Nepal gear round-up

I wanted to post a wrap-up of some of the gear I used during the 220 kilometers of Racing the Planet Nepal, and my thoughts on why it worked (or didn't work.) It's not comprehensive and, as with all gear "reviews" should be taken for the highly subjective and personal opinions they are.

RaidLight Runner R-Light Backpack; holds 30 liters, weighs 690 grams: Raidlight designed this backpack specifically for adventure and long-distance endurance racing, and Racing the Planet sells it directly from its Web site. So it's become the prominent pack at many RTP events, for good reason. It's light, it's decently robust, it has space for lots of stuff, and it has strategic pockets that allow the wearer to access water bottles, food, drugs, and cameras without having to wrestle with the pack. It definitely passed my "Jill-proof" test, meaning I overstuffed it often and hiked and ran many miles with it in Europe, California and Nepal, and nothing broke (and believe me, I am not gentle nor do I have a good track record with longevity in my gear.) It doesn't have a frame, which I prefer for any sort of running. I also own a similarly sized Osprey Stratos backpack that does have a frame. I have taken the Stratos on a couple of fastpacking trips in which I ran for only a few miles, and still ended up with painful sores on my shoulders and hips. With the Raidlight, I tightened the hip and breast straps and let the pack hang loosely off my shoulders, the way I often do with my packs when cycling. Experienced packers may question this strategy but it worked great for me. Even packed with up to 27 pounds of gear, water and food, the Raidlight remained comfortable and didn't cause any chaffing in an entire week. (I did have to tighten the shoulder straps to prevent bouncing whenever I was running 5 mph or faster.) I would definitely use it again on a multi-night fastpacking trip. I already know I can hold seven days worth of food, clothing, rain gear, sleeping gear, and other supplies with this pack. It wouldn't be much of a stretch to add a nine-ounce bivy or lightweight shelter. (I already know I won't be adding a stove. I'll explain why later in this post.)

Black Diamond Ultra-Distance Z-Poles: length 120 centimeters, weigh 9.5 ounces. I love these poles. Seriously. Beat and I purchased them on a whim while browsing the Anchorage REI mere hours before the 2011 Susitna 100, because we were worried about the slog factor caused by all the new snow the region had received that day. Those poles all but carried me the last 50 miles of the Su100, and continued to provide ample balance and knee support on many good hikes afterward. When they disappeared high on Testa Grigia in Italy, I nearly cried. But then Beat bought me a new pair for ... Halloween (awesome guy that he is, no special occasion needed) ... and I had the privilege of using them in Nepal. These carbon poles are both light and strong, with a simple but robust inner-cord support system that allow them to collapse small enough to fit inside the Raidlight without falling apart. They also feature comfy foam grips, hand straps and all-around awesomeness. I really am a fan. 

Brooks Cascadia shoes: These were another remnant of my early days of running, in that they were my main training shoe for the fall and winter of 2010-2011, and were a close second to the Hokas during spring and summer. Yes, they were the same pair of shoes and yes, they had a ton of miles on them (I don't keep track, but the soles were almost worn clean through.) I realize that using such a worn pair of shoes in a long endurance race was a gamble, but they had been so comfortable and provided such great traction on loose and muddy terrain, that I was willing to take the risk. (I was also aware that a lot of the miles in RTP Nepal would be spent hiking, even if I remained healthy, which I didn't.) Great shoes. I finally tossed them out in Kathmandu but recently purchased a new pair (the latest version is signal green color, which I dislike, but what can you do? They hook you first and then they the foist bad colors on you.)

Ridge Rest So-lite; length 72 inches, weighs 14 ounces: I chose the Ridge Rest over my inflatable Thermarest because of the higher R-Value, or insulation factor, and the fact that closed-cell foam can't burst and leave you really miserable at night. Also, I am usually a stomach sleeper, so the softness of the pad isn't as important to me as long as I have a good pillow for neck and shoulder support (I made one out of coats and a stuff sack.) The main thing I seek in a sleeping pad is insulation from the cold ground, which a full-length Ridge Rest provides in all conditions. The So-lite had an added benefit of an aluminum surface that reflects body heat. Whether or not this makes a difference, I don't know. But I have slept on a Ridge Rest comfortably when temperatures reached 35 below, and it is now and probably will forever be my go-to backpacking pad as long as space allows.

