Freedom of the hills ... and wheels

"Wait, the race is on Sunday?" I asked.

"Yeah, it says right here. Sunday. Good thing I checked," Beat answered.

"Huh," I said. "So what are we going to do on Saturday?"

I had returned to California for yet another warm January weekend. It wasn't that I was avoiding Montana's winter, it's just that Beat had a really busy month at work, and it meant I had to briefly switch places with him on the frequent flyer airport circuit. I do a lot of my blog reading at MSO these days. I have become a connoisseur of the different varieties of packaged sushi at Sea-Tac. I breeze through Salt Lake City International more often than I'm willing to admit to my close-by family. I'm starting to understand just how hard Beat has been working for the past three months. It's a strange, sort of detached existence where I fall asleep in a white and gray night and wake up to a moist green morning. And on Saturday, the first thing I noticed was Beat's mountain bike.

Is there anywhere around here to ride?"

"A few places," Beat said.

We walked to a bike shop and purchased a mountain bike map, and decided on the trail system around Black Mountain, which is within running - and therefore pedaling - distance from Beat's apartment. He rode his old steel rigid mountain bike and let me ride the Santa Cruz Blur, a smooth and light beauty of a bicycle. As we pedaled into the bright light of early afternoon, it occurred to me that it was already January 22, and this was my first non-commuting bike ride of the new year. In fact, if I added up my total riding miles for 2011 to that point, the number probably wouldn't have surpassed 50. A flush of shame filled my cheeks when I thought about my own neglected bikes back home. I become so one-track-minded when I get a goal in my head. Susitna, Susitna, Susitna. And, of course, there's the importance of spending as much time as I can with Beat, and the travel necessary to do that, and working, and other life stuff. The all-encompassing schedule doesn't even carve out a handful of strung-together moments for joy-riding. But then this race we had entered wasn't happening until Sunday.

We climbed nearly 3,000 feet on a narrow, low-traffic strip of pavement, with sunlight shimmering and vineyard leaves rustling in the wind. The temperature was in the high 60s when we hit gravel. The crunchy sound of wheels on dirt was almost strange, so different from the squeak of cold snow or crackle of studs on ice. We started downhill in a rush of warm wind. I couldn't help but giggle out loud. We climbed and descended again, spinning easy on the smooth double-track, before descending a narrow, winding road on the other side of the mountain. I was nearly beside myself with glee, just to experience again what it was really like to ride a bicycle in the summertime, when the living is easy and the miles are effortless. Twenty-four miles and 3,200 feet of climbing fell away all too soon. I wanted to keep riding, to spin my overworked and undertrained bike muscles into the long, warm night ... but we had that race on Sunday.

Sunday morning came painfully at 5:30 a.m. True to his Swiss heritage, Beat likes to arrive at events early, which is a good balance to my "10 minutes late is practically on time" Utah upbringing. But mornings never agree with me, and I could not wake up. We drove to Pacifica, and for the first time in California I noticed the morning wasn't foggy - it was clear. That didn't bode well for the heat factor later in the day. Beat walked around greeting his friends and I slumped in the passenger's seat of the car, trying to stay awake and cranking the volume on my iPod ... listening to "Sleepdriving" by Grand Archives ... Swirling round, the light above .. Outside the crows were waking up ... It's nearly dawn ... Motel home was nearly gone ... No sleep at all.

Pacifica was a large race - more than 250 people lined up for the 21K, 30K and 50K races. Beat and I were registered in the 50K, despite the fact he just finished the grueling HURT 100 a mere week before. It was to be my third 50K ever, and also my third 50K in just over a month. 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.

We joined the bottlenecked-hoards on the singletrack of North Peak Montara Mountain, starting what was to be our mere first 1,800-foot climb of the day. The Pacifica 50K - with 7,500 feet of climbing and descending on technical, exposed-to-the-elements trails - has the reputation of being one of the more difficult ultramarathons in the Bay Area, and thus attracts a large number of people. As we neared the top, we were passed by the leaders on their way down. Among them, already a mile ahead of me, was a super-fit woman with biceps the size of my quads and a fierce look on her face. "I don't think you're going to win this one," Beat said.

"You think?" I laughed. As it was, I doubted in my ability to even make the race cut-off, which the day before had been bumped from nine hours to eight hours due to early park closure. I was worried about the technical downhill and my physical reactions to it. Not to mention this 50K wasn't worth jeopardizing anything about Susitna ("Susitna, Susitna, Susitna") which is less than a month away. So I was going to be careful, and I wasn't going to push any boundaries, but I was going to see what I could do.

