christmas could ever be enough.

And they wanted to say, before the frost numbed their lips,
"Merry Christmas to all, and to all awesome trips."

Testing sleds

2011-12-23T20:45:00.000-08:00

Before we go on our big Alaska trip, which looks like it will be taking place next week (beginning Wednesday), we wanted to conduct several test runs of the sleds. Since we returned from Nepal, Beat has been in a frenzy designing and building Sled V.2, which has been fortuitous for me because it means I can use V.1 without actually having to build my own sled (given my usual lack of success with even simple projects such as cooking or adjusting my bicycles' derailleurs, I think it's better I avoid building my own crucial pieces of gear.)

I tried out a few of my own new winter things on our first trip out: A down skirt to combat cold-butt syndrome, and the trekking pole pogies that Beat sewed for me out of a cheap synthetic sleeping bag. This all began when I was digging through my winter bike stuff, saw my Revelate Designs pogies and said to Beat, "I wish someone made a small version of these for poles." Unlike me, Beat loves to build gear and is actually pretty good at it, so he made a couple pairs in time for our Anchorage trip. The reason I prefer pogies over mittens and gloves is because pogies allow me to remain bare-handed or wearing only a thin pair of liner gloves down to fairly low temperatures. Free fingers are better for taking pictures, pulling my Camelback hose out from under many layers of clothing, and feeding myself.

We arrived here just in time for what our friends have told us was the largest snowstorm all month, and it started cranking just as we set out for our afternoon run. Beat got some good testing in with Sled V.2, which he purposely made larger, more water-resistant and more robust for the 350-mile Alaska backcountry race in two months.

The storm ended up dumping more than a foot of snow, so when we went back out this morning with Anne, we had no choice but to strap on our snowshoes. This filled me with a warm Christmas spirit because I love a good uphill slog in knee-deep powder, especially when towing all of my winter survival gear (I am not being sarcastic. I really do love this.) Beat thought four hours of this didn't sound like a difficult enough workout, so he filled his sled with a few Anchorage phone books on top of his winter camping gear.

He probably regretted this decision when the route started twisting through the trees and tipping the sled over, forcing him to test V.2's backpack mode (V.1 is more narrow and didn't have the disadvantage of the poor weight distribution of phone books, but I still had to carry it over blowdowns and around the hairpin turns.) We traveled from Anne's front door, up Hillside singletrack trails and into Prospect Heights. This is a region where I often rode my mountain bike during my very short stint as a resident of Anchorage (April to June 2010.) It was fun to relive these memories amid the ice and snow through the power of nostalgia. Janice's Jive! This trail is so fun; it's a steep rooty bruiser in the summer. Now it's just kinda ... soft ... and slow. (Slog, slog, slog.) ... (Note: To the Anchorage snow bikers who get to ride these trails once they're nicely packed down — you're welcome.)

Temperatures this morning started out in the teens and never rose above 21F. But even fresh from California, and purposely minimizing layers knowing the work we were in for, I still felt overdressed in a single layer of tights, a thin long-sleeve shirt and a soft-shell jacket. No hat or gloves until we started down. This is good, hard work, and after four hours of sled-dragging snowshoeing, my quads are feeling it.

I am seriously excited about our trip next week, which we had to organize around the weather and the schedules of Anne and her husband (our pilot for the flight back.) But the current plan is to leave from the Mat-Su Valley on popular (and hopefully nicely packed) snowmachine trails and trek toward Shell Lake over three days, give or take a long night. That's about 110 miles on the Iditarod Trail, on foot, bivying outside in the cold for at least one night and possibly two. (We are hoping to utilize a backcountry lodge during the first night, if we make good distance.) Considering the context — self-supported snow run — it's a pretty ambitious plan that's probably going to end up being more demanding than the actual race I'm training for, the Susitna 100. It's also probably going to be even more fun, of both the Type 1 and Type 2 variations, so I am quite excited.

But for now, we're going to enjoy a weekend of holiday food celebrations and winter play. Let it snow!

Home for Christmas

2011-12-22T00:31:00.000-08:00

These short days have a way of creeping away from me. I'll work for what feels like an hour, look up at the clock and realize it's 3 p.m. and if I don't get outside right now I won't get a ride in at all. Headlights I have, but you can only do so much with trail closures, traffic, and headlights. I'll throw some kind of mixed winter/summer ensemble on my body on and hope it's warm enough. The sun is usually already slipping behind the mountains by the time I race out the door.

Daylight is tight, but I can't really complain about being able to road bike in December. I can move faster in this cooler air. And even though the pavement is just as dry as summer, and the sky just as clear as ever, there's something quieter ... more contemplative ... about these early winter evenings, even in California. Or maybe that's just a vestige of the winters I spent in colder climates — an expectation that there has to be a time when everything quiets down.

I struggled with the decision about whether or not to return to Utah for the holidays. I've been lucky enough to enjoy several opportunities to go home in the past year. I was just there last month. As my family grows older and more dispersed, we've shed many of our former expectations in favor of more open-ended traditions. My large extended family still gathers in my grandmother's church building for a quirky celebration of summer food (fried chicken and potato salad) and a talent show by the grandchildren, a tradition that has shifted to the great-grandchildren. There is that. But my immediate family has been more open to the year-round welcoming of togetherness, without an implied demand that it has to take place on or around December 25. Of course, they wanted me to come home for Christmas. And I wanted to be home. But home isn't as much of a clear-cut proposition for me these days.

Beat had an extended work holiday and asked me where I wanted to spend the last week of December. In my heart I wanted to go home, but this desire didn't reach for the home of my childhood. Of course guilt crept in, and my mind rushed forward with justifications. Beat has a potentially dangerous adventure race coming up and needs to train in real-world conditions. I wouldn't mind getting in some snow miles for the Susitna 100 since my California training will definitely be lacking in this regard. Good friends invited us to to join them on a tempting range of adventures, from a weekly Thursday night "epic" run, to a multi-night trek from sea level into the shadow of the Alaska Range. That last proposal left my heart buzzing with anticipation. Back out there. Really out there. Alaska.

Just before the plane touched down in Anchorage, Beat and I watched the sun set over the frozen swamps of the Susitna Valley. The last strips of orange light gave way to the longest night of the year — nearly 19 hours of darkness in this part of the world. I would miss my family, and the forecast 70-degree Christmas weekend in California. But an electric sort of warmth filled my heart, because I was coming home.

2011 in races

2011-12-19T22:53:00.000-08:00

Singletrack and smiles during the 25 Hours of Frog Hollow. Photo by Crawling Spider Photography

This past year stands out as my "racingest" year ever. Although I love to train (which, as many of us know, is just an adult excuse to go play outside), I have generally limited my competitive efforts to two to four (usually completely outlandish) races a year. Beat, on the other hand, has no time for training but he loves to race. So he just races into shape, then races to recover, and generally just races a lot. Now I've found myself sucked in to the allure of near-constant racing. I enjoy the community and challenge. Racing fuels my competitive drive to "best" myself by completing something that a larger part of me feels I have no business completing. (This is why I generally aim for long and tough events that are a challenge just to start, let alone finish, and then don't concern myself with the smaller details, like getting faster.)

Anyway, this was a great year of racing. Since December 18, 2010, I've completed eight ultramarathons, one half marathon, one 100-mile snow bike race and one 25-hour mountain bike race. Today, I look back on my year in racing: The numbers, the results, and my favorite part: The long-winded, photo-heavy race reports.

Pirates Cove. Photo by Beat

Rodeo Beach 50K
December 18, 2010

Trail run, 31 miles, 5,900 feet of climbing
Finished in 6:58
Tenth woman, 45th overall

Race results
Race report:
"I wasn't a runner.

... I knew I liked hiking, but had more than one hiking companion tell me I "walk kind of funny." I knew I was strong on climbs but clumsy everywhere else. As I stumbled down Thunder Mountain in Juneau earlier this year, one friend finally told me, only half jokingly, "you know, some people just aren't good on their feet. Maybe you should stick to wheels."

I wasn't a runner, but I don't like to be told what I can and can't do."

Photo by Coastal Trail Runs

Crystal Springs 50K
January 8, 2011

Trail run, 31 miles, 4,500 feet of climbing
Finished in 6:13
First woman, 17th overall

Race results
Race report:
"The director doled out medals to age group finishers, and then handed me a mug. The mug said, "First Place Finisher." I looked back at the race director, confused. First in what? He must have sensed my confusion because he said, "You're the first woman. Congratulations."

The girl in the cute shorts ... the woman in the black shirt ... there were several females that finished just a few minutes after me. But they were all behind me.

Huh.

Beat, who officially finished one second behind me, jokingly pouted. 'I never win anything.'"

Photo by Beat, from a hike on the race course two weeks earlier

Pacifica 50K
January 23, 2011

Trail run, 31 miles, 7,550 feet of climbing
Finished in 6:38
Seventh woman, 34th overall

Race results
Race report:
"Since when did I become the kind of person who ran three 50Ks in a month? I would have never foreseen it a year ago. Then again, I wouldn't have foreseen much of what my life has become. This is a good thing. I have always found my greatest rewards hidden far outside my comfort zone."

It was 20 below zero and 2:16 a.m. when I snapped this self-portrait

Susitna 100
February 19-21, 2011

Foot race on snow while dragging a 30-pound sled, 100 miles, 3,700 feet of climbing
Finished in 41:16
Fifth woman, 15th overall

Race results
Race report:
"Over the past few days, I visited with many of my friends in the Anchorage area, and always got the same question — "Why are you running it this time?" My simple answer was to see if I could. In my mind, the Susitna 100 itself wasn't the journey I sought. I was looking for a more internal experience, amid a daunting and unfamiliar physical challenge, with the knowledge that unlike many of my more epic adventures, I would be sharing this experience with somebody else, somebody I was in love with. What would the dynamics of that be like? For me, all of those aspects were more intriguing than the simple act of traveling to Alexander Lake and back. And for that reason, even when I was at my lowest moments of the race, I never found myself wishing that I was on a bicycle instead."

Photo by J. Rose, www.whitemountains100.org

White Mountains 100
March 27, 2011

Snow bike race, 100 miles, 8,800 feet of climbing
Finished in 17:55
Third woman on a bike, 32nd overall (bike and ski)

Race results
Race report:
"I walked with Beat and Kevin to the finish line, where they finished together in 35:41. The volunteers, who had been awake for more than 36 hours, showed just as much enthusiasm for Beat and Kevin as I would have expected for the front-of-the-pack. I realized that why I go to these places — stark and demanding, lonely and difficult — and why I'm so happy in these places, is because it's in these places I find greatness — in myself, in the people I love, in the people I meet, and in everything surrounding us."

Trail running at its finest. Photo by Beat

Berry Creek Falls 50K
April 30, 2011

Trail run, 32 miles, 7,900 feet of climbing
Finished in 7:50
First woman, fifth overall

Race report:
"I made one tactical error when I arrived at the 25-mile aid station about three minutes before Beat and lost self control on the delicious spread of race snacks. As a cyclist I have a "feast or famine" style of fuel intake, but I am learning during running I have to take my calories in smaller, more frequent doses. I made the mistake of eating three brownies and spent the final 10K wracked with stomach cramps."

At the top of Rose Peak. Photo by Ohlone 50K volunteer

Ohlone 50K
May 22, 2011

Trail run, 31 miles, 8,700 feet of climbing
Finished in 7:27
20th woman, 111th overall

Race results
Race report:
"I was feeling extremely good today. Honestly, I felt fantastic. This was strange as well because I purposely loaded my training in the days just before this race. We rode 40 miles on Saturday, ran nine relatively fast miles on Friday, and time-trialed a 2,600-foot climb on Wednesday, to say nothing of my Banff/North Dakota week, which, on top of the 105 road miles and 15 hours of mountain biking, included 46 miles of trail running. The reason was to start the Ohlone on slightly tired legs. That's how you learn how to run 100 miles."

Photo by Coastal Trail Runs

Canyon Meadow 50K
June 4, 2011

Trail run, 31 miles, 5,300 feet of climbing
Finished in 6:10
First woman, tenth overall

Race results
Race report:
"Wow," I thought. "I'm actually racing! This is what it feels like to race!" Honestly, during all of the competitive events I've ever participated in, I've never had to face an outside competitor so directly (since I'm usually mainly "racing" myself and there's no one else around for miles.) I fluctuated between worrying that this woman thought I was an deluded aggro type, and strategizing my attack if she managed to pass me again. But the sprinting itself felt amazing. All of the soreness in my legs drained away and a warm rush of adrenaline filled my blood. This must be the beauty of a sprint finish — all of the fun of running fast without having to pay for it later."

Smiles come easy before mile 20. Self-portrait

Tahoe Rim Trail 100
July 16, 2011

Trail run, 100 miles
DNF at mile 80

Race report:
"More crocodile tears. Sometimes you just have to let it all leak out. And sure enough, I started to accept my failure and feel better about my situation. The sun was rising over the Nevada desert, casting more gorgeous light over the Tahoe Rim. It was a beautiful morning, I was alone in the mountains, and I had just run farther on dirt than I ever had in my life. There was nothing else past this — except for the nine-mile walk of shame I still had to make to the 80-mile cutoff."

You'd never know Beat just ran for 200 miles straight

Internationaler Greifenseelauf
September 17, 2011

Half marathon, 13.1 miles
Finished in 2:07
1,338th woman, 5,589th overall

Race results
Race report:
"I admit I was surprised when Beat got out of bed at 6 a.m. Saturday morning. I expected him to pass out after his shower Saturday night and not wake up for days. Or maybe I was hoping for this. Either way, despite his apparent inability to walk without a pronounced limp, he was still all-in for the half marathon in Switzerland that afternoon."

Photo by Dave Nice

25 Hours of Frog Hollow
November 5-6, 2011

Mountain bike race
13 laps, 169 miles, 13,950 feet of climbing in 22:03
Second solo woman

Race results
Race report:
"The Jem Trail is actually the first piece of singletrack I ever rode on a mountain bike, on a borrowed Cannondale 12-speed way back in 2002. The trail is still every bit as thrilling and fun to me as it was back then. It flows across the plateau like a ribbon in the sand, contouring the rolling landscape with banked turns and a smooth surface that promotes high speeds. I could ride it fifteen times in a row happily, and ambitiously hoped to log this many descents."

The Long March: 45 miles on Thanksgiving Day

Racing the Planet Nepal
November 20-26, 2011

Trail race, six stages, 136 miles, 29,500 feet of climbing
Finished in 48:05
16th woman, 109th overall

Race results
Race report:
"Beyond all the small details of the race was the simple yet deep satisfaction of having completed one of the toughest — and yet most culturally and personally enriching — journeys of my life. In time I would reflect on the thresholds I had crossed, but for now it was time to simply celebrate and bask in the warm sunlight. We hugged new friends and toasted glass bottles of soda and beer to a race well run. I hoped in time my body would forgive me for the relentless struggle through weakness and pain. Pizza was a good place to start."

Coyote Ridge 50K
December 10, 2011

Trail run, 31 miles, 7,130 feet of climbing
Finished in 6:50
Fourth woman, 21st overall

Race results
Race report:
"My training over the last six months means there's not an ounce of speed in my legs, and I was purposely conservative, so I didn't come close to setting a PR. But out of the seven 50K's that I've completed, the Coyote Ridge 50K felt like my strongest, most consistent run yet. I didn't have side-stitches. I didn't get hurty foot. I didn't experience the sensation of my stomach turning inside out and purging its contents all over a rice paddy. I just ... ran."

2011 in photos

2011-12-18T01:35:00.000-08:00

Each December, I pick a crop of photos, one for each month, that I feel best illustrate the events of the year. These aren't what I consider my "best" photos; they're simply my favorite. For various reasons I'm posting my Year in Photos blog earlier than usual. The above photo, which I took in the early hours of the 2011 Susitna 100, is possibly my favorite of the year — and not because I believe it's a great photo. I'm not posting to nitpick technical details, so I'll just tell you why I love this photo. It was a gorgeous frosty morning — still a few degrees below zero after warming up from -12F — when we turned off a postholed mess of a trail and onto this road. Freed from the mire of mush, the three of us — Beat, Danni, and I — suddenly took off running at a brisk pace. As it turned out, these few miles of road would be the only easily runnable section of that entire race, but we didn't know that at the time. What I remember from this moment was how amazing I felt, completely blissed out by the simple act of running in Alaska in the frosty sunlight, and also by the realization that I was actually attempting this utterly mad thing, this plan to drag a sled 100 miles across the Susitna Valley with Beat by my side. I love the way Beat's mitten shells are flopping around playfully, and the random dude's determined posture, and of course the expression of exhilaration on Danni's face. It was an awesome moment, captured by point-and-shoot pixels.

