Week 13, Feb. 3 to 9

I didn't take my camera out much this week, so instead I'm posting a blog archive photo of Brij Potnis riding the soft trail out of Puntilla Lake during the 2008 Iditarod Trail Invitational. For many layered reasons, this sparkling, zero-degree day was one of the best days of my life on the endurance racing spectrum — only to be immediately followed by one of the worst nights of my life. Funny how these endeavors work that way. It amazes me that this was six years ago; so much about that week remains fresh in my memory, swirling through my subconscious as though it just happened.

I'm working on building up stoke as the pre-race jitters really set in. Not helping this matter is an exasperating hiccup in my health that I can't easily solve. I blogged a couple of weeks ago about a rash and congestion that I suspected were caused by allergies. The symptoms went away for about ten days, but came flaring back with a vengeance last Thursday. The symptoms are not debilitating, just uncomfortable and energy-sapping. It puts me in a funk, and the issue is complicated not just from uncertainty about what I might be allergic to, but not knowing if these are even allergies. It could be a reaction to stress, or hormones, or an infection, or who knows? I'm going to see my general practitioner on Thursday with the hope of at least ruling out some possibilities, or scoring an effective drug in time for our flight to Alaska next week. I really don't want to have to deal with this issue out on the trail, but then again, maybe by then I'll have enough to worry about that it won't even make my top five list of concerns.

That said, the mystery rash is really boosting my resolve to rest a lot during the taper, because at its worst, it hurts to move at all. Despite this, last week's training went okay, although I hoped to put in one last long effort on Sunday and did not.

Monday, Feb. 4: Road bike, 1:25, 18.8 miles, 1,980 feet climbing. Redwood Gulch loop. I had ambitions to put in a longer ride and admit I cut it short simply because I was distracted and couldn't muster the enthusiasm for three hours in the saddle. I am quite bad at training when it comes to doing things I don't feel like doing. This is evident in the fact I didn't put in any cart-tows this week. I wish I had; we were planning a big sled-dragging weekend at this point and thought I could put it off. Sigh.

Tuesday, Feb. 5: Run, 1:06, 7.6 miles, 670 feet climbing. Felt upbeat for my Tuesday "lunch hour run" and ran fast, for me at least. It's rare I put in a trail run that comes in under nine-minute-mile average. Sadly, this would be the last I felt good all week; I should have put in that long ride on Monday while I had the energy.

Wednesday, Feb. 6: Road bike, 1:34, 17.8 miles, 2,656 feet climbing. Montebello climb. Felt sluggish, and assumed it was PMS.

Thursday, Feb. 7: Run, 2:46, 15.2 miles, 2,955 feet climbing. A rash flare-up and general ickiness showed up with my period; it was not a happy day. I hoped to put in a moderate run, but preemptively cut it short due to the health woes. Still, I was enjoying the foggy, wet conditions, and running —especially steep hill climbing — is a good distraction from most anything else. After a few miles, I found a stride that allowed me to continue comfortably with a couple of stops.

Friday, Feb. 8: Run, 1:05, 6.3 miles, 1,079 feet climbing. Wildcat loop. I nearly killed this run just fifty meters from the parking lot at Rancho, because the rash had really flared up on this day and made it feel like I had shingles on my lower body. Maybe it is shingles? I don't want to think about it. I've really spent too much time on Web MD this week. But, like Thursday, after getting the legs moving a bit, the tightness subsided and I did not feel too uncomfortable during the run.

Saturday, Feb. 9: Sled drag, 4:48, 12 miles, 1,327 feet climbing. The rainy outing in Yosemite National Park. After an inch of rain saturated already wet snow, this was like snowshoeing through a Slurpee. Although our sleds were gliding well, it was still really hard work wading through that thick slush. At times during the drive to Yosemite, my discomfort made me feel downright nauseated. Still, I felt a lot better once we got out into that cold air and started working hard, so I can't say my rash impacted my pace on this outing. However, I find sled-drag pace to be disheartening in general, especially when I apply perceived effort to the mileage gained. If I ran on trails for five hours it would be easier and I'd cover at least twice as much ground, but, alas — that's not what I'm doing. I can't even conceive how I'm going to manage the physical strain of the ITI on foot — which, like it was six years ago with the bike, is one of its main appeals.

