Into July

I wrapped up a good training block of trail-running on Wednesday with my standard eight-mile loop around Rancho. I think the run was an encouraging indicator of thestate of my endurance. Why? Because the first two miles were awful. Honestly. I felt like warmed-over road kill. I could barely crawl up the first steep climb and involuntarily had to cut back to a walk on the next. But at mile three, my endurance burner finally kicked on and I found increasingly stronger surges of power. By mile four, I was flying* (*relative to my usual pace) up the remaining hills and pounding the downhills, logging sub-nine and even sub-eight-minute miles. (I know. But for me, on a trail run, this is fast.) I finished up the loop ten minutes faster than usual and felt like I could easily go for eight more. In the past, when I've worked to build up cycling endurance, I usually have to push through several miles of sluggishness before I reach cruise control. Feeling like crap for the first twenty minutes to an hour is just part of being a slow burner. It takes a while to get the pilot light going, but once it's on, it's on for the long haul.

Beat and I indulged in a "rest day" Thursday with our favorite evening sojourn — taking Fatty Fatback and Singlespeed Kim for a jaunt up and over Black Mountain. Given how many bicycles Beat and I have at home, it's pretty humorous that we regularly grab our most difficult and admittedly ridiculous bikes for a ride that features a steep, mostly paved, 2,800-foot climb and a long rolling descent on singletrack, loose-gravel doubletrack and more pavement. Even though rusty ol' Singlespeed Kim is getting up there in terms of miles (she was my Divide bike), Beat seems to like the physical challenge and simplicity of singlespeeding. I like the Fatback because, come on, how can anyone not love riding a fat bike? I challenge any cyclist of any persuasion to power those big wheels up a monster hill and not arrive at the top with a huge grin on their face.

Sitting high on Fatty Fatback makes me feel like I'm riding a horse, and always draws comments from the roadies who pass me on the climb. Today I went back to paved part of the climb for a quick 80-minute ride on my road bike (I can do the same 2,600-foot climb to the gate a full 20 minutes faster on the skinny tires.) I actually passed a couple of guys who I'm pretty sure passed me yesterday when I was on Fatty Fatback. I thought I recognized them, and they both did a quick doubletake and gave me a bit of a surprised look as I smiled, nodded and motored on by.

I have one more weekend to do a couple more longish trail runs, and then it's all taper until the Tahoe Rim Trail 100 on July 16. I'm feeling pretty apprehensive about the TRT100 right now. I think I may be even more nervous about it than I was about the Susitna 100 two weeks out. It's strange, because given that the Su100 is considerably more remote, in Alaska, in the winter, on snow, dragging a sled — it would seem the Su should be the scarier race. But before I ran it, the Susitna 100 was more of a known challenge. I mean, I had already completed the course twice on a bike. And I figured, I've already pushed a fat bike long distances through snow. How much harder could dragging a sled be? (As it turns out, it's significantly harder. But it was easy to delude myself before the race.)

TRT, however, is much newer territory. I've never attempted to travel 100 miles over rocks and dirt, in the heat and the overnight chill, up and down steep mountains, at elevations significantly higher than the one I live at. I'm afraid of hurty-foot and epic blisters and the sensation of a thousand needles tearing at my quads. I mean, I've seen these ultrarunners after 100-milers. Their feet look like ground beef and they walk as though they lost use of most of their major joints. These people are crazy. What made me think I could join them? Yesterday, a woman who is a much faster mountain biker than me commented that she'd like to try trail running but she "resembles a dying moose when I try to move at any faster than a dawdle." I thought "Yes! Yes! Me too!"

But can I take the dying moose 100 miles? In my own uniquely convoluted sense of the term, I think it will be kind of fun to try.

On a quick note, I wanted to thank everyone who purchased my book in June. Despite my late/rolling release, I sold 323 eBooks and 127 paperbacks during the month, which at 450 books is close to my stretch goal for the first month. So thanks to all. I am awaiting a new shipment of paperbacks on Tuesday, so you can still purchase signed copies at this link.

These little adventures

Like most people who exercise outside on a regular basis, I have standard routes. I'm beginning to learn the nuances of these routes, such as which off-camber corners force me to apply my bike's brakes, and which ones I can really let rip. I know which rocks to hopscotch on my usual eight-mile run and where to look out for deer. Standard routes are comfortable, convenient, and help boost me through tough days with their familiar challenges. They provide a great base for training, because I can compare times and how I felt and how I improved. Still, I find myself craving something different. Even if it means venturing just a few miles off that beaten path, to places where I have to brake on all the corners or purposefully operate below maximum effort because I have no idea where the hill I'm climbing ends.

Beat and I have been trying out new running routes. My recent run-loading has made it tougher to digest the idea of a daily trips to Rancho, so we've been testing out lesser-known home trails with encouraging results. On Monday, we finally connected the "Steven's Reservoir Loop," a quiet 6.2-mile jaunt up the crest of Coyote Ridge, down a winding piece of delicious singletrack and along the steep shoreline of the reservoir. Rocky cliffs, golden light and turquoise water — like a little piece of Hawaii close to home.