In an effort to combat my side-stitch issues, I took two Advil before we started our first descent. Although I felt a bit of mid-section cramping, it seemed to hold back, and allowed me more freedom to lengthen my stride and try to eat up some hard-earned miles. At one point I passed Beat waving my arms in the air and yelling "Eeeeeeek" because I was only just barely in control. I was having a great time.

We started up the second and third climbs just as the day really began to heat up. I sucked down water like they were giving it away for free, which they were. The double-loop nature of the race placed an aid station after every 7 miles or so, and despite my 70-ounce bladder, I was refilling on a regular basis. I had a few annoying issues. My angry knee flared up much as it had on New Year's Eve - I instantly blamed the Black Mountain bike ride the day before, probably unfairly - and the low-level side cramping continued. But for the most part, I felt good. I really enjoyed the downhill running, and thought the climbing was easy because, well, I power-walk climbs. But I know I have little to gain by running uphill. It's the difference between a 14-minute mile and a 16-minute mile for me, and the effort to run the steeper uphills would blow me up before I ever finished 50 kilometers. But the 4 mph walking can carry me 100 miles or more if I want it to, at least in theory.

There was lots more climbing. The sun burned hot and high. A lot of the people who had originally signed up for the 50K decided to stop at 30K, telling the race directors that "they didn't want to go back up there." "There" was North Peak, a second time. 1,800 continuous feet of climbing, again. The high temperature was 76 in the town of Pacifica, which is right on the coast. Where we were, in the heat-trapping oven of the canyon, at higher elevations, it was easily in the 80s. We passed runners whitewashed in their own dried sweat. The mostly clear sky burned almost white. The ocean shimmered a dark blue to the west, while to the east the San Francisco Bay was a bright aqua-green. The marine scenery was gorgeous and I was really annoyed that my early-morning haze had caused me to forget my camera. I was so annoyed with myself that even though Beat let me borrow his Droid, I still didn't take any pictures. But it was beautiful. You'll just have to take my word for it.

Beat teased me because I was wearing tights. "Which tights are you wearing?" he asked me.

"My running tights," I answered. "The ones from REI."

Beat laughed. "You wear only those at 0 degrees and you still wear them when it's 80 degrees."

I smiled. "They have a wide range. They're good tights. Anyway, they're the only piece of running clothing that I own."

Despite the heat, and my non-acclimatization to it, I didn't feel too bad. I took two more Advil to hold off the cramping a bit longer. I massaged my angry knee as we climbed to work out the pressure. And I flailed the downhills, taking purposely careful steps but waving my arms carelessly because the downhill running was too fun to take too seriously. It was hard and strenuous, unlike the effortless joy of a freewheeling bicycle, but it was fun all the same. I was really glad I had decided to race the Pacifica 50K. This past month has held large glut of races for a newbie like me. But I like Beat's strategy of using "short" races as training runs. Even at a slower endurance pace, racing still challenges me to push myself harder than I otherwise might. I have not yet been disappointed in the results. If you have a big goal and a short period of time to get there, pushing your limits is the only way to go.

We ran to the finish at 6 hours and 38 minutes, easily making the eight-hour cutoff that I had been so nervous about. The Pacifica 50K was my hardest race yet, and I also think it was my best performance of the three. I was able to catch my small issues before they became big ones, and gain yet more confidence in the ability of my feet to carry me for long periods of time.

My Garmin stats are here.
The race results are here. Beat and I were 33rd and 34th overall. I wasn't even close to the first woman this time around. But I will point out that I stuck it out while a fair number of people opted out at 30K.

Then, when I returned to Montana on Monday, the air was refreshingly frosty. This was my last trip south for a while. But that's OK. It's kinda pretty here in the north.

Sledding

Lately, during my evening runs in Montana (and yes, I do still occasionally run in Montana), I have been dragging a sled along for the trip. The sled is a harsh necessity of the Susitna 100, which requires every competitor to carry at least 15 pounds of survival gear, including a sleeping bag rated to -20 degrees F (mine is rated to -40), a bivy sack, a closed-cell foam pad, 3,000 calories of emergency-only food (i.e. you're not allowed to eat it), a stove, a pan, fuel, and whatever else you feel like bringing.