January, "Out of the Fog"

During January, Beat and I were still working through the long-distance phase of our relationship. I was in Missoula, he was in California, and the travel between to two pretty much defined our lives at that point. We'd wring another long weekend after our already overwrought schedules, and as soon as we unpacked, it was time for one of us to pack again. Looking back, I remember feeling a lot of anxiety in January because of the strain on both my and Beat's jobs, and also because I knew change was inevitable. Accepting this change was initially difficult for me. In 2010, I took a lot of risks in an effort to declare my independence, so to speak — to work toward becoming a full and free version of myself. My "independent self" was exactly who I left Alaska for (because "independent Jill" didn't need Alaska to be happy.) In just six months, I had formed a rich and dynamic life in Montana. I had a good job, fantastic recreational opportunities, and truly great friends. But my life didn't feel full yet, and I knew what I was really missing was the connection I felt with Beat, and also an occupation that held more personal meaning (even if it was less lucrative) than what I was doing. It was going to be heartbreaking to move away, yet again, from a place I loved. But I knew I had to do it.

I took this photo during the Crystal Springs 50K in Woodside, California. I chose it for January because it illustrates a lot of what I was doing at the time — traveling to California to visit Beat, training for the Susitna 100, using focused training as a coping mechanism for some of the anxieties I was feeling, and also simply learning how to run (looking back, I struggled so much more with the physical demands of running than I do now, just a year later.) The image holds some symbolic meaning, too, with streams of warm California sunlight just beginning to break through the fog.

February, "Night Ride on Mount Sentinel"

If I had to pick an image to illustrate how I remember Missoula, this would have to be it. Although I spent an entire beautiful summer living in Missoula, my mind is now filled mainly with memories of frosty darkness, pedaling or plodding through a black-and-white world. Sometimes I was alone, fully absorbed in the stillness and silence, but more often I was with friends. Missoula is home to many adventurous souls, and I unsurprisingly connected with one of the craziest of them all, Bill Martin. Bill and I both had day jobs, so our adventures always went down after dark, when temperatures hovered near zero. Bill was constantly half-frozen in his homemade mittens and mountain bike kit, but we pressed on for miles anyway, sometimes late into the night. We enjoyed some great adventures, and he's been a good friend. Whenever people ask me what I miss most about Montana, I always answer without pausing — the friends I had there.

I took this picture during a ride I planned with Bill. I left about a half hour before him on my Pugsley, and expected him to catch up with me on the steep climb, being that he's a sponsored mountain bike racer and all. But he was on his studded-tire mountain bike, and after a few miles the trail looked like that (narrow and soft. I could ride downhill on the fat bike but had to push the climbs.) Bill never caught up to me, and I somehow bypassed him on a different trail while descending, so we never actually rode together. We laugh now about our "Sentinel co-solo ride," but in a way this illustrates how I feel about Missoula. Our paths never fully intersected, but it was a fantastic ride all the same.

March, "Wickersham Dome"

Although I shot dozens of photos while riding my bike for 18 hours in the White Mountains 100, this one is my favorite. After I finished the race, I napped in my sleeping bag on the snow for several hours, drove an hour back to Fairbanks, took a shower, napped for several more hours in a bed, did some laundry, ate a Subway sandwich, drove back to the Wickersham Dome trailhead, chatted with volunteers, and hiked three miles down the trail. I remember watching Beat and his friend Kevin cresting the Wickersham Wall nearly 18 hours after I did the same, and thinking that this whole long day had passed while he was still out there, dragging his sled across the frozen north. The White Mountains north of Fairbanks are one of the most incredible regions I've had the privilege to visit, and I was excited to share one of my favorite spaces — and races — with Beat. But 36 hours is a long time to be out there in the cold, and I felt nervous about how I'd be received.

I needn't have worried. Even though his Achilles was hurting and he was exhausted, he had a smile on his face to match the expansive white rolling hills beyond the dome. It had been just a few weeks since I made the move from Missoula to California, and I also had worried how I'd be received in this new phase of our relationship. Again, I shouldn't have worried so much about it. Beat welcomed me into his everyday life without the slightest hint of reservation. Well, there's one. He seems to blame me for coaxing him into the "craziness" that is Alaska winter racing. However, I have this feeling he might just love it as much if not more more than I do.

April, "Coyote Strolls Up the Street in the Sunlight"

April was all about shaping my new life and exploring my new space. I started on several writing projects that I was excited about, took on freelance jobs that at least kept some income flowing in, and took advantage of my flexible hours to ride and run on the roads and trails near my new home in Los Altos. Before I arrived here in early March, I held the attitude that I might ... someday ... at best ... learn to tolerate life in the Silicon Valley. I did not think I would like it. I couldn't even imagine how I could ever love it. Life here was worth trying for the sake of Beat's and my relationship, but in my view, compared to Alaska and Montana it was a big sacrifice.

And then I actually came to California. I moved into a apartment that was mere minutes away from an expansive open-space system that flows across the Santa Cruz Mountains. I could leave from my front door on foot or bike and soon be immersed in oak-lined trails, or lush redwood forest, or rolling grassy hills, or even a manzanita maze. These weren't wilderness trails but they were extensive, surprisingly not too crowded, and teeming with wildlife — including regular appearances by coyotes and bobcats. I adopted Beat's road bike and spent hours tracing the steep contours of Skyline Drive or time-trialing a close-by scenic climb that never gets old, Montebello Road. I discovered the old-growth redwood forests and cool little communities hidden deeper in these mountains. And I could do all of this without getting in a car and facing the urban traffic and strip-mall sprawl that I had so feared — although even this, in truth, isn't so bad. I was truly enjoying myself, and it was cool to suddenly be immersed in a tech community at the cutting edge of the cutting edge. Plus, the San Francisco Bay area has a large and active trail running and racing community. You could run an organized 50K nearly every weekend of the year if you were so inclined, and yet the Bay-area trail-running community still feels small enough that you get to know the regulars quickly.

May, "Across the Badlands"

I realize that it seems ironic to write about how much I was loving my new life in Northern California and then proceed to post pictures from elsewhere for the entire rest of the year. But beyond my new life with Beat, the year 2011 was defined by a vast expansion in my travel horizons. I did a lot of traveling this year, often to places I never even dreamed I'd visit, and it definitely worked to shift my perspective. This photo is from a May mountain bike tour of the Maah Daah Hey Trail. I joined a group of friends from the Great White North — as I explained to others, it was "me and nine crazy Canadians in middle-of-nowhere North Dakota." I thought it humorous that so many outdoor friends from the Canadian Rockies would come to a famously bland U.S. state like North Dakota — which is not a warm place in early May — to vacation. Dave and Brenda from Banff, both who admit to being staunch singletrack snobs, organized the trip because it's one of the few places on the continent where you can ride a hundred miles of uninterrupted singletrack. We got more than we bargained for with record-breaking moisture, mud, river-crossings and landslides. But it was a fantastic, good-humored group, and the badlands of western North Dakota were more stunning than I even anticipated (and I am a big fan of wide-open desert spaces.) I am a lucky person to know so many great people, even if my friends are spread out across all corners of the world these days.

June, "Struggling Toward Sunrise"

I snapped this shot of Beat on a ridge of the Pacific Crest Trail, just after sunrise during the second morning of the San Diego 100. It was a time of struggle for both of us. Beat was struggling because he was 86 miles into a 100-mile race that he never trained for, as he had spent two months recovering from a bad case of Achilles tendinitis that flared up during the White Mountains 100. (But Beat, being Beat, didn't let that stop him from starting and finishing anyways.) I was struggling because I was just 35 miles into the same effort, and in a lot of foot pain myself. I agreed to pace Beat through the night, starting at mile 51, solely for my own benefit. I was training for the Tahoe Rim Trail 100, which was just a month away, and wanted to complete a long-distance night run at hundred-mile pace.

I knew that experiencing that much pain on the bottom of my feet after 35 miles did not bode well for a hundred-miler the following month. The pain also slowed me down enough that I had to drop myself as a pacer at the next aid station, because I just couldn't keep up with Beat's stride any longer. I was frustrated, but at the same time, pacified by the serene beauty of these desert mountains. This year has been full of growing pains as I've worked to develop my distance capabilities on foot. But I believe the struggle has been worth it, and that "worth it" is what this photo illustrates.

July, "On the Road"

I snapped this shot after a moment of serendipity, as I was driving toward Salt Lake City on I-80. For most of the trip across Nevada, the air had been shrouded by thick brown haze (it was a dirt storm stirred up by the 35 mph wind.) After I passed Wendover and dropped onto the Bonneville Salt Flats, the air began to clear. In my rear-view mirror, I noticed the sun setting behind the distant mountains. It was a beautiful scene, and it stirred up an overwhelming desire to run. I veered into a rest stop, stepped out of my car into the gale-force wind, and started sprinting across the salt in my flip-flops and jeans. I ran a couple hundred yards until I was fully winded, then turned around and stumbled against the cross-wind back toward the car. On the way back I did stop to shoot a few of these jumping self portraits, in an effort to capture the perfect feeling of freedom I was experiencing. (Which I immediately sent to both Beat, who was preparing for a race in France, and my mother, who expected me in Salt Lake hours earlier.)

It did feel good to be on the road. I had just spent a stunning night sleeping high on the Pacific Crest Trail during a 24-mile fastpack trip, and was heading out to Utah to visit my family and hike in the Wasatch mountains and southern desert. I was still processing my experience in the Tahoe Rim Trail 100, which was affecting me more than I thought it would. I went into that race expecting a challenging and fun experience, but not too grueling, being that it was "only" 100 miles in the warmth of summer, with tons of aid. Unsurprisingly, I started to feel my now-familiar foot pain at mile 40, and by mile 58 I was locked in a full-on death march. I remained determined to see it through, but I slowed down to such an extent that by mile 72 it became clear I was not going to make the next aid station before the cut-off. My blind determination, which had really been the only thing that kept me going, completely shattered. I all but crawled to mile 80, arriving nearly two hours after they shut down the aid station. It was tough for me to accept that I could try so hard, and endure so much pain, and still fail. This affected me deeply enough that even now, five months later, I still feel ambivalent about ever participating in a 100-mile trail-running race again (a steep, mountainous foot race that encourages power-hiking and has a fairly generous cut-off, however, is another story. Snow trails, for my own weird reasons, are also exempted from this ambivalence) But it was nice to have a care-free week of hiking in Utah to let go of my disappointment.

August, "Zion Narrows"

Although it was still July when I drove to Utah, I was in Utah in early August, thus the use of two photos from the same trip. Back in the late 1990s, when I was still a teenager, I ordained Zion National Park my favorite place in the world and made it my goal to hike every trail in the park. (Note, I was only aiming for established trails sanctioned by the park, not technical canyoneering routes.) I traversed the whole park during a 2001 backpacking trip, and in 2002 hiked the Subway, thus completing every trail on my list but one — the Zion Narrows. That was just about the time I discovered cycling and all but abandoned every single one of my hiking ambitions, which at one time included all of Colorado's 14'ers and the high peaks of the western United States. (Yes, I was once a goal-driven hiker. I find myself turning in that direction again.) Anyway, until this year the Zion Narrows were still on my bucket list.

My dad secured a hard-to-acquire summer permit and invited me along. The hike was both more beautiful than I imagined, and more challenging. Even with 104-degree heat hovering just a few dozen feet over our heads, the Virgin River at the time was deep and cold. I struggled to navigate the rocks in the swift-flowing current, and also became quite chilled at times. But it was a fantastic walk/swim, and fun to finally see through one of my teenage ambitions (because I've pretty much failed in nearly every other one. Meet Eddie Vedder? Yeah, that hasn't happened yet.)

September, "Tour of Giants"

Before September, I had never even stepped outside the North American continent (unless Hawaii counts.) This was my first foray into the outside world — a two-week trip to Switzerland, Italy and Germany. The European tour was centered around Beat's participation in the Tor des Geants, a 200-mile, 80,000-feet-of-climbing foot race in the Italian Alps. I only served in a support and spectating role, but I had a fantastic time driving a tiny European car all over the Aosta Valley and ascending several of these beautiful mountains myself. I was blown away by the sheer scale and ruggedness of the Alps, and also the culture therein.

I took this photo of Beat when he was just four miles from finishing the almost unfathomably tough race, five days after he started. He's traveling one of the very few "flat" sections of trail with a towering ridge of Mont Blanc in the background. That he was still smiling at this point says a lot about his drive — that despite all appearances and social norms, he really is enjoying himself. One of the many reasons I love him.

October, "Fall in the Grand Canyon"

October in many ways felt like a catch-up month pressed between two big trips, but I did squeeze in one whirlwind desert tour that included pacing my friend Danni for 43 miles in the Slickrock 100, and 24 hours before that, hiking across the Grand Canyon with my dad. Crossing the Grand Canyon with my dad has become a near-annual tradition, and I cherish it.

This year was particularly enjoyable, because for the first time it was just my dad and me. My mom came along for the ride and thankless shuttle duty, which I shared with her on the way back to the North Rim while my dad completed his first-double crossing (I couldn't join him because of scheduling conflicts with the Slickrock 100.) The weather was also dynamic, with three inches of fresh snow on the rim, temperatures near 20 degrees and ice at the trailhead, and vibrant fall colors across the canyon. I actually took this photo the evening before our hike, in a brisk 25-degrees and 15-mph wind at Imperial Point. I slipped on that thin film of ice and felt myself briefly skidding toward that closer-and-steeper-than-it-appears ledge, but I recovered my balance before I fell and snapped this image. My family probably wishes I was more dedicated to a more traditional tradition (like, say, coming home for Christmas.) But I'm grateful my dad and I have the Grand Canyon to share.

November, "Nepal"

Anyone who has made it this far in this blog post probably also read my Nepal novel, so I won't rehash too much of the experience. I took this photo during the 45-mile "Long March" of stage five, of Beat descending into a village above the Pokhara Valley. I picked it as a good representation of the experience because it contains a piece of nearly everything: A stone trail, a tiered farming field, a remote mountain village, the Annapurna Range in the distance to the left and a sweeping view of the foothills. As I've said before, visiting Nepal was an amazing experience, one that will probably take me more than these few weeks since to truly process.

I'm purposely leaving December out of the mix because not only is it still mid-month, but the adventures (and potential photo opportunities) are far from over for 2011. More on that soon.

Last Nepal post, I promise

2011-12-16T22:54:00.000-08:00

It's getting to the point where these vacation posts are rather orphaned out here in the middle of December. But since this blog is little more than my personal scrapbook, I wanted to post a few pictures from our post-race time in Nepal. All four of us — Beat, me, Steve, and Martina — were more wrecked from the 220-kilometer stage race than I think any of us anticipated. Before the trip, we had discussed the possibility of a fast-trek to Annapurna Base Camp, but decided that two big treks in two weeks may be more than our bodies could handle. Although in some ways I wish we'd just rallied to do it, in truth it would have been a terrible idea. Steve had Achilles problems, Martina had foot pain that made it a struggle to walk around town, I was wasting away, and Beat was just sick of all of us (I kid, I kid.) Ascending to 17,000 feet in the space of three to four days, in our condition, likely would have been a disaster.

Instead, we toured the popular spots around Pokhara, and it admittedly was fun to be a true tourist for a few days. The above photo is the World Peace Pagoda, which was constructed by Japanese Buddhist monks to promote — surprise — world peace. It is a beautiful structure, built on a ridge above Phewa Tal with fantastic views of the valley. However, increasing cloudiness throughout the week prevented us from ever seeing another real glimpse of the Annapurna Range.

We hiked up to Sarangkot, another point on a ridge about 2,500 feet above Pokhara. The hike felt short and sweet after RTP Nepal, and we stopped for a lunch of momos and soda at the top. True luxury.

Sarangkot is also a popular spot for paragliders. A "suburb" of Pokhara called Lakeside and Phewa Tal are shown below.

There was also the inevitable touristing around Lakeside, where we actually wandered through crowds, went into shops, and purchased souvenirs (I never really got the hang of enjoying this, but I did try.)

After a few days in Pokhara, we climbed into another (slightly less death-defying) taxi for a ride down to Chitwan National Park, located in the subtropical lowlands of southern Nepal.

We stayed at the Chitwan Jungle Lodge, which had the amusing perk of elephant safaris. Because Chitwan is so dense and undeveloped, elephants are actually the only "vehicles" that can navigate the terrain. (People on foot can as well, of course, but park officials —soldiers with guns — don't allow tourists to hike beyond lodge grounds out of fear they'll be stomped by rhinos or eaten by tigers.) The lodge employs domesticated elephants from India to haul the tourists around the jungle and look for wild animals, which sometimes include wild elephants. We saw a rhinoceros, a crocodile, fresh tiger tracks (no tiger), and lots of deer, birds and warthog. Nothing that I was able to capture with a decent photograph. Riding elephants through the jungle was definitely a highlight of the trip, and allowed me to live out my childhood "Indiana Jones" fantasies. Yes, we did feel uneasy about the use of elephants as pack animals. However, the elephants at the tourist lodges appear healthy and well-treated, and the flow of tourism dollars does promote continued protection of the national park and the endangered animals therein from the lucrative poaching industry. It's certainly a double-edged sword.

But perhaps even more than the elephant rides and rhino sighting, the highlight of Chitwan Jungle Lodge was this pair: a 2-year-old cat and her mongoose "kitten." The story of how they came together is simultaneously tragic and touching. When the mongoose was just a few days old, lodge employees found him alone and apparently orphaned. They brought him back to the lodge and fed him scraps of food until he was healthy enough to move around on his own. It was during this time that the cat gave birth to a litter of kittens, which the young mongoose found and killed. The cat, either grieving or confused, began to nurse the mongoose as though he was her own kitten. The two have apparently been inseparable ever since. The cat brings the mongoose snakes and rodents, cleans him, and cuddles with him. We watched them play together numerous times.

