Nice summer-winter days

It was the perfect Colorado weekend, which is to say it was 70 degrees and sunny over the Front Range on Sunday, then dropped to 30 and snowing by Monday morning. Beat is still trying to ease back into training after hip and shin issues pestered him for most of the summer, so he didn't want try anything too ambitious. It seemed like a good opportunity for the High Lonesome Loop, which is a 16-mile, relatively mellow climb over the Continental Divide. I hoped we'd have a chance to do some running, but packed gaiters and spikes. Although it had been warm for most of the week since last Monday's storm, I didn't hold out hope that all of the snow had melted.

Beat at King Lake. Note the bare calves and rolled-up sleeves. We were both overheated. It felt downright summery in the forest below the lake, although I later learned the high in Nederland was 51 degrees. It was probably just 35 to 40 degrees at 12,000 feet.

Post-holing our way to the Divide.

Looking toward James Peak, feeling satisfied about deciding against this more ambitious mountain as the day's destination. It's a steep climb with the switchbacking trail, which was obviously buried.


An icy wind swept down the Divide. I'm used to the prevailing west wind, but this gale came from the north — the direction of the approaching storm. Upon cresting the ridge, the ambience quite suddenly shifted from summer to winter. I put on a shell and pulled a buff over my face. It seemed Beat only had his two-ounce wind jacket and no gloves.

Travel was slow and treacherous up here, with a breakable crust disguising sugary drifts of unknown depth (ranging from ankle- to knee-deep.) While slogging into the icy wind, my breathing became labored and I panicked a little about it. I really think I'm mostly healthy right now, but it's still difficult to gauge my breathing or trust a higher heart rate. I'm not sure how or if I'm going to rebuild that trust. Yes, when working hard, it's normal to feel winded. I know this. And yet even whispers of hard breathing or oxygen deficit set off internal alarms. I don't want to push too hard, yet winter conditions often leave no choice. It will be an ongoing battle, I think, this transition from "sucking wind and crawling" to "tranquil respiration while moving and happy about that" to "breathing fire and scorching ground." If I ever again reach the third step. I remain stoked about the second.

The view near Devil's Thumb Lake. On the slope you can see my and Beat's tracks where we scorched a deep-snow descent. Beat didn't have pants and his poor shins where torn and bleeding from the icy crust. But that was really the worst of the experience. It was a beautiful outing, not easy by any means, and took exactly the six hours that I estimated even though there was a fair amount more snow than I even expected. This may be our last Divide trip for the season, although this would be a decent place to snowshoe when regional avalanche conditions are well in the green.

On Monday morning, as forecast, we were hit with eight inches of heavy, wet snow. In the afternoon the temperature climbed a few degrees above freezing and there were blasts of sunlight through patchy breaks in the clouds. I headed out for a "run" that many times actually did involve a strained shuffling motion through slush. It still feels weird to call 20-minute-miles "running," although I tend to qualify most of my on-foot efforts as runs. Whether I'm pounding out the rare downhill 7-minute-mile or scrambling a rocky uphill 60-minute-mile, my effort level remains fairly consistent. It's the level where my breathing doesn't yet scare me.

Heading into Walker Ranch. Sure, it was Monday afternoon, but I was still surprised no one had been out yet. 

The leaves only recently began to change in this area. I enjoyed catching brief glimpses of color.

Snow makes everything so much prettier. I can't grasp why some people, maybe even a majority of people, don't like winter weather. No, the reality that there are people who don't want to put on gaiters and strain to move slower than two miles per hour up a hill is something I'll never understand.

South Boulder Creek.

Looking through Eldorado Canyon, toward Denver and the Plains. Looks like they got some snow, too!

Weirdly my legs were quite a bit more sore after these six miles than 16 miles in the mountains on Sunday. A good reminder that I don't have the slogging fitness dialed in just yet. But if we continue to have this perfect mix of heat and snow, I'll get there.

