The writing process

In the winter of 2009-2010, I sat down to relive my vivid and often emotional journey surrounding my bike tour from Banff to Mexico during the 2009 Tour Divide. I usually came home from work around 11:30 p.m., fed my cat, made myself a peanut butter sandwich, and sprawled out on my bedroom floor in front of my tiny netbook computer. I often stayed up typing until 3:30 or 4 in the morning, and then I'd get up the next morning at 9 or 10, briefly peek outside into the white and gray morning, close my blinds to shut out the already minimal light trickling in from Alaska's winter sky, and type until I had to go to work at 2. If the morning was slightly more inviting I would go for a bike ride, and on my day(s) off I would occasionally venture outside my weird hermit lifestyle to visit friends. They'd ask me what I'd been doing and I'd shrug. "I've been .... sick." And to be honest, I felt sort of sick. My outdoor adventures and physical exercise had fallen by the wayside. I was one-track steamrolling through that book. Working on it brought a wash of intense memories and it was often the best part of my day. I took this strange and uncharacteristic behavior as a sign that I needed to make a major change in my life.

That's the short story about how my Tour Divide book came to be written. The major change I decided to make was to quit my job in Juneau and move to Anchorage to further pursue this project and perhaps start up another writing project. With the fun part all done, though, I was loathe to deal with the tedious work of analyzing and editing my text. I read a dozen books on the traditional publishing market and set to rework my simple adventure memoir into an elaborate book proposal package, which I modified, personalized and sent to six carefully researched agents. Four got back to me. Two weren't interested. Two requested my manuscript. One said he was intrigued but was unable to take on new clients for at least another six to eight months, and left it up to me to get back to him. Another gave me particularly positive feedback. She seemed very genuinely interested in representing me and asked me to send her my "platform" for further consideration.

Platform? I had a simple story; I didn't have a tell-all celebrity expose or amazing new diet or analysis on the war in Afghanistan, or anything one would normally associate with a focused marketing platform. I had already grown weary of the whole tedious process and applied for a new job in Montana that I was almost certain I was going to land. It had suddenly become a bad time to be mired in a big book promotion blitz. So, grasping at a meager hope that the word had suddenly come to mean something different than what I had studied, I asked her to be more specific. The response was both expected and discouraging. "How will you promote your book? How are you going to reach out to your audience? What networks are you a part of? What speaking engagements can you line up? Do you have resources for a potential book tour? Etc." I had dabbled in self-promotion two years earlier with "Ghost Trails," and was already starting to wonder what traditional publishers even offered beyond editing, printing and a stamp of approval. Since modern digital publishing and networking make editing and printing easy commodities to obtain, I was beginning to resent what seemed like an awful lot of work for a simple stamp of approval. With her assertion that I'd be responsible for essentially all book promotions, even the potential funding of them, the agent confirmed that all of my time and efforts could only achieve that one thing - a stamp of approval from an established publishing company. And not even a guaranteed one. "Screw that," I thought. "I'd rather have a job." I put the Tour Divide book back on the shelf. I never even wrote the agent back. Dropped one ball and burned one bridge. I did not consider it a loss.

The book industry ... ugh. I was glad to leave that dream behind. I did not want to be a professional author for the same reasons I would never want to be a professional cyclist (even if I had the talent to do so.) Writing and riding are things I do because they're fun, they're fulfilling, they're challenging, and because they soothe my mind, nudge me out of my comfort zone, and ultimately reward me with a solid sense of well-being. Trying to leverage activities that bring personal joy and fulfillment for profit brings up too many unsavory (if necessary) duties. When I left Anchorage for my new job in Montana, I decided that even if things hadn't turned out they way they did, I would rather work a blue-collar drudgery job and write and ride for fun than write for a living. In December, I had my book edited and gave more serious consideration to publishing, but I really had too much going on to deal with it.

But then life continued to happen, and despite my efforts to renew my convictions, the dream continued to smolder. When I came to California, I decided it would be fun to try to write again, even if just for a while. I could always get that random job later. So I sat down again. I tried to close the blinds against the warm California sun that threatened to lure me outside. I took a few article assignments, received a few small paychecks, generated a few intriguing project ideas. But I couldn't focus on anything. I certainly couldn't write. That Tour Divide book was still looming on the shelf, like a discarded gift box begging to be reopened. I wondered if maybe, just maybe, I had no choice but to move that project forward.

(to be continued. I'm actually at the Seattle airport awaiting a flight to Calgary that's just about to board. I'm headed back to Banff for a week of mountains, snow-lined scenic highways, and mountain biking on the Maah Dah Hey Trail in North Dakota. As with most things I do, this blog post is running longer than intended. But I'll write more on this soon. All photos in this post are from runs with Beat and friends on Mission Peak and Black Mountain this past weekend.)

Views from Skyline

Wow, this week really got away from me. I have been one-track focused on moving forward with publishing my book. I'm glad to have finally made a decision on the matter (and I'll blog more on the details soon), but being mired in the logistics of it has left me more than a little fuzzy-headed. It's been a beautiful (hot) week and I've hardly even been outside. This afternoon, I just had to get out. I rode Beat's Calfee up Highway 9 and turned south on Skyline Boulevard, which was new territory for me. I was all business going up Highway 9, but as soon as I turned south, I lost all intensity and focus and just gawked at the scenery and smiled in the sun. I truly am a bike tourist at heart. Luckily, there is a lot of territory up there to explore, both on pavement and dirt roads, as well as fantastically extensive singletrack running routes. Someday soon I am going to ride a huge road loop that traverses the Santa Cruz Mountains twice. Then I am going link up as much dirt as I can legally piece together with my mountain bike, all the way to the sea. Yeah for bike touring!

