I see stars and go weak

Autumn isn't the prettiest season in the Bay Area. The hot, cloudless days of summer have given way to parched hills, crackling brush and dusty trails that mimic a sheet of Teflon coated in corn starch. The leaves of oak trees turn a sickly shade of green; maples might change yellow in November if the leaves don't dry up and fall off first. Even the poison oak, which turns a stunning shade of crimson in the late summer, has started to drop singed leaves that will soon disintegrate to itchy dust. Grass has withered, creeks have dried up, and even the redwoods seem to sag with a certain weariness. Thirst. Autumn is a thirsty season. We're all just waiting for the winter rains to revitalize the trees, green up the hills, and add some tack to these slippery chunder trails.

Revitalization. It feels far away, yet inevitable, like the waning daylight and winter clouds. In September my spirit felt withered; sometimes I'd go to quiet places and ponder the reasons why. The motions were there but the zest for the activities I love was missing. "I'm still recovering," I'd tell myself, but I knew it cut deeper than that. "I met demons out there, in the shadows of those beautiful Alps. They were heartless and cruel, they showed me the worst sides of myself, the apathy and hopelessness and unfocused fear. They brought out the worst in me and I did not vanquish them. No, they won."

So I went through the motions. I did some work. I did some writing. I did some oblivious staring off into space. I'd get out when I could. Some nights when I woke up at odd hours, I'd walk out on the deck, lean over the railing and gaze at stars. Maybe you recall when I wrote a few weeks ago about seeing a shooting star in France and believing that it was a person who had fallen off the mountain? That memory still haunts me. Even though I know it wasn't real. The mind is strange like that.

In the afternoons, I'd embark on my daily exercise — mellow rides or runs. I didn't feel great, and I didn't push it, but I had a strong sense that couch sitting was not going to aid in my recovery. After all, most of the damage was not in my body, but my mind. Going outside for at least a short time every day was the best course of action. So I cranked out some heavy-legged rides, and plodded through the most basic newbie running pains, like IT band soreness and side stitches. The weekend came, and Beat installed a blingy new drivetrain on the Fatback, so of course I had to go for a fat-bike ride. Beat and I rode four and a half hours over the parched hills, churning up dust and tentatively reintroducing ourselves to loose descents. I cranked Fatback's new teeny-tiny granny gear up a steep hill until I felt dizzy and pukey and had to get off and hike. I made it a little farther than Beat did on his medium-geared singlespeed ... but not much.

"I'm out of shape," I'd shrug. "I'll get it back."

"2013," I remarked to Beat, "has not been my best year for racing." I'd think about this year's races and wonder where they'd left me. I'd chat with friends about training rides and remark that I sometimes regretted having such a thorough record of my routine activities. "All of my best times are more than two years old," I'd lament. "I really was a better cyclist back in 2011, and not that much worse of a runner." What's happening? Age? Too much racing? Or am I just losing heart?

Today after a productive but mentally exhausting morning of writing, I decided to head out an hour early on the road bike. With about three hours to burn, I opted to pedal a favorite loop, from home up Highway 9, along Skyline Drive to Page Mill and back. The ride is about 34 miles with 3,700 feet of climbing. It's a climby loop with bone-shaking chipseal and a hairpin descent, and consistently beautiful even amid the bland hues of autumn. I used to ride this route frequently when I first moved to California in 2011, but it's become more of a once-a-month-or-less outing these days. As I spun along Foothill Boulevard, I noticed my legs felt peppy today. Maybe peppy is not the right word, but they felt a bit less like chunks of cement. I rolled along the shoreline of what was once Stevens Creek Reservoir but is now a stagnant puddle amid a cracked mudflat, and reflected on memories of the route. "Back in 2011 I use to ride in the rain. There was sleet, actual sleet, on Skyline, remember that? Oh, I miss the rain here. It needs to rain."

My best time on the whole loop was something in the low 2:20s. I remembered that, and I wondered how much longer it would take me to ride the route today. But as I spun up the Mount Eden climb, that tiny little voice that I so seldom listen to — I'll call her my competitive spirit — said, "Screw 2011 Jill and her strong cycling legs. We could ride faster if we wanted to."

And that was that. It was on! I had soft-pedaled most of first six miles, so I'd have to make up some time. The Mount Eden descent is mostly broken pavement, but it was as good of a place as any to lay on the throttle. There was one bucking bounce that nearly launched my body skyward, but soon enough I was settling into the 2,500-foot climb to the top of Skyline Drive.

I tried to hit that sweet spot of efficient climbing, where a bit of bile burns in my throat but I don't have to resort to open-mouth breathing. It felt like I reached the crest in no time, and then there was the chipseal to contend with. My wrists won't soon forgive me, and there were two pavement crack bounces that convinced me I'd squeezed all of the air out of my tubeless rear tire (thankfully I did not.) But I ignored the rough surface and throttled that rolling traverse before turning onto Page Mill. Last weekend there was tons of loose gravel on Page Mill, and rangers have told me horror stories about peeling injured and bloody road bikers off the pavement, so I took the descent easy. But back on Foothill it was on again, cranking the big ring past a long line of backed-up rush hour traffic. Back at my home intersection, I hit stop on my watch and looked at it for the first time since I consciously started "racing." 2:17:41!

At home I did some digging in Garmin Connect and concluded that 2:17 is a new PR, possibly my first "frequently ridden cycling route" PR of 2013. Of course I had to go upload my track to Strava to check my status against the geeky Strava'ing subgroup of the Bay Area road cyclist community. Moved up to ninth on the popular Highway 9 climb segment. That's definitely an improvement over 2011 Jill's standing, I'm certain. Yay. Another small victory in the battle of matter over mind. Sometimes all it takes is acting strong to feel strong, which in turn leads to becoming strong.