And the mongoose, now six months old, has grown up thinking he's a cat. He behaves in very cat-like ways, prowling around the lodge grounds and slurping up the dregs of beer glasses. He especially likes to cozy up on guests' laps and fall asleep. It was all very cute and cuddly until he yawned, revealing a row of razor-sharp, cobra-slaying teeth.

We spent our last day in Nepal back in Kathmandu, where we sprung for a room at the Hyatt because honestly, we were all becoming a little weary of third-world charm (and traffic.) We walked to the Boudhanath Stupa, a large Buddhist temple surrounded by more than fifty Tibetan monasteries. It's become the central location for Tibetan refugees in Nepal, and also the most popular tourism site in Kathmandu.

Nepal certainly was the trip of a lifetime, and I loved being there. I'd go back in a heartbeat even if it included the guarantee that I'd have to fight "The Bug" all over again. Someday I will return to the Himalayas.

Reverse culture shock

2011-12-14T23:59:00.000-08:00

I underdressed, again. Say what you will about the lack of winter in coastal California, but when the air temperature is 41 degrees and a brisk 15 mph wind is whipping along a bald ridge, it's cold. But of course the California sun has lulled me into a sense of complacency, so here I am, up on Black Mountain with the Fatback, trying to slap some life back into my rigid fingers, again. If Fatty Fatback had a personality he'd probably be silently laughing at the poetic justice of my discomfort, trapped as he is in a land without snow.

I steamrolled over some rocks and launched down the fall-line, mowing over clumps of grass on a faint deer trail. The cold wind tore through my meager layers and chilled the beads of sweat on my skin. I mashed the pedals as the contour turned upward, and topped out with an even better view of sunset. Wispy clouds, golden haze, and the distant mirror of the Pacific Ocean reflecting fire from the sun. Squinting into the sunlight, I failed to see a herd of grazing deer until they erupted from the grass mere meters away, then raced down the ridge. I scanned the sloping meadow for a good place to drop toward Indian Creek but thought better of it, because it is illegal to be in this park after dark, and this is still highly-regulated coastal California. No more off-roading today; the sunset view would have to do. I touched my frozen feet to the ground and smiled, because it was worth it.

The reverse culture shock I'd been experiencing since I returned from Nepal was finally starting to fade. I think most people who travel through a developing nation experience this to some extent. At first there is relief ("Wow, look how smooth these roads are. So strange not to have motorcycles buzzing around on all sides as diesel trucks bear down on you.") Then there is the sense of novelty. ("Wow, there's so much fresh produce in this one store, and I don't need to haggle with a guy pushing a cart full of tangerines.") Then comes guilt. ("Why do I have so many bicycles? I met a young man in Nepal who walked three hours to work because he couldn't afford any other form of transportation. I should start a charity that raises funds to give sturdy work bicycles to families in Nepal.") Then comes a kind of cultural despair, which can happen when you return from a place where people do so much with so little, to a place where you can't go to Target for cat litter without finding yourself fully submerged in a mad holiday frenzy. ("I watched men building a stone levee with their hands, hoisting huge boulders and hammering them into place, in an effort to divert monsoonal flooding that had killed several people in their village. That was the human spirit. This is insanity.") Then, finally, acceptance. ("I have so many opportunities. I'm free to ride my fat bike any time I want. I really am lucky to live here.")

So I returned to my routine, still grateful for my opportunities back home, still enthralled with the landscape and people of Nepal, still disturbed by holiday excess. Normal life returned to me quickly, but I did spend more time thinking how I could better strike a balance in my own world, and how I could find a way to add a few of my own stones to that life-saving levee. Not because I believe Nepalis — or frenzied holiday shoppers — need saving. People can do a lot with a little if they have to. And people with a lot can do a little if they want to. I can do a little. I can contribute where I can, and on the homefront, I can focus my energy toward the world I want to live in. Be the change I want to see, so to speak.

Bicycling is always a great place to start.

Nepal gear round-up

2011-12-13T21:27:00.000-08:00

I wanted to post a wrap-up of some of the gear I used during the 220 kilometers of Racing the Planet Nepal, and my thoughts on why it worked (or didn't work.) It's not comprehensive and, as with all gear "reviews" should be taken for the highly subjective and personal opinions they are.

RaidLight Runner R-Light Backpack; holds 30 liters, weighs 690 grams: Raidlight designed this backpack specifically for adventure and long-distance endurance racing, and Racing the Planet sells it directly from its Web site. So it's become the prominent pack at many RTP events, for good reason. It's light, it's decently robust, it has space for lots of stuff, and it has strategic pockets that allow the wearer to access water bottles, food, drugs, and cameras without having to wrestle with the pack. It definitely passed my "Jill-proof" test, meaning I overstuffed it often and hiked and ran many miles with it in Europe, California and Nepal, and nothing broke (and believe me, I am not gentle nor do I have a good track record with longevity in my gear.) It doesn't have a frame, which I prefer for any sort of running. I also own a similarly sized Osprey Stratos backpack that does have a frame. I have taken the Stratos on a couple of fastpacking trips in which I ran for only a few miles, and still ended up with painful sores on my shoulders and hips. With the Raidlight, I tightened the hip and breast straps and let the pack hang loosely off my shoulders, the way I often do with my packs when cycling. Experienced packers may question this strategy but it worked great for me. Even packed with up to 27 pounds of gear, water and food, the Raidlight remained comfortable and didn't cause any chaffing in an entire week. (I did have to tighten the shoulder straps to prevent bouncing whenever I was running 5 mph or faster.) I would definitely use it again on a multi-night fastpacking trip. I already know I can hold seven days worth of food, clothing, rain gear, sleeping gear, and other supplies with this pack. It wouldn't be much of a stretch to add a nine-ounce bivy or lightweight shelter. (I already know I won't be adding a stove. I'll explain why later in this post.)

Black Diamond Ultra-Distance Z-Poles: length 120 centimeters, weigh 9.5 ounces. I love these poles. Seriously. Beat and I purchased them on a whim while browsing the Anchorage REI mere hours before the 2011 Susitna 100, because we were worried about the slog factor caused by all the new snow the region had received that day. Those poles all but carried me the last 50 miles of the Su100, and continued to provide ample balance and knee support on many good hikes afterward. When they disappeared high on Testa Grigia in Italy, I nearly cried. But then Beat bought me a new pair for ... Halloween (awesome guy that he is, no special occasion needed) ... and I had the privilege of using them in Nepal. These carbon poles are both light and strong, with a simple but robust inner-cord support system that allow them to collapse small enough to fit inside the Raidlight without falling apart. They also feature comfy foam grips, hand straps and all-around awesomeness. I really am a fan.

Brooks Cascadia shoes: These were another remnant of my early days of running, in that they were my main training shoe for the fall and winter of 2010-2011, and were a close second to the Hokas during spring and summer. Yes, they were the same pair of shoes and yes, they had a ton of miles on them (I don't keep track, but the soles were almost worn clean through.) I realize that using such a worn pair of shoes in a long endurance race was a gamble, but they had been so comfortable and provided such great traction on loose and muddy terrain, that I was willing to take the risk. (I was also aware that a lot of the miles in RTP Nepal would be spent hiking, even if I remained healthy, which I didn't.) Great shoes. I finally tossed them out in Kathmandu but recently purchased a new pair (the latest version is signal green color, which I dislike, but what can you do? They hook you first and then they the foist bad colors on you.)

Ridge Rest So-lite; length 72 inches, weighs 14 ounces: I chose the Ridge Rest over my inflatable Thermarest because of the higher R-Value, or insulation factor, and the fact that closed-cell foam can't burst and leave you really miserable at night. Also, I am usually a stomach sleeper, so the softness of the pad isn't as important to me as long as I have a good pillow for neck and shoulder support (I made one out of coats and a stuff sack.) The main thing I seek in a sleeping pad is insulation from the cold ground, which a full-length Ridge Rest provides in all conditions. The So-lite had an added benefit of an aluminum surface that reflects body heat. Whether or not this makes a difference, I don't know. But I have slept on a Ridge Rest comfortably when temperatures reached 35 below, and it is now and probably will forever be my go-to backpacking pad as long as space allows.

RAB Quantum Endurance 400 sleeping bag; length 6 feet 6 inches, weighs 2 pounds 1 ounce: These 850-fill down bags are rated to 25 degrees, so we remained warm and comfy during those long, sick nights in camp. We also were grateful for the weather-proof exterior. Every night, the cheap Coleman tents collected so much condensation on the poorly ventilated walls and roof that it would literally rain inside the tent during the early hours of the morning. We were able to just shake all the droplets off our bags in the morning, while our poor tentmates had to pack up their own soaked bags and hope they reached the next camp in time to dry them out in the sun. Despite the relatively high humidity and keeping it packed in a water-proof stuff sack, my bag was always dry when I unpacked it in the evening. Which was a good thing, because I only once made it to camp before the sun sank behind the mountains.

DriDucks Duralight Rainsuit; weighs 11 ounces. Cheap, ultralight, waterproof, breathable. To those descriptors, you can also add ugly and easily torn, but my pair held up just fine. They're constructed with triple-layer, porous polypro fabric. Thanks to the perfect weather, we mainly used these rainsuits to stay warm in camp, where temperatures dropped as low as 33 degrees, and also for warmth while hiking in the morning and after dark during the long stage. It's actually one of the most breathable yet warm raincoats I've ever worn. And although we didn't test them in wet conditions, the coat has received mostly good reviews for its waterproof capabilities. At $45 for the pair, that's hard to beat. Basically a reusable disposable rainsuit.

Expedition food; 800 calories, weighs 6.2 ounces. Anyone who read my novel of a race report knows that my food was a huge FAIL for me. I carried several pounds of these expensive meals that I never ate. I still believe this largely had to do with my illness and unintentional cleansing of my already oversensitive digestive system. But I also think it carries an important lesson about finding the foods that specifically work for you, and not just doing what everyone else does. I am not a good eater; under endurance duress, I literally cannot eat high-fat or high-protein foods (unless those fats are accompanied by a large volume of sugar ala peanut butter cups. Go figure.) If I do force them down, I often have to endure digestive discomfort and even outright rejection of the food. I haven't made these types of foods work for me yet. I either need to accept that my body seems unable to process larger percentages of proteins and fats even in slower, longer endurance situations, and carry mainly carbohydrates, or I need to spend a lot more time getting my body used to processing fats on the go. Beyond this, there is the smaller issue that I really do think most backpacking-friendly camp food is gross. I am not a "hot food in camp" kind of a person, and yes I realize this puts me in an extreme minority. On my next fastpacking trip, I will bring bagels. I will make the space. It's better to eat something, anything, than nothing at all. Trust me.

Recovery run: Coyote Ridge 50K

2011-12-11T22:41:00.000-08:00

Racing the Planet Nepal finished two weeks ago Saturday. We spent the following week touristing around Pokhara, Chitwan National Park and Kathmandu (from which I will soon post pictures, along with a post-race gear wrap-up.) It was a fantastic week but not great for recovery. I continued to cope with digestive oversensitivity, dehydration (relying on bottled water makes it more of a chore to acquire and carry enough drinking water) and general fatigue. Just when my stomach was finally becoming accustomed to Nepal-specific bacteria, we returned to the United States, and I had to readjust to American food all over again. Jet lag also hit me hard, and I was unable to sleep at night even when I forced myself to stay awake all day.

Health-wise, November 2011 felt like an incredibly destructive month. I started with the 25-hour mountain bike race. No matter how much you love it, that much biking in a day just isn't healthy. Post-race snarfing, my sister's wedding festivities, travel food and tapering led to me packing on some pounds just before we left for Nepal. I usually weigh in the 133-135 range. I was 139 the day before we left the country. Then there was sickness, the resulting nutrition debacle amid a tough endurance race, and slowness to recover afterward. Several days after returning to California, my weight was still 129 ... meaning I likely lost ten to fifteen pounds during the race. That's a lot of big swings in one month, both gained and lost in the least healthy ways possible. The result left my body feeling more than a bit broken down.

Shortly after Racing the Planet Nepal wrapped up, amid the glow of finishing, Beat and I registered online for a 50-kilometer trail run. The Coyote Ridge 50K was scheduled less than a week after our return from Nepal. It's already mid-December (!!!) and I'm registered for the Susitna 100 in February (I may write a blog post about why I've decided to run the Susitna 100 again, but it basically boils down to a conviction that my life would not be complete without my annual winter slog in Alaska, and no I do not consider that normal or healthy.) But since Susitna is just a short nine weeks away, I decided I needed to kick off my "training." And somehow in my post-race fog, running a 50K seemed like a good idea.

My first days back in California felt like an exercise in futility, in every sense of the phrase. I started with short rides on my road bike, because I was back in the land of bikes so of course I was going to ride my bike. I enjoyed the riding immensely, but my legs felt like they had been soaked in a protein-dissolving acid solution. You know, like mush. The usual efforts suddenly became so much slower and more challenging. My regular route up Montebello Road felt like an Everest climb. I wanted to blame jet lag, but I suspected something deeper.

On Wednesday, I could no longer delay the inevitable. I had to see whether my body still knew how to run. It had been at least six weeks since the last time I attempted a real trail run without a 25-pound pack and trekking poles. But Wednesday's run was not an encouraging experiment. Basically, I spent ninety minutes trying to "run" six miles, pounding my mush legs, gasping for air at a paltry 1,200 feet elevation, and basically having The Fear driven firmly into my heart.

Understand that I was never trying to "train" for the 50K. I just had to prove to myself that my body still worked. I wasn't sure it did. I realize that these efforts didn't exactly aid in recovery, but I needed a mental boost. Any mental boost. I went back out on Thursday afternoon and ran eight miles. That too took ninety minutes, with more climbing, and I felt generally better. Not great, but better.

"I still think I'm broken," I told Beat. "I'm not really sure how I can turn eight tough miles over to 31 in two days. It's going to be like that time I tried to ride a hundred-mile mountain bike race three weeks after the Tour Divide. That was a huge disaster."

"It will be fine," Beat assured me. "Your body will remember how to run."

If I looked tired, it's because I was really tired.

The Coyote Ridge 50K began at 8 a.m. Saturday in Muir Beach. The course circled the Golden Gate National Recreation Area in the Marin Headlands, a beautiful region of open (yes, deforested) rolling hills and seaside cliffs. It's both famous and infamous with Bay-area runners for its stunning scenery, steep terrain, concrete-like trails and almost-never-clear weather in December. When I saw the forecast for a high of 52 degrees and sunshine, I planned for 52 degrees with wind, salty moisture and dense fog. We left Los Altos in the almost-frosty darkness of 6 a.m., just in time to catch a glimpse of the lunar eclipse. I leaned toward the windshield and gaped at the full moon, eerily shrouded by a bronze shadow. "This is a bad omen," I said. "Or maybe it's a good one." Beat just shook his head. He doesn't believe in omens.

Coyote Ridge was not a "soft" 50K by any means, with an elevation gain of 7,130 feet and a course profile that looked like the electrocardiogram of a man about to have a heart attack. The race had a nine-hour cutoff that spanned dawn to dusk, and I planned to use all of those hours. I just wanted to finish, if that was even possible. I followed the paceline up the first steep climb just as the sun rose over the eastern ridges, promising a gorgeous day. Huge waves crashed on the rocks, turkey vultures soared over our heads and the bright blue Pacific stretched into an equally bright sky. I was stoked on the scenery, crisp 40-degree air and sunshine, and started marching faster. After passing a dozen or more people, I thought better of running a 180-bpm heart rate in the first mile of a 31-mile day. So I settled back in with the pack, wondering just how it could be that I felt so good.

I wrote a long preface to this race report to set up yet another grueling tale of hardship, but the truth is, there wasn't any. My training over the last six months means there's not an ounce of speed in my legs, and I was purposely conservative, so I didn't come close to setting a PR. But out of the seven 50K's that I've completed, the Coyote Ridge 50K felt like my strongest, most consistent run yet. I didn't have side-stitches. I didn't get hurty foot. I didn't experience the sensation of my stomach turning inside out and purging its contents all over a rice paddy. I just ... ran. Sometimes the climbs were head-spinningly steep; those I walked. And I shuffled as I usually do on the steep descents, because it's not like I magically figured out how to run downhill overnight. And I did move slowly up a couple of gradual inclines when my right knee was acting up. But then I stopped to pop a couple of Advil, massaged the knee cap for a minute, and felt strong once again.

I did experience disappointment when my small Sony point-and-shoot camera blew up about a half hour into the race. I continued to try to beat it back to life and did manage to extract one more photo — the one at the top of this post. But you'll have to take my word that it was a gorgeous day with stunning scenery throughout. I finished in six hours and 50 minutes, seven minutes after Beat finished. (We decided not to race together but ended up running similar times anyway.) I was the fourth woman, which according to Beat should secure my spot at the top of the 2011 Coastal Trail Run Ultra Blazers awards. Yay. :)

GPS stats here. The statistic I'm pleased with the heart-rate graph, whose consistency helps me believe that my endurance survived whatever nutritional horrors I put my body through in November. (The elevation graph is messed up after my GPS signal cut out several times. I did not fall off any cliffs.)

