A harsh end to the holiday

It began where these stories always seem to begin, on a bright and gorgeous morning. Keith and I were pedaling along State Route 120, the high road across Yosemite National Park. We had a big day planned — eighty miles and a long, rolling climb to near 10,000 feet elevation. We were about twenty-five miles in, and I was feeling discomfort from several different directions — yes, remnant undercarriage pains, as well as difficulty breathing in the sustained high altitude. Also, I didn't want to say anything to Keith, but I didn't really like this road. It was a little unnerving — narrow with frequent blind corners, and the kind of traffic and drivers typical of national parks. Sometimes things don't feel right, and I don't know why. Usually when I feel unwarranted negativity, I blame it on physical discomfort.

"I kinda wish we just went hiking in valley again," I joked with Keith. "There are so many awesome trails down there, and oxygen too." But when he asked me, more than once, whether I wanted to cut the ride short because I wasn't feeling well, I held on to my resolve. "No, this is a beautiful route. I can rally."

Keith waited for me at the bottom of a long descent, where I arrived still gasping for air. I admitted I would probably require consistent breath-catching breaks in order to make it up the next climb. Keith offered to ride behind me for a while, and chatted breezily while I turned slow rotations and strained thin air through my sea-level-weakened lungs. I didn't want to say anything to Keith, but after a mile I could hear him speaking to me, but couldn't really understand the words over my own loud breathing. We rounded a corner where the pavement notched into the mountainside just as a pack of four motorcycles roared beside us. I distinctly remember being frightened by the noise of the engines and moving far to the right when, just seconds later, I heard a loud, "Nooooo!"

The scream faded into a sickening crunch, and I felt something punching my left forearm. The force ripped my Garmin watch clean off its band and caused me to teeter violently, but I was able to put my foot down before the bike tipped over. I heard Keith cursing and my immediate thought was that his front wheel bumped my rear and he crashed. But as I swung around, I saw something much worse — an overturned Harley Davidson, a half-exploded road bike, and my friend Keith writhing on the pavement.

"Don't move, Keith, please don't move," I yelled as I darted around him, gathering the pieces of his bike from the road. The motorcyclist quickly stood up and we both flagged down vehicles coming from opposite directions. One man got out of his car and offered to direct traffic while another couple rushed toward us and said they were EMTs. They immediately started asking Keith the right questions before I had even fully processed what had happened. I grabbed my cell phone but it had no reception. No one had reception. We were high on a mountain pass, many miles from the nearest towns. So I dug my SPOT unit out of my pack and hit 911.

More bystanders helped the motorcyclist right his bike so he could wheel it out of the lane. His arm was crimson with road rash and he was bleeding profusely from one of his fingers. I dug out my first aid kit, offered him antibiotic ointment, and introduced myself. He said his name was Joe, from Staten Island. He was here on vacation with his buddies. They all rented Harleys in Oakland and were traveling up the Sierras and onto the Cascades. Joe was ashen faced and shocked himself. His buddies were now far ahead. They didn't know he was missing from the group. I felt for Joe. There was no doubt that his inattentiveness led to the rear-end collision, but the action wasn't malicious. He simply didn't see us until it was too late.

The EMTs  — Dan and his wife from Mono Lake — took charge of the situation, and their assistance helped calm all of us down. They determined Keith had all the good physical indicators to likely rule out a spinal injury, as well as no head injuries. But he was in a lot of pain and it was obvious something was very wrong with his back. Eventually construction workers arrived and took over traffic direction as Keith remained where he landed on the road. It took at least an hour for the ambulance to arrive. The nearest hospital was another hour and a half away.