Fog, leaves and thundersnow

I was laboring up a knoll near 10,500 feet when I heard an all-too-familiar crack of thunder directly overhead. Familiar, and yet so out of context that I stopped pedaling and did a double take toward the dark clouds billowing over a nearby mountain ridge. The temperature was just a notch north of freezing, and the rocky road was coated in ice-tinged puddles and patches of snow. 

"Aren't thunderstorms a summer thing? Maybe it was a fighter jet." 

Then I heard another boom, unmistakable. A flash above the clouds that happened seconds earlier was probably lightning. Although still below treeline, the 4WD road traversed a bald ridge, so I was completely exposed. "Babyhead" rocks littered the surface, and my riding had been so pathetically slow that I instinctively stepped off the bike so I could run faster. Near the top of the knoll, the clouds unleashed a barrage of icy precipitation, first in sheets of sleet, then sharp flakes of snow. 

"Thundersnow!" I'd heard of such a thing. I'd never experienced it. Really, I never wanted to experience it. I hate thunder and lightning even when the ensuing precipitation doesn't sting my face and blind me in a whiteout. The road surface angled downhill so I jumped back on my bike. This movement was instantly followed by another deafening boom. My hands were too numb to finesse the brakes and I could barely squint into the blizzard, so I just let the bike go and hoped for the best. There had to be tree cover somewhere close by. The bike bucked and lurched over unseen rocks. I held on for life, all but certain I was going to crash, but I was too frightened to weigh the odds of cracking my skull on a babyhead versus actually being struck by lightning. 

The swirling snow put a nice touch on those few chaotic seconds. I rolled beneath a thick canopy of pine and opened my eyes. At some point I must have bounced through a big puddle, because my entire lower body was coated in mud. Globs of ice clung to my tights. The snowfall was losing intensity and rumbling thunder already sounded far away. 

It was short-lived excitement, but intense. I'd say my brush with thundersnow was cool, but no, it was just frightening. And I was already bonked from battling babyheads to the top of a mountain. And now I was soaked and freezing precipitation was still falling from the sky. And I had a 5,000-foot descent in front of me. 

 Before that thundery Sunday ride, I had a couple of days that were completely different. I'd planned to do my long ride on Friday, but the day's thick fog and rain were wholly uninspiring. That was, until I coaxed myself out for a tough run over the home mountains, where the deep canyons and burns were nicely accentuated by spooky haze. Even though biking is killing me and regular running still hurts, I'm in fantastic shape for steep climbing right now. I went ahead and had fun with this run by smashing my PR on two tough segments, even though I was in the midst of a four-hour effort.

 My parents were driving home from a vacation in the Black Hills, and dropped into Boulder for just over a day. We did the obligatory leaf-viewing tour on Saturday. The aspens were a bit past peak on the Peak to Peak Highway — although they probably never had much of a chance given how wet the latter half of September had been.

 This is the best I could get for my Colorado leaf views this year. Oh well. No one can say I didn't try.

 Dad and I were going to hike on Sunday, but they decided to leave early after hearing Monday's weather forecast — calling for up to 18 inches of snow in the mountains and guaranteed road closures and chaos on I-70 (all of which came to pass.) So I set out in the late morning for the long ride I'd been avoiding all week. The day started out beautiful — sunny, warm, no wind, and classic Colorado singletrack through the autumn forests.

I had a chance to explore some new-to-me trails, but did grow weary of maneuvering with crowds of cyclists. Mountain bikers seem to concentrate in the area's small pockets of singletrack, which I suppose makes sense. It's not really for me, though. The trails can be fun, but they feel limiting. Give me the wide-open spaces and forgotten back roads rippling toward who knows where. That's where I long to be.