The pessimistic side of me is suspicious that maybe I only reason I felt so strong during the Coyote Ridge 50K was precisely because I felt so weak and sick in Nepal, and really anything would feel awesome in comparison. But the optimistic side of me likes to believe that my body isn't broken, that maybe it was never broken, and maybe it just knew how to run, all along.

The long wait to the finish

2011-12-09T22:24:00.000-08:00

The end of the Long March carried the cruel illusion that the hardship was finished, when really there were still 36 hours left in the race. Sure, there was only one more short stage — an easy, mostly flat 13 kilometers across Pokhara. But not until Saturday. Friday was technically still part of the Long March. For those of us who finished the 45 miles on Thursday, it was a rest day. For me, it felt like one of the biggest endurance challenges of the race.

I woke up feeling sick to my stomach. This was most likely my fault for running for sixteen and a half hours on minimal nutrition, but I blamed "the bug ... or a new bug." I shuffled miserably around camp and refused to eat. I sorted out the rest of my freeze-dried meals that I hadn't yet given away or thrown away and threw them away (and yes, the only freeze-dried meal of my own that I actually ate in seven days was the demon Thai Chicken before the race even began.) Our camp was located near the shoreline of Bengas Lake, a popular tourism spot, so we were surrounded by small restaurants. Beat coaxed me up to what was a common sight in the cities of Nepal — a single-counter store with various chips, cookies, ramen and soda. We shared a small bag of "American Sour Cream and Onion" potato chips and a Sprite. Very soon afterward, digestive distress ensued. I rushed to the toilets, and then returned to the tent to marinate in my own misery. As the sun rose over the hillside, the temperature inside the nylon oven climbed to what must have been 130 degrees. I lay in my sweat-drenched underwear on top of a Ridge Rest and moaned.

A few times, Beat came to the door of the tent to coax me out. "It's too hot in here. Come outside."

"Errrrrrgh."

And then, twenty minutes later: "You need to get up and eat something."

"Ugggggh."

And then, another twenty minutes later. "Seriously. You have to get out of here."

"Just give me twenty more minutes."

"No, you have to eat something now. You ran for sixteen hours yesterday and you need something to recover. Seriously, this is how kidney failure happens to people."

I crawled out of the tent and was almost surprised to discover that it wasn't 130 degrees outside. I added hot water to a cup of ramen and began working on it at a rate of about a spoonful per minute. Steve approached and began raving about the most amazing grilled fish he just had for lunch, at a little restaurant down by the water. "The guy catches fish in a net, and then he cleans the fish, and then he fills it with all this garlic, chili and spices, and then he throws it on the grill, all right in front of you. It's awesome."

Fish and garlic? It sounded awful to me, but I couldn't go back to the tent to lay down without stewing in my own brain proteins. I had to find some way to kill the daylight hours. Eventually I agreed to head down to the restaurant to sit at a table and drink soda, especially after Beat threatened to make me eat the Kathmandu Curry (he ended up eating it himself for lunch.) The lakeside restaurant was tiny, with a family of four taking orders, chopping potatoes, selling sodas and grilling fish on a barbecue barely large enough to hold two foil-wrapped fish. I ordered a small plate of fries and Sprite, and Beat ordered the fish. I agreed to try it, and then I ended up eating half of it. It was pretty fantastic ... more proof that I just had over-sensitive endurance stomach and not an actual illness. Although I would have benefited more from downing a couple thousand calories in electrolyte and protein recovery drink, the fish did me a world of good.

But mostly, I was looking forward to running again. An ongoing theme throughout my Racing the Planet Nepal experience was that I generally felt okay on the trail, and horrible in camp. There are several factors that contributed to this, but I think in general I just cope better when I stay on the move. By the final night, only three remained in our tent out of the original seven: me, Beat and a retired British investment banker who lives in Hong Kong, Peter Clarke. Patty unfortunately became overwhelmed by her illness and had to drop out during stage five. We didn't see her again. Peter, who is 61 years old, not only managed to remain healthy through the sick-fest, but also finished well ahead of us in every stage but the last one.

This is the contingent from the San Francisco Bay area: Martina Koldewey, Chuck Wilson, Beat, me, Sarah Diaz, Erin Sprague and Steve Ansell.

Stage six was 13 kilometers (8 miles) with 130 meters (426 feet) of climbing. Short and flat. Before we could start running toward Pokhara, we had to get to the other side of Bengas Lake. Racing the Planet set up an elaborate shuttle system using dozens of small paddle boats, each with its own local captain.

Beat and I thought it would have been more fun if racers were each issued a paddle and given the task of paddling the boat as part of the race, cooperation style. Or better yet, have the leaders swim while towing the back-of-packers in boats behind them.

Our particular captain was a bit competitive himself (and probably younger than 18, although child labor is commonplace here; the median age in Nepal is 20 and 40 percent of the population is younger than 14.) Even though our boat started near the back, we passed enough boats to get a good spot on the starting line. For breakfast I ate my last bar, a Nature Valley Peanut Butter Granola Bar, savoring every bite. And that was that. There were no more bars.

The run into the finish was mostly uneventful. We actually did run at about a 10-minute-mile pace until we hit an open swamp, where the footing became dicey and I also experienced a serious bonk. Of course my entire race experience was essentially one big, drawn-out bonk. But this one had a sharper feel, a touch of finality, and I nearly panicked. "Holy cow, I'm going to shut down right here like that woman who collapsed just a few meters shy of the finish line in the Boston Marathon." We were still five kilometers from the Fulbari Resort. I sputtered to such a crawl that Beat asked me what was wrong, and I admitted I was out of gas. Luckily, he had one more energy bar and relented to splitting it with me.

With those final sparks of fuel, my distress subsided. I looked up and for the first time that morning, actually noticed the incredible skyline spread out before us. The many photos in these posts don't even come close to depicting the scale of these mountains, and as a visual it's impossible to describe. Pokhara Valley rests at 3,000 feet. Less than twenty miles in a direct line, the elevation rises sharply to 25,000 feet. The skyline features three eight-thousanders (as in meters): Dhaulagiri, Annapurna and Manaslu. The photogenic pyramid in the middle of the Annapurna range is the 7,000-meter Machhapuchhre ("Fishtail.") I like to believe that someday I will return to Nepal and trek into the heart of these mountains. But even to see them from afar is consistently breathtaking.

After a surprisingly short hour and 45 minutes, we strode across the finish line to a barrage of clapping schoolchildren, Nepali ethnic music and a holy man dabbing blessings on our forehead. We received a medal and shawl as we bee-lined for the pizza — pizza! —which is all I was capable of thinking about in that moment.

As for the race, Beat and I finished 108th and 109th out of 220 starters and 170 finishers with a time of 48 hours and five minutes. I was 16th out of 50 starters and 38 finishers in the women's category. Out of Americans, I was 22nd of 51. And out of American women I was first of ten! (See, I knew I'd get myself on the podium if I whittled the categories down enough.)

But beyond all the small details of the race was the simple yet deep satisfaction of having completed one of the toughest — and yet most culturally and personally enriching — journeys of my life. In time I would reflect on the thresholds I had crossed, but for now it was time to simply celebrate and bask in the warm sunlight. We hugged new friends and toasted glass bottles of soda and beer to a race well run. I hoped in time my body would forgive me for the relentless struggle through weakness in pain. Pizza was a good place to start.

Thanksgiving march

2011-12-09T01:16:00.000-08:00

As the race director rattled through her morning announcements, Matt the ex-Marine pushed through the crowd toward me. He reached out and gave me a hardy handshake. "Happy Thanksgiving," he said.

"Oh wow, you're right," I said. "I totally forgot. It's Thursday. It's Thanksgiving."

"I brought a package of mashed potatoes," he said. "I'm going to eat them at the overnight checkpoint, the one with the hot water."

"That was a great idea," I said. "I didn't bring ... anything."

Matt grinned and turned to spread his holiday greetings to other Americans in the crowd. I sighed heavily as nostalgia pangs churned in my empty stomach. Warm images replaced the ashen faces of the crowd. My aunt shouting at the Dallas Cowboys above the chatter of my cousins. My now-deceased grandfather cracking corny jokes. My grandmother admonishing everyone to rattle off a long list of thanks as the turkey gets cold. My sisters and I sneaking Peanut M&Ms from the candy dish before dinner. My mother's pies. Oh, my mother's pies. Coconut cream. Heaven.

I returned to reality in a jolt of cold obviousness. "What the hell am I doing here?" The day's plan spread out before me like a sentence: "The Long March," 72 kilometers (45 miles) with 3,249 meters (10,659 feet) of climbing, on tough and often steep terrain. This in itself would make for a tough day, but now it followed four solid days of racing to a combined 79 miles and 18,600 feet of climbing, on rugged trails, running what amounted to a starvation diet of about 1,200 calories a day.

I felt nauseated from the morning's granola bar, or maybe it was nervousness. Honestly, I don't know how much of my inability to eat was remnant symptoms of the bug and how much of it was psychological. My body was exhausted and so tired of feeling sick, and my mind both blamed food and obsessed about it. I just wasn't sure how much farther I could go, and yet I had come so far. Of course The Long March was worth a shot.

And then, the race began. I think my expression in this photograph shows how I felt. My eyes were droopy and tired, my posture slumped and my legs were dragging. But there's a spark there, and a genuine smile. I was still enthralled with the landscape and culture, and excited to see what lay ahead.

And the morning was gorgeous. We had been incredibly lucky with the weather. The week before the race, it rained so continuously that the race organizers sent out an e-mail warning of a wet and cold slog with a decent chance of snow. And the week after the race, the mountains were always shrouded in thick clouds. But for that one week the sky was clear, and temperatures held a mild range from 1 to 30 degrees Celsius (yes, it does get quite warm in Nepal in November.) Plus, the mountains were always out. If Hindu karma does exist, the perfect weather was probably a fair exchange for how sick I felt.

After two rolling kilometers the trail shot skyward, gaining 600 meters in two kilometers. That's an average grade of 30 percent or a gain of 1,600 feet per mile. Pretty steep. I actually had to go back and re-read to course notes to get this number because in my memory it was not much of a climb at all. I don't think that's as much a result of poor memory as it is an indicator that our health really was improving. As we recovered, the miles seemed easier, even if they really weren't.

The miles were numerous though, and for much of the stage my mind fell into that Zen place that can often be described as "auto-pilot." Because of this, my memories of this stage are more fragmented than the others, so I have many pictures with fewer stories to tell. We were marching.

Nepalis seem to spend lots of time relaxing on the side of the trails, where I imagine the most entertaining action takes place. I was always impressed with the way they sat, with their knees fully bent or even squatting in a way that made my own knees ache vicariously. Steve and I discussed another seeming anomaly in rural Nepal — an almost complete lack of middle-aged people. We saw many hundreds of children, and strikingly beautiful young adults up to about age 25. Everyone older than that looked to be at least sixty, with wrinkles spread across their faces, sagging postures and tired eyes. We couldn't decide whether there actually is a large generation gap, whether most of the middle-aged adults were working the fields away from town, or whether the hard lives in rural Nepal just leave people looking much older than they are.

After 15 kilometers, we traversed a mountainside jungle along a disconcertingly slippery trail. It actually felt strange to reduce our pace to a slow walk, as we had been jogging for a while. During our training, Beat was always significantly stronger and faster than me while carrying a pack. It's one of the reasons we decided not to race together, as I feared his pace would burn me out and mine would bore him. Even though I was stronger in stage five than I had been yet, following Beat's pace kept me right at my upper limit. And yet, the sensation of dripping sweat and breathing hard felt really good, because it wasn't sick, and it wasn't weak. It was running, which is what we came to our running race to do.

But I knew my body was significantly broken down and couldn't even begin to recover until I rested, which wasn't going to happen during a 45-mile continuous march. I accepted this willingly, even gratefully, because I knew that life doesn't always hand you the best timing and I believed the journey was worth it. But I braced myself for hardship.

One interesting aspect of climbing mountains in Nepal is that there is nearly always some kind of religious shrine at the top. This is one of the more elaborate pagodas we passed, but it represents well the strong Buddhist presence in the mountains. Even though Hinduism is the dominant religion in Nepal, Buddhism is growing thanks to a large influx of refugees from Tibet, as well as an explosion in the general population. The purpose of the pagoda is to house sacred relics and writings. I once looked into a small structure that housed a naked Barbie doll among the many candles, flower petals and glass bottles. It seemed more likely that this was just someone's idea of a disrespectful joke, or the work of defiant child ... but then you never really know what holds spiritual meaning to another.

I respect spirituality and believe my own lies in the awe of living, which is why I do the things that I do. When I was in college I read a lot of Joseph Campbell, "follow your bliss" and all that. He has one quote that particularly sticks out in my mind as closely paralleling my own beliefs:

“People say that what we’re all seeking is a meaning for life. I don’t think that’s what we’re really seeking. I think that what we’re seeking is an experience of being alive, so that our life experiences on the purely physical plane will have resonances with our own innermost being and reality, so that we actually feel the rapture of being alive.” ("The Power of Myth")

The rapture of being alive. It would hit me sometimes as we jogged along the rocky trail, even through a mental molasses of fatigue and physical deterioration. "I'm in Nepal. Those are the Himalayas. I'm really here." I do realize that meeting Beat has opened up opportunities for me that I would not have otherwise had, possibly ever. For that I am grateful. But more than that, I'm grateful just to have Beat in my life. He does understand that I'd be happy to spend all of my weeks and months in California with him if that's what it took, but I'm glad he too so zealously values the experience of being alive that he'll go to the other side of the world to find it. There is just so much to discover in the regions and experiences far outside our comfort zones. And I'm grateful that Beat not only values these experiences, but also values me enough to sacrifice some of his own experiences to stick by my side while I stumble through a sick fog. That truly made the difference in my struggle to push on or give up during the first stage. I am grateful. (Beat's probably embarrassed reading this right now, but my grandmother sitting in front of the Thanksgiving spread would be so proud.)

The general route of stage five wrapped around the Pokhara Valley and emerged on the far side of town via a rippling series of mountain passes, three big climbs in all. The second took place in the heat of the day, that 30-degree-Celsius range, and was a real crusher. A few times, I flirted with the notion of just passing out alongside the trail, and then I would eat another few gummies from my last oh-so-precious bag of candy. For all of this post-race blather about the rapture of being alive, if I am honest with myself, it was a 99-cent bag of candy that really got me through.

The sun set over the distant Annapurna range as we climbed the third pass. We reached the top, kilometer 45, just as it was becoming too dark to hike without lights. Racing the Planet set up what it called the overnight checkpoint here, meaning you could either stop and sleep for a few hours or keep on moving into the night. Either way, the clock kept running. I didn't care about the clock, but I was also intrigued by the prospect of moving through this strange land in the dark and quiet of the night. It was less intimidating because Beat was with me.

We pulled two stools to the edge of the ridge, and for the first time I saw the city lights of Pokhara spread out before us. Beat dropped his pack and fished out two packages of ramen noodles that he had purchased that morning in Birenthanti for 40 rupees (about 50 cents.) We cut empty water bottles in half, crushed the noodles into one cup, dropped packets of powdered cappuccino into the other, and then filled them with hot water. As I sipped the foamy beverage and devoured the still-crunchy soup, I felt a rush of well-being and warmth every bit as satisfying as a full turkey dinner served by loved ones. It was, for those fleeting minutes at least, the best Thanksgiving dinner ever.

Instead of collapsing on the couch with full bellies and football on the television after dinner, we chased our 300 calories of ramen and cappuccino with 30 kilometers of running in Nepal in the dark. The final 30K was less hilly and we actually did run some, although not fast, and of course with much silliness. Because it was not all that late, we still had to contend with dodging the lights of oncoming motorcycles and passing groups of local children and spectators who could see and yell at us even though we couldn't see them (Nepalis must have excellent night vision.)

I was amazed I didn't feel worse in the final miles — if fact, except for the struggles during the hot climb, my physical state seemed to remain in a state of equilibrium for the entire day, as though the pace of my continuing recovery from my illness perfectly matched the deterioration of endurance racing. I didn't feel great, but really, I didn't feel bad either. In fact, I felt a lot less bad than I believed I should after 45 miles even under normal circumstances. My knees were still okay. I didn't have any blisters. I didn't even have any chafing from my huge pack. Most importantly, I didn't have any foot pain. I've never traveled that far in one shot without getting "hurty foot," at any speed. For that, too, I was grateful.

But most of all, I was grateful to be done. We finished at 11:47 p.m. for a finishing time of 16 hours and 32 minutes (the race started at 7:15.) It was good enough to come in about 95th or so, which out of 170 who started the stage wasn't an awful position (at least not as awful as tenth from last.) Despite all, we really were improving, and all of the hard parts of the race were over with. Or so I thought.