RAB Quantum Endurance 400 sleeping bag; length 6 feet 6 inches, weighs 2 pounds 1 ounce: These 850-fill down bags are rated to 25 degrees, so we remained warm and comfy during those long, sick nights in camp. We also were grateful for the weather-proof exterior. Every night, the cheap Coleman tents collected so much condensation on the poorly ventilated walls and roof that it would literally rain inside the tent during the early hours of the morning. We were able to just shake all the droplets off our bags in the morning, while our poor tentmates had to pack up their own soaked bags and hope they reached the next camp in time to dry them out in the sun. Despite the relatively high humidity and keeping it packed in a water-proof stuff sack, my bag was always dry when I unpacked it in the evening. Which was a good thing, because I only once made it to camp before the sun sank behind the mountains.

DriDucks Duralight Rainsuit; weighs 11 ounces. Cheap, ultralight, waterproof, breathable. To those descriptors, you can also add ugly and easily torn, but my pair held up just fine. They're constructed with triple-layer, porous polypro fabric. Thanks to the perfect weather, we mainly used these rainsuits to stay warm in camp, where temperatures dropped as low as 33 degrees, and also for warmth while hiking in the morning and after dark during the long stage. It's actually one of the most breathable yet warm raincoats I've ever worn. And although we didn't test them in wet conditions, the coat has received mostly good reviews for its waterproof capabilities. At $45 for the pair, that's hard to beat. Basically a reusable disposable rainsuit.

Expedition food; 800 calories, weighs 6.2 ounces. Anyone who read my novel of a race report knows that my food was a huge FAIL for me. I carried several pounds of these expensive meals that I never ate. I still believe this largely had to do with my illness and unintentional cleansing of my already oversensitive digestive system. But I also think it carries an important lesson about finding the foods that specifically work for you, and not just doing what everyone else does. I am not a good eater; under endurance duress, I literally cannot eat high-fat or high-protein foods (unless those fats are accompanied by a large volume of sugar ala peanut butter cups. Go figure.) If I do force them down, I often have to endure digestive discomfort and even outright rejection of the food. I haven't made these types of foods work for me yet. I either need to accept that my body seems unable to process larger percentages of proteins and fats even in slower, longer endurance situations, and carry mainly carbohydrates, or I need to spend a lot more time getting my body used to processing fats on the go. Beyond this, there is the smaller issue that I really do think most backpacking-friendly camp food is gross. I am not a "hot food in camp" kind of a person, and yes I realize this puts me in an extreme minority. On my next fastpacking trip, I will bring bagels. I will make the space. It's better to eat something, anything, than nothing at all. Trust me. 

Recovery run: Coyote Ridge 50K

Racing the Planet Nepal finished two weeks ago Saturday. We spent the following week touristing around Pokhara, Chitwan National Park and Kathmandu (from which I will soon post pictures, along with a post-race gear wrap-up.) It was a fantastic week but not great for recovery. I continued to cope with digestive oversensitivity, dehydration (relying on bottled water makes it more of a chore to acquire and carry enough drinking water) and general fatigue. Just when my stomach was finally becoming accustomed to Nepal-specific bacteria, we returned to the United States, and I had to readjust to American food all over again. Jet lag also hit me hard, and I was unable to sleep at night even when I forced myself to stay awake all day.

Health-wise, November 2011 felt like an incredibly destructive month. I started with the 25-hour mountain bike race. No matter how much you love it, that much biking in a day just isn't healthy. Post-race snarfing, my sister's wedding festivities, travel food and tapering led to me packing on some pounds just before we left for Nepal. I usually weigh in the 133-135 range. I was 139 the day before we left the country. Then there was sickness, the resulting nutrition debacle amid a tough endurance race, and slowness to recover afterward. Several days after returning to California, my weight was still 129 ... meaning I likely lost ten to fifteen pounds during the race. That's a lot of big swings in one month, both gained and lost in the least healthy ways possible. The result left my body feeling more than a bit broken down.

