Here goes nothing

Right now it's 38 degrees and clear in Idyllwild, California. I arrived in town this afternoon after visiting my sister in Huntington Beach. Less than two hours of driving through traffic-choked Orange County sprawl and into the mountains landed me in this awesome little mountain town at 6,000 feet, with wisps of new-fallen snow on the ridgeline just above our heads. By Saturday afternoon it's supposed to be close to 100 degrees in the low-lying desert just a few miles south.

I spent the evening with my friends Sharon and Michael, who flew all the way out here from Anchorage to escape Alaska breakup and soak up a little Cali sunshine. I'm splitting a hotel room with Eszter, the supa-fast mountain bike goddess who is gearing up to crush my Tour Divide record this summer. The Stagecoach is just another training ride for her. Interestingly, we spent most of the evening talking about Alaska.

I head into this ride with an open mind and a lot of food (really, I have a lot this time. I checked.) My hope is to put as many miles across the brutal desert tomorrow before the heat really returns, and then see how my body holds up for the following days. The race is starting a bit late because of tracking issues, around 10 a.m., which is fine with me. Now I have time for one more meal with Sharon and Michael. I was fretting about my perceived physical state earlier, but I've mostly let those fears fade into the background. This is bikepacking, after all. After the first day, it all hurts the same.

You can follow my progress on the Stagecoach 400 tracking page, http://trackleaders.com/stagecoach400. I'll probably be plodding up a mountain, or dripping sweat on the soft sand of a desert wash, lecturing my legs to stop hurting and singing catchy pop music to myself like AWOLNATION:

I say ya kill your heroes 
and fly, fly, baby don't cry. 
No need to worry cuz everybody will die. 
Every day we just go, go, baby don't go.
Don't you worry we love you more than you know.

Fighting inertia

After another "but it's only for fun" mountain bike ride on Sunday that ended with dead legs and nap-time fatigue, I made the unprecedented (for me) decision to take the rest of the week off from exercising. I admit I'm beginning to feel nervous about the possible onset of mild burnout, because some of the symptoms feel similar to my post Tour Divide physical malaise: Molasses muscles, mild but persistent soreness in my quads, rapidly shifting energy levels, sugar cravings. Experts have a label for all of these symptoms — "overtraining."

While the reasoning makes sense, it's harder for me to accept the simple explanation. For starters, my activity volume, while relatively high, hasn't changed all that much in the past year. I don't train like most athletes, in peaks and valleys of hard effort and recovery. I stick to a mostly even plain of effort because it's what I enjoy most — having the ability to go out day after day for long efforts if I choose. Athletes call it "long slow distance," and usually scoff at those who practice it, because athleticism is generally perceived to be the pursuit of speed. But it's fine with me, because it's who I am. If I was a true vagabond I wouldn't be the athletic type who travels from race to race; I'd probably be the frumpy tourist pedaling a loaded bicycle around the world. A perceived ability to pedal — or hike — all day, every day, is an important part of my physical identity.

When I have a slump that disrupts this identity, I consider the physical explanations but also look for mental and emotional reasons as well. A few days ago I was discussing my physical concerns with Beat, and a few questions from him shifted the topic to my current creative frustrations. For the past year I have been trying to pursue the long, often difficult slog of writing as a (mostly) full-time profession. For every personal triumph there have been many dead ends. I have quite a few unfinished projects and ideas strung in threads across my computer screen. I'm currently focusing most of my time on two specific book projects, one that's nearing the final editing stages and one that I'm basically just beginning. This second project is one I'm excited about, but it's proving difficult in execution. I buzz with anticipation when I'm out for a ride, thinking about what I want to write. But when I actually sit down to write, I'm stifled by uncertainties about all these supposedly great ideas. I spend more time staring at blank Word pages, scrolling down to prevent myself from re-reading the same sentences over and over, and diverting my attention to banal tasks and Web surfing. Meanwhile other projects, which could at least add to the salmon wheel trickle of my income, sit unfinished.

I keep telling myself I'm going to develop a real routine, set goals, and get away from the Internet, and somehow that will make a difference. But I continue developing excuses as to why I can't cement a better routine — traveling to Nepal, spending much of the winter in Alaska, training for the White Mountains 100, preparing for the Stagecoach 400. The truth is I'm afraid to devote more energy to writing. My most successful days can be so mentally consuming, the failed days so frustrating, and I fear that the only thing I'll find on the other side is failure, or worse — indifference.

If you asked me right now if I honestly though I could make a living as a writer, my answer would be no. Content is abundant, most of it is free, and the economic climate is only going to make it more difficult for those who create content to generate income. My current income comes from the sales of my two books, a few small magazine contracts, and the occasional editing job that I pick up from the community of people who call themselves "indie authors." Based on these experiences and my past in the newspaper and magazine industry, I believe authorship of books is the best avenue for me, with the highest potential for both income generation and personal fulfillment. But I also recognize that to actually achieve financial independence through writing, I am either going to have to simply get lucky or write and market a whole lot of different books. When I'm struggling, as I am right now, I find myself browsing journalismjobs.com and wondering if the newspaper industry will take me back. Sadly, things are pretty sparse over there these days. Never mind the return to 60-hour workweeks, the giving up of adventure time, the death of dreams.

If you asked me right now what I want to make of my life, that answer would be simple. I want to tell stories. I want to tell my own stories, and I want to tell the stories of others — in other words, personal narrative and biographical writing. I enjoy interviewing people and writing profiles, and hope to do more of that in the future. Still, my most natural inclination is to write through the lens of my own experiences. In olden days I might have called myself a memoirist. My memory is my most influential intellectual asset, and written words one of my most fulfilling means of self expression. Another is movement — physically drawing my presence across the contours of the world. I recognize that these things are not always economically practical or even possible, but I am happiest when I am able to do both.