 Of course, the backroads are where I started to fall apart. Every time I explore new forest roads around here, I get so frustrated with the effort. What looks like a reasonable amount of climbing on a map is in reality an intermittent mix of horribly steep and mostly flat, all littered with loose babyhead rocks that require continuous bursts of power and make pedaling uphill all but impossible for me. I have hiked most of five miles to climb such roads in the past, but on Sunday I was feeling bold and determined to put my recent climbing strength to good use. The power bursts lasted a few good miles. I even impressed a jeep driver when I blasted through the woods to avoid his vehicle, causing him to comment through his open window, "That's some ride!"

Then I bonked, rather epically. Complete with lactic-acid-flooded legs, sore forearms, and dizziness. Then there was stumbling, and soft-pedaling, and more hiking, all while wondering if I'd ever reach the top of this apparently endless hill. And then the thunder came.

 Picture now a cyclist who's bonked, soaked to the skin, shivering from a lightning scare, at 10,000 feet, and it's snowing. There was nothing left to do but descend into town, nearly 5,000 feet lower. As I lost elevation, the road surface smoothed out and turned to gravel. The snow turned to rain, and then heavy rain. The wind picked up. I put on all of the layers I brought with me, having planned for the possibility of 35 degrees and rain. But nothing actually shields against 35 degrees and rain — short of a Helly Hansen waterproof fishermen suit, that is. I know this, but I still imagine that I can dress to stay warm when it's 35 degrees and raining, even if I'm coasting downhill for most of an hour. No, I cannot. I can only suffer. It was an exquisite misery, really. So encompassing that the only thing I could do was embrace it.

Finally I was in Boulder and the rain had stopped. I still had a 2,000-foot climb toward home. I've never been so without energy and yet so grateful for a 2,000-foot climb. I stopped at Chapman trailhead to replace my sopping mittens with a dry pair. It took me most of 10 minutes to unclasp my backpack and switch out the mittens, such was the numbness of my extremities. I was still shivering and heavily bundled up as I climbed, when I was passed by a guy wearing shorts and a short-sleeved jersey. I must have looked quite silly to him.

 By Monday morning, the snow storm had reached our house. Our last winter storm was May 18, so it had been four months and 14 days between snows. I joked that I thought the drought was never going to end. Actually, I enjoy living somewhere where I might only have to wait four months between snowstorms (Knowing, of course, that this is Colorado, and not only will be 60 degrees again in a few days, but also might be in February as well.)

 I wanted to take advantage of the big snowfall to launch true winter training with the best slog-fest I could muster. Wednesday offered such a chance, with 18 inches of new snow in the mountains and temperatures predicted to hit the high 50s. Do you know what it's like to trudge for six hours through slush that has reached roughly the density of liquid lead? Most don't, because most wouldn't bother. I didn't see a soul on the trail.

 It was an absolutely gorgeous day, though. Sure, I could have waited a few days for the snow to just melt. But what would be the fun in that?

Since I was breaking trail, I loosely followed the Arapahoe Glacier Trail to the saddle below South Arapahoe Peak. Conditions were iffy enough and the climb had taken long enough — six miles in four hours — that I opted to skip the tricky route-finding on the class 2 scramble to the summit. Instead I sat on a rock and enjoyed my "lunch" (an expired organic nut bar that Beat brought home from Google at some point, and a small Rice Krispy Treat.) I rested for at least ten minutes, still just wearing a light long-sleeved shirt, no gloves and no hat. My lower body was predictably soaked from the deep slush, but the afternoon was so warm that my legs were hot. At 13,000 feet. In October. After a major snowstorm. That's Colorado.


After I started down, a single cloud sank into the ridge, and then I was in an incredibly disorienting whiteout for a half hour. Light definition was bad enough that I couldn't make out my own snowshoe tracks on the ground, so I relied on staring at my GPS to find the way (I'm always fearful of stepping off a cliff if I wander "off trail," even though this is a gentle ridge.) Eventually I started having bouts of vertigo and knelt down briefly to re-orient my body — meaning reorienting which way was up toward the sky and which way was down toward the ground. Such a weird thing to experience on such a warm, sunny day. But these are the mountains.