Shortly after Racing the Planet Nepal wrapped up, amid the glow of finishing, Beat and I registered online for a 50-kilometer trail run. The Coyote Ridge 50K was scheduled less than a week after our return from Nepal. It's already mid-December (!!!) and I'm registered for the Susitna 100 in February (I may write a blog post about why I've decided to run the Susitna 100 again, but it basically boils down to a conviction that my life would not be complete without my annual winter slog in Alaska, and no I do not consider that normal or healthy.) But since Susitna is just a short nine weeks away, I decided I needed to kick off my "training." And somehow in my post-race fog, running a 50K seemed like a good idea.

My first days back in California felt like an exercise in futility, in every sense of the phrase. I started with short rides on my road bike, because I was back in the land of bikes so of course I was going to ride my bike. I enjoyed the riding immensely, but my legs felt like they had been soaked in a protein-dissolving acid solution. You know, like mush. The usual efforts suddenly became so much slower and more challenging. My regular route up Montebello Road felt like an Everest climb. I wanted to blame jet lag, but I suspected something deeper.

On Wednesday, I could no longer delay the inevitable. I had to see whether my body still knew how to run. It had been at least six weeks since the last time I attempted a real trail run without a 25-pound pack and trekking poles. But Wednesday's run was not an encouraging experiment. Basically, I spent ninety minutes trying to "run" six miles, pounding my mush legs, gasping for air at a paltry 1,200 feet elevation, and basically having The Fear driven firmly into my heart.

Understand that I was never trying to "train" for the 50K. I just had to prove to myself that my body still worked. I wasn't sure it did. I realize that these efforts didn't exactly aid in recovery, but I needed a mental boost. Any mental boost. I went back out on Thursday afternoon and ran eight miles. That too took ninety minutes, with more climbing, and I felt generally better. Not great, but better.

"I still think I'm broken," I told Beat. "I'm not really sure how I can turn eight tough miles over to 31 in two days. It's going to be like that time I tried to ride a hundred-mile mountain bike race three weeks after the Tour Divide. That was a huge disaster."

"It will be fine," Beat assured me. "Your body will remember how to run."

If I looked tired, it's because I was really tired.

The Coyote Ridge 50K began at 8 a.m. Saturday in Muir Beach. The course circled the Golden Gate National Recreation Area in the Marin Headlands, a beautiful region of open (yes, deforested) rolling hills and seaside cliffs. It's both famous and infamous with Bay-area runners for its stunning scenery, steep terrain, concrete-like trails and almost-never-clear weather in December. When I saw the forecast for a high of 52 degrees and sunshine, I planned for 52 degrees with wind, salty moisture and dense fog. We left Los Altos in the almost-frosty darkness of 6 a.m., just in time to catch a glimpse of the lunar eclipse. I leaned toward the windshield and gaped at the full moon, eerily shrouded by a bronze shadow. "This is a bad omen," I said. "Or maybe it's a good one." Beat just shook his head. He doesn't believe in omens.

Coyote Ridge was not a "soft" 50K by any means, with an elevation gain of 7,130 feet and a course profile that looked like the electrocardiogram of a man about to have a heart attack. The race had a nine-hour cutoff that spanned dawn to dusk, and I planned to use all of those hours. I just wanted to finish, if that was even possible. I followed the paceline up the first steep climb just as the sun rose over the eastern ridges, promising a gorgeous day. Huge waves crashed on the rocks, turkey vultures soared over our heads and the bright blue Pacific stretched into an equally bright sky. I was stoked on the scenery, crisp 40-degree air and sunshine, and started marching faster. After passing a dozen or more people, I thought better of running a 180-bpm heart rate in the first mile of a 31-mile day. So I settled back in with the pack, wondering just how it could be that I felt so good.

I wrote a long preface to this race report to set up yet another grueling tale of hardship, but the truth is, there wasn't any. My training over the last six months means there's not an ounce of speed in my legs, and I was purposely conservative, so I didn't come close to setting a PR. But out of the seven 50K's that I've completed, the Coyote Ridge 50K felt like my strongest, most consistent run yet. I didn't have side-stitches. I didn't get hurty foot. I didn't experience the sensation of my stomach turning inside out and purging its contents all over a rice paddy. I just ... ran. Sometimes the climbs were head-spinningly steep; those I walked. And I shuffled as I usually do on the steep descents, because it's not like I magically figured out how to run downhill overnight. And I did move slowly up a couple of gradual inclines when my right knee was acting up. But then I stopped to pop a couple of Advil, massaged the knee cap for a minute, and felt strong once again.

