Thoughts on Unruly Bodies

Hiking above Heart Lake on Sunday. It's truly shoulder season here — warm, incredibly windy, and weird snow conditions

I know, I know, I said I wasn't going to write any more blog posts about slumps. This is only about that on the periphery. Also, I lied. 


Earlier this year, the wonderful author Roxane Gay compiled an online anthology called “Unruly Bodies.” In this series, 25 writers explored emotional, cultural and scientific connections with their bodies, with titles such as “The Body That Understands What Fullness Is” and “The Body That’s Too Asian and Too Sick for America.” Each essay offered new insight into the different ways individuals experience the world because of the bodies in which they reside.

A woman with a progressive neuromuscular disease, Kelly Davio, contributed “The Body That Can’t Run Marathons.” Kelly’s essay was about coping with chronic pain and disability. More broadly, it was about the fantasy of discipline.

 “I understand the temptation to look at the body as a thing that can be disciplined out of its unruly ways — something that, with the application of enough will or moral fortitude can be made to behave, to be quiet, to stop its complaining,” she wrote. “After all, I broke my own bones over the fantasy that I could will my body to be something that its very cells are incapable of becoming.”

Kelly didn’t even want to run marathons. She just wanted to run. Even after repeated warnings from her doctor about her porous bones, she stepped onto a treadmill. She jogged, just a little, to see how it felt. Then her ankle snapped.

“The body has its own rules," she concluded. "Its logic doesn’t hinge on America’s moral panic over pain, just as it doesn’t hinge on my daydreams about achieving transcendence on a treadmill.”

Wind and snow conditions on the Divide looked a little too iffy to risk ascending the headwall

I’ve been thinking about this anthology recently, because so much of it refutes athletic dogma: What the mind can conceive, the body can achieve. Goals are not deserved, goals are made. What doesn't kill us makes us stronger. Pain is weakness leaving the body. We’re all capable, as long as we put in the work.

I’m guilty of embracing such dogma. “If I can do it, anyone can,” is something I’ve said, because I’ve never been an natural athlete. But I also didn’t fully recognize my own socioeconomic and health privilege that allowed me to invest the necessary time and energy into pursuing my goals. “I can do anything,” is also something I nearly believed, before life rightly trampled all over my ego. Now I agree with Kelly. The body has its own rules, and its logic doesn't hinge on self-righteous platitudes.

It’s not that I no longer believe we should strive toward goals — life is all about striving. But there’s a certain tranquility in accepting inevitable limitations, and in doing so, better understanding our uniquely unruly selves.

I told Beat I wasn't feeling strong enough to endure the wind. We still went for an off-trail excursion to a nearby ridge.

I’m a little tired of my unruly self. All of these new little problems build on past little problems, like compounding interest. There’s a little bruise on my right shin. It’s been there for more than two months, since I fell into a boulder on my birthday. The leg still feels tender when I run downhill, but the pain is minor, not worth fussing about. Still ... two months. I fell because of my rickety left ankle. It causes instability on the most benign terrain, but I become especially clumsy on the chaotic slopes of the mountains I love. I injured this ankle badly when I was 19 — probably broke it. Never had it set. Beat thinks I should have this looked at. Maybe it's a problem that can still be corrected.

Surgery for a 20-year-old injury seems absurd, especially when I can still take my wobbly body wherever I please. Still, the bruises and scars continue to accumulate. I feel them when it’s cold, when the wind blows, when I’m teetering on some ledge. I startle and struggle to catch my breath.

Sometimes my breathing is just bad. It’s so bad that I can’t even boost my heart rate out of zone 2 before I’m winded. I start gasping when I walk up the stairs. I become dizzy and despondent. For three years, this what I’ve invested in — dozens of hours and thousands of health care dollars — to find a solution. I agreed to be injected with what feels like poison to me — allergen immunotherapy — on average once a week since October 2016. Another doctor treats me for thyroid disease, with a liver-damaging drug. Am I measurably less thyrotoxic and less allergic to things now? Yes. But sometimes my breathing is still bad.