Steps forward

2011-12-07T22:51:00.000-08:00

In my mind, the real challenge began after the stage ended. Other racers had already devoured their late lunch and were moving onto pre-dinner tea and, for the heavier packers, snacks. I watched them tape their blisters (of which I had none) and massage their sore knees and shoulders (mine were fine.) But as I observed them shoveling in spoonfuls of slop with glee, I would have welcomed all of their maladies just to have what they had — an appetite.

They looked happy and content; I felt ragged and empty. They sprawled out comfortably in the sunlight; I was unnaturally tense and my muscles ached all over. My body was consuming noticeable portions of itself that I was convinced included a fair percentage of muscle (there are conflicting studies out there on the science of starvation, but I have read about research which concluded that a depleted body in motion turns to muscle proteins, which are more easily converted to energy than fat, even if there's plenty of body fat available.) Of course I don't know exactly what was happening biologically, only that I was losing weight and weakening by the hour.

But it wasn't such a simple dilemma as just stuffing down more food. Food I had. It was my stomach that seemed to cease functioning with any sort of effectiveness. As long as my body was in motion, I was fine. I could consume my simple carbohydrate energy food and feel restored as the glucose passed directly into my bloodstream. But simply eating my bars was like using kindling to stay warm on a winter camping trip. The flash-flame wore off too quickly, and if I burned up all of my bars, I stood no chance of igniting the disgusting freeze-dried logs that comprised the rest of my energy source.

One of our tent-mates, Patty, overheard Beat and I analyzing our dinners and offered us one of her bland meals, a benign-sounding, low-fat entree called Chicken Noodles. When we tried to trade one of our meals, she refused. Patty and her husband fell ill with the bug during the second stage. Her husband dropped out, but Patty, miserable but determined, continued. I felt guilty because I was the first one in our tent to catch the bug, but I had been as careful as possible with removing shoes, using wet wipes, and dousing myself in hand sanitizer. Anyway, how could any of us really have known?

Beat and I shared the chicken noodles. They went down well, but not long afterward my stomach revolted. After two dashes to the open-pit toilets, which were perched precariously on a rocky ledge above camp, I was fed up. "I'm not really digesting any of it anyway; what's the point?" I skipped the camp social scene and planned second dinner, and went to bed early again. I was still nauseated, but more than that, I was frustrated.

Morning came with a renewed spark of hope. Waiting out sickness in camp was such a tedious challenge compared to hiking tough terrain while burning kindling. Even through my weakness, I preferred the latter. I prepared a strawberry jam granola bar for breakfast, and, with temporary vigor, practically skipped to the starting line.

Stage four connected us with a portion of the Annapurna Circuit, climbing to an elevation of nearly 3,000 meters before plummeting 2,000 meters into another narrow valley. The route itself was 27 kilometers (17 miles) with 1,524 meters (5,131 feet) of climbing and a soul-crushing 2,275 meters (7,463 feet) of descending in that relatively short distance. But before that, I told myself, at least we could enjoy a big climb. The first six miles alone gained 4,100 feet of elevation. Since the steep climb of stage three had been my strongest section of the race so far, I looked forward to another ascent.

The climb actually went well. Powered by bars, I marched up the stone steps, happy to breathe cool air and absorb awesome views of Annapurna and Dhaulagiri. Beat and I actually held a solid spot in the front half of the pack that I knew would disintegrate on the way down, but I didn't mind. We were climbing a mountain, glucose was coursing through my blood, and all was right with the world.

The views during stage four were striking, but, as part of the Annapurna Circuit, the route had a decidedly different vibe than the other stages. For starters, the trails were packed with tourists (in a relative sense. There were still probably more of us than them.) Instead of seeing Nepalis herding buffalo and carrying massive loads of straw, we saw Australians carrying bulky external-frame packs and a large group of Japanese teenagers who took photos of us as we passed. Instead of farm villages constructed around animal shelters and grain paddies, we saw three-story hotels and signs in English advertising hot showers (heated by firewood), clean rooms and "best mountain views." This wasn't a bad thing, just different — the modern (and lucrative) face of trekking in Nepal.

It was also terribly tempting. Outside each of the tea houses were friendly-looking cafes stocked with soda, Mars Bars, and other valuable sources of kindling. We had already heard rumors that the night's accommodations would be in village tea houses. We also had a sense that the race organizers might be more lax than they let on about their "no outside food" rule. But I wasn't quite willing to go there yet, not unless I knew that everyone had been given the okay to buy food. I may have been close to desperate, but my own race ethics aren't willing to defiantly break rules.

The descent soon took my mind off obsessions about Sprite and Fanta, and planted it solely on a few square feet of uneven stones directly in front of me. The course notes indicated a descent on "thousand-year-old Gurung steps" of which there were reportedly more than 3,000. The problem with that description is that the 3,000 steps only comprised the steepest two kilometers of the descent. Just to get to the Gurung steps, we had to descend thousands of stone steps. Racers who were keeping track started to lose count at 5,000; some reported 6,000. For my clumsy feet and weakened legs, it was a slow grind. My right knee began to hurt for the first time in the race. Lots of people passed us, including casual trekkers and 5-year-old children wearing flip-flops (the last one was not surprising.) I am certainly not the master of descents.

I like to think that I at least looked like this down the 7,000 vertical feet of steps ...

But more often I probably looked like this.

I was grateful to see the bottom and the final water stop at checkpoint two, where an extremely upbeat Marshall Ulrich was helping racers take off their packs and refill water bottles. He's quite famous in the ultrarunning world, and I admit I (wrongly) assumed that he'd be too busy or filled with a sense of importance to actually remain with the race like he said he would. But even though illness forced him out of competition, he remained to volunteer for all kinds of exhausting checkpoint jobs. The guy has class.

The final five kilometers into the village of Birethanti were enjoyable jeep track. I had mowed through my day's supply of bars and was feeling pretty good at this point. I mainly posted this photo to prove that we actually did do a little bit of running during our running race.

We finished at 1:53 p.m. for a stage time of six hours and 53 minutes. The rumors proved true; Racing the Planet had rented out what appeared to be the entire village and put everyone up in various tea houses. Beat and I were assigned a simple room with two single beds and one light bulb that worked occasionally. The walls were paper thin and the floorboards were right above a large local family's living quarters (and open-fire kitchen.) I think I preferred the tents but I wasn't complaining, because we also received a meal ticket to eat Dal Bhat — a nicely bland local dish consisting of lentils and rice — and a wink-wink-we'll-look-the-other-way okay to order extra side dishes. Beat and I drank three 250 ml bottles of Fanta each and shared a small plate of fries and an equally small pizza with a Canadian racer, Patrick. After the sodas my stomach felt full, but I managed to work through the food and it seemed to be sticking. Which was good, because tomorrow, we had 45 miles to run.

Toward Annapurna

2011-12-06T22:22:00.000-08:00

I dug through my pack to find the blandest, highest-carbohydrate dinner possible. I purchased all of my freeze-dried meals back in August and couldn't even remember what I had in there. Each one sounded progressively less appetizing ... Chicken Korma, Chicken Tikka, Vegetable Tikka, Pad Thai, "high-energy" Spaghetti Bolognese with more than 60 grams of fat in a serving, and one whose name struck particular fear into my nauseated stomach, Kathmandu Curry.

"They're all curry," I said to Beat with dismay. "Every single one of them is spicy, fatty curry. What the hell was I thinking?"

Beat dug through his pack and found he mostly had the same. He had one meat lasagna that sounded marginally okay — but, no, I couldn't think about it. I couldn't even think about it. Anything freeze dried only evoked horrific memories of the demon Thai Chicken. "I can't deal with this," I said.

"You have to eat."

"I'll eat tomorrow. Breakfast. Promise."

"You need to eat tonight."

I wandered miserably around camp until I found Martina. "You should talk to Jack, he has soup," she said. Jack was Martina's tent-mate. The South African was developing a reputation for being the MacGyver of RTP Nepal, because he had a 15-kilogram pack that contained practically everything under the sun. Jack offered me a small package of powdered corn chowder. Corn chowder is probably the last soup I would choose of all of the soups in the world, and it only had about 80 calories, but it was a start. Anyway, my body was low on electrolytes. However, when I added water and tried to eat the corn chowder, I only made it through half before my stomach protested with lurching grumbles and an instant urge to use the restroom. I dumped it out when Beat wasn't looking.

Beat insisted I eat more, so I went back to my pack and dug out one of two Snickers bars that I had brought specifically for use during the long stage. But if I didn't even make it to the long stage, hoarding Snickers bars wouldn't make a difference. "I'll eat a Snickers," I told him. "Sugar I can eat."

The Snickers did indeed taste like a little chunk of heaven, and melted perfectly into the hole in my stomach. "I should know this about myself by now," I said to my friends. "Candy just works for me. I always think I should try to eat healthier while I'm racing, but in the end my body just wants sugar."

Breakfast was not much more successful. Beat brought out a package of "high energy" strawberry porridge that was loaded with powdered cream and tasted to me like strawberry porridge that I had thrown up already and was trying to eat post-regurgitation. Again my stomach lurched and hurt after just a couple bites, but I did manage to chase the disgusting taste with a Nature Valley granola bar slathered in strawberry jam. It would have to do.

Just before the race started, a man turned around and approached me. I instantly recognized him from the author photo in a book that I recently downloaded (before I even knew he'd be at RTP Nepal) — Marshall Ulrich. "I just wanted to say that I'm proud of you for being out here today," Marshall said. "I saw you after stage one. I got the bug, too, and I was so sick. Just so sick. I couldn't continue. I had to drop. I'm going to stay with the race but I'm not racing anymore."

"Oh wow," I said, a little bit starstruck. "I'm sorry to hear that. Really."

Marshall smiled sadly and reached out to shake my hand. Being complemented on my own grit by man who's accomplished what he has — climbed all seven summits, ran across America, and completed more than 120 ultramarathons, to name a few — meant a lot.

The night before the race began, RTP finally revealed the final course notes and elevation profiles that had been shrouded in secrecy until then. I was stoked when I saw the profile for stage three:

Under normal circumstances, I am an enthusiastic climber and a terrible downhiller, so a stage that was entirely uphill was exactly my kind of thing. Stage three was 38 kilometers (24 miles) with 1,478 meters (4,850 feet) of climbing. The final three miles gained 2,200 feet by themselves. In my current state, "On the Bug," I flip-flopped from enthusiasm about stage three to dread. It was like an steep uphill marathon with 25-pound packs. How was I going to finish this one if I didn't have any energy?

I packed my day's allotment of two granola bars, two fruit bars and one Clif Bar, and added a few extra bars because I knew I was still running a severe calorie deficit and because I didn't eat any on day one, I had a few to spare. In an effort to fire up my fragile digestive system, I started the stage by snacking on the second of three precious packages of gummy candies. The bug was definitely subsiding, but my stomach still seemed to protest everything I tried to put in it. I theorized that the 36-hour purging session so fully scrubbed my system that I lost all the good bacteria I need to aid in the digestive process. My stomach is sensitive under normal circumstances; on endurance it becomes especially persnickety. On "The Bug" it was all but useless.

The first 14 kilometers of the stage fluctuated between a flat jeep track and rocky shoreline along a river. The gummies started kicking in for me and Beat was feeling quite a bit better, so he suggested we try running some. We upped our 17-minute-mile hiking pace to an 11- or 12-minute-mile shuffle that most every cell in my body seemed to object. My stomach churned and growled, my legs burned with lactic acid, my arm and back muscles ached, my shoulders slumped and my head spun with exhaustion. I was in no shape to run in this running race. In fact, I felt like I just might be in the worst shape of my life, like I hadn't trained for the race at all, like I hadn't done anything all year but sit on my couch and eat peanut butter cups. Oh, if only I had some peanut butter cups.

I felt incredibly weak, and so dizzy that I began to fear for my coordination and safety, even on a dirt road. I believed my body had coped well up to this point, but now I was nearing the bleeding edge of an absolute and binding bonk. We crossed the big river on a foot bridge and began to follow Kaligandaki Nadi, a roiling whitewater river that tore down a stunning gorge. The rolling jeep track became steeper, which forced more hiking. For this I was grateful, because it gave me a chance to finally try to eat some of my bars. I started with an all-sugar fruit bar. Just a few minutes later, I felt a surge of energy in my blood — so much joy, happiness, sheer elation at the simple act of moving and breathing that makes a person believe they finally understand exactly what it means to be alive. And then, just a few minutes after that, crash. The needle dove back to empty. Bonkville.

So I ate a granola bar, and for a few more minutes there was joy, happiness, elation ... and then it was gone. I ate a fruit bar, and experienced a surge that felt a little closer to a normal burst of energy. Then it was gone. Beat and I alternated hiking the uphills and running the short downhills. I sent another granola bar down the hatch that quickly disappeared. I didn't have many bars left in my pouch, and wasn't sure I wanted to pillage the next day's supply of bars, given bars were the only food I could stomach so far.

"I feel like all of my bars are going down a black hole," I told Beat. "But I guess, well, at least I can eat again."

The Kali Gandaki Gorge began to open up, revealing the bald face of Annapurna South, 26,545 feet into the stark blue sky. Annapurna is a Sanskrit name that literally means "Full of Food." In Hinduism, Annapurna is the "universal kitchen goddess, the mother who feeds." As Beat and I shuffled along the road, I gazed at Annapurna's snow-swept slopes, jagged knife ridges, terrifying coloirs and almost unfathomable mass. I remember reflecting on the stories I had read about the mountain and giving silent thanks for my ability to eat again. I mentioned to Beat a book I read, written by British mountaineer Chris Bonington, about his harrowing Annapurna expedition in 1970 — the first attempt on a big wall at altitude.

"I can understand why people come to these mountains and become obsessed with them, and risk their lives climbing them," Beat said. "I thought the Alps were incredible mountains, but the Himalayas are truly incredible mountains."

We took a 20-minute break at checkpoint three. Beat traded me a precious Payday Bar for my Clif Builder Bar. I felt a new surge of life-giving food energy, and charged open-eyed and joyful into the 2,200-foot ascent. We climbed hundreds of stone steps as the Kali Gandaki Valley dropped swiftly below us. Each step seemed to pump fresh blood into my aching muscles, for a self-perpetuating cycle of endorphins and vitality. I remember wishing the climb could just keep going the next day, just up and up and up, maybe all the way to Annapurna's summit. I hadn't felt so awake in three days, and I hadn't felt so alive in a long while.

Beat, unfortunately, had been stuck with the protein-packed Builder Bar, so he felt significantly more weighed-down on the steep climb than I did. But he kept up just fine as we climbed over a small pass and approached a mountainside dotted in rural villages.

What seemed like the entire population of the village of Ghara came out to cheer racers at the finish line of stage three, perched as it was on a narrow ledge above the town.

It was gratifying to see so many people, who had so much hardship and yet so much natural richness in their lives, show their support for our little racing endeavor. I hope they understood how grateful I think all of us were to be there.

School children adorned us with flower garlands. We finished at 1:59 p.m. for a stage time of six hours and 59 minutes. We were getting faster, and slowly beginning to feel stronger. Even though freeze-dried dinner still sounded to me like the third world war in my mouth, I let myself believe the worst was over.

Total immersion

2011-12-05T22:26:00.000-08:00

Steve and Martina greeted us sympathetically at the finish line, having arrived at camp hours earlier. Amid my relief at having simply survived stage one, I launched into a hyperbolic (and uninformed) diatribe about my conviction that alcohol poisoning or drinking household cleaners had to be more fun than that stage. "If I feel this way tomorrow, there's really no way I can finish another stage. There's just nothing left."

By this point, Beat was in the throws of The Battle of the Bug. We barely mustered the energy to unroll our sleeping gear on the floor of the tent and collapsed into unconsciousness by 4:30 p.m. He stirred me awake at 6:30 and we shuffled to the medical tent to see if they would give us any more drugs. Beat suspected bacterial infection and wanted antibiotics. I was still convinced it was a flu virus and sure enough, the doctor told us to wait at least 24 more hours. Not that we'd make it another 24, anyway.

The camp was abuzz with activity and chatter. One of the draws of Racing the Planet events is the social energy of camp, where runners from Japan, Hong Kong, Australia, Scotland, Spain, Germany, South Africa — really, everywhere — share their tales of adventure over a campfire and dinner. I was not in mood for any of it, and felt like I was wading through a exhausting obstacle course as I made my way through the crowd. Friends who had a good day and were excited about it flagged us down, and I tried to smile and listen even though the smell of their expedition food was almost unbearable. We made it back to our tent by 6:45, and, except for a couple overnight bouts with the runs, remained there until morning.

Beat woke me up early, at 4:45 a.m., insisting that we needed to try to eat something first thing and see how it took. "Are you two starting today?" asked one of our tent mates, Peter Clarke, a retired British investment banker who lives in Hong Kong.

"Gonna try, have to keep water down first, though," I said. Peter later told us that he didn't think we stood a chance, given our demeanors the previous night. "I admire that you went out for the second stage," he said. "I didn't think I was going to see you again."

