Altitude crash

Just when I'd started to believe I might slip through this acclimatization period without detection, the altitude monster got its jaws around me. This happened near the summit of Bear Peak on Wednesday evening, halfway through the crux of the climb. The crux segment gains 620 feet in 0.3 miles, and I decided to go at this wall as hard as I possibly could, because damn it, if I can't ride bikes this summer, then I'm going to train myself into real mountain running shape once and for all. (I'm still hopeful I'll be able to ride bikes sooner than later. I'm going to see a hand specialist on Tuesday, and I'm expecting the doctor to recommend carpal tunnel surgery. This could require six to eight weeks of recovery, which would mean canceling hopeful plans to go bike touring with my friend Leah before her wedding in Oregon in June, which brings me sadness because CTS is such a stupid injury, but it's so persistent that I can't yet hold two trekking poles without pain, and single-poling makes me an even worse mountain "runner," so I vowed to improve on something I can at least partially control.)

So there I was, "running" up a slush-covered boulder staircase with the peak in sight, when I suddenly became very dizzy and nauseated. I don't often push myself through intense efforts, so I brushed off this episode and finished up the run more slowly, but I continued to feel out of sorts for the rest of the evening.

It was easy to blame unpacking, which in itself is a surprisingly strenuous effort, especially when it involves balancing weighty boxes up and down stairs with one bad hand. Beat and I were up late on Wednesday exploding stuff all over the house, and I decided I should lay off the mountain running on Thursday. But that was before Beat burst into the house just after 9 a.m., about two hours after he left for his run commute to work. He dropped his phone somewhere on the trail, and ran all the way home while looking for it. It remained missing, but he needed to get to work, so would I mind heading out to continue the search?

Thursday was a gorgeous morning, warm and bright, so of course I didn't mind an excuse to skip out on unpleasant chores and frolic in the mountains. Beat used the phone's GPS locator to figure out where it fell — just a few hundred yards from the point where he realized it was missing and turned around, which was nearly in town along the popular Mesa Trail. I thought I should hustle as best as I could manage since someone was likely to pick it up before I got there, so I threw on my pack and hurried out the door. Luckily, the person who did find it first was a good Samaritan and dropped it off at the ranger station, making for an easy retrieval (it also meant that Beat could have picked it up. But, you know — any excuse to climb a mountain!)

Since it snowed on Sunday, I didn't bank on the 80 degrees it was going to be by the time I circled back to climb Green, nor did I anticipate just how long the round-trip run was going to take (3.5 hours, because my downhill technical/rock running also remains poor so I move slowly and carefully.) Somewhere along the crux of the mountain — which is really all crux because it gains 2,400 feet in 1.9 miles — I again became dizzy and nauseated. Sweat was streaming down my face and I took long gulps from my water bladder, only to suck the thing dry. Oh, of course I ran out of water.

So there I was, sinking into the bonkiest of bonks, kneeling in a pile of wet pine needles a hundred feet off the trail and stuffing handfuls of snow into my mouth. The temperature suddenly felt like it was a 110 degrees; thank goodness there was still relatively fresh snow on the ground. Only eating snow made my face and good hand go quickly numb, and I already had a headache, plus a little bit of spinning vision/vertigo to go along with the dizziness.

This was physically the worst I've felt during any outdoor effort in a long time, and I can probably include the Iditarod in that assessment. Altitude is insidious like that. It doesn't steal my breath and leave me gasping the way illness and asthma do, aware of my compromised state — instead, it just slowly sucks life-giving oxygen from my blood, until my vitality has just drained away and I don't fully understand why. Am I suddenly horribly out of shape because I haven't ridden a bike in two months? Am I getting sick? Is this my lazy subconscious trying to masquerade as weakness? Either way, it was all I could do to dizzily stagger down the mountain and jog home.

As I walked toward the door, my legs buckled. They actually buckled. It brought to mind images of people who cross the finish line of a marathon and immediately collapse. I was completely spent. By a 12-mile run that was basically a hike! This was just embarrassing.

I intended to never speak of the phone run again, but I felt a need to explain (to myself more than anybody) why I've been so exhausted for the past two days. I took Friday and Saturday off from running. I continued to unpack, but at a much slower pace, with sit-down breaks. I fell asleep while writing, twice, in the middle of the day — and I am not a napper. My friend Danni was in town for one day and had exactly one free hour between 8 and 9 a.m. Saturday morning. I intended to drive down to town to see her and set my alarm, then slept through it. I actually managed to turn off an alarm in my sleep, the way I sometimes do during long endurance races. This brought me sadness, because it's such a stupid reason to miss out.