The wind eventually sweeps the withered remnants of autumn away. Winter is coming. :)

PTL video

La Petite Trotte à Léon — The long way around Mont Blanc from Jill Homer on Vimeo.

Beat carried a GoPro camera during the La Petite Trotte à Léon last month, and filmed a few segments of his race. He definitely took his camera out during some pretty times, and his footage shows just how spectacular this route is. There are hints of the brutality as well. I compiled some of his footage into a quick five-minute video to show to friends at a party tonight. The link to the video is above.

Back in the saddle again

I watched Leah disappear up the Bobcat Trail on another cross-training interval and felt my own spike of determination. "Okay, legs, we can do this!" Middle ring, head down, brow furrowed, mash mash mash. Within seconds every muscle fiber in my legs seemed to be quivering, as though they'd never pedaled a bike before. Lactic acid flushed in and I stood out of the saddle, spinning chunks of gravel into the air. Big effort. No results. Leah floated up the hill and I floundered like a beached walrus. "Remember how I was complaining in August about losing my top end fitness?" I'd told her earlier. "Well, I'm pretty sure I don't even have a middle ring right now."

I still tried to ride hard. Being out of shape is not so bad, especially if you are riding bikes. It was just over a week ago that I ended a long mountain biking drought, and ever since it's been like being a new cyclist again — slow, awkward, and having the time of my life. After a three-hour ride in the Marin Headlands chasing my cyclocross-racing friend Leah and her big-ring fitness, my legs are as sore as if I'd run a 50K, but the smile on my face is sincere. I missed bikes.

For our evening San Francisco/Marin outing, I took my old Surly Karate Monkey out for her first dirt spin in many months. I've felt guilt that my trusty Tour Divide bike now does little more than languish on the porch, but I've been reluctant to get rid of her. My sister mentioned she was interested in getting a bike, and I offered to bring "Kim" out to live with her in Utah — that way she's is still in the family, and if Lisa ever wants to get rid of the bike, I'll just take her back. I just can't part with this bike. Wednesday's ride was a reminder why. While Kim has been through a number of makeovers since she was first built in early 2008, Beat has reclaimed some of her newer parts to build up newer bikes. In his latest effort to bring her back to functioning order, Beat re-installed many of her original parts — the ancient Reba fork that I purchased used and that has been rebuilt three times, the well-used Shimano XT and XTR derailleurs, the good ol' BB7 mechanical disc brakes, the classic WTB Nanoraptor tires that I'm pretty sure you can sell as a collector's item in some circles these days, and that 29-inch wheel set that I purchased before I knew anything about quality bike parts because it was the cheapest wheel set on eBay, and was only $60, and that I rode through the Tour Divide and all the many, many miles before and since, and those wheels still work. Heavy, but solid.

After every floundering climb in the Headlands yesterday, there was a blissful and grin-inducing descent that reminded me all the ways I still love this bike. Kim's steel frame handles like a dream; nimble and smooth, and the geometry fits me like a glove. If I wasn't so in love with my Moots I would probably put her rigid fork back on and turn Kim into a touring bike, but I'm still partial to the Moots even above my love for my rusty old Karate Monkey. Plus, the wheels are like round bricks. Solid, but heavy.

Fitness, at least my own fitness, seems to fall on a bell curve. On one low end is couch-sitting, and on the opposite low end is extreme overtraining or post-race fatigue. The farther I venture over the ideal "peak" of my own curve, the closer I get to possessing the physical prowess of a couch sitter, at least in terms of power (endurance usually remains solid no matter how weak I feel.) Currently, I'm feeling some pressure from what has become one of my favorite fall traditions, the 25 Hours of Frog Hollow in Hurricane, Utah. It's just over a month away now, which means I've pretty much burnt up all of the post-PTL recovery time I can possibly afford and still do any kind of training for a 25-hour mountain bike race.

The problem is I don't feel anywhere near recovered from PTL — mainly on an emotional level. Even my "little ring fitness" is likely more mental than physical, because I feel so averse to any kind of physical suffering right now. It's hard to admit, but I probably don't have the heart for an all-day-all-night bike effort, and I'm not sure whether I'll get that back in a month's time. But I have good friends planning to make the trip to Utah, and Frog Hollow always promises good times, so I'm torn. Do I go to Frog Hollow and just plan to pleasure cruise, probably riding five or six laps before hunkering down next to the bonfire? Or do I keep my sights on my goal, which is to finally put in a consistent effort and ride more than 13 laps? I know I'll be disappointed in myself if I pick the first option, and also if I go with the second option and crap out mid-way because I lost heart. But I certainly don't want to "DNS" Frog Hollow because it's so much fun and I'm looking forward to seeing good friends. It's a bit of a dilemma.

There are some residual physical effects from PTL as well. I do feel day-to-day fatigue and not all of it can be mental. I also continue to have strange and disconcerting problems with my eyes, including light sensitivity and difficulty focusing. I finally visited an optometrist on Monday. He performed a bunch of tests and concluded that I was probably experiencing effects of excessive eye strain, resulting in fatigue and possible damage to the extraocular muscles. My eyes checked out as otherwise healthy, so he prescribed a pair of reading glasses to reduce strain when working on my computer, with the hope that lessening daily strain will help any damage heal on its own. The optometrist was surprised that my vision issues have lasted this long if eye strain during PTL was really the cause, but he did acknowledge that sleep deprivation sometimes has strange effects on the brain, which can extend to brain activity required for eye-muscle coordination and proper focusing.

I will say that one body part I never expected to injure running is my eyes. I pick up the reading glasses on Friday and I hope they help.

But I am happy to be back in California, riding bikes and spending quiet afternoons working on projects again. Travel is amazing, but it's nice to have a comfortable, familiar space to come home to.