The next 36 hours were a whirlwind of stress. They carted Keith off in an ambulance and the motorcyclist Joe, his friends, the EMTs, and I waited another half hour for a ranger to arrive. We filled out our reports and Joe's friends helped him build an arm bandage out of a greasy towel and a nylon strap. Hey was still bleeding rather heavily, but the one ambulance that arrived didn't have time to help him treat his wounds. I waited another hour for a ride with both bikes back to my car, and another hour went by before I passed into an area with cell reception. All that time, Beat and Keith's wife Leslie didn't really know what was going on — only that my SPOT sent out a 911 signal, and later that there was a collision with a motorcycle. Leslie told me later that she was surprised her reaction to extreme stress was to stay calm and eat a lot of bagels. I felt some survivor's guilt that day, both for almost inexplicably avoiding being swept up in the collision, as well as instigating the SOS call without being able to convey further information. But I had to hit 911 on the SPOT. It was the right thing to do.

I met Keith at the medical center in the town of Sonora, where a stage of the Tour of California was slated to start on Wednesday. Bicycle fever rippled through the tiny town, but I could only feel sadness, and some anger. The accident was just that — unintentional — but the fact is Joe was able to walk away and Keith could not. Bicyclists never get to walk away. And the number of friends who have been involved in vehicle-bicycle collisions only continues to grow. It can be difficult not to ask "When is it my turn?" and "Why not me?" and sometimes just "Why?" Keith held on to his usual cheery attitude and made optimistic observations about his condition. But as we plodded through the tests and procedures at the hospital, I could see that this was becoming more real to him with each passing hour. He was lucky it wasn't worse, which is something one can always say about any bad incident. But he was beginning to realize that he was in for a long recovery, that he won't be able to ride a bicycle for several months, that he might not even be able to work for a long while.

The final diagnosis: A fractured lumbar vertebrae, muscle tearing, and abrasions. He was transported to a larger hospital in Modesto for a whole second day when the Sonora doctor became concerned about signs of nerve damage, but further tests came up clear. We went through the long process of transporting him to my home, prepping him for his flight, and sending him back to Canada, broken.

Keith has a great support network of friends and he will recover. I of course realize how lucky I am that I was not hit. I think my saving grace was the fact I veered so far to the right seconds before the accident. The noise from the other motorcycle engines startled me, and I remember fluttering the handlebars when I drifted too close to the dirt shoulder. Then Joe slammed directly into Keith's rear wheel before his Harley veered to the left and turned over. The trajectory of the crash pushed Keith's bike forward and up. That's likely what hit my left arm and tore off my watch — the bicycle. Keith flipped backward onto his back, but luckily his body never made direct contact with the motorcycle. Otherwise, the outcome probably would have been much worse.

 There was lots of good in Keith's visit to California, and I wish it didn't have to end this way. I took this photo from Glacier Point the evening before the crash, overlooking the Half Dome and other mountains in Yosemite. This is the hike I talked Keith into as part of my "my butt can't handle every day on a bike" vacation negotiations. We started in the valley and climbed the four-mile trail to Glacier Point, and then I went on to the top of the Sentinel Dome, 8,123 feet. From there I ran all the way down in order to catch up with Keith, losing more than 4,000 feet in direct elevation over six miles. It was without a doubt my best running descent yet. My feet floated over rocks and confidently rounded switchbacks, as though I might actually be learning a technique or two in technical running. And honestly, it was the strongest I've felt in a while.

Keith told me that this accident hasn't changed his feelings about cycling at all. He's still excited to return to road riding when he recovers. I admit I can't say the same right now. I am a cyclist, though, and I'm sure this trepidation won't last long. But right now I'm more excited about trail running than ever, and I am grateful for my health to do so.

Get well soon, Keith. 

And on and on

I will say this: It really is difficult to take recovery down time when it's summer, beautiful outside, and the people you spend time with are all out looking for fun. I finished the Stagecoach 400, took a couple of days completely off, and ventured back into easy running for a few days after that. But despite my first truly bad case of saddle sores and lingering tiredness, I've already slipped back toward possibly bad if enjoyable habits. I know I need to make changes in order to stop this cycle of fatigue. If only I could push my willpower in that direction.
 