Sunday, Feb 10: Run, 0:57, 5.7 miles, 587 feet climbing. Again I was not feeling good, but joined Beat for a short run. My pep for running just continued to go downhill this week, but I'm hoping for the best. At least it's taper time now.

Total: 13:42,  46.8 miles run, 36.6 miles ride, 11,254 feet climbing

If it's not snaining, it's not training

An atmospheric river flowed into northern California with much-welcome precipitation, and finally some snow in the Sierras. Badger Pass in Yosemite National Park received a foot of new powder over bare ground. We've been waiting for quick-access snow for weeks now, so Beat, Steve, and I made plans for an sub-24-hour overnighter to Glacier Point. Forecasts predicted heavy precipitation with a freezing level at about 6,000 feet, which was iffy, but I remained optimistic. "It could be warm and wet in Alaska, too. We already got some good cold-weather training in Fairbanks, and this will give us the other end of the spectrum."

Of course, I expected (hoped for) nuking snow, but when we arrived at the ski hut in the late afternoon, it was raining. And not just a misty drizzle — it was raining hard, like a tropical downpour. Temperatures hovered in the mid-30s but the new and mostly unconsolidated snowpack was already fading fast. I made only light adjustments to my sled when I should have been wrapping the thing in a garbage bag, and insisted on not wearing shell pants because "When it's this wet, you're going to get wet. Everything's going to get wet. There's no escaping it."

Onward we slogged, hoping the gradually climbing route would bring us to snow level. Steve and Beat pressed ahead into the gray sheets of rain as I ambled along in my snowshoes, lost in happy nostalgia about similar outings during my Juneau days. Ah, those were the days ... satin curtains of fog tumbling down the mountains, the duotone wash of green and gray, the slosh of slush underfoot, the incessant prattle of rain on a Gortex hood. Every mile or so, Beat and Steve would stop to wait for me and we'd all ask the inevitable question, "Are we actually planning on camping in this?"

"I used to go camping all the time before I moved to Juneau," I told them, "And lost that habit there, sadly, but for good reason."

One Juneau habit I remembered was wet layering. "My limit in weather like this is five to six hours before I start getting cold. Then I either have to change clothes, or add layers, until those too are wet. Yeah. In five years, I never figured out a better solution."

After six miles in two and a half hours, we had climbed to 7,500 feet and the rain was only beginning to shift into thick snain — a sort of blended-drink mix of chunky slush and larger droplets of rain that somehow feels even wetter than plain rain. By then, we had decided that the only real Alaska training we were going to get here was an exercise in enduring extreme misery. We'd planned to spend upwards of twelve hours hanging out in camp — cooking, practicing snow-melting, and generally enjoying ourselves because the reason we do this stuff is mainly for fun. Steve discovered his down coat was drenched, and Beat and I had also saturated various pieces of gear that we failed to move inside of dry bags, including my only pair of warm mittens. So there wasn't a feasible way to stay comfortable outside while not moving, and twelve hours inside of a damp sleeping bag beneath a water-resistant bivy sack did not bode well for not getting up in the middle of the night for a hypothermic hike out. And although it was good to learn the weaknesses in our gear systems, we had no need to practice camping in a deluge. If it really ever rained this hard in Alaska, we would not stop moving until we reached shelter, not unless we were in dire straits. It's one of those weather conditions in which it is nearly always more difficult and dangerous to stop than it is to keep moving.