I did experience disappointment when my small Sony point-and-shoot camera blew up about a half hour into the race. I continued to try to beat it back to life and did manage to extract one more photo — the one at the top of this post. But you'll have to take my word that it was a gorgeous day with stunning scenery throughout. I finished in six hours and 50 minutes, seven minutes after Beat finished. (We decided not to race together but ended up running similar times anyway.) I was the fourth woman, which according to Beat should secure my spot at the top of the 2011 Coastal Trail Run Ultra Blazers awards. Yay. :)

GPS stats here. The statistic I'm pleased with the heart-rate graph, whose consistency helps me believe that my endurance survived whatever nutritional horrors I put my body through in November. (The elevation graph is messed up after my GPS signal cut out several times. I did not fall off any cliffs.)

The pessimistic side of me is suspicious that maybe I only reason I felt so strong during the Coyote Ridge 50K was precisely because I felt so weak and sick in Nepal, and really anything would feel awesome in comparison. But the optimistic side of me likes to believe that my body isn't broken, that maybe it was never broken, and maybe it just knew how to run, all along. 

The long wait to the finish

The end of the Long March carried the cruel illusion that the hardship was finished, when really there were still 36 hours left in the race. Sure, there was only one more short stage — an easy, mostly flat 13 kilometers across Pokhara. But not until Saturday. Friday was technically still part of the Long March. For those of us who finished the 45 miles on Thursday, it was a rest day. For me, it felt like one of the biggest endurance challenges of the race.

I woke up feeling sick to my stomach. This was most likely my fault for running for sixteen and a half hours on minimal nutrition, but I blamed "the bug ... or a new bug." I shuffled miserably around camp and refused to eat. I sorted out the rest of my freeze-dried meals that I hadn't yet given away or thrown away and threw them away (and yes, the only freeze-dried meal of my own that I actually ate in seven days was the demon Thai Chicken before the race even began.) Our camp was located near the shoreline of Bengas Lake, a popular tourism spot, so we were surrounded by small restaurants. Beat coaxed me up to what was a common sight in the cities of Nepal — a single-counter store with various chips, cookies, ramen and soda. We shared a small bag of "American Sour Cream and Onion" potato chips and a Sprite. Very soon afterward, digestive distress ensued. I rushed to the toilets, and then returned to the tent to marinate in my own misery. As the sun rose over the hillside, the temperature inside the nylon oven climbed to what must have been 130 degrees. I lay in my sweat-drenched underwear on top of a Ridge Rest and moaned.

A few times, Beat came to the door of the tent to coax me out. "It's too hot in here. Come outside."

"Errrrrrgh."

And then, twenty minutes later: "You need to get up and eat something."

"Ugggggh."

And then, another twenty minutes later. "Seriously. You have to get out of here."

"Just give me twenty more minutes."

"No, you have to eat something now. You ran for sixteen hours yesterday and you need something to recover. Seriously, this is how kidney failure happens to people."

I crawled out of the tent and was almost surprised to discover that it wasn't 130 degrees outside. I added hot water to a cup of ramen and began working on it at a rate of about a spoonful per minute. Steve approached and began raving about the most amazing grilled fish he just had for lunch, at a little restaurant down by the water. "The guy catches fish in a net, and then he cleans the fish, and then he fills it with all this garlic, chili and spices, and then he throws it on the grill, all right in front of you. It's awesome."

Fish and garlic? It sounded awful to me, but I couldn't go back to the tent to lay down without stewing in my own brain proteins. I had to find some way to kill the daylight hours. Eventually I agreed to head down to the restaurant to sit at a table and drink soda, especially after Beat threatened to make me eat the Kathmandu Curry (he ended up eating it himself for lunch.) The lakeside restaurant was tiny, with a family of four taking orders, chopping potatoes, selling sodas and grilling fish on a barbecue barely large enough to hold two foil-wrapped fish. I ordered a small plate of fries and Sprite, and Beat ordered the fish. I agreed to try it, and then I ended up eating half of it. It was pretty fantastic ... more proof that I just had over-sensitive endurance stomach and not an actual illness. Although I would have benefited more from downing a couple thousand calories in electrolyte and protein recovery drink, the fish did me a world of good.

