Exercise in doubt

I suspect I am not cut out to walk 350 miles to McGrath.

On some level, I can convince myself that's okay. I wasn't cut out to ride a loaded fat bike 350 miles to McGrath back in 2008, and did it anyway. However, given the speeds bicycles can move in optimal conditions, there's more of a time buffer on a bike. Foot travelers have a much slimmer range between "slow" and "too slow" — and "too slow" is exactly that.

Beat finally got our exercise cart up and running. This has been a laborious process in itself, involving much tinkering on Beat's part. He retrofitted a bicycle trailer with an extended pole attachment and Avid BB7 disc brakes, which are partially clamped onto the wheels at all times to mimic the resistance of snow (because wheels by themselves roll much too easily.) They brakes are even hooked up to brake levers on the pole for fine-tuning the resistance level. He added a wooden board to provide a firm base so the canvas bag is strong enough to hold sixty pounds of kitty litter. The whole set-up probably weighs close to eighty pounds. Heavier than a sled (at least my sled, hopefully), but the extra weight and brake resistance should balance out the advantages of pavement and gravel surfaces.

 Today we both planned to take it out for a practice run. Beat towed the cart for his commute to work, and I pedaled out later in the afternoon to swap the bike and run the cart home. The route is a flat eight miles along a paved bike path and neighborhood streets. While riding out, I took a two-mile detour to pedal along the Bay and gawk at shorebirds, because I was still enjoying myself.

 And then it was time to tow the cart home. Out in front of the Google offices, before I got my trekking poles out, the plan was to shuffle the whole way. Yeah. I figured I could play around in the hills along the shoreline and still run the ten miles in two hours. Yeah.

The hill test was fun, especially when I started down a steep singletrack and realized that the set brake resistance was not enough to stop this eighty-pound cart from jack-knifing around and dragging my body all the way down the hill. Luckily, those brake levers really did work. But as I started down the bike path toward home, the reality of the slog quickly became apparent. And amid the monotony of a paved path that runs parallel to a freeway, there was a lot of time and mental space for internal dialogue.

Gratuitous butt shot. But it illustrates the cart well and is still PG-rated, so I included it. 

"Run. Run harder."

"I'm running as hard as I can. It feels like I'm tied to a wall."

"17-minute miles, are you serious? That isn't even close to running."

"Argh, my heart rate has to be around 170 right now. No way I can sustain this in Alaska. No way I can sustain this for even another ... okay, walking. Walking now."

"You almost hit the 15-minute-mile range there. Now it's 22. Have you done any math on this yet?"

"No. No math."

"Factor in everything. Sled weight, trail conditions, weather, nutrition, accumulating fatigue. You're going to have to plan for two miles per hour average when you're not stopped at a checkpoint or sleeping. You realize that, right? Just to do the bare minimum you are going to have to be out and moving eighteen hours a day."

"That's a worst-case scenario."

"No, I think that's more of a normal-case scenario."

"Argh, my hamstrings are so tight. They're killing me. Body parts on my list to target and strengthen if I ever get a stupid idea like this in my head again and actually have enough time to work on it: 1. Hamstrings. 2. Glutes. 3. Hamstrings. 4. Shoulders. 5. Hamstrings."

"And it's not even cold here. It's seventy degrees and you're walking on a flat bike path."

"Yes, it's really hot. To pull a sled, I think you have to become like a sled dog. Sled dogs hate the heat and love the cold. Cold makes them fast. Ugh, I can feel sweat accumulating between my toes. Unless it's like minus twenty I'll probably never keep my feet dry in Alaska, and I really don't want it to be minus twenty the whole time. But I also don't want it to be forty above with Chinook winds and rain, either. That would be worse."

"You know, you're just not a strong runner. Why do this to yourself?"

"For the beautiful and terrible challenge!"

"You feel this, too, right? Aching hamstrings? Feeling as tired as a hard run for walking speeds? This is exactly the challenge you're facing. Just take the bike. It will still be a great adventure, and unless it's a repeat of 2012 bottomless fluff or some other horrendous condition that makes pushing a bike actually harder than dragging a sled ... it will be easier."

"But I haven't done any specific training on a bike this winter. I'm probably in worse shape for snow biking than I am for dragging a sled."

"That ... must be pretty bad. What have you been doing all winter?"

"I thought ... I was training ... (whimper.)"


