The load

On Monday, I loaded up the Eriksen with most of the gear I plan to use in the Iditarod Trail Invitational and took it out for a two-hour spin on the steep and bumpy trails of Fremont Older. Most of this system is based on decisions I made before my five-day bike tour on Alaska's west coast last March, and stuck with after the hard lessons of that trip. It's a set-up that favors frequent camping and windy/wet conditions, and makes concessions for my own absent-mindedness and tendency to pack my gear haphazardly.

The main stipulation for my bike set-up was that it be extremely non-fussy. Everything should be quickly accessible and easy to pack away. If it's blowing 40 mph, I want to grab my parka in five seconds without risking the loss of other items to the wind. If it's 35 below, I want to just throw my whole bivy bundle back on the rack without futzing with stuff sacks and straps. If I'm thirsty, I don't want to remove my entire food supply to get to my stove. Although I'm a big fan of Relevate bikepacking bags, for a winter trip, for me, racks and panniers make more sense. There's more room for everything to spread out, so I don't have to fuss with compressing every little thing. And there's plenty of extra space for food, as well as gear if it's too warm to wear anything but a base layer.

There's a time and place for ultra-light, but for someone with my experience level, I think this is a reasonable set-up. I'll just admit that I am emphatically not racing the 2016 ITI. I'll be thrilled if my lungs hold up past Finger Lake, and over the moon if I arrive in McGrath feeling strong. I'm taking what I need to feel secure and able to rest at intervals, comfortably, when needed (unless it's blowing 40+ mph. Then I can't stop for anything.) I'm grateful to have the support of the race organization and volunteers to help me in my adventure, but I'm really heading out there to "bike my own bike" — within race perimeters and rules, of course.

Here's the breakdown:

Front bundle: PhD Designs Hispar -46C down sleeping bag, Outdoor Research Helium bivy, Thermarest Ridge Rest pad. Everything is rolled together so when I want to take a nap, I can just pop open the compression straps and crawl inside. When packing up, it can be quickly rolled up and bungeed to the rack if I truly need to get going in under two minutes. Later, after my body warms up, I can re-compress the bundle as needed. The quick pack-up and minimal fuss is the main reason I wanted to go with a front rack rather than strapping the bundle to the handlebars. I also dislike having so much bulk attached to the handlebars, pressed against the shifters and brake levers. Beat designed this rack and milled the platform himself. It attaches to the fork with straps, and has proved itself to be solid.

Frame bag: Can hold one to four days of food. It has a separate compartment to keep readily accessible tools, such as a knife, multi-tool, fire-starters, and bike pump. I'll also use the frame bag to store my foot and saddle sore repair kit, first aid, toiletries, a few spare parts, tubes, batteries, spare headlamp, and electronics (basically an AA battery charger for my satellite phone, and iPods.)

Rear stuff sack: PhD Designs Hispar down jacket, down pants, and down booties. All of the fluffy stuff in one place! If I need to take a trailside break to make water or repair the bike, I can pull all of this stuff on and pack it up again quickly. I am likely going to replace this green sack with a heavier duty 13-liter dry bag, because these bags tend to develop holes and I fully expect it to rain at least once during the trip. The sack doesn't need to be all that big, but again, I don't want to fuss with a tight-fitting compression sack.

Right pannier: MSR Whisperlite Stove, 11 oz fuel and fuel pump, quart-sized pot, collapsible cup, spoon, satellite phone. Easily accessible on top: Goggles, windproof balaclava (designed by Beat), fleece buff, vapor-barrier mittens, spare windproof mittens. If needed, I can stuff my Skinfit hybrid jacket on top. This is the lightweight mid-layer I plan to wear most of the time, unless it is very warm.

Left pannier: Wiggy's waders; baggie with spare fleece socks, Drymax liner socks, and underwear; Mountain Headwear Ghost Whisperer jacket (a lightweight rain shell), Skinfit shell pants, Skinfit primaloft shorts, wind-proof knee warmers (designed by Beat), Skinfit Caldo Skudo jacket (primaloft), Mountain Hardwear Airshield jacket (very bulky. Also my favorite piece for just about all conditions. But the primaloft jacket on top of this will likely be needed in cold temperatures, and during low-energy times. I hope to only use the down coat when I am not moving.)