We tried to share one freeze-dried breakfast, a package of raspberry granola with milk. I only forced down about five bites because it was revolting and made my stomach do bad things. I did manage to eat several spoonfuls of my strawberry jam without issue. In fact, the small but immediate surge of energy felt like an electric jolt amid my extremely depleted state. For all of the bad press sugar receives, it is the only thing that works for me when my stomach has shut down. I regretted that my pack wasn't filled with candy.

On paper, stage two had looked like a moderately easy one to me. It was 32 kilometers (20 miles) with 1,364 meters (4,475 feet) of climbing, but really only one sustained climb followed by rollers. But then I neglected to realize that climbs are listed in meters, and climbing from 900 to 1,800 meters is actually kind of a grunt. I tapped one of three bags of my "reward" gummy candies for the climb. It wasn't much, only 260 calories, but even that small contribution made a world of difference in my energy levels and outlook. It was clear my body was willing to keep down water at this point as well, although my stomach wouldn't accept it in large amounts. I felt desperately thirsty, but big gulps caused intestinal distress, so I held a bottle in my hand and nursed it as we walked.

Stage two connected a series of porter trails along the Modi Khola Valley, following routes that have been used in the same way for hundreds of years. Most of these trails are what one might consider "off the beaten track," through villages that see few tourists. Racing the Planet had been announcing the coming of the race via radio, and local children gathered along the road to cheer us with loud "Namaste" greetings, practice their English ("What is your name? Where are you from? Where are you going?) and only rarely (at least in these non-tourist areas) ask us for chocolate. (I personally felt desperate enough for more sweets that I might have bribed some off the children if I thought I could get away with it.)

Finally conscientious enough to actually see the things I was looking at, the nature of the landscape was revelatory to me. The Himalayan "foothills" are not wilderness by any stretch of the imagination. In fact, they are wholly steeped in human activity. Entire faces of steep mountains have been cut into staircases of cultivated fields, but not in an overly invasive way. Forests still grow up around them. Ancient stone trails connect small villages built of brick and stone. People often conduct their household chores out in the open — separating millet grains by beating the straw, cooking, drying clothing, and washing their hair and bodies. Water buffalo, goats, mongrel dogs and occasionally sacred cattle wander the central "streets," which are nothing more than singletrack trails themselves. Most people get where they need to go by walking, and groups of schoolchildren wear crisply laundered blue shirts and ties as they run up the muddy steps. "I bet the best mountain runners in the world live here and they don't even know it," Beat speculated.

Although I felt the grip of the virus diminishing, Beat was still battling diarrhea and nausea. The tables turned for the two of us on the big climb, and I found myself able to hike more easily as he struggled. And I of course waited for him when he stopped to rest. Our original plan had been to race individually and not travel together. But it was becoming clear that Racing the Planet Nepal was going to be a heftier challenge, physically and mentally, than either of us had anticipated, and we wanted to see it through as partners.

I still couldn't stomach more than small amounts of mostly simple sugars, although I had at least moved on to granola bars. Still, even late in the day, my successful energy intake for the entire race wasn't more than 1,000 calories, and even that number was debatable given I was still experiencing bouts of diarrhea. It is interesting to experience the gap of what we think we need and what we actually need. Bodies can do impressive things if they have to. My <1,000 calories of simple sugars was enough to sustain the fat- and muscle-burning process, carrying my body for 38 miles and nearly 10,000 feet of climbing on fumes. A person can't move fast in this mode, and it certainly isn't sustainable indefinitely. But the fact I was still moving at all made me feel grateful for human biology.

The final two miles descended into an incredible river gorge beneath peaks that were 5,000 feet higher than the valley floor (Yes, these are still the foothills.) We were still both too weak to entertain the effort of running — even on a gentle downhill grade — but at least we were emerging from the sickness fog. We walked with a Spanish woman, Ana Sebastian, who is usually a fairly fast runner but was also battling "The Bug." I could sense her frustration with struggling in a race she expected to do well in, for reasons she couldn't control. I also admired her willingness to keep at it even though illness forced her out of top competition. It must be especially difficult when expectations are dashed, although I don't think anyone could be disappointed about the opportunity just to travel through these incredible mountains.

We reached the finish at 2:12 p.m. for a stage time of seven hours and 12 minutes — an hour and a half faster than stage one even though the distance was a little longer. Basically, this just means Beat's low gear is faster than mine. At least it offered a few more hours of downtime before we really had to worry about eating dinner. I was still dreading that chore.

Harder than I imagined

2011-12-04T21:55:00.000-08:00

A chorus of muffled voices jostled me into half-consciousness. I stretched out my curled body only to ignite an intense cramp in my right calf. In a blinding instant, an invisible vice gripped down on my leg and sent a ripple of electric pain through my body. Temporarily paralyzed as cramp passed through, I lay helplessly while droplets of condensed moisture dripped from the tent ceiling directly onto my forehead.

"Jill, it's six-forty. You need to get up. Jill, are you okay?" I heard Beat's voice echo through my pain tunnel.

"Errgh," I groaned. My head was pounding. "I am really dehydrated."

"You okay to start?"

"I guess. I mean, we'll see." I struggled with the simple effort of sitting up in my sleeping bag.

Beat handed me two pills he acquired at the medical tent — some kind of anti-nausea medication and Imodium AD. "I think I'll stick with you today," he said. "You do not look good."

"You don't have to do that," I said. "You shouldn't give up your race for me. I'll be fine. Really. I can just walk it slowly. I won't pass out. Promise."

"We can walk together," Beat said. "It's better that way."

In a daze, I managed to pack up my gear and attach my race bibs to my backpack and shirt. As I struggled toward the starting line, my 27-pound pack resonated away from the luxury I had thought it was to the burden it really was. It was one thing to hoist a heavy pack to the starting line with flu-like nausea, dehydration and fever. It was quite another to imagine all of stage one, which contained 28.5 kilometers (18 miles) of rugged trails with 1,306 meters (4,285 feet) of climbing.

"The cut-off is as 5 p.m., so we have ten hours to walk it," Beat told me.

"Oh, you can do that easy," our friend Steve replied.

"You'd be surprised ... surprised how slow I can go," I sputtered. "I was averaging one and a half miles per hour during my sick point in Susitna, and I felt substantially better than I do right now."

"Well at least this race has a lot of climbing," Steve offered with a wry smile.

The first 4.5 kilometers of the stage were almost entirely flat, along the cultivated fields that lined the Mardi Khola River. The morning was clear and the contours of Annapurna glistened with startling clarity. I tried to muster a brisk walking pace on the flat jeep track, but my efforts were pathetic at best. Even though I started near the back, the rest of the back-of-packers passed us until I could look over my shoulders and see the sweepers not far behind. Meanwhile, Beat pressed several Hi-Chew candies into my palm. "Try to eat something," he urged.

"I need to keep some water down first," I said. I took tiny sips from one of my liter bottles and fought the subsequent waves of nausea as I plodded unhappily through the stunning landscape.

My water showed signs of staying down, but the nausea remained intense. We reached the first checkpoint in about an hour, which I thought was not terrible for 4.5 kilometers, but we were definitely at the back of the race — also not surprising as it was supposed to be a running race. I took a few sips of water in front of the volunteer waiting to fill my bottle and nearly lost it in front of him. Involuntary gasps erupted from my throat. I clutched my neck in an reflex to force oxygen back down while water tried to come up. My gasps must have sounded as though walking 2.7 flat miles in an hour was the hardest effort I had ever made in my life, during an easy section of a relatively easy stage in a 210-kilometer foot race through the rugged mountains of Nepal. Hardly confidence-inspiring.

"Um, are you okay?" the volunteer asked.

"Yes ... just ... trying ... not ... to ... throw ... up," I gurgled. I figured honesty was the best policy.

The the trail started up, on what would become a ubiquitous feature on the trails in the Himalayan foothills — slippery, steep stone steps. This section is mostly a blank for me, as my mind retreated into the special place it sometimes goes to block out pain — like a Kathmandu black out, cutting consciousness to save the grid from overload. I must have been moving very, very slowly, as Beat — who was starting to feel not so hot himself — asked me if I wanted a tow. I would normally be too proud to accept such physical help, but flickers of consciousness understood my body's desperation. "Yeah, that would actually probably help a lot," I said.

Beat grabbed the end of one of my trekking poles, and I held on as he tugged me up the stairs. Even though I still had to walk, Beat's assistance took a good amount of pressure off the climb. I began to feel more comfortable with a faster walk — that is, not taking breaks after every other step. But the effort still felt intense. We passed two beautiful, smiling Nepali children, who were no doubt laughing at the strange white people holding onto each other and gasping as though we were climbing Everest instead of a benign village trail. "Namaste," they called out. "Namaste," I whispered back. Just speaking the words through heavy breaths sent my gag reflex into high gear.

"Beat, I have to stop," I gasped. I hunched over my poles and breathed heavily before an impressive geyser of liquid — I figure about a liter of water and the three Hi-Chews I had managed to force down so far — erupted from my mouth.

The little girl and her brother rushed toward me. "You vomit? You vomit?" the girl said in English.

"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry," I sputtered and turned in embarrassment away from them.

The effort of assisting me quickly cut Beat down as well. We both acknowledged that the intensity was too much, but it was too late. Beat was starting to feel the first symptoms of what would become infamously known around camp as "the bug." I hadn't successfully digested a single calorie or ounce of water since more than 24 hours before. We stopped to sit on a rock about a kilometer shy of checkpoint two to try to settle our stomachs, and also process exactly what were up against. We were already at the back of the pack and nowhere near camp.

We managed to motivate ourselves to checkpoint two, where the medical volunteers showed little sympathy, in a good way. "Several people seem to have that bug," the leader of the medical team said. "We think it's a 24-hour virus. You'll probably start to feel better soon. Have you been peeing?"

"Peeing?" I said. "How can I pee when all of my liquid is coming out the other end?"

"Well, as long as you're not too dehydrated," the medic said. "Just keep going. You'll be fine. Make it your goal to pee before the end of the day."

I remember glowering at her. I felt really awful, and now Beat was sick as well. He mentioned quitting the race, and I wanted to quit, too. And I wanted the medics to give us a guilt-free excuse. At the same time, I knew the volunteer was right. What we were doing, walking slowly through sickness, wasn't going to kill us. It wasn't fun, but it wasn't going to kill us. Beat knew this as well, so reluctantly we got up.

"At least we're sick in one of the most beautiful places in the world," Beat offered as we plodded up the stone steps. Soon we caught up to other racers who were taking long breaks in strange spots. They too complained of flu symptoms, and I realized that a whole contingent of sick people rounded out the back-of-the-pack during that stage. At the steepest section, I had to take a short break for every single step I climbed. Loud wretching noises echoed through the still air as we traded break spots with the other sickies. I started to feel marginally better near the top. I managed take in half of a fruit bar and the rest of the Hi-Chews I hadn't thrown up already, for what I figure is an impressive 120-140 calories for the entire 18-mile hike, with no glycogen in the reserves.

Low energy didn't feel as bad as nausea and vomiting, however, and my mood began to improve. It was about this point that three Nepali women carrying triple their mass in grain stalks — while wearing flip flops and skirts — passed us on the climb. I could only shake my head at my own good fortune. "Just when I think I have it tough, Nepali porters pass us again," I said to Beat. "We have it so easy."

We crossed the finish line at 3:38 p.m., for a stage time of eight hours and 38 minutes. Of the 215 or so people who started Stage One in the morning (seven never left camp), only ten people came in behind us. One person dropped during that stage. Another seven would drop out before the race finished. "The bug" was waging an impressive war, and the race hadn't even really begun.

The bug

2011-12-03T19:52:00.000-08:00

Arriving at the Fulbari resort in Pokhara was like stepping through the gate of a chaotic playground into a highly organized running camp for adults. Dozens of people clad in tights and compression sleeves milled about the lobby, and signs listed the schedule of pre-race activities for the following day. Racing the Planet is known for its consistency and organization amid remote trails in developing areas, which is why they're such a popular provider of adventure racing and trekking, attracting endurance junkies from all over the world. Racing the Planet makes a point to provide a wholly immersive experience in a unique country, and it's true that many competitors come for the adventure of the race more than the competition. Beat and I fell solidly into this category. I mean, we were in the shadow of the Himalayas, steeped in a culture a world apart from our own. Why would we want to rush through any of it?

One might ask why we'd bother to enter a race rather than just plan our own trek. But I generally feel similarly about most of my race experiences - I enjoy the camaraderie with other people of similar mindsets, the new friendships forged amid the dirt and distress, the push to challenge myself physically and emotionally beyond what I could in tourist mode, and the personal rewards therein. And especially since I'm not a particularly talented runner in any capacity, I find it difficult to care whether my flailing efforts land me in 67th or 89th or 145th place - just as long as I have fun, meet cool people, take a lot of memorable photographs, and experience an adequate amount of challenge/suffering to fully enrich the adventure.

In the morning, 220 registered participants from all over the world gathered to finalize the logistics. Race officials checked off my required gear and weighed my pack at 10.5 kilograms without water –still on the heavy end of the scale in a list that ranged from 6.5 to 15 kilograms. This wasn't entirely surprising as I had definitely planned a luxury tour as far as self-supported racing goes – 2,500 calories a day, treats in the form of peanut butter and jelly, and enough clothing to stay warm regardless of what the weather did. Again, this was our relaxing vacation. I could afford to move a bit slower if it meant peanut butter-slathered granola bars in the morning. Mmmm.

We crammed into several small Indian buses and lurched down the rough road toward the river. Nepali musicians and holy men greeted us as we stepped out of the bus, dabbing our foreheads with a streak of red paint that would stain our skin for the rest of the week. Camp One was set up atop a cultivated field, and consisted of two rows of basic and poorly ventilated Coleman spring-bar tents with a massive fire pit on one end. Each racer was pre-assigned a tent. Ours contained seven people and hardly enough floor space to accommodate that many sleeping pads, with no room for gear. This was going to be our roving home for seven nights

It was also the beginning of complete food independence. As a competition, Racing the Planet forbid local food purchases during the seven-day stage race. I believe this rule was set mostly to ensure a fair race at the top, and also to prevent the higher risk of illness from strange foods cooked in less than sanitary conditions. Beat and I planned a series of freeze-dried meals for each of our breakfasts and dinners. We rolled out our gear in the cramped tent and walked to the bonfire with our vacuum-packed meals. For the first night in camp, I choose a entree from Backpacker's Pantry called Thai Chicken. It wasn't great but it was tolerable enough to stuff down my throat with the promise of peanut butter and jelly for dessert. Strange to look back now and realize that this was the only freeze-dried meal in my 10.5-kilogram pack that I actually ingested in an entire week. A last meal in more ways than one.

It was 11:34 p.m., about two hours after I went to bed, when the unholy Thai Chicken made its first attempt to exorcise itself from my gut. The sensation lurched from waking stomach rumbles to wide-eyed panic within just two or three seconds. My pad was all the way at the end of the tent, and it was all I could do to wrestle out of my sleeping bag, stumble awkwardly over a row of reclined bodies, rip apart the fragile zipper of the tent and rush into the cold evening. I made it about 50 meters from the tent to an empty rice paddy before the undigested Thai Chicken exploded in an impressive fountain across the mud. I stumbled a few more steps and vomited again, twice. Believing I had successfully emptied my stomach, I turned toward the tent to find toothpaste and water before I felt urgency at the other end. Just a few meters away at that point, I barely made it to the open-pit latrines in time.

I felt fully emptied the first time around, so it was disconcerting to wake up five more times in the night after little sleep with a similar sense of urgency and nothing left to purge. Between painful bouts with globs of yellow foam, I managed to force down enough gulps of water to expel nearly clear liquid out of both ends. I have never before experienced such an intense purging session, violently convulsing to expel tiny amounts of bodily fluid and then writing with full-body muscle aches, fever and chills at the same time. It felt as though my own body was trying to reject itself.

After one of my trips to the latrine, the fever flared up with such intensity that I had no choice but to drop to my knees in the field before I lost consciousness. I still felt dizzy so I laid down atop stubby stalks of harvested millet, right in the mud. The paddy was along my "route" and could have been covered in vomit for all I knew, but I didn't even really care. I shivered and sweated on the soft ground and grasped for understanding. Was this simply food poisoning/traveler's illness? I'd been as careful as I possibly could. I only drank and brushed my teeth with bottled mineral water, and the only non-packaged food I'd eaten was two breakfasts at the hotels. Even then I basically stuck to cooked grains and vegetables, avoiding meat, fruit, milk, yogurt, even cheese. But then again, everything about Nepal was foreign to me. Perhaps some things were just too foreign.

I coughed a few times to expel bits of white foam before rolling on my back. I gazed up at an explosion of stars; the only dark space in the entire sky was encircled by a sliver of the moon. The glittering starlight was enough to light up the snowy face of Annapurna South, far above the surrounding "foothills" that were nearly as tall as the Rocky Mountains by themselves, with Annapurna nearly 25,000 feet over my seemingly broken body. I breathed a happy sigh in spite of myself, simply grateful to be in the presence of such an immense mountain when I was so small and so weak. But the peaceful feeling soon gave way to dread. Was this all I was ever going to see of the Himalayas? What if I had a parasite or other serious illness? Was I going to have to transfer to a third-world hospital in Pokhara, or worse, home? I couldn't remember the last time I felt so sick, and I sincerely believed I'd be lucky to stay mobile, let alone attempt the 17 miles with two huge climbs and descents that was simply the first stage of Racing the Planet Nepal. The race began in less than two hours. But if I didn't start the first stage in the morning, that was it for me. I'd either have to wait it out in a hotel room or go home.

