ITI training, week two

Monday: Road bike, 1:32, 17.4 miles, 2,424 feet climbing — I'm starting to feel a little stronger on my bike. But I'm still terrified about the deca-Montebello coming up on Nov. 7. Sadly, Beat was diagnosed with pneumonia this week. He hasn't been able to log any hard training in more than two weeks, so 100 Miles of Nowhere is definitely out for him. He's starting to feel better, but damn, it's been a rough year for our respiratory systems.

Tuesday: Trail run, 0:54, 5.6 miles, 701 feet climbing — In an effort to inject a whisper of "speed work" into my routine, I'm going to make an effort to improve on my regular Tuesday run, a hilly half-pavement, half-trail loop. This pace is about 9:34-minute-mile average. I'm going to work on getting that under 9-minute-miles. Also, I'm hoping to break the top three times for a half-mile downhill segment called "Hill Trail Descent" on Strava. Currently I'm 6th out of 181 women. Isn't Strava fun? I think Strava's fun.

Wednesday: Fat bike, 3:29, 31.3 miles, 4,481 feet climbing — I took Snoots, our expedition Moots fat bike, out for the first time since last winter. Ah, I missed Snoots. She's so sluggish on pavement, and yet so airy on trails. I feel it's an indignity to take her on anything but snow, however, I need to get reacquainted with the nuances of fat bikes. A slog up Highway 9 was rewarded with fun rollers on Skyline Ridge and the always-gleeful John Nichols Trail descent just as the sun was setting.

Thursday: Weight lifting at gym. As this was my first time at the gym, I treated this as a practice session. I tried out all the machines at different weights until I reached my limit, then did a handful of reps two notches below that weight. After reading several texts on the subject, I've decided circuit training with machines will best fit my needs for now. In hoping to continue with 12 exercises, 12 reps times two, two times per week. But for just playing around, I was *really* sore the next day. Beat could make me wince just poking my shoulders. This is disconcerting, I have to admit.

Friday: Trail run, 1:28, 8.3 miles, 1,169 feet climbing. My upper body felt too sore for bike riding. Hmph. Running, I felt pretty good, albeit a little on the slugglish side.

Saturday: Mountain bike, 4:08, 37.2 miles, 5,376 feet climbing. Liehann set out for his weekly hill climb ride. He aims for four-hour rides, which is a good block of riding for me right now. We rode up Grizzly Flat and along Long Ridge, including my nemesis, the Sunny Jim Trail. I can't always climb Sunny Jim without dabbing, but I made it on Saturday. I also managed a Grizzly Flat climb PR, which tells me I'm probably stronger right now than I think.

Sunday: Trail run and hike, 5:30, 23.4 miles, 3,922 feet climbing. A out-and-back variation of the Cal Loop on the Western States Trail outside Auburn. I ran the first 14 miles at a fairly fast pace with Bruce and then hiked the last 10 with Bruce and Ann. As a workout, I think run/hike is a good format for my winter training, as I get a wide range of intensity plus longer time on my feet without the beatdown of a long run. In many ways, it's most difficult to stay in shape for long bouts of walking, yet this may prove to be a decent percentage of the "ride" to Nome, depending on conditions. Everything depends on conditions, which is what makes training for this event such a puzzle. I need to hedge my bets with a little of everything.

Total: 17:03, 85.9 miles ride, 37.3 miles run, 18,072 feet climbing.

Moving forward on the Western States Trail

This weekend I traveled out to Auburn to record a few interviews with Ann Trason. I've been wanting to work on a biography about Ann for two years now, but pushed the project to the back-burner last year when we reached what I felt was an impasse. I operate best as a visual writer, which requires a lot more details than a bullet list of of accomplishments with quotes from people who were on the periphery. Since I wasn't there to witness any of the events I want to write about, I have to rely on Ann for these details. It's a problem, because Ann feels mortified by even the idea of talking about herself. She's an extremely private person, and that's okay. But as self-effacing as she can be, I think she understands that she's led an extraordinary life, and has a story that's worth telling.

The only window I've ever found with Ann is when she's running — out on the trails, she lets the stories flow out, and they're wonderful. Somewhat belatedly, I realized that I need to carry a voice recorder with me when she invites me for a run, collect the steam-of-consciousness, approach her contacts with questions to fill in the holes, and then use existing archives to connect stories and facts on a timeline. The issue, of course, is carving out the time to do the journalistic detective work needed to reconstruct a narrative. And lately, there's also been the issue of injury. Ann recently had knee surgery and probably needs another. She hasn't been running, and without her outlet, the quiet settles back in.

Two weeks ago, Ann purchased her dream home: an airy 1940s single-level house with a large garden at the top of Robie Point in Auburn, California — mile 99 of the Western States course. Ann feels a deep connection with the Western States 100 race and trail, and understanding that connection, I believe, is one of the keys to unlocking her narrative. She's been able to walk longer distances recently, so she invited me to join her and a friend for a run/hike on the Cal Loop segment this weekend.

The plan was for her friend, Bruce, and I to run segment along the river to collect leftover ribbons from the 50K trail race she organized last weekend, then loop back and meet her as she hiked down from Foresthill. Bruce, an old-school ultrarunner who has been around long enough to consider Ann one of the "kids," pulled me along at what I did not consider a conversational pace, chatting up a storm about the sport in the early 1980s. He coached me on my downhill technique — "Run like you're running in place. Don't think too hard about it. Look ahead, don't look at the ground" — and then flew up hills as I gasped behind him and tried to ask questions when I could catch my breath. Here's a guy in his 60s who has been running long distances for 40-plus years, and still runs hard.

"What's the secret to your longevity?" I asked him.

"Don't think too hard about it," Bruce recommended. "Just run."