Beat at least had a productive Saturday, completing the build of his electronics work bench. Now he's hammering out a homemade bike rack. (He's building this stuff using 2x4s and a counter top he purchased at Home Depot. My book "Become Frozen" describes moving to a mountain-like location in Homer, Alaska, in 2006, and it's amazing how many parallels I can draw from that move to the present. It's downright eerie. I should write a blog post about the cyclical nature of life. The more things change ...)

Instead I wrote a rambling post to justify the fact that I'm a zombie walking up here at 7,200 feet. The altitude monster got me, and there's no going back. 

Winter drops by to say welcome

Winter is my favorite season. There are those who don't believe me, or who point out that I can only love winter because I spent the past five years living in a warm climate and visiting winter at my leisure, for fun, without the day-to-day cold-weather drudgery. Point taken, but I stand by my statement. I am a hopeless winter enthusiast.

When I moved to Colorado in late April, I assumed I wouldn't see winter for another six months. And that was okay, because I had a pretty good dose of winter this past season in visits to Nevada, Utah, Idaho, and two fantastic trips to Alaska. Surprisingly, except for a cold snap following a November snowstorm, I all but missed winter in Colorado during our two weekend visits in December and January. The week we closed on the house, it was 60 degrees in Boulder, and the backyard looked like this:

January 30

May 1!

Yes, winter returned for a spring fling, the way she often does in her turbulent on again, off again affair with the Rockies — a blast of snow and cold before slipping out the back door, and suddenly it's 65 degrees again. Beat and I wanted to make the most of this brief reverie, but he unfortunately hurt his back while chopping wood on Thursday (or perhaps the sore back was from sleeping on an air mattress. We are still without real furniture at home.) Beat was hobbled but still got out for a short hike into Walker Ranch. These were our first views of the Boulder Creek Gorge. "This is the new Rancho!" I proclaimed, referring to an open space preserve near our apartment in California, where I did most of my running over the past five years. Rancho is not bad, but it doesn't look like this.

Beat turned around but I continued making my way around the loop, mostly hiking because of the new snow, and also because the altitude is really clamping down right now. When dragging my sea-level-acclimated body to elevations above 5,000 feet, I tend to have a honeymoon period of two to three days where I can feel the altitude, but it doesn't necessarily drag me down. By day four, the accumulating oxygen deficit seems to reach a breaking point, and I start waking up with headaches and struggling noticeably more in physical efforts. One week out seems to be the worst. At least I hope this is the worst. It gets better, right? 

Anyway, a bit of headache and rasping is no reason to let this brief winter pass me by. I set out Sunday to meet a local runner who I've been in touch with for a couple of years now. She invited me on a morning run to Green Mountain, but it snowed enough overnight that I didn't feel comfortable taking the Subaru with its summer tires and California-conditioned driver down the steep, icy roads. We re-worked the plan so I could run from home and meet her on top of Green Mountain, then continue together down to town.

First tracks on the road.

The day's first ascent of Green. It was blowing snow and the temperature was about 28 degrees. Windchill and sweaty clothing made it feel brrrrr. I waited for Wendy for twelve minutes, until I was very cold. I'd already forgotten how difficult it is to re-stoke body heat after you've let yourself become that chilled.

I made exaggerated jumping motions on my way down Green, to stimulate blood flow. Wendy approached and I followed her back up the mountain at a pace that left me gasping for air, but at least I warmed up again.

At the top we bumped into semi-famous ultrarunning ladies Darcy Piceu and Gina Lucrezi. Just a typical day in Boulder.

Descending Bear Canyon in a winter wonderland. Everything was so quiet and tranquil. When I'm wading through powder at a 15-minute-mile downhill "running" pace, I feel only bliss. (When I'm on skis I feel only terror, which is the main reason I am not a skier.)

The Flatirons from town. Wow! Thanks for coaxing me down here, Wendy.

Back at home, I was completely exhausted by 15 miles of "running." I don't think I've been that tired since I finished the Iditarod. Perhaps I can blame the effects of the altitude rather than declining fitness. Beat was not too sympathetic and tried to coax me out on the exploration route he tracked out that morning, but I resisted.

Monday brought bluebird skies and rapidly warming temperatures. I made attempts to work through the morning, but spent more time than I care to admit staring out the window, watching the resident turkey peck bare patches of ground as clumps of snow rained from the trees.

 In the afternoon I planned to run into Boulder to meet Beat. Although I should have, I didn't bank on the six inches of slush now covering the trails, and just how slippery and difficult it can be to wade through this. The ten-mile run that I hoped would take 1:45 ate up three hours, and my feet were cold. They were so cold.

By the time I reached Boulder, it was spring! I suppose it had to come back eventually. Thanks for dropping by, winter! See you in October (or maybe next week.)

The first week

After arriving in Boulder on Sunday, Beat and I quickly settled into new routines. Beat woke up early to run into work — the shortest route is about ten miles one way, along the rocky singletrack of Bear Canyon. He also tried two different routes over Green Mountain, because who wouldn't want to bag a peak on their way to work?

