Home for Christmas

The last time I spent Christmas with my family was 2004. Six years ago. Distance in Alaska and jobs in the newspaper industry created an insurmountable barrier to traveling home for the holidays ever since, so I was extra excited for the opportunity to head back to Utah for a long weekend this year — even though it meant coaxing Geo on yet another thousand-mile I-15 trip through intermittent whiteouts and nearly getting stranded on an onramp near the Continental Divide during my late-night trip south.

A lot has changed in my life in six years. But as it turns out, nothing has changed about Christmas. My large extended family still gathers in the primary room of an LDS church to eat Fourth-of-July picnic food (fried chicken, potato salad and ice cream), play silly games and sing off-key. My immediate family still exchanges the same gifts (Old Spice and Twizzlers for my dad, "normal" (non-outdoor) clothing for me), eats individual game hens for dinner even though no one, not even me, can finish one, and pops "A Christmas Story" in the DVD player even if it's already after midnight because all of the other Christmas Eve activities took so long. Ah, tradition.

This year I also conned Beat into flying into Utah for the holiday by telling him the running was great in Salt Lake County. Actually, he seemed genuinely excited to meet my family, and the meeting went well. We did get out for a couple runs in the Corner Canyon area even though family visits dominated the weekend by a large margin. The weather was warm and dry although foggy on Christmas Eve. We ran for three hours only to have clouds cut us off from the viewpoints on the south side of the Lone Peak ridgeline.

Christmas Day I only had an hour to spare for a run before heading to Ogden for more family stuff. It only seemed fair to give Beat a break or at least spare him from full submersion into my very large Mormon family right out of the gate, so he planned a longer run with snowshoeing in the higher elevations. Temperatures were in the low 40s with full sunshine. We ran fast up the dry trails, soaking in the most summer-like weather I have felt since September. After a half hour Beat continued up the Ghost Falls loop and I turned around, dropping to the Bonneville Shoreline Trail so I could run a wee bit longer in the full-sun exposure of the open mountainside. My legs moved with rare fluidity down the hard-packed singletrack. I was dripping sweat and completely blissed out. I wouldn't have minded having eight hours to spend in that perfect space, moving with purpose among the dirt and snow and sunlight. But I was happy to have a chance to see my fam before returning to the great white northland.

Beat continued up to 8,000 feet through heavy breakable crust (should have warned him about that south-facing slope) but for his hard efforts he did get to enjoy all the views of the Wasatch Mountains and Utah Valley that we missed on Friday.

Beat and I drove together back to Missoula, and the first thing we did after stumbling in from yet another 10-hour stomach-clenching Geo epic was put his Fatback together. It's a truly beautiful bike — aluminum with a nickel finish, fat carbon fork, Speedway rims, one Larry and one Endomorph tire, and pogies from Dogwood Designs. I can't help but be filled with envy even though this bike currently lives with me. We're planning to take Pugsley and the Fatback on a night ride tonight, and I'm filled with excitement. One great thing about diversifying my outdoor activities is that the cycling excursions have become truly special, almost indulgent. Yeah for bikes.

P.S. Beat wrote a sweet commentary about my first 50K on his blog. Link here.

The picture just keeps getting bigger

(Photo from my lunch run on Tuesday, during the only spare 90 minutes I could find to get outside so far this week.)

“You’re leaving again Wednesday?” an acquaintance asked in an incredulous tone.

“I’m driving to Utah to spend Christmas with my family,” I said. “I haven’t been home for Christmas since 2004.”

“Didn’t you just get back from California?”

“On Monday afternoon,” I said. “I went to San Francisco to run in a race, and to see my boyfriend.”

She gave me the same raised-eyebrow stare that I’ve seen frequently lately. I got it from co-workers when I told them I had to make an early exit from the office Christmas party — the one I helped plan — so I could grab a little sleep before it was time to fly to California to run 50 kilometers in a trail race. I got it from members of the local bike club during my Tour Divide talk, when a friend in the audience forced me to admit I was training to run a winter 100-mile ultramarathon in Alaska. I got it from casual friends when I told them I would have to miss a weekend gathering because I was flying to Seattle — why Seattle? Well, because it’s … there. It was too difficult to explain that we wanted to check out trails in the surrounding area, and visit friends, and also chose Seattle because it’s a simpler destination for Beat than Missoula.

Much of it is difficult to explain. I’ve boarded a lot of planes in the past three months. I’ve limped around with various running injuries. My weeks are all but full with packing, unpacking, working, cleaning, errands, shoving whatever random food is on hand in my mouth, and — less frequently than I’d prefer — getting outside for exercise, usually running. My bikes hang from my wall rack like limp rags, gathering dust. An editor gave my Divide book a full read and recently returned it with all kinds of valuable criticism and suggestions, but I can’t fathom where I’ll find the time to return to that project. Even my blog, my last refuge, looks neglected these days. There’s a brand new Fatback in my front room that I haven’t even bothered to put together yet. That last sentence makes the least sense of all. But I can’t help it. Life is happening much to fast.

