Redwoods road ride

Big Basin Redwoods State Park

I didn't actually mean to binge on this much road biking this week. I blame jet lag, which wrestles me awake well before sunrise each morning, and a bit of writer's block, which makes me feel reluctant to return home to my computer. It's not that I'm necessarily stuck with my project, it's just that I've forgotten where I'm going with it. It's a bit frustrating, staring at blank screens, tapping out a few sentences and then erasing them. I want to reset my mind, and anyway I have that 25-hour bike race to train for. So I take to the road.

I winced as I placed my sore sit bones on the saddle this morning; of all the body parts that have fallen out of shape since my August bike crash, my suddenly sensitive butt is the most noticeable. I rode 40 miles and Monday and 45 yesterday, both with 4,000-plus feet of climbing, so I decided I'd take it easy today. I brought one water bottle and no food. The sun burned hot even at 8 a.m., foreshadowing the 95 degrees it would hit later in the day. I motored up Highway 9, feeling strong. An hour and a half later at the crest of the climb, without even really deciding too, I kept going.

Who's a big tree?

Miles sure go by fast when you're coasting downhill. I knocked off six miles and launched into a new climb, again, without really making a conscious decision to do so. Twenty miles and about 3,500 feet of climbing into my ride, I placed my water bottle to my lips and found it was empty. So I had no choice but to descend to the nearest water source — the headquarters of Big Basin Redwoods State Park.

I've never even ridden down into Big Basin before, which is inexcusable, really, because it's so close to my house and such a great route for beauty, climbing and solitude. On a weekday morning, you'd never even guess you were in the midst of one of the largest population centers in California. I saw exactly two cars, and had the rest of the narrow, shady, steep roller coaster of a road all to myself.

The unobstructed view from Highway 236

See what I mean? Forest as far as the eyes can see. And this is about halfway between San Jose and Santa Cruz as the seagull flies. It's all open land — a sliver of small mountains that people nearly forgot. Except for, of course, the loggers who deforested this area about a century ago. The entire Bay-area coastline is second-growth forest at best, but the region still contains a few stunning redwood trees that loomed like towers over my tiny bicycle. I loved this ride, and never even really noticed the effort, that is, until I ran out of water again near the crest of the final climb, and my toes developed a sharp ache from too many hours in road shoes. (Even though it's been two and a half years since I had frostbite, my right toes can still only tolerate about three hours in hard-soled clipless shoes before I develop excruciating pressure pains.)

I ended the ride at 53 miles and 7,345 feet of climbing, which is way more than I intended or really felt necessary. (Garmin map here) But at the same time, I almost wish I took the initiative (brought more water and food) to ride even farther. Sometime soon I'd love to ride all the way down to Santa Cruz, a coastal town I'm ashamed to admit I have not yet visited. The road riding opportunities in this region really are sublime, which helps temper my reluctance to get back on my mountain bike. (I know, I know. I need to get over this. But there hasn't been a significant rainstorm since June, and the trails were moon-dust on top of loose gravel before the elapsed six weeks of continuing, persistent dryness.) But I can't wait for rain forever.

Back in the saddle

Forty-six days. That's the amount of time that has passed since the last time I experienced a good, satisfying moment on a bike. Then it all came to a skidding halt on a bed of gravel and broken dreams. Forty-six days can be a long time.

There were a few rides at the four-week mark, right before I went to Europe. Three rides, actually. One was a commute, and two were short road rides on my mountain bike, because the front suspension helped protect my tender arm from the jarring pain of mildly bumpy pavement. During the second ride up Montebello Road, I lagged far behind Beat. When I finally wheezed my way to the top, where he had been waiting for more than five minutes, I announced that I was in the worst physical shape I had been in since the extended angry knee episode of 2007. Nothing felt right, everything felt hard, my arm hurt even though it seemed nearly healed, and frustrations about my abilities were mounting. I was teetering dangerously close to a fitness funk that threatened to anchor me to the couch in sheer protest of my useless body.

Then we left for Europe. The trip — one and a half crazy weeks in the Alps and one lazy week in Germany — proved the perfect medicine, the reset button I so badly needed. We returned Sunday night. Jet lag had me up at 3 a.m. Monday. I attempted to snooze, mostly unsuccessfully, until 7, then got up to face the day. At 8 a.m. it felt to me like 5 p.m., which is the time of day I like to exercise in my regular California routine. I wasn't focusing well on my work anyway, so I decided to head out for my first real ride in nearly seven weeks.

I pumped up my road bike tires, rifled through piles of gear to find my buried helmet and repair stuff, and set out into the refreshingly cool afternoon (because actually, it was still early in the morning.) It took a while to get my legs spinning, but after five miles I started to feel pretty good. Not just good — fantastic. I turned up Highway 9 and shifted into high gear for the 2,500-foot ascent. My quads burned and sweat streamed down my face as I marveled at the relative ease of the effort. (Climb a few mountains in the Alps and you will understand what I mean.) I crested the big climb and launched into the roller coaster of Skyline Drive. Suddenly coasting at 35 miles per hour, the wind pried an enormous smile from my lips. Tears welled up in my eyes, mostly from the speed, but also a little from joy — such simple, effortless joy. I had nearly forgotten what that felt like.

I thought back to a conversation I once had with a former climber who had a chronic shoulder injury and could no longer climb. He could run, ride bikes, ski, swim ... but he couldn't climb. And yet, he still identified as a climber and admitted that while he enjoyed running and skiing, they never quite filled the void left by climbing. As a non-climber, I wanted to assure him that trail running had as much potential for fun, fitness and scenery as rock climbing. But of course I was wrong, just as I'm wrong when I urge injured runner friends to ride bikes as an adequate replacement for their usual activities. It's not. I do believe most active outdoor people find their perfect medium, and these mediums are deeply individual. Like an artist who can paint beautiful landscapes with oils but only flat imitations with watercolors, we all have our one best vehicle. Mine, of course, is a bicycle. I love trail running and hiking, I have a natural ability for distance swimming, and I'm certain I'd still live a happy life even if I could never ride a bicycle again.