I've been getting up early as well to chase away an obnoxious woodpecker who has taken up residence outside the house, and feed the goldfish in the outdoor pond. They were surviving just fine before we arrived, but I've taken a liking to the fish and now think of them as "pets." Although I have several projects that should take priority, this week I found myself pulling a camp chair next to a window and working on my Iditarod book. I figure I can probably finish quickly if I keep momentum, and it's going well. Fun project in an ideal setting. I'm stoked on life right now.

There were a couple of trips to town, but mostly I hung out in the mountains and loved it. I've felt hints of how living up here might become lonely, but it suits me. I made plans to have coffee with a couple of local journalists next week, and I have no doubt I'll start to meet folks on the trails. Hopefully I don't become too much of a hermit, but having scenic, private spaces to write and all these trails out my front door is ideal. Beat loves having his own space and a burly human-powered commute into work, plus he's enjoying his new job, so this is pretty much the dream.

Views from Walker Ranch. I enjoyed exploring all these new-to-me trails on foot, but I admit I have been pining for a long bike ride. It's difficult to guess when I'll be up for riding again, and that's frustrating. My hand has better dexterity and strength, but still a lot of numbness. Earlier this week I attempted to use two trekking poles to cross a few creeks, and felt electric shocks of pain from the pressure. I'm looking into getting this properly checked out and hoping a something magic like a cortisone shot will fix everything, but ugh.

It's funny how working on a memoir-type project helps me piece together specific details that I'd all but forgotten. While re-mapping the events of the first day of the ITI, I remembered a crash on the glare ice of the Skwentna River, about two miles from checkpoint two. I've convinced myself this crash is the likely culprit for this injury. A wind gust caught me off guard and washed out the rear wheel, and I landed directly on the palm of my right hand. Specifically, I remember now an electric shock of pain through my wrist, and the stem was knocked out of alignment. I put that crash out of my mind because there were (embarrassingly) so many others during the ITI. But it fits the profile of acute CTS, and explains why I had no issues at all until I arrived at Skwentna Roadhouse, where my right hand was suddenly and inexplicably numb (I'm generally very aware of my own physical discomforts, because I'm really quite a pansy when it comes to pain. There was no hint of numbness before that point, even a couple of hours earlier.)

Anyway, the cause of my injury isn't really important, but it seems an easier mystery to solve than finding the solution. A small storm moved in on Tuesday night, leaving a dusting of snow for a beautiful but brisk morning commute for Beat.

I admit I waited for the sun to warm up before heading out for my own run along Beat's main commuting corridor, Bear Canyon. Something about this trail — the steep sideslopes, boulder-choked stream crossings or power lines — reminded me so much of the Tour du Mont Blanc in Chamonix. Beat reminded me that the rocks and trees and pretty much everything looks quite different here, but I think it's uncanny.

I looped around to climb Fern Canyon, which is a mean route, just mean. The trail is more like a staircase of boulders and roots, ascending 2,100 feet in just 1.2 miles — average grade of 32 percent and a max of 60 percent. I'm already bogged down by the altitude, so I wheezed my way to a 57-minute mile (and two tenths) to ascend Bear Peak. If I make Fern Canyon a regular part of my afternoon routine, I figure I'll either finally achieve the mountain running fitness I've long desired, or blow up my lungs entirely. 

Selfie on top of Bear Peak. I took many selfies this week. I make no apologies. I'm just so excited to be physically present in this place.

I could see my house from the top! It did take some deep zooming in Photoshop to find it again in this photo.

One of Beat's colleagues from Mountain View was in town for a few days and came to check out Beat's new digs. Beat was excited to show off the self-designated camp spot on the property.

On Thursday a spring storm arrived, dropping a couple of inches of wet snow. I took the more direct route to Bear Peak, and found my new favorite six-mile "run." (Six miles is a common distance for me because it was generally what I could cover on my local California trails in one hour. It is going to take me a while to run any six miles out here in one hour. This run took 1:27.)

Friday brought a few more inches of snow. It was not quite the spring snowpocalypse we were promised, but I did have a great time splashing through slush puddles and dodging powder bombs from low-hanging branches. And yes, I had to re-create the bench selfie at Walker Ranch.

Of course, a late-April snow means it's colder inside as well as outside. The empty house becomes a bit chilly, so in addition to running ten miles to his brand new job, Beat has been busy teaching himself to use his new chainsaw, and gathering and splitting wood. I can't be of much help with my bad hand, sadly, and he hurt his back while using the ax. But we still prioritized firewood gathering.

This is what it looks like when Californians move to Colorado in the spring. I've spent the past month running in temperatures topping 90 degrees, so any cold acclimation I ever had is long gone. But Beat and I are both enjoying the nesting process in the snowy Rockies.