Jet lagged

 I had this strange dream that I came back to California. Bikes were there, and so were giant cups of soda, and I was somehow outside of myself, watching this familiar world float by as though I both never left and also hadn't yet returned. The pieces of the dream didn't quite fit together because my friend Bill from Montana was there, and really, why would Bill be in California? That part didn't make sense, but the rest of the dream was like my simple, normal life — tinted surreal because I was so fantastically jet-lagged.


I feel like I'm closer to understanding how people manage running hundred-milers, but I doubt I'll ever understand how some people can travel around the world continuously for their livelihoods, and still maintain a grasp on reality. I've traveled across an ocean only three times in my life, and every time I return home, the combination of travel fatigue, deeper-than-normal physical exhaustion, mild reverse culture shock, and significant time change, has knocked me on the floor. I made my way home by Monday evening and have been operating on a semi-conscious, semi-automatic level ever since. Amid the big catch-up game that's inevitable after a month of being away, I've been hanging out with my friend Bill, who actually is visiting from Montana. It's a longish story of cheap plane tickets and girlfriends on business trips, but he arrived in San Francisco four days before I came back from Europe. By Tuesday, he'd had his fill of "solo urban hiking" and was raring to ride.

I felt barely functional enough to drive on Tuesday so I nixed the possibility of any exercise and suggested we go watch a cross race in the city where my friend Leah would be racing. As it just so happened, this was "cross" in multiple definitions of the word, and both men and women were sporting an array of hilarious outfits. It was a rogue cyclocross race, loosely organized, at an undisclosed location to prevent unwanted inquiries. We never did figure out exactly who won, but we had a lot of fun discussing nominations for best dressed.

 By Wednesday, I'd run out of excuses and cross-dressing distractions, so I took Bill on a mountain bike ride. I set him up on my Fatback under the justification that he's a tall guy and it's my largest bike, but I also know that Bill loves fat tires. We rode my "house trail," the Steven's Creek Loop, which is still a hard 30-mile ride with 4,000 feet of climbing. I didn't feel stellar but I tried not to whine because Bill remembers me back when I used to be tough. Eventually, my quads started failing — it's hard to explain, but the muscles were twitching and it just didn't feel like they were firing, like the fuel lines had been blocked. This slowed me down a lot, and was also the point where the excuses started flowing. Bill wouldn't buy "jet lag lots and lots of mountains in Italy" as a real excuse and kept asking me, "What's wrong with you?"

 On Thursday I wanted to show him famous California redwoods and the coast, so I chose a loop around Purisima Redwoods. However, I'd only ridden this loop once before and I was being guided by a friend, so I remembered a lot less about it than I would have liked. At two major intersections with only two choices for turns, I picked the wrong one both times, and we ended up way off course in Half Moon Bay. Rather than pick my way back on circuitous and steep backroads that I didn't know well, I just jumped on Highway 1 and hoped Bill wouldn't ask why our nice mountain bike ride suddenly involved ten miles of busy pavement.

The bright side was I was able to show Bill one of my favorite secret spots in the Bay area, a shaded bluff above the beach where we could sit and listen to waves crash on the sand as vultures soared overhead. I wanted so badly to fall asleep right there. The fact we had a 2,200-foot climb in front of us filled me with dread. I can't say I handled that climb with any kind of athleticism or grace.

Bill is flying out Friday afternoon and my plan for the next week is to sleep. Yes, for a week. I'm volunteering at a 50K race on Saturday, but after that, it's all sleep. I'll expand on that soon, why extreme rest so important to me right now. And to Danni: Yes, I overdid it. Yes, I'm sorry. But no worries. Sleep for a week. I'll be fine. :-)

I will say, it was fun to be back on a bike, broken quads and all. 

Last day in Italy

Goodbye, Valle d'Aosta 

Sunday marked the last full day of a long, sometimes exhausting, but incredibly rewarding trip to Europe. During the last week I had grown particularly attached to Courmayeur, and bid my personal goodbyes to all of the things I was going to miss — the light-hearted and friendly locals, the delicious thin-crust pizzas, and of course all of the mountains. So many mountains, so little time and energy in life to visit them all. But I felt like I had a good run during this trip. 