This is my sixth year preparing for a winter ultra in Alaska, but my first attempt to compete on foot (all the others have been by bicycle.) I have mixed feelings about the Susitna 100's required gear. I understand the harshness of the environment and that the race directors have liabilities. However, I also feel that people who are bold enough to sign up for a race like the Susitna 100 should be smart enough to know what they need. The White Mountains 100 takes place in a much more remote region, under generally colder conditions. But in that race, competitors are allowed to choose what they carry. There is no required gear. In last year's White Mountains 100, I opted to carry an emergency bivy system — a down coat, a light down sleeping bag, bivy and pad — reasoning that it would at least keep me alive for a few hours if I somehow became completely immobile, but wouldn't allow for any sleep on the trail. Other racers in the WM100 opted to carry only a few extra items of clothing and food, and no emergency bivy gear. There is inherent risk to that, but in a controlled environment like a race, it's less risky than embarking on a long day hike in the winter without full bivy gear, which I do all the time. I wish the Susitna 100 organizers would allow racers the same freedom. Although I am venturing into unknown territory this year — a potentially very long foot race with higher likelihood for injury — so I might still opt to carry everything they require anyway.

But yes, the sled. In my testing so far, I have been very happy with its features and construction. Geoff developed it over three years, tweaking the harness, ski mounts and cover, so it's really dialed in. He wrote a blog post in 2008 further describing the sled, or at least Version 2.0 (Anatomy of a Sled.) Since then, he added a custom-designed cover, improved the harness substantially and attached it to the poles with industrial silicone that's rated to 100 below. A rope threads through the poles and wraps around the sled, so it's both strong and flexible. The rigid poles also prevent the sled from getting away from you on the downhills. I have run down some very steep slopes and it stays exactly where I want it to. It also tracks very well. Last night I did an 8-mile run in Blue Mountain — largely on winding, uneven singletrack — and it stayed directly behind me around every narrow curve and steep sideslope. The skis seem to reduce drag substantially, and the sled itself will still float on top of deep powder. The harness also is quite comfortable, outfitted with several loops should any fail. On steep uphills, the weight pulls fiercely on my hamstrings, so I need to work on strengthening those. Luckily, there aren't many uphills in the Susitna 100.

Eric Parsons at Revelate Designs custom-designed the cover in 2009, and like all of the bike gear Eric builds, it is a marvel of Alaska innovation. It attaches to the sled with very strong velcro, and has a three-quarter length zipper that zips both ways. When I stuff my sleeping system in the center, I have large compartments in both the front and back for easy accessibility to my food and gear. The cover is waterproof and prevents any snow from creeping into the sled, which will minimize the dead weight I have to drag for 100 miles. The cover is strong, too. Last night I rounded a sharp hairpin turn and tipped the sled over. I actually didn't even notice for about 100 yards; it just continued to follow me completely upside down, with no lost gear and no damage. Luckily, Eric builds his gear to be "Jill-proof." It even has reflective stripping so the snow-mos can see me.

The Susitna 100 is now officially a mere month away, and fear has firmly settled in my heart. I feel confident in my ability to prepare for and deal with cold or wet weather, to keep moving for long periods of time and even to eat properly, but I am quite terrified of the physical prospect of this race: my legs, my feet, my stomach and the possibility that it could take all of 48 sleepless hours. That's why I chose to run the Susitna 100; the bike just wouldn't offer the same unknowns, the same challenges (although it would of course still be extremely challenging.) The Su100 — complete with ghostly apparitions of Flathorn Lake and the long minutes before and after I punched through the ice and froze my right foot in 2009 — are often all I think about when I'm out for my long sled runs. But on Thursday, I felt just a little more confidence creeping in. It allowed my mind to drift back to Martin Luther King Day in Waikiki, when Beat and I went on an 11-mile urban "recovery hike" from our hotel to the top of the Diamond Head crater, and the sun was so warm it made my head spin, the land so green and water so blue it was impossible to comprehend how this could exist in the same hemisphere as Alaska.

The heart of a crewperson

Beat halted in the middle of the trail. The forest was black, with the jungle canopy masking the moonlight and blotting out the starry sky. The air was as thick as hot chocolate, oozing down my lungs like warm syrup. The trail was just as sticky, coated in a thin layer of dew-saturated mud that grabbed your shoes and sent them skidding toward the dark oblivion of the forest. Beat didn't say anything. His head continued to face forward, held slightly limp by his drooping shoulders. I stood behind him and waited for a reaction. I expected him to tell me his feet were killing him or his legs were tired or he too was choking on this wretched humidity. But the silence lingered. Finally, I said, "Are you asleep?"