Recently, the distant but familiar anxiety episodes of my early 20s re-emerged. Do I need a psychiatrist now? More drugs? Maybe I just need more time to heal, but I’m losing faith that any treatment will solve these issues. At this point I’m just waiting to be diagnosed with functional illness, which is another way for the medical profession to tell me they can’t help me. At least then, I’ll be that much closer to acceptance of my unruly body.

I enjoyed the scenic diversion, but I was annoyed by how weak I felt, and embarrassed that I was holding Beat back.

As much as I want to discipline my mind toward acceptance, wild hope will likely persist. I may venture down the rabbit hole of holistic medicine, which is similar to athletic dogma in that it offers unconvincingly simple solutions to complex problems. But there is wisdom buried within.

Traditional Chinese medicine embraces an intrinsic connection between emotions and organs. This tradition teaches that people hold grief in their lungs. What would I need to grieve? Nothing right now. The people I love are mostly healthy and happy. My life is good. I’m undeniably lucky. But as I process current events, studies about climate change, and the increasingly volatile state of nature, I think, “This is what I’m grieving. The world I love has been given a terminal diagnosis."

The whole world is a big thing to grieve, and bodies can only hold so much grief. So I close out of news sites and promise myself limited exposure to online commentary for at least a week. Hopefully I’ll start sleeping better, stop sweating at night, start breathing with my whole set of lungs. I do recognize that my body still enjoys a lot of privilege, especially when I read essays like Kelly’s. But that isn’t the point of the Unruly Bodies series. It wasn’t created to help the normals feel better about themselves. It’s there to illustrate that none of us are truly normal. It’s futile to try to fit ourselves and our uniquely unruly bodies into tidy molds.

I’m tempted to toss all of my striving to the wind and just run free, as free as I can, for as long as I’m able.

Attempts to define the slump

I feel like I'm crawling out of the bottom of my latest slump. Which, though predictable, is always a relief. I know there are worse things, and I don't want my blog to become a chronicle of this nothing ride on an endless loop. But I have been trying to summarize my concerns for a note to my doctor, and this blog has always been a good place to clarify my thoughts. I promise, blog, this will be the last I write about this ... for a few weeks at least ...

The best analogy I've come up with is a basin of water. My fitness and sense of wellbeing is the water that gradually fills up the basin, then drains again at intervals. When the basin is full, I feel strong and upbeat. Metrics I can measure — such as resting heart rate, blood pressure, the stats from my bike's power meter, and PRs on Strava — all improve. My outlook brightens, which I'll just clarify to mean my mind shifts from "crushing pessimism about the future of humanity" to "glimmers of hope boosted by beautiful things in nature." My sleep patterns improve. My concentration improves. My creative efforts open. I'm a happy person.

Then, slowly, the basin begins to drain. The first symptom I notice is more frequent instances of insomnia. Often a rash breaks out on my lower legs and feet during this time. My moods become more volatile, and this is where I experience random flashes of anxiety. Like a moody teenager, I have more difficulty concentrating and controlling distractions. I waste far too much time scrolling through Twitter and stewing in my crushing pessimism. I hate everything I've ever written, and admittedly slip into periods of not being all that productive, unless self-editing and liberal use of the delete button counts. When I check my resting heart rate and blood pressure, both have spiked, perhaps because of unfounded stress.

The breathing difficulties come last, and are really only at their worst for two to three weeks each time. But for me, they're bad. Hills that I could race up two months ago, I can now barely soft-pedal in my lowest gear and cadence. I become dizzy and need to take breaks. Fatigue is not how I would characterize this sensation. It's more like an obstruction in my cardiovascular system, removing most of the oxygen before it can reach my brain and muscles. This often results in gasping and trying to deepen each breath, but I suspect the straining does more harm than good. I don't test my moving heart rate nearly as often as I should, but when I check my pulse, it's usually not that high ... perhaps 140 or 150, when a true near-max effort for me should be above 180. But I feel maxed out. These efforts do not leave me tired afterward ... more like frustrated, because I can hardly get a good workout when I am fake-maxed-out. I still have all of this muscle memory and endurance in my body, but the perceived lack of oxygen makes me feel as though I'm suddenly, completely out of shape.