We turned around, and were back in Mariposa for Mexican food and live music by 9 p.m. Ah, that's better. Steve recently returned from racing the Arrowhead 135 in Minnesota, one of the coldest years yet for that race. He commented, "I'd take 30 below over this any day." I think Juneau Jill would agree. As for current Jill, I'm torn. Both conditions are very difficult, but 35 above, even when accompanied by much wetness, does contain a greater margin for error. 35 below demands the utmost vigilance to keep all systems working well, but at the same time it's easier to manage in terms of stability. Once you find a system that works for you, you don't have to change much about it over the long term. But if it rains and keeps raining, over time you either have to add more sacrificial layers over your saturated clothing, or move continuously faster.

We're still bracing ourselves for difficult scenarios in Alaska. Right now, the Iditarod Dog Sled Race is considering moving the start of the race north to Fairbanks, then following the original serum run route over the Chena, Tenana, and Yukon Rivers. They're considering this because there's so little snow in the Dalzell Gorge that it may be impossible for them to build a trail at all (snow bridges are built to cover open leads in the creek), and there remains little to no snow cover in both the Susitna River Valley, and the other side of the range across the Farewell Burn. The last time the Iditarod Dog Sled Race moved north, in 2003, Alaska Ultrasport followed suit and held a 350-mile race from Fairbanks to Galena that was almost entirely on rivers. I lied awake last night stressing about this, because to be honest I am not terribly interested in walking 350 miles of wide-open river. The appeal of participating in this race on foot was to experience these well-remembered landscapes that I love in a new way. I love the variety of the Iditarod Trail, the chance to cross the Alaska Range, the sparse moonscapes and Christmas-card forests. I eventually arrived at the decision that if it's a serum run year, I would still like to participate in the short race, but I would do it on a bike. Then I realized that I don't have a proper set of boots, don't have adequately tested gear, don't have any experience with my new snow bike and too little bike training behind me this winter. As much as I'd love to bike either route, I am not prepared, not this year.

Today, the ITI race organizers announced that trail conditions still look doable to start the human-powered race in Knik. But without the support of Iditarod trailbreakers, there would be fewer trail markings and likely no trail over Rainy Pass, save for what Bill and Rob could put in themselves. Still, this sounds like an adventure and I'd be much more excited about this possibility, especially as a participant on foot. There are likely to be lots of unique challenges if there's no significant snowfall between now and then — technical travel on ice that will necessitate more foot gear and likely exacerbate the already inevitable problem of hurty, hurty feet. Also likely are open water crossings that will have to be navigated while carrying a sled whether it's 30 above or 30 below, the latter necessitating utmost precaution. Long sled drags on dirt and tussocks will be more difficult than snow due to high friction and uneven terrain, and also threaten to break sleds and pound body parts. And, if the Dalzell Gorge proves impassable, a long detour around Hell's Gate would add 40 miles — an entire day — to the trek, through an area that is notorious for glare ice and overflow.

But it's all part of the adventure, which is what we signed up for. Like all things of this sort, "it is what it is," and flexibility and adapting on the move are the most useful skills/attitudes to cultivate. Come what may, I am filled with dread and likely will be for the next two weeks. Just like the good ol' Juneau days. :-)

The February ritual

For many of the past nine Februarys, I've participated in this ritual — winding down a winter training block, amassing dishearteningly obese piles of food and gear, obsessively checking weather forecasts, and actively contributing to pre-race gloom-and-doom trail predictions whether I'm 250 miles away or 2,500 miles away. The gloom and doom right now is that there's no snow in Alaska after the January thaw, and the Iditarod Trail is made of frozen tussocks and glare ice. Temperatures have been dropping, and new snow has yet to materialize. If it doesn't, the technical challenge of the conditions can only be

The Iditarod Trail right now. Photo from Bjorn Olsen,
mjolnirofbjorn.blogspot.com/2014/02/shakedown.html.

imagined. I think some of the cyclists are envisioning a blue highway, but I don't see it this way at all. Have you spent much time on uneven glare ice? Such trail conditions were rather common when I lived in the freeze-thaw cycle of Juneau. Even with microspikes or studded tires, that @$%! is sketchy. And the Alaska wilderness is not a convenient place to end up with a concussion. Not to mention all of the open creeks that are usually covered in snow bridges. No snow and 30 below is entirely plausible on parts of the route, and I try to imagine what that might be like. The surface of Mars comes to mind.