But the mud-streaked truth remained that I was too sick to really care one way or the other. I pulled myself up from the exhaustion and plodded back to the tent, finally admitting to Beat that I was really sick and "who knows?" about morning.

"Don't bother waking me up for breakfast if I'm sleeping," I said. "But maybe I'll feel better in the morning."

Kathmandu

2011-12-02T06:30:00.000-08:00

The race is still three days away, but the challenge begins the second we step out of the airport. The psychological gap between the chilled, empty terminal after midnight and the crowd of shouting faces outside feels vast. Once I cross it, I can't step back. Literally.

Two charismatic young hustlers grab our luggage and rush us to a taxi, then demand tips in twenties, U.S. Still smarting from the scam, we pile into the dusty cab. I grip the seats as the vehicle lurches into the darkened city. Motorcycles and tiny cars stream past in a chaotic blur. There are no street signs, no traffic lights, no lights at all. Every day for as many as 16 hours, Kathmandu shuts off the electric supply to prevent grid overload. The chaos of life, however, keeps churning.

I admit the notion of world travel makes me feel uneasy. I'm enthralled with the Earth, but the world of people often intimidates and sometimes frightens me. People with all of their cultural and individual differences create a bewildering geography that seems impossible to bridge. My personal barrier is not so much a social anxiety as it is an overwhelming desire to understand every single one of them in a way I never will. The hunched man pushing his cart of vegetables up the rough street after dark. The skinny 7-year-old boy riding an adult bicycle along the road much too late, and by himself. The beggar in tattered robes with a piercing gaze. The motorcyclist dressed in Western fashion and weaving fearlessly through smog-belching taxis. The unseen thousands inside of all those darkened buildings. I gaze wide-eyed out the window and imagine what their lives might be like, what they return home to at the end of the long day, what they set out to do in the morning. The barrage of images and unknown stories overwhelms my senses, until I find myself retreating into daydreams about frozen tundra.

But I am still in Kathmandu, where broken cement litters the street and shanty towns line the trash-clogged river. A city of a million-plus in a developing country is as far from my people comfort zone as I've ever ventured, and I'm not sure how to process all the unknowns. The truth is I don't really know anything about these people. I know from books that they are largely Hindu, a conglomeration of dozens of different regional ethnic groups, with many cultural similarities to India. I know from newspapers that they are still recovering from a decade-long political uprising and struggling to establish an effective government, although a rapid increase in tourism is driving improvements in the economy and infrastructure. I know from maps that Nepal is a mountainous region full of tortured geography. I know from the things I see that the residents of Kathmandu are largely poor, but I've never been one to equate poverty with unhappiness. In fact, I believe the cycle of hardship and overcoming hardship is the key to happiness; but of course it's a complicated puzzle, and of course I am a first-world person with first-world perspectives. So I know nothing of the Nepali people, but I guess that's one of the main agendas of world travel – broaden the horizons.

I am relieved when the driver actually drops us off at our hotel rather than dumping us in an abandoned alley after robbing us for everything we have. I feel guilty for fretting about this, and experience more first-world guilt as we step into the hotel, which drips with false opulence and independently generated electricity. The room is stocked with fresh fruit, which Beat instructs me not to eat, and two liters of filtered water, which Beat informs me will have to cover all of our water needs from brushing teeth to drinking to shaving for the next 12 hours. The race is just three days away and we can't afford to get sick now.

The next morning we return to the airport for our flight to Pokhara. The regional terminal is packed wall-to-wall with throngs of people, including tall, blond-haired tourists wearing brand new hiking boots and a Nepali woman with a caged chicken on her lap. We pass through a single metal detector that probably doesn't work, and line up under rafters occupied by live birds. The weather in Pokhara is bad that day, and we're informed that all flights have been canceled. A group of a couple dozen other stranded Racing the Planet participants have gathered in a corner to organize alternative transportation. Matt, a former Marine from Florida, assumes the leadership position and manages to round up six rented jeeps with drivers. The four of us from the Bay area – Beat and I, and our friends Steve and Martina – wedge ourselves and our stuff into one Reagan-era four-by-four. Back on the road.

I wish I could describe the six-hour drive from Kathmandu to Pokhara, but I really can't. I can only say that it was one of the more terrifying experiences of my life, and I was mentally preparing for my life to end in a white explosion until I became too car-sick to care. Imagine a minefield of broken pavement, potholes and chunky gravel, barely wide enough for two lanes of traffic, except there are no lanes, and no signs, and no laws. Traffic generally flows on the left, or opposite side of the road, except for when it doesn't because drivers usually just travel the “best” side, regardless of who's approaching. Huge Indian Tata diesel trucks barrel down as motorcycles buzz past on both sides. Our own driver doesn't seem concerned about anything except getting rid of us as quickly as possible. He overtakes vehicles on blind corners, bounces the wheels over road craters, buzzes pedestrians and swerves away from oncoming trucks at the last possible second. After four hours of this, smoke begins to pour into the cab. The driver pulls over, pops the hood, mills about for several minutes discussing the mechanical with the locals in Nepali, starts the engine several times, waits until smoke stops streaming into the cab, and declares the problem fixed. We are still fifty kilometers from Pokhara. “We can probably run that if we have to,” Steve suggests.

We make it to Pokhara still alive, but it feels like a lifetime away from San Francisco after the insane road trip, night in Kathmandu and 35 hours of international airport travel that now separate us from home. “I'm not sure anything about this race could be as hard as just getting here,” I think. I almost say it out loud to Beat, but stop myself, because it sounds too much like - as they say - famous last words.

Culture shock

2011-11-26T05:20:00.000-08:00

As the three of us ran into the finish line together - Beat, me and our new Canadian friend Patrick - I absorbed the strange familiarity of the scene. Beautiful Nepali children twirled in rapid circles, world flags flapped in the breeze, and the November sun cast brilliant light on the 8,000-meter peaks towering over the valley. A race official draped a medal over my neck as an old man dabbed red paint on my forehead. We had come a long way in one week. Farther than I could yet understand.

Contrasting the celebratory scene was a memory from the night before the race began, in Camp One just outside of Pokhara. I stumbled out of my tent for the fifth time that night and sprint-shuffled to the toilet, making it just in time to experience the startling sensation of purging a nearly clear liquid out of two ends simultaneously. I have had the flu and intense food poisoning before, but I had never before been so sick to really experience what it's like to have a body reject itself. As I stumbled back to my tent, I became so weak and dizzy that I had to lay down in a rice paddy, with my head resting on a clump of grass. They sky was white with stars, surrounding a sliver moon. The snowy mass of Annapurna South seemed to glow in the starlight. "If I don't start the race tomorrow, they won't let me continue. I won't be able to see any of it. Any at all."

I don't remember much about stage one. I remember Beat coaxing me out of the tent to the starting line and force-feeding me Hi-Chew candies. I remember sucking down sips of water at the first checkpoint and gasping as I struggled to keep it down. The race volunteer looked so concerned I thought for sure they were going to pull me out of the race, if I didn't quit myself. I remember wanting to quit. I remember Beat pulling me up the first mountain by holding one of my trekking poles as I limped along behind him. I remember vomiting water and Hi-Chews right in front of two Nepali children. I remember taking stone steps one at a time between rests with the other sick back-of-packers. I remember the Annapurna skyline in the sunlight. Actually, I guess there's a lot I remember about stage one. It was a difficult challenge unlike anything I've ever taken on.

I didn't want to gut out the first stage of Racing the Planet Nepal but I did. I'm so glad I did. It was an incredible experience and as the time comes I'll have much more to say about it, and of course tons more photos. More to come.

Links to the other side of the world

2011-11-15T00:18:00.000-08:00

Beat put me on a mandatory absolute taper after I complained of *slightly* sore knees during our ride on Sunday (hardly my fault. I believe it was Beat who coaxed me into powering that hog of a Fatback up 2,500 feet of hill.) Complete rest is working out for the best anyway as I've plunged into a whirlpool of things to do, including calling practically every pharmacy in Santa Clara County in search of a backordered typhoid vaccine.

And suddenly it's here. Late Tuesday night we leave for Nepal. There's about 36 hours of travel in there, but eventually, theoretically, we will end up in Nepal. Until two months ago I had never even ventured outside of North America and now I'm traveling to a region that is geographically and culturally unlike anything I've ever experienced. It's been a perspective-changing year of adventure for me, and this one is the largest of all.

The race Beat and I will be participating in begins November 20. The route covers 155 miles and 30,000 feet of climbing in the foothills of the Annapurna Range in six stages. There are more than 200 competitors. Beat has placed in the top 10 in past Racing the Planet events. We are not planning on running together. In fact, my plan is to save my knees and satiate my camera's memory card by largely power-hiking through the stages, which average about 25 miles each. I'll save the hurrying for less sensory-overloading adventures. But, if you're interested, you can follow my progress at these links:

Follow the latest news and results of Racing the Planet Nepal:
Event Web site
Daily stage updates
Daily results
Stage photos
Breaking news

There is a fair chance that I will have little to no Internet access during the next three weeks, so this blog will have to go on a mandatory taper itself (although I'm confident the post-Nepal deluge will more than make up for it.) In the meantime, the holidays are coming up. If you have someone on your list who is into cycling, adventure, or reading about cycling adventures, consider giving them one of my books. Both are discounted for the holidays and will be available for shipping after I return around the first week of December. "Be Brave, Be Strong" is the story of my attempt to ride as fast as I could down the spine of the continent in the 2009 Tour Divide. Since I released the book in June, it has received a number of positive reviews, and promises hours of entertainment during the long winter months. (The other one, "Ghost Trails" is about winter adventure on the Iditarod Trail in Alaska.)

Order signed copies of "Be Brave, Be Strong" for $12.95 each at this link. The books will be shipped with a personal message to the address of your choice after Dec. 10.

Signed copies of "Ghost Trails" are available for $14.95 and the two books together are $25.95. Priority shipping is $4.95 for up to three books.

And, if you don't want to wait for early December shipping, you can order from Amazon at this link.

Or, if you have a brand new e-reader on your Christmas list, you can order copies of the eBook at these links. The Kindle versions include photos for only $4.99. The iPad and Nook versions are discounted to $2.99.
"Be Brave, Be Strong" for Kindle
"Ghost Trails" for Kindle
"Be Brave, Be Strong" on iTunes and B & N Nook
"Ghost Trails" on iTunes and B & N Nook

Three adventures and a wedding

2011-11-12T22:12:00.000-08:00

A deeper exhaustion was setting in, the kind that seems to trickle through my veins like chain lube on a cold morning. Even simple tasks lagged beneath a slow drip of energy. Tiredness like this doesn't happen in an explosive burnout; rather, it seeps in through the cracks, the bike racing and the hiking, the sleep deprivation and the shivering, the calorie deficits and traveling, always moving. Bill, Mo and I didn't arrive in Draper until late Tuesday evening, and then there was lots to do — laundry and unpacking, hanging up wet camping gear, shower and important e-mails, dinner in there somewhere. My dad pointed to a pair of snowshoes and poles he had borrowed from his friend. "We can go hiking in the morning, if you want," he said.

I stayed up way too late writing a blog entry, which, like a diary, I use as an outlet for images and thoughts that I sometimes just have to get out of my system before I can sleep. But 8 a.m. came awful early. Maybe I haven't adjusted to Mountain Time yet. Then I remembered, Daylight Savings Time already took care of that. The extra hour hardly helped my cause; I was either racing a bike or vomiting. Either way, that hour took place a long time ago, or at least felt that way, and time's slow trickle only added to my feelings of sluggishness. But cutting tracks up the snow-blanketed Wasatch Mountains is just not something I can do anytime I please, especially with my dad. I loaded the borrowed gear into his truck. We drove to the Red Pine trailhead, which was completely empty despite the bluebird morning, and started hiking through a foot of fresh powder. Dumped by a big weekend storm, it was the first major snowfall of the winter. We were tromping down the season's base.

The air was a brisk 25 degrees or so, but the reflections of the sun and muscle burn of powder stomping soon brought my energy levels back to normal. I've long believed that all it takes for me to snap out of slug mode is a good, hard climb — at least until the endorphins wear off. Regardless, I was really enjoying myself. My dad, who is about to enter his first full season of winter hiking, only recently discovered the joys of the snow slog. Breaking trail in deep snow requires the effort of three to four miles to travel one — of this I am convinced — and no other numbers really matter. Two and a half hours of hard stomping brought us four miles and 3,000 feet of elevation gain to the frozen shoreline of Upper Red Pine Lake — altitude 10,200.

"Wow, feels high up here," I said to my dad, although the moderate altitude really just seemed like an convenient excuse. I felt tired as would if I had run twelve or sixteen miles, although I acknowledge that my tiredness was more cumulative than a reflection of the difficulty of the hike. After all, my dad felt fine. We examined the route to the upper ridge and debated climbing there. Excitement prevailed, and I really wanted to go. However, the conditions on the upper slope were discouraging. There was too little snow over the boulders to travel with the snowshoes, but too much to simply hike and not risk a bad ankle or knee injury. We agreed that Upper Red Pine Lake was a great final destination, and loped back down the trail as my exhaustion settled in like a peaceful blanket.

I vowed to rest over the next two days, but I think anyone who as been part of a close relative's wedding understands how that didn't really happen. I started to wonder if I had dug a hole I wouldn't be able to crawl out of before Nepal, but in the same breath, I wasn't really that concerned. There was no acute strain, and no pain — just peaceful, almost blissful fatigue. Evolution gave us all the ability to walk for five days straight, and modern culture gave us the ability to choose not to. The more I experiment with endurance sports, the more I believe endurance is a matter of choices more than physical abilities or exceptional talent. I decided to choose to not be tired, and hauled some more heavy boxes across the parking lot while wearing a bridesmaid dress and stiff shoes. Here I am with my sister, Lisa, who is a full-time, swing-shift nurse and the mother of an extremely active 20-month-old. Compared to her, my own claims to tiredness are pathetic excuses.

And it was a fantastic experience to see my sister Sara and her new husband Spencer so happy. It was also fun to visit with people who I haven't seen in 15 years. Now my baby sister's all growed up, sniff. And yes, I will purposefully rest as much as I can in the week I have remaining before Racing the Planet Nepal begins. My three Utah adventures and being a part of Sara's wedding were more than worth the withdrawals I had to make from my energy bank, and the deficit won't last long. I'm back in Cali now, meeting Beat's new hexapod robot (yeah, there's a funny story; boys and their toys). I'm also unpacking, packing, back to running (six miles today, felt great), nervous, excited, loving the adventure of life.

Recovery in Zion

2011-11-10T15:27:00.000-08:00

My earliest memories of the outdoors — well, beyond a kiddie pool in the grass and Texas fire ants — take place in Zion National Park. There is something about evening light on towering cliffs in the Court of the Patriarchs that inspires a bewildered and lasting kind of awe, even in a six-year-old. I love this place. I sought it out frequently as a teenager and once crossed the entire park from north to south as a twenty-year-old backpacker. I still get back as often as I can, preferably in the late fall, after the crowds have gone and the canyon has erupted in a palette of primary colors — red rocks, yellow leaves and blue sky.

Bill had never visited Zion before, so I convinced him to take a couple of days after the 25 hours of Frog Hollow to explore the park. "Call it active recovery," I said with a wry grin. The three of us hadn't slept at all on Saturday night, I rode a mountain bike 169 miles and Bill cranked out an unfathomable 260. Really, what we should have done was found the nearest bed and collapsed for three days, but we convinced ourselves that five hours of leisurely hiking would work just as well.

Our first active recovery adventure was the Angel's Landing trail, where a blaze of fall colors lined the cliffs. Bill brought his big DSLR camera and the hikes involved a stop every three minutes or so to capture the moment. As evidenced by this blog post, I was pretty camera happy myself. And if you've ever been on a hike with three camera-crazed people, you'll understand how slow, stop-and-go hiking can sometimes be even more exhausting than running. But the scenery was incredible.

Angel's Landing is an impressive example of extreme trail engineering. These are the "switchbacks" that allow people to amble up what used to be a cliff.

Then come the chains that aid people across a narrow sandstone fin and actual cliffs. Bill and I were both struggling quite a bit on this section — blame sore quads, numb fingers and weakened legs. At one point I got down in a squat and wasn't sure I could lift myself back up. Bill also wasn't a huge fan of the exposure. But wow, what a view.

There was a dusting of new snow in the higher elevations. That and the diminishing clouds made for a dramatic skyline.

Gazing over the 1,500-foot sheer drop to the valley below, while feeling proud of ourselves for managing a 1,500-foot climb one day after a 25-hour race.

Bill learns how Angel's Landing earned its name.

Bill, Mo and I gather for a group portrait at the top.

Somebody built a snowman with the last of the melting snow at the top. His face seems to convey a kind of existential crisis.