I wonder if creative inertia contributes to my physical inertia, and vice versa. A kind of vicious cycle. Which brings me back around to the Stagecoach 400. I'm nervous about this trip because of what feels like less-than-optimal physical fitness, but at the same time believe I'll likely extract a richer experience from this ride because of a penitent mindset (after all, I have only myself to blame if I am indeed "overtrained.") My plan is to (hopefully) manage my food and water better than I did during my last bike tour, enjoy the scenery, take breaks when I am tired, and just ride. I don't have a goal time. Four days and change would be hopeful. The race has a limit of five days, which is a bit tight in my opinion, based on what I know of the course. It's good, though. I believe a few good days of the raw existence necessitated by endurance bikepacking are just what I need right now — mull over some of my ideas, test the true status of my physical state, and fight the inertia.

The race starts Friday morning. I'm planning to write a more in-depth gear post before then, but one encouraging bit of news is new bags from Revelate Designs arrived just in time. I now finally have a new seat-post bag to replace the well-worn prototype that Eric made for me in 2007, a fitted frame bag and an awesome handlebar bag. The innovations Revelate has made in the past few years are impressive — better materials, waterproof adaptations, simplified straps, and an impressive amount of volume in small and stealthy spaces, so I can carry all my overnight gear and still "get rad" on singletrack. Eric (who wrote a fantastic race report after the White Mountains 100) went to a lot of trouble to send this stuff in time for Stagecoach, and I owe him a huge thanks.

At least the Moots is fully awesome and ready to eat up miles, even if I am not. 

Embracing the slump

Leah climbs out of Rodeo Valley during our Wednesday evening ride in the Marin Headlands.

As soon as my bike tour ended, the tired returned. I can't say there was anything about the trip — besides the obvious energy deficit during the low-calorie day — that made me feel especially fatigued. But as soon as I stopped pedaling, recovery mode set in deep. My quads felt shredded in such a way that the remaining intact fibers were holding on by threads — in other words, sore and tight. I rested over the weekend and embarked on one run to try to work out the muscle soreness, but that just made my knees ache. There were renewed desires to take naps in the middle of bike rides. Despite concerns about the big effort looming at the end of the month, I couldn't feel too frustrated about my fatigue; I try not to let myself to succumb to frustration for conditions I know are self-inflicted. At the same time, the fatigue was frustrating because it didn't necessarily make sense. My "training volume" hasn't been much different than any other point during the winter, or fall for that matter. Perhaps it's the rapidly shifting weather, mourning the end of winter, entering the "off season." Either way, my fitness is only as good as the intriguing and fun things it lets me do, or the beautiful places it lets me visit. I am tapering with survival of the Stagecoach 400 in mind, but I still snuck a few fun hours outside amid the resting. I wouldn't let sub-optimal fitness stop me unless I thought it might literally stop me.

Fog moving in over San Francisco 

On Wednesday I went riding in Marin with Leah. We started in the city, rode through town, crossed the Golden Gate Bridge and pedaled up and down, up and down, up and down the quiet hills of the Headlands. I love riding in this region because of the dynamic transitions between urban and trail riding, and also because the scenery never disappoints. We watched fog roll in from the Pacific and cloak the peaks, then descended into valleys saturated in rich evening light. The ride ended with deep dish pizza and discussions late into the evening about adventure possibilities in Northern California. There wasn't a second in the evening that I would trade for a rest day. Which is my problem, really. It's really just a matter of my own motivations and rewards. I'd rather be "out-of- shape active" than bored and fit.

Already rocking the biker tan

The next morning's planned mountain bike loop with friends came all too early, and sore quads compelled me to cut my own ride short. Then came another day of rest, followed by today, when the high temperature was forecast to top 90 degrees. Normally, temperatures like that combined with a better excuse to taper would prompt me to stay indoors. But I've been working on acclimating to heat in preparation for my ride across the desert in Southern California. Until today, this involved 35 minutes in the sauna, nearly every night. Although sedentary, the sauna acclimation seemed to be working. My paperback copy of "What I Talk About When I Talk About Running" had nearly disintegrated, and I was up to roasting myself in temperatures over 180 degrees (the safe temperature of cooked chicken) without almost passing out, unless I sat up too fast. It's been a wonderfully cool spring in the Bay Area, but today the outdoors finally cranked out enough heat to put my sauna training to the test.

Beat and I set out for a run on Black Mountain Trail, a steep and often sun-exposed route that climbs 2,900 feet in 10 miles round trip. The trail winds through a wind-protected canyon, where hot air just sits and stagnates like an outdoor sauna. I've only embarked on about five trail runs since March, but I keep receiving ominous weekly tweets from Ultra Trail du Mont Blanc (only 19 more weeks!) and I figured it would be wise to starting putting my running muscles back in motion. But considering my lack of running, the sudden burst of heat and accumulated cycling fatigue, I started the run expecting to feel really bad the whole time.

The run actually went well. I was vaguely sick to my stomach, most likely from drinking too much water, but I figured out if I could coax myself to run just a little bit faster, I actually felt a bit of a breeze. Even though I haven't experienced any heat over 70 degrees outside the sauna since last year, I made it through without almost passing out. When we returned to the car it was 93 degrees in the shade. I'm willing to chalk that one up to successful sauna training. Also, I think the rest days — even when sandwiched between still-difficult efforts — are helping. I plan to take a few more before it's time to tackle 400 miles of sun-drenched Southern California.