Skyline does make it hard to keep the focus on training. Lots of open mountain views and a beautiful layer of fog over the Pacific.

Smooth, narrow pavement with lots of climbing and almost no cars.

More views. I stopped for a little Honey Stinger Chews break at this spot, but had to peel myself away and turn around before I lost too much elevation and really let the ride run long. Ended with 40 miles and 5,000 feet of climbing. Can't wait to double or triple that!

Minimalist shoes and fixie mountain bikes

This afternoon, Beat and I went for an eight-mile run in the heat of the day. I didn't feel any strain in my feet — an encouraging development. For two days after the 50K, I had mild soreness on the sides of both feet that felt like muscle strain — very much like one's biceps might feel after too many reps with heavy weights. Even after the long day Saturday, my legs still felt great, so I did two days of bike recovery — 20-mile, 2,900-feet-of-gain mountain bike ride on Sunday, and a 25-mile, 2,600-feet-of-gain road ride on Monday. By Tuesday, I'm back to running. It feels good.

Since I started wearing my Hoka One One shoes in public more often, a lot of people have asked me how I like them. Since this is a bike blog, I feel like I should back up first and explain. In trail running right now, there appear to be two growing trends on opposite ends of the spectrum. The first are ultra-cushioned shoes like these Hokas that claim to absorb 80 percent of the shock associated with heel striking. The second and arguably more popular are minimalist shoes, or "barefoot" shoes like Vibram Five Fingers, which eliminate cushioning to prevent heel striking altogether. Both claim to minimize injuries and make running more fun.

Beat bought me the Hokas as a sort of "I'm sorry for wrecking your feet" gift following our awesome first date at the Bear 100. I traveled 50 miles with him and developed so much foot pain that I could scarcely hobble the last eight miles of the race. I attribute this pain to excessive impact, the kind that could arguably be reduced with heavily cushioned shoes. At the time I was wearing an admittedly worn-out pair of Montrail Mountain Masochist shoes. The pain, which was similar to a mild case of plantar faciitis, bothered me for nearly six weeks after the Bear. I accepted my injury because it is quite reckless to go from practically zero running to 50 miles overnight, but at the same time desired a way to get back into running quickly while keeping my soft feet functional. Beat, who had seen the Hokas work very well for more than half the field in the grueling 200-mile, 80,000-feet-of-climbing-crazy-steep Tor des Geants, told me I should try out the clown shoes.

The verdict: I like them a lot. I still run in my regular Vasque shoes in mixed and soft terrain, such as mud and snow, but I by far prefer the Hokas on hard dirt and rocky trails. I compare them to trail riding with a full-suspension mountain bike. The thick cushioning floats over small rocks and allows me to pound hard on terrain where I otherwise might tiptoe or hold myself back. While I am still a running klutz, the Hokas do help improve my downhill confidence by absorbing the shock and allowing me to increase my speed. They also seem to maximize foot and leg comfort over higher mileage runs compared to my regular shoes. I mean, a mere 36 hours of minimal foot strain after an eight-hour run, following two months of relatively little running, really isn't too shabby.

And then there's the other end of the spectrum — minimalist or barefoot running. As a newbie runner who has never even tried these types of shoes, I can't claim to know anything about it. But when I hear others counter my "awesome full suspension" views about Hokas with the case for barefoot running, I can't help but smile and think of the claims of the growing culture of mountain bikers who like to ride fixed-gear bikes off road. Both tout simplicity and the lack of extranious and arguably needless pieces of metal and plastic that just weigh you down. Both tout connectedness, a sort of "one with the trail" feeling that can only be achieved if there is a high risk of stubbing your toes or bashing your pedals into a large rock. Both claim to force a flowing, natural sort of movement — for runners, that means landing on your forefoot. For fixie mountain bikers, it means mashing pedals really really hard when you are climbing a hill and then spinning your legs into a soft whip upon descent. Both take a higher level of skill and both are more physically taxing than the "geared" version. Both embrace abstract and therefore unsubstantiable ideals such as liberty, freedom and mindfulness. And both, from my limited perspective, seem to sustain a whole lot of injuries — barefoot runners get stress fractures, and fixie riders crash a lot.

But, of course, both require a slow buildup and time and distance in order to master the discipline, which is great. But not all of us have that kind of time or patience. Some of us just want to spend as much time and as many miles as possible in the beautiful outdoors. We want to run and ride whatever terrain we want, when we want, instead of building up distance on smooth gravel roads in 1/10th-mile increments over many tedious years. To me, tools that allow us to move more easily and freely — tools such as full-suspension mountain bikes and Hoka shoes — just make a lot of sense.

I'm not saying those arguments that heel-striking leads to long-term injury have no merit; I'm only saying that there does seem to be inherent risk in trying to fix a "problem" that may not need fixing. As Beat likes to argue, the problem isn't running shoes — the problem is running on roads. Technical trail running by definition forces natural movement and all but eliminates repetitive motion and heel-striking issues, even over long distances. But it still feels rough on soft cyclists' feet, which is why I love my Hokas.