 Where the ridges were wind-drifted and manageable, the trail below treeline had become incredibly slushy in the afternoon. It was basically a thin layer of snow atop six inches of Slurpee. Finding correct footing through the rocks while sliding all over the place was the true challenge for the day. But, I continued to tell myself, great training for the stabilizer muscles. First slog of the season is always one of the best.

Launching into the season

This has been a dreary week. Just a few days after we returned from Europe and I complained about 90-degree heat and red-flag fire conditions, a whole bunch of clouds moved in. It's been 40 degrees and drizzling/fog-raining/heavily raining ever since. I don't really mind. The clearer and cooler the air, the healthier and faster I become. Thanks to bone-chilling weather, my transition from living at 1,000-3,000 feet back to 7,200 feet happened almost flawlessly.

My Achilles stopped hurting much faster than expected (not really tendonitis; I suppose I should be grateful.) As soon as the weather moved in, I was off my bike and back on foot. Although I've missed bikes, there's really nothing worse than cycling when it's 40 degrees and raining. I endured this almost continuously for five years in Juneau. Now I'm over it for life.

Running has been going so well. A couple of tentative jogs helped loosen creaky over-hiked joints, and then I was loping along faster and more relaxed than the weeks before we left for Europe. After one or two hours I'd come home so drenched that I'd have to remove all of my clothing in the entryway to avoid dripping on the floor. This would come as a slight surprise; I hadn't even noticed the wet and cold because I felt so strong. It was liberating.

By Wednesday, the fog had been hanging low for five days, and my motivation was beginning to wane. Staring into thick gray soup gets old. I bribed myself into running by downloading new mp3s, which always boosts my mood. (If I wasn't one of those runners loping through the woods with an iPod, I'd be one of those adults sprawled on a couch and listening to vinyl on a turntable. I enjoy music for its own sake, but the experience is enhanced by outdoor scenery and motion. I never feel unaware of my surroundings. I'm not surprised by others on the trail. It is possible to keep volume low enough to also hear what's going on around you.)

Anyway, I was a half mile into this run when I realized I forgot trekking poles, which shook my confidence. I was heading into a favorite run-hike route, involving a rocky descent into Bear Canyon and a grunt up Fern Canyon, which gains 1,800 feet in 0.8 miles on a veritable staircase of rocks — steep enough that the women's course record (in Boulder, "the fittest city in the U.S.") amounts to a 29-minute-mile. So it's a tough route and I've become fiercely dependent on my crutches, which help improve balance and shift some of the workload off of my wobbly left leg. (Should I explain why I believe my left leg is wobbly? Well, when I was 19, I most likely broke my ankle after falling down a flight of concrete stairs and dropping a (rather large 1990s) television. I never had it checked, but it's more or less permanently swollen, unstable and susceptible to rolling. In 2014 I tore the lateral collateral ligament in my left knee, and the resulting scar tissue also affects stability. Okay, no more long asides.)

Along the trail were hints of autumn color, dripping with a wintry gray. I was listening to Tori Amos's new album, which is beautifully ethereal, when I commenced crawling up Fern Canyon. The fog was so thick that even the nearest rocks and trees were a soft blur. Behind the quiet purr of music was an encompassing silence. Without my trusty crutches I felt like I was oozing up the canyon, cold fingers gripped on rocks and roots, whatever they could find for support. I was in a tranquil mood and my breathing reflected this, so everything about this effort felt slow. And yet I later learned I'd set on new PR, by two minutes, on a route where I've pushed the pace on at least two dozen times. The effortless PRs always signal bouts of renewed fitness. How long will it last? I don't know, but I can hold out hope for permanence.

My next big goal is the 350-mile version of the Iditarod Trail Invitational, which I want to do on foot. The last time I put in a big on-foot effort was this same course in 2014. In four years I've only been able to finish one 100-miler, and have only gained more reasons to distrust my body and health. For that reason, I *really* want to do well in the ITI350. I want to feel stronger, and possibly move faster (conditions willing) than I did in a year when the trail was relatively good, and I was probably as fit and I've been before or since.