Not pictured: Pogies, 20-ounce fuel bottle (to be filled in the event I go on to Nome), Mountain Hardwear Fluid Race hydration pack with three-liter bladder (front pockets will hold meds and camera.) Base layer: Skinfit top, Gore Windstopper tights, Drymax socks/vapor barrier socks/Toestees fleece socks, Vasque Arrowhead boots, primaloft outer-boots (designed by Beat), Mountain Hardwear windstopper hat, and Skinfit primaloft mittens (if temps are above zero and my core is warm, I usually go bare-handed in pogies.)

I'm probably missing some things, but this is the gist of it. Here we are beneath the eucalyptus trees on an 80-degree afternoon in California:

The whole set-up handled very well on hairpin turns and steep climbs and descents. I pushed the bike up a few 20+ percent grades to simulate pushing in soft snow. The panniers have a low profile and I never bumped them with my legs, and the front bundle doesn't seem to affect handling at all. Beat's smartly-engineered front rack easily passed the horse-trampled trail test. We were bouncing all over the place and nothing came loose.

After my Alaska coast tour last year, I wrote about the liability of physical weakness and the need to shed weight from my bike. The truth is, I haven't discarded that much. I've given it a lot of thought, and there's really just not much I can shave from my gear and still feel safe heading into possible conditions that I have experienced: temperatures around minus 40, hard rain and 35 degrees, and 40 to 50 mph winds in temperatures near zero (people who say windchill doesn't count are so full of crap.) All of these conditions have different margins of comfort that I have found, and am not willing to breech given there are so many more unknowns (fatigue, distance, breathing troubles, etc.) So I remain satisfied with my gear decisions, and cautiously pessimistic about my strength, but I feel like I'm heading out there with correct expectations this time. Every mile I cover will be a gift. I'm very excited. 

I'm following the sun that's setting in the west

In my dream the world looks like the inside of television screen static, black and gray raging with the white noise turned up to 11. It's a night blizzard and for some reason I don't have a headlamp, but when I look down I can't see my legs because they're buried in a snow drift, and when I look up I can hear this ragged Darth Vader breathing. I pull down my face mask to gasp and have this sense that my lungs are filling with snow. There's nothing I can do.

The phone alarm chimed and I blinked in confusion for several seconds, the way you do when you've been jilted awake from one of those far-away sleeps. I had another nightmare about Alaska, my second in a week, so I suppose the pre-race panics are here. This one was even scarier than the first, which was an only slightly enhanced memory blip from my Iditarod race in 2014, looking down into the black infinity beneath thin ice on the Kuskokwim River.

As I rolled out of bed, I breathed the deep relief that comes after waking up from a dream about suffocation. Thick morning fog whited out the scenery beyond my bedroom window, but I knew that would burn off soon enough. It was supposed to reach the high 70s by mid-afternoon, when I'd likely been pedaling through the dappled sunlight beneath a redwood grove wearing my favorite Hoka T-shirt and bike shorts. Alaska panics could be pushed to the back of my mind for now; I'd already sent out my McGrath food boxes and compiled most of my gear. All I had to do today was this pretty easy thing — pedal my bicycle for eight hours over the hills and trails of sunny California.

I'm trying to decide whether to send out supply boxes to the villages along the Iditarod Trail this week. Doing so would be a way of hedging my bets that if I'm feeling healthy, and conditions seem favorable, I'll still have a glimmer of an opportunity to travel to Nome. Not sending boxes means I can't travel any farther than McGrath, no matter what. Deep down I know the second option is probably the call I need to make. But I've been feeling so good lately. Like I can do anything I set my mind to ...

C.S. Lewis is credited with the quote, "If one could run without getting tired, I don't think one would often want to do anything else." Sure, it's a musing in a fantasy novel, but it's one that, some days —some of the best days — almost feels achievable. Days like Saturday, when tires almost hover over the dirt, and the steepest hills seem to disintegrate beneath them, like clouds. Sure, I'm still sweating, my breathing is still labored, nothing is weightless, and perpetual motion does not exist. But some days, the miles come easy. The moving tunnel of peace surrounds me, and when 80 miles are up, I want to do another. When this happens, I always think, why not?