Today Beat was going to rest to try to stave off his cold, but then it rained. I mean, it really rained. The temperature dropped to 58 degrees and gray mist tumbled down the canyons. On the way to the post office, I heard a host on the radio complaining about taking out her rain jacket "for the seventh time since March." She said it without a hint of irony. I knew this signaled a rare summer event indeed. When I returned home Beat was just as thrilled as I was about the rain. We decided to take our evening run to the rainforest, otherwise known as Windy Hill.

The trails were mired in a strange combination of mud — sometimes slimy and slick, other times shoe-grabbing sludge, and still others as solid as concrete, but all basically the same texture and color and all unpredictable. It made for really challenging running — more about survival than a solid workout. But the landscape reminded me of Southeast Alaska in the summer, and this made me feel blissfully content.

Who says you can't have a little outdoor adventure in metro California?

Sure, I move slower through the unknowns, and yes, it is more risky to go trail running in the rain. But really, the ability to explore the greater outdoors is the entire reason for fitness, at least in my own personal application of fitness. Sometimes that means an enjoyable interaction with the familiar, and other times it's a blind leap to something surprising and new. But in every case it's what I enjoy most about day-to-day life, these little adventures.

Training through the off season

I can always tell when I'm having a bit of an "off" week, because I don't blog much. Busyness and heavy involvement in activities don't curtail my blogging habit; in fact, I tend to blog even more frequently when lots of good things are going on. But this week has been a tough one. Good, but tough. I am trying to delve into a new writing project that has been slow to launch. Meanwhile, I've decided to let any marketing efforts for my latest book simmer for a while, so during the days this week, I've found myself staring bewildered at a blank document on my computer screen with no justifiable distractions for my writer's block. And then there's the running. I put in a big (for me) week of trail running, with 17.5 miles on Monday, eight on Tuesday, 32-mile road bicycle ride on Wednesday, eight more on Thursday, rest day Friday, eight on Saturday and 23 miles today. That's a 64-mile run week, with about 15,000 feet of climbing (including the ride). It only included one day of cycling in seven. Honestly, that's a lot of running for me.

But that's not what made it tough. What made this week tough was its direct correlation with a big high pressure system that brought overwhelming sunshine and temperatures in the 80s and 90s all week long. Just a typical summer week, but I took it hard. After my literal heat meltdown on Monday, it took me three solid days to recover. I felt similarly run-down, weak and pukey on Tuesday and even during my road ride on Wednesday, and it took a 10-degree drop in temperatures for me to feel closer to normal on Thursday. The rest day on Friday was a good idea and by Saturday I was back to feeling mostly like my old self, even in the same heat the crushed me earlier in the week. But it's a bit frightening to me just how awful I felt on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. This is a whole new battle for me. Dealing with extreme cold is easy; you just put on more clothing. But heat can only be fully combated with proper acclimation, which, as far as I'm concerned, means too many outdoor outings that are no fun at all. Give me extreme cold over that any day. Good thing this is my "off season" and I only have a measly 100-mile foot race that I'm training for right now.

But the weekend ended on bright notes. Beat and I finally broke down and bought the Subaru Outback that we've been fantasizing about since we drove my 1996 Geo Prism from Missoula to Kalispell in November through a blizzard, a white-knuckle experience that neither of us ever want to have to repeat. Most of my friends, my parents, and even my former employers have been razzing me to get rid of my car for years now. It's tough because I'm extremely attached to that old car, possibly as much as I am to any of my bikes, even Pugsley. Geo and I have just been through so much together. I was barely 21 years old when I bought that car, and it followed me through all the major adventures and changes in my life since then. But I accept that it's an inanimate object and a mechanically challenged one at that. And of course, a brand new Subaru can help an adventurous person get over her old-and-weak sedan real fast. I mostly bike commute around town, but we needed a good "adventure" vehicle for road trips — the kind that can handle mountains and snow once winter comes around and we're back to the "on" season.

Today I set out with Beat and our friends Harry and Martina for the week's longest run. It was actually a rather pleasant day, still sunny and warm but at least never close to the 90s. We started at the bottom of Windy Hill and climbed to Skyline. Beat recently caught a cold and Harry and Martina were suffering from various injuries, so they decided to turn back at mile 5.5. I actually felt better than I had all week long, even at the end of a heavy-loaded running week, which leads me to believe that heat really is my kryptonite and without it I can run as much as want. Ha. A woman can dream.

Of course I took today's run fairly slow and drank a whole lot of water. I filled up my water bladder twice over the 23 miles and was nearly out by the time I got home, meaning I drank nearly 200 ounces of water in five hours. I felt good the whole time, though, except for one severe side-stitch that caused me to basically walk downhill for three miles while I tried to work it out. I still have to figure out why I so often manage to get these side-stitches, regardless of temperature or distance or hydration levels or trail surface conditions, but only during steep descents.

What I really loved about today's run was traveling from Windy Hill to within a mile of my house and, with the exception of a half mile on Skyline Drive, running on trail that entire time. The San Francisco Bay area really does have an amazing open space plan. I ran along open ridgelines, wended down tight singletrack into deep canyons, jogged through intensely green redwood forests and across golden grass meadows. I felt like I was out for a quiet, rolling, 23-mile run in the mountains despite the fact that this huge metro area was merely a few miles away. It's certainly not wilderness but it's beautiful and enjoyable all the same. Now, if only the temperature would drop a few dozen degrees ...

GPS track of Sunday's run here. It's a fantastic route that I highly recommend.