My friend Keith is visiting from Banff for a spring road bike vacation that he's been planning for months. I can't blame Keith for the bike binging, as this has always been the plan. It's been so fun to have him here, but we've been putting in some solid miles. Right off the plane we did a hard climb up Monte Bello Road even though it was 92 degrees outside and there's still snow on the ground where he lives. He rocked it of course and is excited about all the warm weather, blue skies, smooth pavement and quintessential California cultural experiences like being passed on a mountain road by a parade of supercars. That kind of enthusiasm is hard not to get wrapped up in, and it's been great. But, yeah ... I'm still not feeling super awesome or even 100-percent healthy right now.

 The saddle sores are my most immediate concern. I'd actually appreciate some input from people with experience in this regard, and I'm trying to think of how I can word this without being too off-putting and graphic. So there are blister-like chaffing sores that have been slow-healing and seem to be irritated, possibly infected. I also have a fair amount of lingering swelling and significant soreness in the, ahem, lady parts. I've never experienced anything like this — even after Tour Divide. I often joke with my friends that I have an "iron butt" and honestly thought I was immune to saddle sores. I think it may be a combination of bad chamois choice, less-than-ideal hygiene (although I did take regular alcohol-based wet-wipe "baths" during the race), and more heat than I'm accustomed to. But, man. Ouch. The pain has been bad enough that I haven't been sleeping well at night, still, which also doesn't help with recovery. I tried plenty of lubing for my rides with Keith, as well as applications of a couple of over-the-counter medications for different kinds of infections. I've seen some improvement, but not as much as I expected after a week. Yesterday for a six-hour ride I decided to forgo the chamois and just wear airy running shorts because I've become convinced that chamois are nothing more than bacteria traps and it would be better for me to wick sweat rather than sit on it for six hours. This actually seemed to help. I already have a regular physical scheduled on May 21 so I will have a chance to see my doctor about this. But any suggestions, especially from women, that might offer me some relief before then would be greatly appreciated.

But, beyond the pall of sometimes excruciating undercarriage pain that makes me never want to ride a bike ever again (I joke, kind of), riding with Keith has been fun. We've done a bunch of climby rides because, around here, all the good road rides involve a ton of climbing. On Wednesday we rode Skyline Drive, 52 miles and 4,600 feet of climbing along the wooded spine of the Santa Cruz Mountains. It was fun to share the road with supercars, whose drivers were all courteous and gave us tons of space as they drove the speed limit past us.
 
Thursday was Bike to Work Day, and Google had a big festival with booths and prizes to encourage all of its employees to participate. There also seemed to be a competition of sorts among the employees to see who could complete the most awesome ride on their way to work. A few of Beat's co-workers also saw an opportunity to ride their bikes as long as possible before finally going into work, and planned a "long way" loop to the ocean and back — 77 miles and more than 7,000 feet of climbing. Of course Keith and I wanted in on the fun.

I wasn't the only non-Google employee to show up, but I was the only woman. I rolled up for the 6:15 a.m. start wearing my short running shorts and fat platform pedals attached to Beat's hand-built carbon Calfee. The reason for the platform pedals was because after my and Keith's four-hour ride, my road shoes started pinching and my frostbite-foot toes were sore. With all of my undercarriage issues, I really didn't need the added grief of toe pain, so I threw on the platforms right before the ride. I almost wished I left my headlamp attached to my helmet for a trifecta of dorkiness, but really the running shorts and platform pedals made me dorky enough, not to mention I was the only girl. I don't think any of these guys took me seriously from the get-go, but I held on to the finish.

The pace was friendly but not slacker. We did the ride in six hours in order to make it to "work" by noon. The route was spectacular, really. I would have never imagined myself enjoying road riding the way I do here in California, but this populated place is threaded with nearly traffic-free ribbons of pavement up steep slopes, beside sweeping vistas, and through thick Redwood Forests dripping with greenery. For locals: Our loop route was Page Mill, Alpine, Stage Road, Highway 1, Tunitas Creek, King Mountain, and valley bike routes to Google and home.