After the Tour Divide, I promised myself 'never again.' Fighting for oxygen drove me deep into weakness and depression, until I was mostly a shell, moving forward on the fumes of expectations and ghosted passion. This is not why I do what I do. I don't need achievement; it's meaningless if the experiences are gray and melancholy, something I'd rather push out of my memory than hold on. But I went back to UTMB, and then the Fat Pursuit, and actually most endurance efforts over the past year have brought the same struggles. I don't entirely know why. I do know that's not what I want. So why do I want to go back? Recently, I reached out to several people who I deeply respect for advice. Several touted the virtue of stubbornness. "But I am stubborn," I thought. "That's really the problem."

Liehann and I have ridden our "Big Basin Big Loop" a number of times over the years as a long training ride, and I felt nostalgic about the fact that this one was probably going to be our last. I tried to stay present and take it all in — the mossy banks of Gazos Creek, the salty headwind along the pumpkin fields of Pescadero, the roller-coaster Haul Road, the cool air beneath redwood groves that seem to trap a permanent twilight. If this has to be my last ride here, I picked a good day for it. This is the one I want to burn to memory.

The second to last climb is a little dull, so I slip into daydreams about packing for a tour across Alaska. All of my Nome gear will require the two panniers. The only things I'd leave behind if I wasn't going to Nome is a few extra layers and maybe the stove, so I should just take all of it. Maybe I should get a heavy-duty dry sack for my parka on the rear rack, because there probably will be at least one hard rain. Food, meds, and repair kit in the frame bag; stove, fuel, pot, waders, extra headgear, goggles and mittens in one pannier — the one opposite my bike-pushing side; excess upper and lower layers in the other. How many pairs of underwear should I take? I really hate not changing my underwear, but man, I won't be able to do laundry for 30 days. Am I really thinking about Nome? What is wrong with me? 

Liehann and I veered onto the Stevens Canyon trail an hour earlier than we expected — we'd really ripped this one up today. For a split second I mulled time-trialing up the Bella Vista Trail the way Liehann always does, but the last thing I needed was to instigate a race with someone who's faster than me, not to mention tempting fate with high-intensity efforts and hard breathing. I've felt a bit of a cough coming on, and it makes me nervous. Beat has been sick for the past two weeks and is currently on antibiotics, and he's worried about slipping back into pneumonia so close to our Alaska trip. Happily he's been feeling a little better, but also nervous about spending a fair chunk of these past few months down with his own respiratory illnesses, not training. As long as he's healthy during the Iditarod, I don't think missed training will make all that much of a difference for him. He's strong whenever he needs to be. I wish I had that kind of faith in myself.

On this day, at least, I felt as strong as a bull, and supremely happy, even though we missed our traditional Black Mountain sunset because were too fast and too early. So happy that I sang out loud while screaming down Montebello — a song that doesn't have a name, by Metric:

We got the sunshine 
We got the shade 
We got temptation 
We got it made 
We got rewarded 
We got refused 
We got distorted 
We got confused 

I want it all 
I want it all 
I want it all 
I want it all

ITI training, week 17

Monday: Road bike, 2:46, 33.8 miles, 3,620 feet climbing. I was back at sea level and beginning to come around from my cold, so I decided to aim for 20 to 25 hours of saddle time as a "peak" week of endurance training, three weeks before the start of the ITI. On Monday I rode Highway 9 to Page Mill, a quick but tough route that helped me clear out what I hoped was the last of the sinus gunk.

Tuesday: Weight lifting at the gym, followed by a trail run, 55:12, 5.4 miles, 887 feet climbing. I did three sets, 12 exercises, 12 reps, managing better with the extra weights I added last week. The trail run was uneventful. I descended into Wildcat Canyon but did not see the mountain lion that has been spotted a couple of times in the past few weeks.