But how can I explain it succinctly? Yes, I am dating a man who lives 1,100 miles away. Yes, our relationship is quite serious. And yes, it’s complicated. Serendipity and the staggering reach of modern life brought us together despite incalculable odds. Really, what were the chances of us meeting — a Swiss ultrarunner from California and a new-to-Montana cyclist, neither of whom were looking to get into a relationship at the time?

Neither of us took it seriously until suddenly we did. I think the potential hit us both at the same time, in mid-September, about a week before our first official “date.” Beat was running a six-day, 200-mile epic in Italy called the Tor des Geants, and I was in Montana, obsessively refreshing the race update Web site. We were completely out of contact for the first time since we met at the Swan Crest 100 in July, and that step back gave us both a lot of time to consider how we felt about each other. When we converged in northern Utah to run the last half of the Bear 100 together, all of those thoughts and emotions were perfectly aligned, although neither of us knew that about the other quite yet.

We still laugh about the moment we figured it out, as we jogged along a high mountain ridge as the moon cast rich blue light across the grassy slope. After hours of regaling me with stories about the Tor des Geants and the structure of quantum physics, Beat handed me the rock he carried for me a the TDG and finally asked, “Are you interested in going out?”

“Sure, that would be great,” I said in a deeply fatigued monotone that struck Beat as humorous. “But, um, the Montana-California thing is a little complicated.”

“It’s a minor complication,” Beat said, and we let the words soak in amid the stark mountain silence.

And it is just a minor complication. How to you place value on a relationship with a person who, less than one week after a 200-mile soul-crushing race, flies halfway around the world to a remote outpost in northern Utah to run another 100 miles, just to meet up with you? And then, when you crack 40 miles in to your own 50-mile run, gives up finishing well in his own just to help you hobble to the finish? How do you quantify a person’s willingness to fly out to far-away Montana nearly every weekend just to spend time with you, and put in long hours during the workweek so he can afford it. How do you express appreciation for a person who not only shares your passions for the outdoors, but who relishes in big challenges and distances, with emotional and intellectual goals that align perfectly with yours. And it’s not just about short-term adventures and long-term goals — this person is funny and sexy and smart and has enough fantastic ideas and outlandish ambitions to fill a couple lifetimes. How do you not fight for that with every ounce of energy, every resource you have?

So my lifestyle is a bit complicated right now. And there probably will be more plane trips, more packing, more running. For Beat and I, the little annoyances, the details of it all, are already fading into the bigger picture — drawing widening circles around that moment of perfect serendipity, in ink.

Rodeo Beach 50K

I wasn't a runner.

My first foot race was part of a spring triathlon called the Homer Sea to Ski, in 2006. I put in a just-shy-of-30-minutes 5K, crushed the mountain bike climb and then proceeded to stagger around on cross-country-skis for a 45-minute 5K ski. My next race was the Veterans Day 8K in 2007, when I came in at 43:26 after a 7-year-old boy breezed by me in the final mile. If I am honest with myself, I really didn't run any of the 4 miles of the Mount Roberts Tram Run in 2008 or 2009. 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 my way down Thunder Mountain in Juneau earlier this year, one friend finally told me, only half jokingly, that "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.

This spring, during my short-lived tenure in Anchorage, I decided to aspire to be a mountain runner. I trained briefly, maxing out my heart rate up 40-degree slopes and slumping back down them, physically spent after a mile. In Montana I met runners who helped me realize that I should aim where my strengths lie — endurance. After my big summer bike race (TransRockies), I began to dabble in run base building. Very soon after my training began, I kicked a rock into my foot and had to stay off it for two weeks. Then came the ill-advised (but extremely well-motivated) 50-mile pacing effort at the Bear 100, which I finished with something similar to plantar faciitis. After a few more weeks of no running, I completed another bike race (25 Hours of Frog Hollow) and during my first training run back, sprained my ankle. Different variations of "Hurty Foot" continued to crop up until about three weeks ago, when I became painfully aware that I was going to have to complete the December 18 50K I had signed up for as a still-almost-complete non-runner. I got some advice and coaching from Beat, did a few training runs in the snow and Seattle rain, and hoped for the best.