But mostly, I was looking forward to running again. An ongoing theme throughout my Racing the Planet Nepal experience was that I generally felt okay on the trail, and horrible in camp. There are several factors that contributed to this, but I think in general I just cope better when I stay on the move. By the final night, only three remained in our tent out of the original seven: me, Beat and a retired British investment banker who lives in Hong Kong, Peter Clarke. Patty unfortunately became overwhelmed by her illness and had to drop out during stage five. We didn't see her again. Peter, who is 61 years old, not only managed to remain healthy through the sick-fest, but also finished well ahead of us in every stage but the last one.

This is the contingent from the San Francisco Bay area: Martina Koldewey, Chuck Wilson, Beat, me, Sarah Diaz, Erin Sprague and Steve Ansell.

Stage six was 13 kilometers (8 miles) with 130 meters (426 feet) of climbing. Short and flat. Before we could start running toward Pokhara, we had to get to the other side of Bengas Lake. Racing the Planet set up an elaborate shuttle system using dozens of small paddle boats, each with its own local captain.

Beat and I thought it would have been more fun if racers were each issued a paddle and given the task of paddling the boat as part of the race, cooperation style. Or better yet, have the leaders swim while towing the back-of-packers in boats behind them.

Our particular captain was a bit competitive himself (and probably younger than 18, although child labor is commonplace here; the median age in Nepal is 20 and 40 percent of the population is younger than 14.) Even though our boat started near the back, we passed enough boats to get a good spot on the starting line. For breakfast I ate my last bar, a Nature Valley Peanut Butter Granola Bar, savoring every bite. And that was that. There were no more bars.

The run into the finish was mostly uneventful. We actually did run at about a 10-minute-mile pace until we hit an open swamp, where the footing became dicey and I also experienced a serious bonk. Of course my entire race experience was essentially one big, drawn-out bonk. But this one had a sharper feel, a touch of finality, and I nearly panicked. "Holy cow, I'm going to shut down right here like that woman who collapsed just a few meters shy of the finish line in the Boston Marathon." We were still five kilometers from the Fulbari Resort. I sputtered to such a crawl that Beat asked me what was wrong, and I admitted I was out of gas. Luckily, he had one more energy bar and relented to splitting it with me.

With those final sparks of fuel, my distress subsided. I looked up and for the first time that morning, actually noticed the incredible skyline spread out before us. The many photos in these posts don't even come close to depicting the scale of these mountains, and as a visual it's impossible to describe. Pokhara Valley rests at 3,000 feet. Less than twenty miles in a direct line, the elevation rises sharply to 25,000 feet. The skyline features three eight-thousanders (as in meters): Dhaulagiri, Annapurna and Manaslu. The photogenic pyramid in the middle of the Annapurna range is the 7,000-meter Machhapuchhre ("Fishtail.") I like to believe that someday I will return to Nepal and trek into the heart of these mountains. But even to see them from afar is consistently breathtaking.

After a surprisingly short hour and 45 minutes, we strode across the finish line to a barrage of clapping schoolchildren, Nepali ethnic music and a holy man dabbing blessings on our forehead. We received a medal and shawl as we bee-lined for the pizza — pizza! —which is all I was capable of thinking about in that moment.

As for the race, Beat and I finished 108th and 109th out of 220 starters and 170 finishers with a time of 48 hours and five minutes. I was 16th out of 50 starters and 38 finishers in the women's category. Out of Americans, I was 22nd of 51. And out of American women I was first of ten! (See, I knew I'd get myself on the podium if I whittled the categories down enough.)

But beyond all the small details of the race was the simple yet deep satisfaction of having completed one of the toughest — and yet most culturally and personally enriching — journeys of my life. In time I would reflect on the thresholds I had crossed, but for now it was time to simply celebrate and bask in the warm sunlight. We hugged new friends and toasted glass bottles of soda and beer to a race well run. I hoped in time my body would forgive me for the relentless struggle through weakness in pain. Pizza was a good place to start.