Today I talked Keith into a real day off — we're going to the beach and that's about it. After Keith's bike vacation I'm going to have to reassess, again, just how serious I'm going to be about my training this summer — because I'm not sure exactly what I need to combat this fatigue issue. I don't think it's as simple as taking a week off, but something like that will probably be the first step, after the Ohlone 50K next Saturday. But yeah, if I don't get my health back on track, UTMB is going to a lot more absurd than just the pipe dream that it is right now. I have to be realistic, even if I'm having fun.

Climbing to the end

 I've found it difficult to write my Stagecoach 400 trip report. All of the words seem to boil down to "I was really tired and rode my bike for a long time." During the race, my perspective was muddled by fatigue, which cast a sort of gray wash over my memories of the trip. I experienced beautiful moments, but not to the levels of intensity I expected. I rode fun trails, but not with the same zeal I normally would feel. And I did despair sometimes, over not much, really ... a sore shoulder, another steep hike-a-bike, a turn I couldn't find. This is just the truth; I wasn't super awesome during the Stagecoach 400. I was slightly broken, struggling, sometimes continuing only because there wasn't a viable way to stop. But when I managed to rein in these emotions, I felt surges of relief, even joy, because it really didn't matter. In the end I probably wouldn't have been much faster at a hundred percent. I might not have even been that much happier at a hundred percent. Life moves forward no matter where we stand, but as long as I keep moving with it, I'm satisfied.

Four days is not terribly long for a bikepacking trip, but it's just enough time to make the transition to a different way of existing. I wrote earlier about how these hard efforts can be dehumanizing, in a way. In this context, it's not a bad thing. The more I focus on the state of my body and my biological needs, the less think about abstract ideas and life outside the immediate present. I become more animal-like, driven mainly by migration and the prospect of food and water. My thoughts begin to register less as words and more as blunt reactions and emotions. This manifests in simple ways, like screeching at mice who won't get out of my way, or stopping to observe a dead snake with inexplicable fascination. In the night, I growled at a rabbit who hopped by my camp, and in the morning I woke up with a spider on my face and calmly flicked it away. Interacting with other humans becomes more disconcerting, and the patterns of civilization start to confuse me. At the same time, the wilderness becomes a more comfortable place and the quiet flow of the universe makes more sense. I enjoy embracing my inner animal, from time to time.

Although I enjoyed the urban adventure of San Diego, I was relieved to be back in National Forest lands. I hacked through walls of encroaching vegetation on an abandoned fire road and cut across a field into the Pamo Valley.  The mountains were fog-drenched and green, quite a shift from the desert only a few dozen miles to the east. I was doing one of my favorite things, which is climbing quiet forest roads high into the mountains, and tried to rally my tired legs for maximum enjoyment.

Soon the fog began to clear, the temperature shot up substantially, and the road just kept on climbing. Often the route lost several hundred feet of elevation into drainages only to resume its sluggish journey skyward. I neared the end of my water supply and collected some from a stream that I could drink through my filter. Extracting water from my filter is a chore, involving headache-inducing suction, so I took the first opportunity I saw for treated water — a fire station on the Indian Reservation near the top of the canyon. The garden hose was sitting in the sun, and even after I let it run for a minute the water was still hot. I filled my regular bladder and kept the stream water as a reserve. This day, like much of the trip, I'd ride most of the miles carrying more than a gallon of water.

After four hours of near-continuous climbing, I dropped out of the mountains near Lake Henshaw. Its dark blue surface made me wistful for cool, clear water — not the metallic fire water I was choking down. I also wanted to find a resupply business somewhere in the vicinity. After all, a highway crossed the valley and there was a decently sized town called Warner Springs. Although the cues didn't indicate services, I hoped to find something because my food supply was dwindling. When I stocked up at the Chevron the night before, I believed I was overfilling my supply. But that was before the animal side really took over and left me gnawing mindlessly on vast quantities of food. By the time morning came, much was gone and I couldn't even say where it went. And still I felt almost ravenously hungry, at this point trying to ration my calories because the next guaranteed resupply was still many hours away.