But there would always be an emptiness, a hole that would never be completely filled. And after 46 days, during a clear and cool Monday morning in the Santa Cruz Mountains, I savored the satisfying sensation of long-awaited fullness.

For those who might be curious (probably no one, but it's looking slightly less disgusting these days so I'm posting a picture) this is my arm seven weeks after the crash. As recently as two weeks ago that deeper wound at the bottom was still bleeding, and I developed an infection in Italy that convinced me to stop wearing band-aids all the time (thus pooling bacteria-laden sweat around it for hours on end.) It still feels a bit raw but the deep-set soreness is all but gone — 110 psi on the rough pavement of Alpine Road today confirmed that. I came home after my three-hour, 45-mile hilly road ride completely ecstatic about my progress, and when I told Beat he actually went into Active.com and signed me up for the 25 Hours of Frog Hollow. The 25-hour mountain bike race in Hurricane, Utah (which Beat and I raced together as a team last year) is an event I've been coveting but was reluctant to enter for a number of reasons. However, as it turns out, it's only a few days before my sister's wedding in Salt Lake City, making travel logistics easier, and not so close to our Nepal adventure that I can't recover — as long as I ride conservatively, and don't crash. So now I have a month to train for a 25-hour solo mountain bike race after more than six weeks off the bike, and a rigid goal not to injure myself. Even if I take it easy (and that's my plan), I am going to be inclined to gut out the full 25 hours and it's probably going to hurt. A lot. And yet, I'm so excited. I get to ride my bike. A lot! The binge after the fast.

Germany

Beat and I have been spending a quiet recovery week at his mother's apartment in Bielefeld, Germany. We've both used the time to catch up on work. I had a difficult time focusing enough to complete much writing — my mind is still muddled with Italian mountains, Alaska winter dreams and borderline obsessions with cycling — but it's been a good week to catch up on bookkeeping and work on the tedious, hair-pulling process of updating my eBooks. In the near future my digital books should finally be well-formatted with plenty of photographs and will look awesome on iPad and pretty good on Kindle. I'm looking forward to this, but in the meantime I'm slogging through the ePub process and exchanging communications with a company in California that is nine hours off my current time. Yes, it has not been the most productive week, work-wise, but arguably more productive than my week in Italy. Arguably.

I'm excited to be in Germany and have tried to get out for explorations, although I can only go as far as my feet will carry me, so my range has been rather limited. There are a number of beautiful trails around Bielefeld. The area reminds me of southeastern Ohio, with its rolling hills, lush green forests, and wide valleys of sectioned farmland, villages and the city. I rode my bicycle across Ohio at this exact time of year in 2003, so my explorations have filled me with bicycle touring nostalgia. Have I mentioned I am dying to go for a bike ride? Even a mellow cruise on a road bike would make me feel exceedingly happy. Although I did manage a few mellow commute-type rides in the days leading up to our Europe trip, it's effectively been six weeks since I've ridden a bicycle. My injured arm is at about 95 percent these days and my mind is almost reeling with bike lust. Seriously. I can't focus. I have to keep reminding myself that I'm in Germany and that in itself is pretty awesome. I did look into bike rentals but availability was limited and the logistics discouraging. I decided to run through the week instead.

Meanwhile, Beat's mom has been spoiling us with regular home-cooked meals, daily trips to the bakery, more chocolate that we could ever eat (I say this, although it's almost gone now), rich German yogurt in an assortment of flavors and an endless supply of Pepsi Light. I actually lost a few pounds while I was in Italy, but I'm quickly packing all of that back on and more here in Germany. It's just as well. Beat needed the recovery. He's slept a fair amount this week and even gotten out for a couple of active recovery runs. He's doing well except for some nagging pains in his Achilles. And we're both enjoying Beat's mom's kitten, Filou.

Can you tell I miss my cat Cady? I miss her.

It has been a good week for running. Thanks to the climbing volume of last week a bit of nagging knee pain I haven't put in any "fast" runs, but my progress has been good. I transitioned from completely empty legs during an hour-long walk on Monday to feeling strong during my 20-mile run today. For my "Tour of Bielefeld" I started going on walks with Beat's mom's partner, Peter. These were fairly quiet outings, as Peter doesn't speak much English and I speak even less German. But he pointed out all of the notable sights to me, including the University, a large school that is famous for its ugliness. Indeed, the buildings look like they were designed by 1960s Hollywood sci-fi set designers — futuristic retro. Beat got his master's degree there, so I'm sure he has lots of fond memories of the place.

Peter and I walked 7.5 kilometers on Monday and 15 kilometers on Tuesday (14 miles total). On Wednesday I ran twice, an 11.5-mile morning run in which I was vaguely lost the entire time, and a 5.5-mile recovery run with Beat in the afternoon, for a total of 17 miles. On Thursday we ran 7.5 miles, and I did 20 today on the Hermannsweg Trail. The "H" Trail was actually a lot of fun, all along a narrow ridge with tough climbs, rocky descents and fantastic valley views. The whole route is 156 km — might be fun to come back and run the entire thing someday.

The H Trail also allows cycling, so maybe the better idea is to come back and ride the whole thing. I admit I spent way too much time this week fantasizing about cycling. I saw these signs and imagined an illustration with a backpack-clad runner chick tackling the rude mountain biker and stealing his bike. We return to California on Sunday. I will miss Europe. But I'm excited to see my cat ... and my five bicycles.