A small cough. "Um ... no ... I don't think so."

To figure out where you are, sometimes you have to go back to the beginning. My first trip to Hawaii also came about because of the HURT 100. It was January 2009, and I was vacationing and crewing with my then-boyfriend, Geoff. Several of the people at this year's race even remembered me as the chick on the bicycle, showing up at aid stations in my bicycle shorts and and helmet, refilling gel bottles and disappearing back into the night. I wasn't such a good crew-person back then. I was more concerned with putting miles on my rented road bike as a training ride for the Iditarod Invitational. I spent the day and night pedaling around the steep hillside neighborhoods of Honolulu, and I missed more checkpoints than I made. Geoff won that race. Even though he would spend the rest of the week in Hawaii firmly planted on his sleeping pad in sheer exhaustion, he didn't act too worn out at the time. I asked him what the HURT 100 was like. "Kind of like running in Juneau, but hot," he replied. And I just smiled, because I thought I understood, but I didn't have a clue.

So when I returned with Beat, I had a lot of conflicting memories of this place. The crowded streets, the terrifying traffic, the checkpoints that smelled strongly of ramen and faintly of vomit, and of course the strange dynamic surrounding my role in it all. In every major ultrarunning race, there are organizers, runners, volunteers and crew. Organizers get the financial benefit, runners get the glory and volunteers get the appreciation. Only crew, the lowly masses who follow one particular runner around, are truly nobodies in a race. We wait in the shadows, chat quietly with the volunteers, refill a few bottles, hug our sweaty smelly runners, travel to the next checkpoint, and we wait. And wait. Nobody even notices we are there, waiting, unless perhaps we are wearing funny bike clothes.

Beat and I woke up at 4 a.m. Saturday, prepped the rest of our gear, and drove to the race start at a nature center nestled beneath the green cliffs of Oahu. I saw him off at the 6 a.m. start and then headed back to the hotel for the first order of duty, which was to help register Beat for the 2011 Tor des Geants, since registration was likely to close later that day. Thanks to Web site difficulties this simple chore turned into a three-hour exercise in futility, complete with frantic messaging with Beat's mother in Germany. Defeated, I got back up to meet him at the end of his first 20-mile loop.

He made good time on lap one, and I barely caught him as I climbed back up to the nature center. Beat didn't look too fresh as he walked toward me. His hair was drenched and his legs were covered in mud. "It's really slick out there, really hard," he said ominously. He told me of the slippery roots and rocks that added another layer of difficulty to the already steep and technical trail. His eyes were glazed with fatigue and his skin looked soft boiled. "I only have to make it to the 100K mark to get my 500-mile jacket. Maybe I can just stop there."

"You can do whatever you want," I said, knowing full well that wasn't what he wanted to do.

The checkpoints cycled on. There were three for each loop — Paradise at mile 7.5, Jackass Ginger at mile 13, and the start/finish at mile 20. Beat mostly didn't need my help but I tried to be there for every one. I watched him arrive struggling but leave perked up. I bonded with other anonymous crewpeople. Chris from Ontario was a brand-new runner, like me. His partner, Charlotte, was a seasoned ultrarunner who competed in at least a dozen big races every year. He showed me the spreadsheet of the exact times she expected to hit each checkpoint. He said she trained very specifically and like to keep order in her running. She never seemed to be able to eat anything, though, and he still didn't know what to do about her nutritional needs. He had stopped at the store to buy Twix bars and wrapped a few hot dogs in foil for good measure. "I don't know if she'll eat any of it," he said sullenly. "But I have to at least try to get her to." I saw in Chris's eyes the kind of devotion that defines a good crewperson. The kind of person who is content to stay up all night, neglecting his own needs in order to coax calories into a grumpy runner who's aching and exhausted and is more likely to snap at him than thank him.

