I'm friends with the monster

I intended to write more pre-race thoughts, but this week slipped away from me and suddenly it's Saturday night in Anchorage. The Iditarod Trail Invitational is all set to begin at 2 p.m. Sunday in what looks to be generally favorable conditions for the forty cyclists and fourteen runners who are signed up this year. It's a great field this year. The bikers should fly; it wouldn't be too surprising to see last year's 67-hour McGrath record broken again. Twenty-three people are signed up to go the distance, a thousand miles to Nome. There are seven women in this year's event, and five of them are traveling on foot. A fairly large percentage of the field on foot are people I consider friends, so I'm really looking forward to spending some time out there with a quality group of crazies. Although there is still a healthy dose of nervousness and a dash of dread regarding the daunting task ahead, I now mostly feel excitement about the prospect of a week-plus of nothing but walking, shuffling, spreading out my bivy under a wash of stars, facing and conquering scary obstacles, and spending a few blissful minutes (not too many) in warm cabins with friendly faces.

My strategy for the race is to keep a steady pace but stay mostly within my comfort zone while moving, and try to limit stopped time to improve overall speed. Beat, for his own experimental purposes, is traveling fully self-supported for the first 350 miles — meaning he is hauling all of his food for that section and not planning on stopping inside of any cabins. My goal is to shadow Beat as best I can and possibly spend nights out with him, camping on the trail. I want to do this for both the wilderness experience, and as a race strategy. Cabin checkpoints are often loud, hot and crowded, and I rarely sleep well if at all inside of them. However, a simple shelter, someplace warm and surrounded by other humans, is such a huge comfort that I'm not sure I can resist the gravitational pull, even if I know for a fact I'll sleep better curled up in my bivy sack outdoors. We'll see. I'm announcing my intentions on my blog in hopes that some public accountability will hold me to it. I'd like to move in an out of checkpoints relatively quickly and grab most of my sleeps on the trail.

We've been in Anchorage since early Thursday morning, mainly doing unfun things — arranging our gear, shopping for food and last-minute supplies, rearranging our gear, obsessing about what we may have forgotten, trying to stuff butterfly stomachs with food, and rearranging gear again. We spent a couple of nights at the home of our friends Dan and Amy, and have enjoyed the calming effects of playing with their kitten, Olive.

Beat especially loves Olive. He carried her around the house in his coat, which she let him do for longer than you'd expect. I should probably check his sled to make sure he's not smuggling her for the trip to Nome.

Beat does have a friend for the journey, however — a toy husky named Bernie that he plans to prop on top of the sled. You know — the man pulling the husky rather than the other way around.

Bernie and Olive.

On Saturday morning, Beat put the Moots fat bike together, and I took it out for a short ride on the trails near Dan's house. I've obviously gone through a lot of back and forth about my decision to walk the Iditarod Trail this year, wondering if I'd regret not having a bicycle. And while I have to accept that there will inevitably be moments of longing, especially while pounding painful feet on a hard-packed trail for seemingly endless slow miles — I'm truly glad I chose to walk the Iditarod Trail this year. The slow pace will allow me to see and experience the landscape in a new way, and the longer span of time will facilitate the meditative mindset I crave. Not that I'm under any delusion that it will be a week of endless peace and quiet — there are bound to be long hours of boredom, pain, and occasional sheer terror. I think back to the last time I sought a similar experience — Petite Trotte a'Leon in France last August — and how badly that went for me. I met demons and monsters out there that I never want to meet again, and I'm almost certain I will. But that's part of the appeal and the challenge as well — facing the fear of the unknown, meeting the dark and loathsome sides of myself, and emerging wiser and more confident, in everything.

Saturday was a very good day that ended in a beautiful sunset. The last time I was here in Anchorage before an Iditarod attempt, in 2009, there was a big snowstorm, all these cars were off the road, and all I felt was doom. "I feel no doom this year; this is a good omen," I said to Beat.

"There are no such things as omens," he replied. Maybe not, but there is optimism, and that can go a long way by itself.

If you'd like to follow up with how the race is going, here are a few links. As a walker near the back of the pack, there won't be much about my progress, but the leaderboard should be updated once a day with the location of the last check-in. My best-case scenario is to finish sometime in the afternoon of Sunday, March 2. A more likely scenario is Monday or Tuesday, and the race officially ends on Wednesday, March 5.

 Race updates:
Iditarod Trail Invitational
Facebook updates
Message board

Recent media:
Rugged and crazed cyclists, runners ready for Iditarod Trail Invitational
Running Wild Alaska (TrailRunner interviewed Beat for this article)
Fairbanks fat bikers pumped for ITI 
Ultrarunner Johnston readies for Iditarod Invitational

Perfect bike for the Whites

People collect things — stamps, pennies, books, bottles of wine, bobble-head dolls. Beat, love him, likes to collect bicycles. Every time he starts musing about potential acquisitions, I tease him about enjoying the process of buying and building bikes more than actually riding bikes, when I'm almost exactly the opposite — love riding bikes, but wish they could magically fix themselves and maybe go live somewhere else when I'm not using them. He always fires back that I, the primary cyclist in this relationship, benefit the most from his collections — to which I can only agree. Since I moved to California in 2011, I've sold or given away all of my previously owned bicycles save for one (my commuter fixie). Yet, thanks to Beat, I enjoy regular rides on a wonderful titanium soft-tail mountain bike, an S-Works Specialized Roubaix, a carbon Calfee road bike, an aluminum Fatback, and now a expedition titanium fat bike that I *will* plan a proper winter expedition for, someday soon. Beat joked that I've commandeered all of the bikes and he needed one that was uniquely his own, a geared mountain bike. I put up resistance because, well, so many bikes (and he owns a trainer franken-bike, his own commuter fixie, and a single-speed mountain bike that I never borrow.)