... Yup. Pretty much managed to crush all of my confidence with one measly three hour and twelve minute, 9.5-mile cart pull. And with that, I might as well include last week's training log. To be honest I don't have a lot to say about it right now. My endurance is solid and I don't tire out much on the normal stuff I do. Glad I've been building that up, because I definitely have some long hours in front of me next month.

Week 10: January 13 to 19

Monday, Jan. 13: Road bike, 1:32, 17.5 miles, 2,570 feet of climbing.
Tuesday, Jan. 14: Run, 0:58, 5.7 miles, 625 feet of climbing. 10:11 min/mile.
Wednesday, Jan. 15: Mountain bike, 3:07, 31 miles, 3,607 feet climbing.
Thursday, Jan. 16: Run, 1:27, 8 miles, 1,288 feet climbing. 10:58 min/mile.
Friday, Jan. 17: Rest.
Saturday, Jan. 18: Run, 7:16, 31.6 miles, 6,915 feet climbing. 13:22 min/mile (moving.)
Sunday, Jan. 19: Mountain bike, 9:03, 79.3 miles, 9,298 feet climbing.

Total: 23:23, 45.3 miles run, 127.8 miles ride, 24,303 feet climbing.

Double beatdown

Thanks to the regular race schedules of the Bay Area's three trail running event organizers, and the annual regularity of our own training cycles, Beat and I have several local races that we've run many times. The Steep Ravine/Mount Tam 50K in the Marin Headlands is one of these races. I've run it five times ... five times! It's a little embarrassing, because this particular run never seems to go all that well. It makes sense, I suppose. Most of the climbing is quite steep, necessitating a walking speed, and I'm uncomfortable enough on steep descents that I end up walking or slow-shuffling a lot of the downhills as well. There's always that smidgen of hope that I'll have some kind of breakthrough in my trail running technique at Steep Ravine — which usually ends in disappointment after long hours of frustration accompanied by some kind of low-level pain.

It was a beautiful but hot day. I think California's severe drought is now well-publicized enough that I don't have to explain my grumpiness about weather that's 75 degrees and sunny in January. But the part of me that was really grumpy on this day was my IT band. I had problems with the same nagging pain back in October, but it hasn't bothered me at all since. Possibly a result of putting in too many faster running miles last week, the tightness and mild burning pain flared up again on Saturday. Specifically, it came back during the first descent in the race, on a trail called the Heather Cutoff. This rutted, dry clay, somewhat overgrown singletrack is built with what seem like a dozens of ridiculous hairpin switchbacks over the course of about 700 vertical feet, drawing out what should be a short descent interminably. My right IT band tightened like a rusty chain and I responded with quiet swearing ... "$%@$ concrete-hard %$#&*!^$ hairpins $%*!"

Admittedly, this descent pretty much set the tone for what really was a scenic run on a beautiful day.

This course consists of two 25K loops that climb and descend the face of Mount Tam four times. I met Beat before the turnaround, already three miles ahead of me. By this point I was resigned about the grumpy IT band but also resolved to work through it — by slowing down and actively taking measures not to aggravate it while continuing to make forward progress. This is, after all, what we're training for. Participating in a long haul like the Iditarod always takes a period of adjustment. By the end of the first day, nearly everything hurts. Back aches, quads burn, ankles swell and knees are sore. It seems impossible to continue but this is just part of the transition to the new normal. Bodies do adjust, but it's something the mind has to facilitate. This is why it was important to me that I get through Steep Ravine, by slowing down and working with my grumpy IT band rather than against it. When it tightened up, I backed off the pace, even when it felt snail-like, and even when I was walking down the practically level ridiculous &*$! hairpins of the Heather Cutoff.

We spent an enjoyable hour visiting with friends after the race, but it got late in the afternoon (and thus choked with traffic across the bridge and through the city) fast. I do value the improvements I manage to make in these trail races, even as training, so I can't pretend finishing in 7:16 wasn't disappointing, especially after enjoying such an effortlessly strong (and nearly two hours shorter) 50K at Crystal Springs last week. You know what they say ... sometimes days you have a great run, and some days you run the &%$! Steep Ravine. Still, I managed to stave off the "runner's knee" type condition that IT band aggravation can lead to, and running relatively slowly left me with plenty of pep for my Sunday plan:

Big mountain bike ride! I wanted to put in another back-to-back effort this weekend, and even before IT band pain crept in, I planned a ride as my second long workout. Although I do enjoy trail running quite a lot these days, I continue to believe that high mileage in training and daily running is not the best thing for my body. But there's really no such thing as too much biking — am I right? As it turned out, this plan worked extra well because cycling is one activity that doesn't seem to aggravate my IT band at all. In fact, I started out the day having a difficult time climbing out of the saddle because my right knee was so stiff, but by the end of the day the whole leg was loose and happy. Yay for biking.