Working our way back down the chains. Again, the sore quads were not happy.

We arrived at the bottom of the canyon and started up the Emerald Pools trail. I haven't even been there since I was a child (if you've ever visited Zion's during the peak tourism months, you'll understand why.) But it was a treat to go in the fall.

Surprising how difficult four miles with about 400 feet of climbing can feel. But wow, worth it.

We spent the night at the national park campground, trying to use our still-somewhat-wet Frog Hollow gear to stay warm. We built a fire and sipped chili-pepper-laced hot chocolate, then retreated to our tents as overnight temperatures dropped into the low 20s. I woke up several times in the night thanks to restless leg syndrome, and went for moonlight walks to calm down my twitching muscles as I sipped water to quell a ragged cough.

The silver moonlight on the cliffs was stunning. But by 7 a.m. I felt fully spent rather than rested, and still had to make my way through the morning as Bill and Mo got a slow start. Keeping yourself warm can be surprisingly strenuous if you don't have much energy to begin with. I walked and packed up and ate breakfast and walked some more as my core temperature just continued to dip lower and lower. In its own way, my shivering morning at the campground felt like as much of an endurance test as Frog Hollow itself.

But most of that was forgotten as the bluebird day revealed itself. We vehicle-toured the eastern side of the park and managed one hike on the Canyon Overlook Trail — two miles round trip with a short nap on the ledge. Still wrapped in my down coat, wool socks and mittens at 50 degrees, I pulled my hat over my face and basked in the sun as the chill finally started to melt away from my core.

It was a beautiful, if not perfect, way to recover from Frog Hollow.

Twenty two hours

2011-11-09T02:12:00.000-08:00

Why would you want to ride your bike around in circles for 25 hours? I mean really, why is that fun? Or satisfying?

The truth is, I adore 24-hour mountain bike racing, because the experience can be anything you want it to be. If you want to get a bunch of your friends together and knock out some laps while you eat pizza and drink beer, you're welcome. If you want to don fairy wings and a tutu and race solo on a 37-pound fat bike, you're welcome. If you're a numbers geek who wants to test a well-crafted strategy, you're welcome. If you simply want to ride your bike a lot and feed your endorphine addiction, you're welcome. And if you want to race until your eyes bleed, you're welcome. I appreciate this democratic, free-spirited approach. The 24-hour race entices a full spectrum of enjoyable characters in a bike binging festival complete with live music, fire jumping and baked goods. Really, what's not to like?

The 25 Hours of Frog Hollow is touted as "the world's longest one-day mountain bike race," because it takes place over the fall-back portion of Daylight Savings Time, when there actually are 25 hours in a day. The race is held on a rolling desert mesa just outside Zion National Park on a 13-mile loop consisting of jeep roads, swooping singletrack, and a few miles of mildly technical chunk just to keep everybody honest. Now in its third year, the late-season race boasted more than 200 sign-ups, with an impressive 50-plus people in the solo category. The list included a few friends and several more people who I've wanted to meet for a while. And the course is fantastic, with jaw-dropping scenery around every corner and an amusement park-worthy descent that I could ride a hundred times and never grow tired of that trail.

Still, I didn't plan to sign up for the race this year for several reasons. First and foremost, my big event of the year — Racing the Planet Nepal — fell only two weeks later, and I was concerned about recovery. Not only that, but training for a self-sufficient stage race on foot really couldn't be more different than training for a 25-hour mountain bike race, and I wasn't about to cut into my Nepal preparations. Third, I felt my base was precarious at best, thanks to severe reduction in my bike mileage this year, the result of an uptick in running, travel and injuries. Fourth, if I crashed my bike or otherwise injured myself in a way that prevented me from participating in Racing the Planet Nepal, I would never, never forgive myself.

But my good friend from Montana, Bill Martin, was planning to return to Frog Hollow and never gave up on trying to convince me to join him. As began to plan logistics for traveling to Utah for my sister's wedding, I realized I wouldn't even have to necessarily go out of my way to make the trip. Then, to complicate matters, Beat — who has finished a couple of Racing the Planet events and knows exactly how tough they are — encouraged this inadvisable mountain bike diversion and even went so far as to sign me up in the solo women's category without my direct consent. Perhaps it was meant to be.

Photo by Dave Nice

But I have never been one to take the most reasonable route, even within my own questionable endeavor. I showed up in Utah with a single duffle bag of supplies, including a day's worth of "nutrition" that I scavenged from the scraps in my cupboard. Most of the rest of the gear was warm clothing, which I brought because the forecast was calling for overnight temperatures in the low 20s, about 50 degrees colder than anything I've become accustomed too since I moved to California. Because bike transport is so spendy, I rented a race bike from Over the Edge Sports, a Niner R.I.P. 9 with loads of travel — and a lot weight. What kind of idiot rides a completely untested bike in a 25-hour solo race? Yeah, that was me. I didn't even remember to bring my own saddle. But I have to say, the Niner was a sweet ride. I like the big bikes.

Bill and his girlfriend, Mo, picked me up at my parents' house in Draper, and the three of us made our way to the southwestern corner of the state. Bill, who was sponsored in this race, set up an elaborate staging area in the cold rain. My staging area is that backpacker tent in the background. Happily for me, Bill said I could huddle under his canopy and even ask his pit crew, Mo, for favors. But I resolved to be as self-sufficient as possible.

The weather did not improve on Saturday morning, when we awoke to cold rain that became a driving sleet during the pre-race meeting. I felt nervous about the conditions but tried to improve my outlook by telling myself that horrible weather was a good thing, and might even give me a competitive edge I might not otherwise have. But despite my confidence that I could gut out the horrors of a cold, wet morass — deep down I was not looking forward to the suffering that entailed.

Luckily, the weather broke and the sky started to clear just before the 10 a.m. start of the race. In Frog Hollow tradition, the clock instantly set back to 9 a.m. and the group set out for 25 hours desert bliss.

There was fresh snow on the surrounding bluffs, almost down to the higher elevations on the trail. A stiff, frigid headwind greeted us on the climb, which I purposely started off the very back so I could stop and shoot photos without causing a disruption. I'm always most enthusiastic about taking pictures at the beginning of races, and I never regret taking the time to do so. Sure, it causes me to put in my slowest times when I have the most energy, but usually by hour twelve I am so steeped in a schizophrenic wave of bliss, self-loathing and apathy that I don't even bother to shoot glazed-eye self portraits in the dark. And yet after the pain has ended and the glory subsides, these images remain, and they bring back memories of the good hours.

Ah, the good hours. Thanks to that cold wind, it never felt particularly warm, even though temperatures probably climbed all the way into the mid-40s. I slowly moved up through the pack and chatted with fellow characters at the back, the guys wearing tutus and other last-minute, in-over-their-heads entrants such as myself.

I genuinely enjoyed the initial jeep road ascent — after all, steady climbing is something I am good at. The climb was also the only part of the course where I was even remotely "fast." I was riding for "Team Self Preservation," which meant I was so overcautious about injuring myself that I didn't take even the slightest chances, and purposefully walked around several obstacles that I could normally ride, but didn't want to test the consequences of my slim margin of error. So the rockier parts of the course became a tedious chore, and the climb was physically taxing, but there was always a reward on the horizon — the Jem Trail.

The Jem Trail is actually the first piece of singletrack I ever rode on a mountain bike, on a borrowed Cannondale 12-speed way back in 2002. The trail is still every bit as thrilling and fun to me as it was back then. It flows across the plateau like a ribbon in the sand, contouring the rolling landscape with banked turns and a smooth surface that promotes high speeds. I could ride it fifteen times in a row happily, and ambitiously hoped to log this many descents.

In juxtaposition to the fast and flowing Jem Trail was several miles along the rim of the Virgin River, a trail that Bill refers to in a hushed and hateful tone as "those rocks." I would add "soul-destroying" as an adjective. The problem with the rocks was that there wasn't anything terribly difficult about them — most were broad and flat, and piled in such a way that the magic line wasn't hard to find. But unless you were fully alert and paying attention, it was all too easy to slide off a ledge and slam into the side of another rock or overcorrect and veer off the trail. I had two near misses on the rocks before I decided I would add them to my list of walking sections. This earned me more slowness and also a mounting frustration with the section, because the rocks weren't that easy to push, either.

Meanwhile Bill was motoring along, lapping me once every three or so laps, which means I had plenty of chances to say hello. He told me he had broken himself in an effort to hold off a guy who went out fast and ended up burning out anyway. Every time he passed, he looked like he was nearing that bleeding edge, and still he stopped to ask me how I was doing. "Bill, I'm fine," I said as though that answer should be obvious. After all, I'm me. Thanks to my mindset and the way I train, I really only have one speed, and it's not usually that painful to hold it indefinitely — surely not in as little as 25 hours. At the same time, my cruise control mentality can and has put me on top of several races. Slow and steady. The tortoise and the hare.

Slow and steady. Soak in the scenery. Get unexpectedly blissed out on the random inclusion of a Lady Gaga song in my iPod playlist. Climb hard until my head spins and heart vibrates with raw energy. Launch into the Jem Trail with the cold air burning my cheeks. Sprint down the fireroad. Curse and stumble on the rocks. Vow to quit early. Obsess about the peanut butter sandwich I'm going to make after this lap. Plan a strategy for quicker pit stops. Forget it. Stumble some more on the rocks. Curse some more. Bribe myself with the promise of a nap. Arrive at rocking timing tent to fresh banana bread. Forget why I was so mad. Repeat.

The problem with an all-day race in November is that it includes a lot of night riding— more than 13 hours worth. Added to the extended darkness was the already cool weather and clearing skies that turned the desert to an icebox. It didn't take long for the temperature to drop below freezing. My Camelback valve froze, and I had to chew on the hose to loosen the ice. I got caught out on my first night lap underdressed, and shivered in my pit as I pulled on extra layers, mittens and vapor barrier socks. Racers with thermometers told me it was 25 degrees, possible as low as 20 degrees in the lower washes. But my winter layers allowed me to pedal in equilibrium. I made significantly fewer stops and continued to crank out laps in the frost-tinted darkness.

I had finished my first lap in last place in the solo women's category, and slowly worked my way up to fourth place by evening. After soon as darkness fell, Mo informed me that I had moved up to third place, and then second. By early morning I was in first position, ahead of several sponsored racers who I assumed were unable or unwilling to deal with the cold. I knew if I just kept motoring along, I could likely hold on to the lead to the end. I was well on pace for fifteen laps, which had been my no-freaking-way outside goal. I had weird mixed feelings about possibly winning this race, one I didn't feel I deserved to win. "No one races to be the best at cold tolerance, except for me," I thought.

It's possible this strange psychological reaction contributed to what happened next, although I'll never really know. But during lap thirteen, my race went from nearly effortless to unbelievably painful, in a single heartbeat. What happened is that I had been severely craving salt for a while, but didn't really have anything salty to eat (I know, poor race nutrition planning, I know.) I did have a can of tuna in my after-race camp food, so I pried it open and started gulping it down. The tuna was quite possibly the driest substance I have ever ingested, like eating chunks of sand. I'm not sure what about my body chemistry made the tuna taste so dry, but I guzzled at least a liter of water and some Diet Pepsi to get it down.

I felt a huge burst of energy afterward and motored up the climb at full intensity, which was in all fairness about the same intensity I was holding at the beginning of the race. But by the time I hit the top of the final steep climb, I had become incredibly dizzy, to the point where I had to put my foot down and force deep breaths to collect my senses. I launched into the Jem Trail as nausea took over. I stopped pedaling and tried to coast but the bike seemed to slow to a stop, forcing me to pedal, as though the Jem Trail suddenly became a climb. A gradually downhill fireroad also forced what felt like maximum effort. By the time I reached the trailhead to the soul-crushing rocks, I was vomiting tuna and water everywhere. Instead of feeling better afterward, vomiting made me feel even worse. I relented to walking the three-mile rock section extremely slowly as most of the field passed me, asking me if I was okay. I said yes, but I was a mess.

I stumbled back to the pit at 7 a.m. and collapsed in Bill's camp chair while crying to Mo that I was so sick and couldn't even muster the wherewithal to stand up. She told me she had a bad feeling about the tuna and I acknowledged that her judgement was probably sounder than my own after 22 hours of riding. But regardless of any poor decisions I had made, it was too late to do anything about it now. I knew I had plenty of time for one more lap, but I was convinced I felt so bad that I would probably have to walk anything that wasn't solidly downhill, and there wasn't much of that on the entire course. Thirteen miles of slow pushing was going to take me ... well, it was going to take me a long time. And I unfortunately possess the mindset that 24-hour racing is supposed to be fun. When it stops being fun, my motivation withers entirely, even with a potential win on the horizon.

I went to lay down in my tent to see if that made me feel any better. Mo informed me when my chaser had passed through the timing tent and went out for lap fourteen. I felt this wave of relief, because even though it meant I had a real decision to make, it also signaled to me that any potential undeserved win had become impossible, because there was no way I was going to successfully chase down anyone. Not in my condition. Still, I was disappointed in myself, because I had encountered a real test, an extreme low point. Challenges like these are fundamental in my "me against me" racing motivation, and overcoming these challenges has proven to be my largest personal reward. This time, I chose not to battle my low point. Instead, I writhed in my tent and waited for 10 a.m.

After 10 a.m. came and went, my thirteen laps at 22:00 put me in second place behind Bec Bale, who won with fourteen laps and the new women's solo course record at 24:55. If I had gone out again, it's likely she still would have beat me; I was moving that slow at the time. After four hours of fasting I was able to take in some Nuun (electrolyte-laced water), and after another hour or so I started on the simple carb route to recovery. Based on the way I was feeling the following day, I concluded my severe nausea was a result of poor food planning that created an electrolyte imbalance. But who really knows? Maybe I had a bad can of tuna and genuine food poisoning. There can really be so many reasons for this type of reaction. All that really matters is how we confront the challenges that come our way.

Still, I am happy with the overall result of the race. I didn't think I'd actually get on the podium, let alone have a real shot at the win. And except for that last hour, I had so much fun. Bill ended up winning the men's solo race, in a rather incredible come-from-behind effort against fellow snow bike racer Dave Byers, who is one of the competitors I was looking forward to meeting. There's a good story there if Bill ever finds the time to blog about it.

Thank you to race director Cimarron and all the volunteers — an awesome group that included Fixie Dave Nice and Bill and Kathi Merchant — for sitting out all night in the icebox to make Frog Hollow the fantastic event that it is.

Six years

2011-11-02T23:09:00.000-07:00

Pack training on Black Mountain, descending into the Silicon Valley.

That's how old this blog becomes today. Six years — that's about, what, 72 in Internet years? Arcticglass has become that old woman you see taking her little dog on a morning walk around the neighborhood. She has a bit of a limp and usually wears way more warm clothing than she needs, but at least she's still getting out there. She's the one who still remembers what it was like when you actually had to know some code to post any graphics in your layout, and recalls the days when most of the Blogger templates looked like a mixture of creepy wallpaper and Powerpoint slides. And yet, she misses those good old days, the days before Facebook and Twitter, when the kids had longer attention spans. Back then, she could still impress people with photos taken with a 2.1 megapixel pocket camera and posted as 112x200-pixel graphics, and people would actually read the story behind the photos (yeah, Flickr annoys her, too.) All the kids these days want to read is 140 characters of nothing, or stock images plastered with some kind of vague inspirational quote that will get you unfriended my your more discerning friends. At least those more discerning people still read blogs. Well, at least she hopes they do. She suspects maybe no one reads blogs anymore. But even if she's just sitting alone in her rocking chair, ranting to herself, she doesn't mind. You can do that kind of thing when you're old.

Yes, Arcticglass came on the scene in the heyday of blogs, and has gleaned much enjoyment out of her many prodigious years. Her progeny includes 1,413 posts, 18,293 comments, and beloved photos — almost too many to count. She sometimes wonders what her twilight years will bring, but she's not ready to wind down yet. There's still much blogging to be done, and many adventures to be had, even though November 3, 2005, was a long, long time ago.

Happy sixth blogiversary, Arcticglass.

I spent the evening packing my gear for the 25 Hours of Frog Hollow. I won't be indulging in any of my past lighthearted smack talk because I am starting to feel timid and nervous about the race. Although I rode a snow bike in the White Mountains 100 in March, I haven't raced a mountain bike since last year's Frog Hollow, which I raced duo with Beat. Training for a 100-mile foot race followed by months of injury and travel effectively cut mountain biking out of my summer activities. Adding to my feelings of inadequacy and underpreparation is the current weather forecast for Hurricane, which is calling for temperatures as low as 23 degrees. Jumping from 80 degrees straight into a full day and night of that is probably going to be a decent shock to my system. I can only hope I have some lingering muscle memory to help me cope with a long, frosty night. I did pack a lot of warm gear. To my sister, Sara: I hope you don't mind if I wear a bike jersey and tights to your wedding. I simply don't have room in my duffle for anything else. (I kid, I kid.)

Why is it that every time I visit the desert, I bring a deep freeze with me? I don't even live in Alaska anymore. Ah, well. It's nearly time to stop whining and start riding. I can't wait! Wish me luck.