Around 1 a.m., Beat ran into the nature center to finish lap three. He was already at mile 60, having moved beyond fatigue into more of a shellshocked state, which made him seem unusually subdued at the checkpoint. The plan was for me to pace him for lap four, which was more for my benefit than his — he wanted me to have an adventure — but the overnight nature of the loop did give me the opportunity to serve the standard role of the pacer, which is to keep a runner company and keep them moving. If I look tired, it's because I was. It was 1 a.m. and I was about to only start running. Beat and I had a long night in front of us. We started up the trail, breathing the thick, warm air, pressing our feet into the slick trail and feeling them slide back with every labored step. As the trail jutted skyward, there were more roots and rocks, more dark lumps to crawl over and around. This is the true evil of the HURT 100 — it's not a posh 100-miler in Hawaii in January. It's not just 100 miles. It's 100 miles of technical singletrack, climbing and descending 25,000 feet on an seemingly endless and maddening loop, amid temperatures that northerners can scarcely deal with during the winter - 65 to 80 degrees, with 92 percent humidity. It cuts you down slowly and painfully with blisters and bruises, blood and dehydration. One might say it's the lucky ones who twist their ankles and can drop out with a clear conscience. In the end, only 28 percent of the people who started the 100-miler would finish it.

Beat was not very talkative. I told him stories about hiking in Juneau — because the trail did remind me of Juneau — and tried to dream up stories from my childhood to stash away for future lulls in the conversation. But I don't think he was listening anyway. He was falling asleep on his feet, talking only about maybe stopping at the 100K mark, the next checkpoint. "You can do what you want," I said. "But I'd really love to see the whole course. Maybe think about doing this one lap with me." I figured if I could coax him to mile 80, he'd have to finish the race.

The night wore on in the way ultra-nights do, in that strange, watery place between sleep and consciousness. The lights of Honolulu glimmered whenever the forest canopy opened up. Birds chirped and squawked. Unseen streams gurgled beside us. Roosters darted across the trail. Headlights bobbed in the darkness. Runners ran past saying things like "Good job" and "You're doing awesome." Other runners hunched over the trail, coughing and vomiting. We climbed and descended, slipped and slid. Even after a mere 10 miles, the technical nature of the trail was wearing on my nerves. I'm not a skilled runner just yet and I don't have the sure-footed stride of many people out there. I was flailing over the rocks, clutching to ropes and sweating profusely down climbs that I had been able to breeze up. I was struggling but I knew that didn't matter. This was not my battle. This was Beat's war. I had to put my problems aside and focus on his needs. This realization was freeing. I was egoless, a crewperson, nobody. I had no place here, only a fleeting presence. A ghost in the night. The thought suddenly made me feel light on my feet. If Beat could run 80 miles on this brutal course, I could certainly run 20. And if I in any way could help him achieve this daunting goal, that was an awesome reward.

The sun rose and brought with it the brilliant views that I had been missing through the night. But in a way, a strange way not like me at all, I didn't really care about the scenery. I was watching Beat, watching his feet as they shuffled along the trail, imagining his struggle and fight against the pain, silently trying to remind him much it will mean to him to finish this race despite the hardships. We reached mile 80 and I asked if I could do one last leg with him. He seemed excited about that, and it made it more than easy to ignore my aching legs and sweat-drenched skin and sleepiness. In the end I would do my own 27 miles of the HURT 100, but as an egoless crewperson it felt effortless, because it was effortless. In committing to be there for Beat, I had released myself from my own fatigue and pain. The freedom felt incredible.

However, we agreed I should stop there to avoid the very real prospect of injury. I kissed Beat goodbye and took up my place next to Chris. Chris, who had been so friendly the night before, now seemed distant and angry. We drove to the final checkpoint and waited together. And waited. And as the minutes went by, I finally learned that Charlotte had been hurtful toward him. I reasoned that she was tired and in pain, that she was in a bad place, and probably wasn't acting like herself, though I didn't know her. But I also knew that Chris had been up for 36 hours too, that he too was sweaty and tired, and he had doggedly supported her during what could have easily been a fun tropical vacation instead. He should have just given up, he said, and gone home.

"And yet you're still here," I said as Chris unwrapped two Egg McMuffins in preparation for Charlotte's arrival.

Chris sighed. "I'm still here," he said.

Behind every race is an array of stories, backroads, routes that lead us all to the here and now. I thought of my first HURT 100, back in 2009. Geoff hadn't even been unkind to me and I wasn't fully present for him. I was too concerned about riding my bike, about preparing for my big race, about myself. The 2011 HURT 100 was different. The atmosphere was different. The feeling was different. Maybe all I accomplished was keeping Beat from falling asleep on the trail that one time. But it felt like a monumental accomplishment. Definitely worth traveling all the way to Hawaii, staying up for 36 hours, fighting Honolulu traffic, waiting, waiting, and running for 10 hours.

And when Beat strode into the finish line, after 33 hours and 31 minutes of sweating, struggling and suffering, with a huge smile on his face and a big sweaty kiss for me, I couldn't have been more proud of him.