During the week, I spent some time trying to map out a new loop through the Santa Cruz Mountains, hoping the bike-sploring factor would keep the ride interesting and thus keep motivation humming when I was sure to be sore and fatigued. My research ran into a bunch of road blocks in the form of private roads and too many no-bikes-allowed trails. So instead I plotted a variation of a loop through Big Basin Redwoods State Park that I've ridden before, and invited my friend Liehann to join. Liehann is a great riding partner — he pushes the pace but he's patient as well. I hoped having him along would prevent me from becoming lazy on difficult ascents or bailing altogether. On this route, there is a lot of climbing.

We started at my apartment and pedaled into the mountains up Steven's Canyon and the Grizzly Flat Trail, then onto the dry hills of Long Ridge. The first hour was rough for me, but by the time we reached the crest, I was settling nicely into comfortable endurance mode. We occasionally stopped to chat with other Sunday mountain bikers, and one woman commented on my seemingly huge backpack. The day before, during Steep Ravine, I became dehydrated and never rectified that after the race. As a result, I woke up in the middle of the night with a truly horrible hangover-like headache, which kept me awake for hours. The specter of that headache and the knowledge that there was only one known water source on our entire route prompted me to pack a lot of water, along with lights, jacket, hat, mittens, food ... I was having one of those "I'm tired and I need my security blanket" days. The big backpack makes me slower, but no water makes me miserable. Anyway, I explained that we were planning to spend the whole day riding, so I came prepared. She was impressed with the ground we'd covered so far, and we were just getting started.

After another descent and climb, we reached Big Basin Redwoods. The higher elevations of this park are an impressive contrast to the misty redwood forests below — sandy, alpine desert with chaparral brush and Douglas fir, exposed to lots of sunlight, and often significantly warmer. Drop a thousand feet and suddenly you're in an entirely different microclimate. Big Basin is an intriguing region.

My favorite aspect of Big Basin is the remote, wild sense of the place. I like that I can leave my house, which is located in crowded metropolis of 7 million, and pedal my bicycle to a space that looks and feels like real wilderness. You don't see many people here, either, even on a beautiful sunny and warm Sunday afternoon.

There are a few people among these trees, though, who seem to be delightfully quirky. We passed this elaborate treehouse as we descended into Gazos Creek Canyon. I suppose if I had property in a redwood forest, I too would be tempted to build a treehouse. And what a great spot!

The descent on intermittently chunky and loamy fireroad was fast and furious. We plummeted into a zone of towering redwoods, lush ferns, moss-coated rocks and actual water flowing in the creeks (such a novelty!) A rush of cold air made it feel as though we'd dropped into a refrigerator. The temperature was easily in the 40s after leaving a ridge basking in sun and 70s just five miles earlier. Down here is a world that doesn't see much in the way of direct sunlight — in January, probably none at all.

Although I'd felt reasonably okay all day, my blood sugar dropped, along with my appetite, on the long and steep climb up Pomponio Road. We'd made something of a hard sprint over twenty miles of flatter terrain while wrapping around Pescadero and the Old Haul fireroad, the only way to legally connect Big Basin with Portola Redwoods State Park and eventually Skyline Ridge. After that, there just wasn't a lot left in the tank. I struggled on this climb, mainly with bonky nausea and hard breathing from overworking my cardiovascular system. Just when I really started to feel wobbly, Liehann convinced me to eat an 80-calorie pack of gummy bears, which was surprisingly (actually, unsurprisingly) effective in turning my poor condition around. We crested Skyline after dark and descended Page Mill into a rush of city lights. Exhilarating and satisfying.

The ride came in at nine hours total, for 80 miles with 9,289 feet of climbing. The run was 7:16, just under 32 miles, with 6,915 feet of climbing. Sixteen hours of hard effort over two days is not much in the scheme of things, and this is the perspective I'm working on honing with these back-to-back workouts — polishing the long-term sustainable pace and practicing positivity and self-maintenance amid sore body parts and fatigue. And, grumpy IT band aside, it turned out to be a fantastic weekend. I love these long hauls most of all, so indulging in two of them with friends is a special treat. 