It's a tall order. My health isn't what it was in 2014. Sure, I've had a couple of good months recently. But what happens when I go back to feeling the way I did in June or July? Or worse, last winter, when I was training too hard through malaise and desperation, for a race I couldn't even start because I really was quite sick?

All of this is to say that I'm not really sure how to launch this bout of winter training. I've conditioned myself to feel grateful for whatever my body's willing to give, whether it's effortless PRs, 9,000 feet of climbing in the Alps, or a one-hour jog that doesn't leave me feeling like there's a plastic bag tied around my neck and face. Or even if I do feel that way, at least I can still jog. I'm grateful for that. But this does leave a lot of uncertainty about committing to the usual specifics of training. I suppose I'll continue to play it by ear, and hope that this positive pattern continues.

I didn't have any more pictures, so I'm posting a cute marmot that Beat photographed on James Peak a couple of months ago

Now that another European mountain bender is over and Beat and I are settling into an autumn routine, I've made attempts to return to writing. Ultimately I'm not thrilled with any of my current projects. I want to find something new, boundary-pushing perhaps, but I'm sputtering.

My friend and previous co-author Tim has been pushing hard for a potential research project on the "IT" factor for success in endurance sports. He's even sparked the interest of several behavioral scientists. I'm eager to be a journalist/observer in this project, but I don't feel comfortable taking charge in scientific research or bold declarations for "secrets of success." Take a look at my track record, and it's clear I do not have these secrets. I also have a chronic autoimmune disease that I largely blame on stubbornly refusing to quit a race until I had pneumonia, so I believe that our own conceptions of "success" can be critically misguided. Perhaps these reservations will add some depth to the project, and I hope to take part in any way I can.

I am still dabbling with subjects outside the scope of endurance racing. Biographies and historical narratives. Again, lack of confidence casts a large shadow. Social media exposes me to biographers and journalists tackling subjects that I'm interested in, with so much depth, and often without compensation. There's often no return for these efforts. Recently I put many dozens of hours of work into a compelling biography that ultimately didn't pan out, which is always a risk when you're working with others.

At the same time, I never lament all this time that I "wasted." I've been lucky to have the freedom to pursue projects that bring knowledge and fulfillment. Almost more than food, I crave an outlet for creative energy — whether cycling or running through interesting places, taking photographs, listening to music, or writing. I'm still amused when I manage to make a few bucks in the midst of these pursuits. I recently crunched some numbers and realized that I've reached a milestone, surpassing six figures in eBook royalties since I released "Be Brave" in August 2011. Spread over six years, it's not a lot. But it's staggering when I think in terms of physical value. It's just content, in a world inundated with more content than it can ever digest. Sometimes I feel silly adding to this glut, in the same way I feel silly riding my bicycle away from home and returning, again and again, accomplishing what? Then again, what do most people accomplish each day? We meet our basic survival needs and establish relationships to contribute to a larger community. Beyond that, meaning and fulfillment are largely what we believe them to be.

All of this is my typical long-winded way of appreciating those who enable my addiction to creative expression, whether you're a 12-year reader of this blog who has never left a comment, or someone who purchased all of my books in the more lucrative paperback form. I'm closing in on a year since the release of "Into the North Wind," which has been disappointing in terms of eBook sales (and an important reminder to branch out from this incredibly niche genre.) Yet, it many ways, it was my most fulfilling project, both in terms of the quality of the adventure that served as the subject, and the cathartic process of documenting the experience and preserving it for a vaguely distant future (at least until all of the digital remnants and paper decay, which happens a lot sooner than we'd like to believe. Okay. Last aside.)

Until then, less time basking in 280 characters in Twitter, and more time training and writing. And perhaps marketing, too. "Into the North Wind" is still available! ...