After 15 miles of running we caught up with Ann and hiked with her for nine miles. We told her we filtered water out of the American River and she wondered why we didn't just wait until a perennial stream that was a half mile ahead.

"I didn't know about that stream," Bruce answered, and she wondered aloud with a tone of innocent amazement how he'd forgotten about that particular stream. Ann knows this trail inside and out, and still loves it after all these years, after all these miles, even when she can only walk its corridors at what to her is a frustratingly stilted pace. From my perspective — as someone who finds the California foothills pretty, but not stunning, and the climate unpleasantly dry and hot — it's an interesting intellectual challenge to surmise the root of her passion. She's traveled all over the world, gone on many adventures, won many races, and still she returns her love here, to this dusty trail where it all started.

I wonder if it's as simple as that. This is where it all started — where a friend took a high school track star who had a disappointing college career on a 30-mile trail run that launched 14 Western States wins and a lifelong relationship with this place. Although I can't relate to her level of success, I do see my love of the Susitna River Valley mirrored in Ann's Western States Trail. Ann's oak-dotted hills and yellow pine forests are my frozen swamps and black spruce stands. Maybe it's as simple as that.

After unwinding with the 18-mile hike, Ann was ready to retackle her home-improvement projects on Monday. I spent the day holed up in the crawl space of her new home, plying through boxes and file cabinets filled of old newspaper clippings, magazines, and correspondence. It was a fascinating if brief journey into her past, and helped me form a clearer picture of the depth of her accomplishments. In doing so, I realized that the reason I want so much to write about Ann is not because she was great, and not even because she was great outright in an era heavily dominated by men. I admire Ann for her passion. Finding a way through all the barriers into the bright core of this passion will be an adventure in itself, and an honor.

I ♥ races

This is my favorite portrait from any of my races, taken by a volunteer at the Eaglesong Lodge/mile 46 checkpoint during the 2006 Susitna 100 — my first race. I love the floppy overboots, the dangling Camelbak hose, the 2003 Gary Fisher Sugar with 26" studded tires and plastic pedals, the bulging stuff-sack bundle on a seatpoast rack. Most of all, I love that blissed-out look on my face. I was in awe of the expansive Susitna Valley, the notion of being 46 miles from anywhere in Alaska, and the fact that I was out there, and I was doing it.

This was quite the revelation, and set me on a path that I continue to follow a decade later — seeking out endurance races as a way to focus my emotions, expand my perceptions, find flow, and experience life at an intensity that never ceases to amaze me. Although this is all possible in non-race adventures, I appreciate organized races for their community and support, and also because perimeters force me to think and act outside my own boxes. Ultimately my goal with racing is to see how far I can go. Unless something about my life changes substantially, I imagine I'll continue to participate in races for years to come.

For a while now I've wanted to archive all the race reports scattered throughout this blog. Long-time reader Slo Joe planted the idea to list all of my races (with links to reports) on one page. I do love a good "quantified self" project. So I compiled a list and created a race page in header bar. The numbers are only interesting to me, but it was fun to quantify a decade of racing experiences. A few things I learned:

• I've participated in 80 races since February 2006 — 22 bicycle races, 57 foot races, and one triathlon.

• The most races I participated in one year was 20 in 2012 — three bicycle races and 17 foot races.

• Before I even considered myself a runner (2006-2009), I participated in five foot races and one triathlon.

• My longest race was the 2009 Tour Divide — 2,745 miles — and my shortest was the 2008 Spring Tide Scramble — 4 miles.

• The fastest time I ever posted in a bicycle race was 11:35 in the 2014 White Mountains 100; I never spent fewer than 11.5 hours racing a bicycle.

• I've participated in seven 24-hour mountain bike races.

• I've finished 43 ultramarathons (foot races 50 kilometers or longer)

• The number of multi-day bikepacking races I've finished is just four (in my defense, these are always the most time-consuming endeavors.)

• I've DNF'd eight races — three bike and five foot races. The reasons I listed were "timed out" (4), "frostbite" (1), "achilles pain and lost heart" (1), "knee injury" (1), "pneumonia" (1).

• I hold the course record in one race, the Berry Creek Falls 50K in Big Basin State Park. I finished in seven hours and 50 minutes, but it was the only year the 50K distance was offered at this race, and I was the only woman. I know, I know. The race director for Coastal Trail Runs still reminds me this is an official course record nearly every time he sees me.

• Because I aim to find out "how far can I go?" and never took the traditional path of training for speed while slowly increasing distance, my personal records for traditional distances are mostly pretty humorous:

5K: 31:52(!!) (This was my 5K time during the 2006 Homer Sea to Ski Triathlon, when I was definitely not a runner. Of course I log faster 5K segments nearly every time I go for a run, but this is my only official 5K race.)

Half Marathon: 2:06 (Insert frowny face here. Someday I will sign up for another half marathon so I can finish one under two hours. But probably not anytime soon.)

Marathon: 6:58 (2012 Diablo Marathon, hella hard trail run, 8,000 feet of climbing, I got lost and ran closer to 29 miles, but it's still the only marathon I've run.)

50K: 5:36 (2014 Crystal Springs 50K — my favorite local race — well, this or the Ohlone 50K. Another fun fact: Between Crystal Springs and the Woodside Ramble, I've run nine 50-kilometer races on this particular course.)

50M: 10:50 (2013 Quicksilver 50)

100K: 19:53 (2013 Homer Epic, winter race with sled.)

100M: 29:53 (2015 White Mountains 100, winter race with pack.)

• My race list may seem obsessively lengthy, but it pales in comparison to Beat's.

The link to my Race Page is here. Included are links to 80 occasionally multi-part race reports, which must be up to the 10-million-word range by now. Fun airplane reading.