Still, this is Alaska, and things will change. They always do. It's one of the tantalizing appeals of this trail — you can't really count on anything, so you have to plan for everything. Here in California, weather has finally shifted to something closer to winter-like, and we've had a decent dump of rain that should continue into the weekend. I got out today for what feels like my first real Bay Area winter run this year — a fine mist wafted on the breeze as I climbed into fog so thick I could barely see my feet. Shoes sank into the clay-like mud and kicked up a storm of miniature bricks as I shook accumulating layers of cement off my soles. Today was one of those three days of the month where hormones complicate outdoor movement — more specifically, abdominal discomfort and a need to stick relatively close to a bathroom. Still, I was loving the quiet, monotone serenity of the fog and the tickle of mist on my face, and kept extending segments of my run until I ended with 15 miles on a meandering loop through Rancho San Antonio. I didn't bring a camera, or even anything besides a water bottle, but that was all I needed (well, that and two Wet Wipes.)

Getting down to the good stuff

Tonight I compiled and packed my two drop bags for the Iditarod. Handling, and the inevitable sampling, of 25,000 calories of junk food is always enough to make me strongly question my life choices. I did keep the selection pretty simple. A trail mix of dried fruit and salty nuts, a "high-octane rocket fuel" mix of candy, gummy snacks, crackers, peanut butter, and two freeze-dried meals. I have a deeply entrenched fear of running out of heat-making fuel in extreme cold, and I wanted to take the maximum number of calories of foods I know I can actually eat. Because I'm limited to ten pounds per drop, including some drugs and a few other miscellaneous items, 25,000 was what I could manage. I figure this will be my food supply for the last 220 miles and five to seven days. This will be somewhat supplemented by lodge and checkpoint food. It's also quite likely I'll be able to scavenge rejected food as one of the last racers on route, but I feel uncomfortable banking on anything out there (you can't count on anything, so you have to plan for everything.) Anyway, I feel comfortable enough with 25,000. I don't have to carry it from the start, and what isn't needed can be left behind.

The sheer bulk of junk food in most adventure racers' diet is always cause for jokes. It's certainly not about health — really, nothing about trekking the Iditarod Trail has anything to do with health, unless framed in the wider scope of sheer survival. Because it's entirely about survival. High calorie-density foods travel well and pack a long-lasting punch, and sugar burns hot and helps torch fat. It's a crucial component of simply staying warm, not to mention staying on the move for upwards of 20 hours each day. Some people probably figure out how to eat "healthy" out there. I don't know. I've never witnessed it myself. My oversimplified view on the matter is that if your body needs it, it's healthy. Still, putting it all together definitely made me feel vaguely ill. Here's my list:

Somewhat salty rocket fuel mix:

Dried berries, 8 oz 750

Pistachios, 8 oz 1,360

Almonds, 16 oz, 2,550

Chocolate-covered blueberries, 10 oz, 1,260

Dried cranberries, 8 oz, 840

Total: 50 oz, (3.125 lb) 6,760

High-octane rocket fuel mix:

Peanut butter pretzels, 16 oz, 2,100

Snickers bites, 8 oz, 1,140

PB M&Ms, 11.4 oz, 1,760

Peanut M&Ms, 19.2 oz, 2,860

Mini Peanut butter cups, 12 oz, 1,890

Kit Kat minis, 8 oz 1,050

Total, 74.6 oz (4.66 lb) 10,800

Cheese crackers, 12 oz, 1,540

Sour Patch Kids, 14 oz, 1,500

Gummy peaches, 9.5 oz, 820

Gummy bears, 7 oz, 700

Mountain House Noodles and Chicken, 9.5 oz 1,100

Peanut butter, 24 oz, 4,000

Total: 26,500 calories, 200 ounces

- minus 1,200 and 8.5 oz, overweight

25,300 calories. 12 pounds (before packaging.)