 On Sunday morning, the Tor des Geants held its final awards ceremony. It seemed like most of the town turned out to spectate. The friendly woman who ran the desk at our hotel even shut down the front office for a couple of hours to stand in the crowd and cheer for runners. All of the finishers gathered to parade down the main street of Courmayeur. This photo is a picture of Beat with his friend Dima and Dima's girlfriend Karen. Dima and Beat traveled together for some time during the 2011 Tor des Geants, which is how they became friends. Dima, whose full first name is Dmitry, is a Russian who lives in the eastern United States. He teased Beat about finding the only other Russian Dmitry to partner with in this year's running of the TDG. After the race we also got to spend a little time with Beat's 2012 Dmitry, a soft-spoken software developer who just moved to New York.

Afterward, Beat and I met Ana for our promised gelato celebration. Ana succeeded in finishing the 2012 Tor des Geants despite multiple setbacks, including her sprained ankle before the event. She stoically kept at it, and arrived at the finish line on Saturday morning. Although Ana and I vowed to each eat a liter of gelato together if she finished the TDG, in the end we both chickened out. I was about to head out for an afternoon hike that 33 ounces of heavy cream and sugar would have likely sidelined, and I think Ana was just too tired to eat more than a normal portion. But the gelato was delicious. I had cherry and Nutella-flavored scoops on a cone. This is another thing I will miss about Courmayeur. 

Because I was still dealing with frequent leg cramps, I told Beat I wanted to do something "short and easy" for my afternoon outing. The problem with climbing mountains in Courmayeur is the complete absence of anything resembling "short and easy." But it was my last day in Italy, and I just had to visit one more mountain. I chose Mont Cormet, an 8,200-foot peak that towers directly over town. I set up this timed photo to illustrate what hiking above the Aosta Valley usually entails — the "trail" shoots straight up the mountain slope on a 50-percent grade. Even at a snail's pace, my leg muscles were on fire. No wonder they've been cramping so much. As I climbed closer to the peak, I encountered some difficult terrain including traverses of extremely steep avalanche gullies, scrambles beside cliff bands, and navigating around a maze of large metal "nets" presumably constructed to prevent rockslides from tumbling all the way into town. During that section I had one mile that my Garmin registered as a 57-minute-mile. So much for short and easy. 

During the climb, I thought about Beat's effort in his two European races. The PTL was 290 kilometers with 22,000 meters of climbing. The Tor des Geants was 303 kilometers with 24,000 meters of climbing. In the context of my 57-minute-mile, the numbers were difficult to fathom. And yet, by grinding away at it one kilometer at a time, he'd managed to accomplish the impossible-seeming big picture. Runners have different agendas. Many are experimenting with how fast they can go, but some of us are genuinely more interested in discovering how far we can go. Beat just took his running farther than he has yet, and it was enlightening to observe the ways in which he became stronger as he went. His body seemed to adapt to his increasing demands, and besides his feet, he had relatively few physical issues. As for his feet, he admits he made a couple of misjudgments in the early miles of the PTL that resulted in him having to work hard to mitigate the damage for the remainder of PTL and all of TDG. But Beat's personal distance experiment went farther toward confirming a theory I've long held about endurance challenges — that beyond the limitations of our own minds, our individual potential is unimaginably extensive.

Perhaps someday I will return to these mountains to test this theory on myself. Until then, I will look back fondly to the striking beauty and the muscle-grinding terrain that necessitates 57-minute miles.

Courmayeur to Mont Cormet, round-trip distance: 9.4 miles
Total climbing: 4,377 feet
Total time: 3:48

After the TDG

Looking toward Mont Blanc (Monte Bianco) from the Italian side

The day after Beat finished the Tor des Geants, he was predictably wrecked. Also predictable, for a person whose body had carried him so far over so many days, was the way he didn't fully believe he was done. One minute he'd be scheming about running 22 miles out and back to the iced-over pass that the TDG skipped, and the next he'd unintentionally doze off over an empty pizza plate. In making travel plans, we'd opted to stay through Sunday's awards ceremony. So we had two more days in Italy. Although to a much lesser extent than Beat, I was feeling fairly worn down myself. But, like Beat, I figured my body had handled these daily mountain outings just fine thus far. Why wouldn't I be able to continue indefinitely?