"You don't even like mountain biking," I argued facetiously, to which Beat countered, "so?"

I lost this argument in grand fashion when Mike Curiak, who sold us the expedition fat bike, put another "Snoots" up for sale — a Moots softtail fat bike with an Action Tech Pro Shock suspension fork — kind of an old-school, lightweight full-suspension set-up for massive wheels. The kicker was this fat bike also came with a second set of 29" standard mountain bike wheels with hubs wide enough to accommodate a quick switch. With those wheels, it's very much like my own Mooto-X YBB. "It's a fat bike and a mountain bike," Beat argued, so it met the criteria he set for yet another bike purchase. Plus, as a bicycle collector, he is also a huge fan of Curiak's design aesthetic.

So, now this bike lives with us as well. I initially tried to keep my distance because this is Beat's bike. However, we recently discussed which bike I'm going to take to Alaska, to ride post-ITI and also to race in the White Mountains 100. I didn't want to bring Expedition Snoots on this particular trip because of its value, and also because it's not necessarily the best bike for a "short" race like the White Mountains. But after beginning to prep the Fatback for the trip, Beat suggested maybe I would enjoy all of the awesome features of the latest acquisition. First I had to make sure I was comfortable riding it.

Today we set out with Liehann for a three-hour fat bike tour on the new Moots, the Expedition Snoots, and Fatty Fatback. My rash, while having improved markedly in the past few days, is still irritated enough to make sitting in saddles and turning pedals unpleasant. Without getting too graphic, I'll just say that it's similar to having serious chaffing in all of the wrong places. I was stewing in misery about this for the entire 90-minute climb to the top of Black Mountain, mostly ignoring Beat's cheerful recommendations to try to dropper seatpost and questions about the handling.

The final pitch to the peak is steep enough that I always feel like I might tip over backward if I pull too hard, and I have to keep my butt planted in the saddle to maintain traction. Still, by that point today I was done with saddles — and anyway, I wanted to put Beat's Moots to a test. Standing up and leaning far over the handlebars, I purposefully pedaled in the loose gravel off to the side to mimic a steep climb on soft snow. Amazingly, the Surly Nate tire dug in, and the low gearing allowed me to spin a comfortable cadence while maintaining traction, even with the rear wheel unweighted. I was an instant fan.

The long, rolling descent was increasingly more fun. The Moots has similar comfort, agility and responsiveness as my YBB, along with the confidence-inspiring stability and bouncy fun of fat tires. Standing out of the saddle more frequently also went a long way in improving my mood. With Beat's blessing, we're going to pack up this bike for the trip north, and I am *really* looking forward to riding it in the White Mountains. The prospect of this gives me glimmers of carefree excitement amid the weighty dread I feel about the Iditarod Trail Invitational.

This dread is a good thing — it's what makes these endeavors so rewarding — but, damn, it sure makes me feel icky in the week leading up to the challenge. Both Beat and I have been a bit moody this week with our various points of panic — for Beat, it seems to be mainly gear and food planning. For me, it's obsession about my greatest fear out on the trail: Bad ice and open water. Alaska was so warm for most of January that a lot of waterways opened up, and little new snow has arrived to fill in the cracks. Although there's been decent freeze-up for the past two weeks, more warm weather is forecasted for next weekend, with the horrific prospect of "ice pellets and rain, 37F" in the Susitna Valley and on up into the Alaska Range from Saturday until at least Tuesday. Of course it's at least a week out and the weather could be something completely different — but we have to mentally prepare for what I consider the most challenging weather condition. The misery of perpetual wetness at near-freezing temperatures with gear we can't afford to soak — such things cannot be anticipated with anything but dread. And of course, I'm even more terrified of the prospect of new overflow, open leads and bad ice caused by another long stretch of above-freezing weather. All we can do is maintain flexibility, make the right decisions for ourselves, and hope for the best. But, damn, what can I say? I'm looking forward to the White Mountains 100.

As for the rash, I did see my doctor and he believes it's eczema caused by some sort of allergic reaction. It could still be a lot of things, but he did prescribe a corticosteroid cream that has been helpful in minimizing flare-ups and reducing symptoms. I opted out of Prednisone since I am already amped up with dread this week, and don't need the added insomnia from steroids. But if this doesn't clear up completely in the next few days, I'm probably going to kick myself for not insisting on drugs. The next step is to visit an allergist and see if we can pinpoint a cause. Hopefully it's not an autoimmune reaction that will only continue to worsen over time. But for now, the top concern is staying safe and as dry as possible starting next week. I am excited for this adventure — but scared, viscerally scared, which is the very part of myself I set out to overcome in such endeavors. With some luck, we'll prevail.

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