The Rodeo Beach 50K is a trail run in the Marin Headlands north of San Francisco. It was to be my first ultra-marathon — and, who am I kidding, my first foot race over 8 kilometers long. My goal was run it at my endurance pace, which is what I'd consider my "hold forever" pace, and try to finish under the nine-hour cutoff without contracting Hurty Foot yet again. It was a bold goal, and the conditions did not cut me any slack. Thick fog and light rain greeted us at the race start. The forecast called for temperatures in the low 50s and heavy rain — tough love for California. Only 57 people showed up to run the 50K, quite a few less than had originally signed up for the race. Of course the only people who would show up to race on a cold, rainy day in December where all "real runners" — thin and tan Californians with sinewy legs and tiny hydration packs. I felt the person holding the proverbial knife at a gun fight, waiting to be laughed at. But then again, racing wouldn't be nearly as fun for me if I wasn't always in completely over my head.

I got tangled up in the mid-pack and went out too hard at the beginning. The course climbs 1,000 feet in the first three kilometers, so the pack's fast-hike uphill felt like the perfect pace for me. Beat, having decided to stick with me rather than run his own race, followed behind and warned me about bonking after I announced my heart rate had bounced to 186. But I felt great. Even though I know I can't sustain that kind of heart rate all that long, I do know I could climb and climb and climb almost indefinitely if ever given the opportunity. Of course, that doesn't mean I can run.

And, inevitably, the downhills came with a vengeance. I handled the first couple OK and even put in an eight-minute mile at one point, but the mud became deeper and more slippery, and my confidence began to erode alongside the deteriorating conditions. I started to tense up and slowed to a walk, but the tension wouldn't let up. On the big descent into Tennessee Valley, I was gripped by a sudden, sharp cramp in my right side. It wasn't a side-stitch, it was more akin to a stress cramp, a single abdominal muscle below my ribs that tightened with such strain that I could scarcely breathe.

I tried a lot of different things. I took salt tablets and drank more water. I ate some gummy snacks. Beat theorized it cropped up because I went out too hard, but the cramp didn't seem at all effected by my breathing. In fact, the lower my heart rate, the worse it felt, as long as I kept running. Pretty soon I was walking a good portion of the downhills, or gingerly jogging at a slower rate of speed than my climbs. If I tried to run, the sharp pain would rip into my side like a large knife.

Meanwhile, fog masked Headlands, obstructing the views and casting an eerie tint over the lush green ground cover and occasional yellow flowers. I couldn't help but be a little frustrated. I knew I felt strong and energetic otherwise, but that cramp was really irking me, because I couldn't get at it to rub it away with my hands, and it wouldn't ever completely leave me alone. It lingered as low-level pain on the hard climbs, and became somewhat debilitating pain on the descents. Beat tried to help me by rubbing my side and reasoning through it — after all, it was just a cramp, not an injury. If I could push through that pain, maybe I stood a chance of coming out the other side. I knew he was probably right, but I struggled, because it constricted my breathing so much when it flared up that I felt like I wasn't getting any air. I also still don't feel much confidence on my feet, so I had the added stress of finding the right footing on top of the cramp that was probably caused by stress. Other runners started passing us. They made comments about the steep climbs. "Are you kidding?" I said. "The climbing is the easy part."

During the second loop into Tennessee Valley, I had finally had it. "Screw this cramp!" I snarled under my breath and increased my stride down the muddy trail. Beat followed close behind and shouted a few encouraging words as I wrestled through the pain, with inhibitions faded just enough to allow myself to gasp and gulp and groan like a dying animal. I can't say the cramp exactly went away, but I made enough noise that Beat insisted I take a few Advil pills at the aid station at the bottom of the hill. We started up the last long climb and low-level dull pain began to dissolve. My energy spiked again and I could feel a new resolve seeping into my admittedly sore legs. Rain fell harder and I finally began to come out of my funk. Twenty-six miles in, already an official marathon even without the steep climbs and mud and narrow trails, and I was finally starting to feel like a runner.

The last five miles were a breeze, literally. I realize there are ups and downs in any endurance effort, and many ups and downs in truly long one, but I felt like I had surmounted a major hump — the "sophomore slump" that creeps into many of my larger efforts, like the fourth lap of a 24-hour race. I got through it and finally felt like I could go forever, at least in theory. I looked at my watch and did a bit of math, and realized that we actually stood a chance of finishing in less than 7 hours. I increased my speed to comfortable 10-minute miles and coasted into the finish in 6 hours, 58 minutes, feeling strong and wondering how possible it would be for me to do another 50K right there.

Which is how I actually like to finish endurance events. I like to find that stride; I don't necessarily like to leave it all out on the trail. But I do appreciate challenges and the battle to overcome them. In that way, the Rodeo Beach 50K was the perfect first ultramarathon, and despite the strange cramping issue, it went considerably better than I thought it would. I'm still not really a runner, but I can't wait to tackle the next one with actual experience in my arsenal.

Garmin stats here.
Race results here.