Before we came to Italy, I had ambitions to fast-trek the Tour du Mont Blanc trail on my own over three days. I only planned to do this if Beat ended his race several days early — mostly because the minimal support I could provide Beat in the Tor des Geants was more important to me. Not that he really needed it — but I did hate the idea of not being available if things went bad out there. So I never did get to see that much of the TMB route during this trip, but on Saturday I set out to explore a small section from Courmayeur, traveling toward France. My legs felt sluggish, and there were flashes of muscle pain and cramping in the first steep miles up to Delorme. As I climbed, I revised my expectations to the Maison Vielle refuge, only about three miles and 2,500 feet of climbing from Courmayeur. I was going to turn around after that. But as I gained elevation, the day revealed itself as the most perfect kind of bluebird — warm and brilliantly clear. Sunshine and mountains are really the purest source of energy there is.

Although I've only seen sections of the Tour du Mont Blanc trail, and even then mostly in fog and night, I have to say — this has to be one of the best sections of the whole route. A long, rolling traverse crossed the slopes above a glacier valley. It was blissfully runnable, which I tried despite cramping legs, and also bikeable. I think I actually started drooling when this guy rolled by — as much as I love hiking and running, wheels still hold the deepest affection in my heart. I mean, look at that — all that scenic singletrack. The trail was deceptively steep, and it would be a tough ride. But maybe someday I'll come back with a bike.

I crossed up and over L'Arp Sup Vielle and chatted with a two men from New Zealand who claimed they were on a "weight loss trip" and that the abundance of French food along the TMB wasn't helping them in their quest. "Wait until you go through Italy. Italians make really amazing food," I replied. "Don't tell us that!" they proclaimed. They were also noticeably distraught when I told them the gondola down from Delorme didn't appear to be running that day. "You mean we have to hike the whole ten kilometers into Courmayuer?" they moaned. Funny guys.

I wasn't ready to be done just yet but didn't want to descend too far on the TMB, so I cut over on a side trail that continued climbing up the ridge, even though I had no idea where it went. I thought I might climb about 500 feet to a better viewpoint. But the trail kept going up, and became continuously more rugged. Eventually I was crawling across boulders above 8,500 feet elevation and thought, "Huh. I must be climbing a mountain."

Mont Fortin was the name of the mountain, a little peak at a modest 9,050 feet elevation — little, but rugged. The route, marked with yellow paint, wrapped around the boulder field on a steep face, still ice-slicked despite the rapidly warming temperatures. Some of the terrain left me a little sketched out, and I nearly turned back three times. But if I looked around, I always I figured out a better way around the obstacle that was tripping me up, and continued to the top. The panoramic views were worth it.

Enjoying the last of my Reeses Peanut Butter Cups at the top. Of the six packs I brought with me to Europe, I saved these for a special occasion.

The ruins of a stone building, possibly a former refuge or bivouac on a ledge atop Mont Fortin.

An equally tempting traverse down into the next valley over. If I had a map with me and had a clue where it went, I likely would have taken it.

So many incredible views. Since I told Beat I was going to go for a short hike and now looked like I'd be out for nearly seven hours, I texted him with this as an excuse.

I had to return to the sketchy traverse on the way back down. There were only a few fields of snow left on the mountain, but they were rock-hard ice and any falls, while not fatal, would have really hurt. I took my time.

Then back down the TMB. I tried to run to make up time, but the legs were angry with me again. Still, I was bursting with energy. Mountains and sun. That's all I need (and peanut butter cups.)

Courmayeur to Mont Fortin, round-trip distance: 17.2 miles
Total climbing: 6,829 feet
Total time: 6:37