Wednesday: Fat bike, 3:17, 28.2 miles, 4,545 feet climbing. I pedaled up Black Mountain and did two loops of Bella Vista and Indian Creek, one of the steepest segments of dirt nearby. The 1x11 gearing on the Eriksen is perfect for a snow bike, by which I mean it's low. The 900-foot ascent of Indian Creek was a fairly comfortable spin at 3.3 mph. That's a good gauge for churning through soft snow, where ideally I could stay in the saddle and maintain 3 mph, while expending less energy than I would pushing the bike at 2 mph. Snow biking is all about power output. Cyclists with a good amount of wattage move much better in soft conditions — comparable to a speed boat skimming over choppy water. I am more like a bogged-down row boat. What I lack in power, I try to make up in mental fortitude. And when I lack in fortitude, I only hope I can find the fumes to keep moving forward. Energy efficiency helps.

Thursday: Road bike, 4:23, 50.5 miles, 6,219 feet climbing. This was a most wonderful ride from home to the entrance of Big Basin Redwoods State Park and back. Some maintenance neglect on the Specialized Roubaix led to seat post slippage. The result was a sharp pain in my lower back that occasionally radiated out through the top/side of my left leg. It seemed nerve related, and was tear-inducing at times. I could relieve it by raising my saddle, almost eliminating the pain afterward. The second time I did this, after the seat post slipped down again, I raised it so high my feet could barely reach the pedals — toe pedaling. But it did help a lot. This pain only seems to happen on my road bike, and I may just avoid riding it for the rest of the month. I really need to practice with the Eriksen anyway.

Friday: Trail run, 1:12, 6.7 miles, 1,536 feet climbing, then weight lifting at the gym. Daylight limitations meant I had to run first. I dislike lifting when I'm fatigued, but it's probably a better gauge of my endurance. I made it through two sets and decided to go home and rest up for the big weekend I had planned.

 Saturday: Fat bike, 7:08, 58.5 miles, 8,773 feet climbing. Eriksen and I set out to climb all the hard hills we could reach in seven hours — Fremont Older, Bohlmon Road, Sierra Azul, Black Road. I hit a nice stride in Sierra Azul — not breaking any speed records of course, but feeling comfortable while spinning and finishing the ascent feeling strong. Black Road was tougher as I started to believe I was near the top three miles too early. When the hill kept going, it broke my focus and made me feel grumpy. I had to stop and eat one of those Clif Pizza Margherita energy food packets. These are just terrible — a thick paste that tastes like lukewarm Ragu mixed with peanut butter. No. Just no. But I gave it a try. I'm trying to finish up the random energy food items in our cupboard, which is a little silly because we have a truckload of food for our ITI boxes moving in as I write. After I choked down the brown paste, I embarked on the grin-inducing descent of the John Nichols Trail, where a mountain biker asked if I was riding an e-bike.

Sunday: Road bike, 9:06, 106.2 miles, 10,259 feet climbing. I got back on the Roubaix for a grand Sunday tour, hoping that a clean and re-greased seat post would resolve the slipping issue. The sharp pain in my lower back still returned, but I could alleviate it by stopping to stretch every hour or so. This is why I'm not riding the road bike any more this month. (I will miss you, Sworxy.) It was a beautiful day, although almost too warm, and windy. I'd accumulated fatigue over the week, and this ride definitely felt like more of a grind than the others, but didn't necessarily get harder as the hours piled up. I always maintain this delusion that I can float like a little feather on my road bike, but it actually does not pedal itself up the hills. Jerk.

Total: 28:49, 277.2 miles ride, 12.1 miles run, 35,839 feet climbing. I'm pleased with the numbers this week. I managed nearly 30 hours on the move even though it was a fairly busy week of non-bike-related tasks. The 35,000 feet of climbing is my highest yet in this training block — even more than I got that week I rode the 100 miles of Montebello. When it comes to pedaling or running up hills, I'm pretty strong — although I remember I'm near sea level and it's warm and this is still nothing like Alaska. I had no breathing problems all week. After doing a lot of gasping last week while I had a cold in Colorado, this was a relief, although I'm still concerned that any compromises in my respiratory system can drag me down quickly. I'd still place my fitness confidence on the lower end, but at least my legs are working well.