Another week

I stopped posting my weekly training logs at the end of December, after deciding that they were more demoralizing than motivating, and "training" was probably hurting more than it was helping. I'm still getting out 15+ hours each week, lifting twice a week, and generally doing what I was doing before. And ever since the Fat Pursuit, I've felt progressively better. I still have occasional battles with shallow breathing, and realized that I might be overcompensating by taking it too easy. For the most part, thought, things have been going well.

A long-time blog reader recently contacted me about my "Running on 3 Cylinders" post, and completed the car analogy. I laughed at his observations:

"A car analogy is apt since we humans are a thermodynamic (a heat engine) — funny, we convert our fuel about just as efficiently. Going on with the car theme, a gasoline engine needs three things in the right amount and at the right time for oxidation (combustion) to take place (spark, fuel, and air) since you have plenty of spark (that’s kinda of understatement) and it seems plenty of fuel (Sour Patch Kids comes to mind) your oxygen intake is constricted as you have documented. So I think you're firing on all cylinders but just running low on HP (like a restricter plate in Nascar.) Your torque curve is still awesome (anaerobic muscle contraction.) Your aerobic respiration threshold is probably lower in your power curve for the time being, but training at altitude can increase your VO2 Max."

Anyway, it's been a great week of low-horsepower non-training. On Monday I was still in Fairbanks and trying to catch up on some work, so I went for a lunchtime run. My friends live at 1,500 feet, where the temperature was 5 above zero. I set out wearing a single layer — luckily packing several more — and descended 800 feet into the Goldstream Valley. After about a mile on the lower trail, my legs and shoulders went numb. "Maybe it's not 5 degrees down here," I thought. Actually, it was -15. This photo happened after I put on more layers, than loped along for two more hours. Toward the end of an attempted loop, I failed to find a trail connection and decided to "shortcut" back to the road. Turns out waist-deep snow is no shortcut. It took about twenty minutes of lunging like a seal before I swam to safety. Note to self: This is even more difficult with a bike.

On Wednesday I was back in Boulder and submerged in a weather pattern I'm told is very atypical for the Front Range — as in once-in-a-decade atypical. Heavy inversion with fog and freezing rain, with temps dropping into the teens in the valley and soaring into the 40s above 9,000 feet.

I set out for a mountain bike ride and ended up at 8,000 feet on Sugarloaf Road around 4 p.m., where temperatures were in the low 20s and it was raining. Actually raining. It was a light, misty rain, but it froze to everything it touched, including me. That 3,000-foot descent on black ice was a sphincter-clencher, even with studded tires, and I was so very very cold. I could have brought more layers, but what do you even wear for freezing rain? I just gritted my teeth and bore it.

The freezing fog did make for some beautiful scenery. It was still hanging around on Thursday when Beat and I went running at Walker Ranch. The temperature was about 15 and there was light misting ice in the air. 

I wore Icebug shoes, which have built-in carbide studs on the soles. I learned too late that they weren't going to cut it on hard ice, which covers at least 60 percent of the Walker Ranch trail right now. Despite being careful, I still skidded on a steep descent and fell hard onto my right knee and shoulder. It was incredibly painful, and I writhed on the ground for three or four minutes while calling out Beat's name — although he was too far ahead to hear me. After I pulled myself up, I continued to wobble in place until a deepening chill forced my hand, and I was able to limp out without incident. The knee was swollen, but the brunt of the impact happened below the joint, where a big goose-egg bruise formed. It hurt, but at least I wasn't injured.

By Friday the fog cleared out and temps warmed up substantially. Yes, I was disappointed.

Riding Friday and Saturday on ice, slush, and mud.

On Sunday, Beat and I went snowshoeing on Niwot Ridge. Beat towed his heavy sled and broke trail. As usual, I just tried to keep up.

The wind was incredible — gusting to at least 50 mph on the ridge. It was strong enough to push me backward on the snow crust as I flailed and fought to retain forward motion. Breathing proved difficult — the headwind seemed to rip the breath from my lungs, and I had one episode where I couldn't stop gasping. Then I started crying, because this kind of thing scares me, every time. This was always my fear during the Iditarod last year, because these episodes appear to be self-perpetuating, and strong winds make it hard to control anything.

Later, when I turned my back to the wind and lowered my head to buffer the blast, this particularly strong gust tore the sunglasses right off my face and whisked them into oblivion. #$&! you, West Wind.

Still, it was a useful outing — particularly for Beat, who had an excellent quad workout, and learned that he doesn't like flexible poles. I gained more insight into my breathing episodes with a hope that I'll better learn to control them (avoiding the shallow breathing and hyperventilating.)

It's interesting approaching this year's Iditarod. I have all of the same fears, and more, now that I have a slightly better idea what I might face out there. Still, I can't wait to be out there.