Sadly, Warner Springs only seemed to have one establishment — a golf club and store that seemed to be permanently out of business. I even tried casing the fire station for vending machines and didn't even find a water spigot. I knew I had enough food to last me five more hours, which is probably what it was going to take to get over this next 25-mile hump. But it was already 1 p.m., and the last resupply on the route reportedly closed at six. I was going to have to bust ass to make this next stretch and I wasn't sure I had it in me. My knee-jerk reaction was more despair, and in the midst of these raw emotions I wrote Beat a text admitting I was "scared" and was considering just riding the highway toward Idyllwild. Luckily I calmed down before I sent it and made a better plan — race for the RV park, and if I don't make it, I can always ride off route into Anza, which is certainly better than quitting the whole race over this. Beat even gave me suggestions for good establishments in Anza, and I left Warner Springs almost hoping I'd miss the cut-off so I could enjoy cold root beer and maybe even a chicken sandwich.

What followed was the endless climb over the Santa Rosa Mountains, the acceptance of my limitations, and a joyful if inexplicable surge of energy that reminded me, if briefly, what it was like to feel strong again. A blissful descent brought me into the Anza Valley and I cranked the high gears all the way to the Sunshine RV Park, only to arrive at 6:07 p.m. I expected to find the place closed, but discovered the store's summer hours kept it open until seven. I darted around the tiny room collecting new water, cookies, cheese, and something for dinner. The woman at the counter, Mrs. Singh, offered to microwave a burrito for me and also recommend these corn chips that turned out to be fiercely spicy, as well as a Choco Taco. She told me stories of the racers who came through before me — Jay Petervary who ate "all of the food in the store," and Katherine and the hotelers who rode through here together just a few hours earlier. She urged me not to ride in the dark, promising she'd find a nice spot in her RV park for me to camp. When I insisted I wanted to ride on, she gave me two packages of sour straw candy, free of charge, because "when you're riding you suck on these and they give you power." Mrs. Singh was a refreshing shot of human kindness on this lonely day, even if the chips she recommended nearly burned a hole in my stomach.

I'd love to say it was an easy 25-mile climb up to Idyllwild from there, but I hit one more snag less than ten miles from town when I tried to take the unmarked singletrack that we rode on the way out, presuming that this was the official course now. I found the trailhead but took a wrong turn about a mile up the hill. A mile later, the trail seemed to peter out in the bushes, but I remained convinced this was the right way. I crossed a stream that was much deeper than I remembered it being and pushed my bike up a steep rock-outcropping, which didn't seem right at all. At the top, a larger cliff confirmed that I had indeed hit a dead end. I panicked. Not in a "oh, I guess I have to backtrack now" kind of way, but in a "Oh crap, I'm going to die out here" kind of way. I was beyond processing the situation rationally. I picked my bike up and started sprinting toward the rock outcropping, and when I reached it, tried to half-run, half-leap down to the stream. Predictably, I lost control of my footing and slipped forward, nearly tumbling head over feet, but luckily threw my weight backward in time to land on my butt and slide the rest of the way down, dragging the bike behind me. I bashed my shin hard on the pedals somewhere in the process, and blood was streaming down my legs, but happily I was otherwise not worse for the wear. I backtracked and found a different trail, which proved to be the right one. The adrenaline surge kept me full-on sprinting all the way up the hill and onto the final forest road climb, until it wore off, and I completely bonked. The final three miles were devoid of pedaling. I walked when I couldn't coast. But I made it, somehow, just before midnight on Monday night.

Photo by Matt Slater

I was so tired. I signed in as the 18th finisher out of 42 starters, and probably about 25 to 28 finishers (a final list hasn't been posted yet.) Jay Petervary rode the whole course without sleep in 50 hours, and Eszter was the first woman finisher a mere six hours later. I finished in 3 days and 13.5 hours. The final stats on my GPS were 385 miles, somewhere between 35,000 and 40,000 feet of climbing, moving time 57:44 at a moving average of 6.7 miles per hour. It's been a difficult experience to process, but the final take away for me is this: If I'm tired, and I just keep moving anyway, good things happen. (Map from day four)