Driven to disperse

When I ride my bike, I am always traveling. Sometimes I travel through the past, coasting effortlessly across the landscape of my memories. Sometimes I travel in the most immediate present, a space that spans no farther than each breath and pedal rotation. Sometimes I travel into the future, through the stories I tell myself about the things that haven't happened yet. Occasionally I venture far into the future, the places beyond my own lifetime, and the stories that ignite my most unsettling existential fears. Even less frequently, I take trips far into the past, to times long before my own and places that only exist in the stories I've been told. On Wednesday, I rode my bike from home up and over a nearby mountain that I'd never before climbed, and traveled to this deep past — specifically, the journeys of ancient people who ventured across the Bering Strait and set the first human footprints on the New World.

If I could be a human at any time and place in history, I might just choose then — if only to satisfy some of my deepest curiosities and drives for adventure. The Bering Land Bridge migration is still a hotly debated theory. It's most widely accepted that small bands of people crossed over from Siberia on ice-free corridors of land some 15,000 to 20,000 years ago. But even scientists who adhere to this theory don't know exactly what these people were pursuing. Big game hunting seems the most likely candidate, but some geological evidence suggests that the climate on the lowlands of Beringia was not as conducive to big game habitat as previously thought. What exactly were these trailblazers searching for when they left the world they knew, for the sparse and barren tundra that today resides below the Bering Sea? I would love to know, which, as any good reporter understands, can only come from actually being there to witness what happened. Yes, becoming a human who lived 15,000 years ago would mean choosing a life as difficult as it was simple, defined by discomfort and heavy labor, and even if I lived to old age I'd be dead already, at 34, lucky if my only contribution was successfully reproducing before I met a violent or painful end. But still, I wonder. And wonder is where I travel sometimes, when I ride my bike.

Bohlman - On Orbit turns out to be a brutally steep climb —paved, but the mountain bike requires working my quad muscles to the point of failure just to maintain respectable forward motion. The January sun beats down — it was 74 degrees when I left my house, but feels like something closer to 90. My skin is slick with sweat and black flies are buzzing around my face and becoming lodged in the sticky film near my eyes and nose. The swarm grows in number, and I can't pedal fast enough to ward them off. "Ugh, it might as well be August," I think. But it's even worse than August because it's January, and with a winter like this, who knows what summer will bring? My imagination conjures up dust storms, stifling heat, dry hillsides, and fire. "I would probably do okay in the Ice Age," I think. "I wonder how many people would take a time machine to that point in history?"

Sweeping views of the smog-blanketed Silicon Valley become more defined as I rise higher into clear air. At the ridge I join a dirt road that ripples across the spine of a 2,500-foot mountain, and this is El Sereno Open Space. As the crow flies it's probably ten miles from my house, but I've never been here before. The fact that I'm in a new place, covering new ground, fills me with renewed excitement and purpose. Suddenly I'm no longer grumpy about the January heat or the fact that my bike legs seem oddly lacking in strength. Gravel crackles beneath the wheels as I gaze left, and then right, and then left again, taking in expansive blocks of urban sprawl and oak-covered mountainsides in equal turn. The descent steepens and frequent berms appear off to the side; I ride as many of them as I dare, swooping up and down near-vertical walls with squeals of glee. Caution remains because this doubletrack trail is very dry, slicked with fine moondust and littered with loose jagged rocks, which would become a veritable cheese grater in the event of any kind of crash. The scar I incurred in my last gravel road crash, at Frog Hollow in November, still aches every time I go out in the cold. I am fearful but I am joyful, because I have never been here before. This is bike-sploration, and I love this stuff.

A popular theory holds that sport is just a modern adaptation to our evolutionary makeup — the physical traits and abilities developed over millennia but rendered less necessary for survival in modern times. Technological advances outpaced our physical evolution, and our human instincts and emotions still adhere to primitive drives. When I think about my own basic drives, the one that most stands out is a desire — no, a need — to keep moving. Some people are nesters and cultivators, and they thrive at home. Some people are hunters and conquerers, and they thrive in production and competition. And yet others are dispersers, and they thrive most when they're advancing toward an unknown horizon, unsure whether the grass is greener on the other side, but driven to take a look and find out.

The ancient dispersers spread and populated the whole world; now even Antarctica and the bottom of the oceans are mapped in detail, and most modern discovery comes from within. And yet I ride because I remain driven to disperse, to discover for myself the contours and features that make up the world. It may not be an entire previously undiscovered continent, but it's a start.