The pipe that moves this water in and out of the basin is an entity completely unknown to me. For a time I thought the force draining my health was asthma, but that doesn't quite fit, because I have good weeks in the spring and bad weeks in the dead of winter. My allergy treatments are going measurably well, my other symptoms are far milder, and yet I still struggle with breathing. In early 2017 I was diagnosed with an autoimmune disease that causes overactive thyroid. This seemed like a perfect fit — all of the symptoms I experience during my slumps fall in line with symptoms of hyperthyroidism. But every lab test since I started treatment has shown steady improvement. Now my numbers indicate I am "euthyorid," i.e. normal. I like to believe that my experience of these slumps has improved since I started asthma and thyroid treatments — undulating toward normalcy. But again, the metrics don't quite bear this out. My resting heart rate and blood pressure have been similarly spiked in January-February, June and October since I started measuring regularly at the beginning of this year. My Strava stats during these months are similarly bad.

I acknowledge that I could focus on lifestyle changes, but I am a skeptic in this regard. It seems like the things I can control don't really matter. I have felt fantastic during an intensely strenuous week of hiking in Italy when I climbed 50,000 feet while subsisting solely on coffee, pizza and Snickers Bars. And I've felt terrible during weeks where I did two or three short runs while increasing my protein intake and limiting sugar. I've been on fire at 14,000 feet and sputtering at sea level. During every slump I try something new — quitting dairy, taking new supplements, renewing focus on weight-lifting over my favorite outdoor cardio exercises. These experiments never stick, because eventually I feel good again and lose motivation. My latest experiment is CBD capsules, to treat anxiety. I've felt significantly better and had no anxiety episodes since starting this, and since they seem to have no side effects, I'm a fan ... even if it's just placebo effect. But they're expensive, and I imagine my motivation for these will wane as well.

At this point, I'm inclined to believe I'm not going to solve the mystery of the slumps without significant hypnotherapy. If I am doing this to myself with the power of negative thinking, I really need to learn how to harness this mental energy toward positive abstractions, because I'd probably win the lottery. Taking the long view, though, my overall health is mostly fine. I can learn to live with these hiccups, even if I never learn how to control them. The problem is that I still have a desire to be an endurance athlete, and train for big events. Training hardly seems purposeful when my fitness just resets to zero every few months, and my best chances for success seem to hinge on the date I choose to start my adventure. These slumps also seem to strip much of the joy out of my life. On top of increased anxiety and pessimism, I lose my best outlet for peace — hard, meditative efforts in nature. When my breathing is bad and I feel dizzy, all of that joy is taken from me. I'll never find it no matter how long I battle, or how slowly I move. I have tried.

Anyway, I am going to attempt to condense these thoughts and present them to my doctor. I expect she'll just give me a quizzical look and suggest I see a therapist. And that's fine. It feels better just to lay it out there. And I'm looking forward to the next upswing. I enjoyed reasonable breathing and a beautiful morning on Rollins Pass Road with Betsy yesterday:

The weather this week has been warm — temperatures in the 70s most days. It was 45 degrees and calm when we started pedaling from Rollinsville at 9 a.m. I was overdressed with tights and gaiters, although I was glad to have them later. Even though we had some big storms earlier this month, I expected to see almost no snow left on the route. But some has held on, especially in shaded areas at lower altitudes.

The higher altitudes had been blown mostly clear, and we endured much bouncing on babyheads, which was jarring after all of the smooth if strenuous sailing on packed slush. I love the scenery on Rollins Pass Road, and it's the only bike-legal route amid hundreds of square miles of wilderness. But the combination of a gradual and interminable railroad grade with slow maneuvering over and around rocks makes for a tedious ride. I told Betsy that I'm good for one or two trips per year, once memory of the tedium wears off.

Only taking photos on the smooth sections were I could actually hold my camera while pedaling.

Rollins Pass Road does have good winter potential, and I'm open to testing out conditions throughout the season. Or returning on foot. Really, it's all about spending time in these mountains. We stood at the edge of an overlook, gazing out at a dramatic play of sunlight and clouds over James Peak, and mused that we could spend all day up here. Especially when it's warm, windless, and eerily quiet in the shoulder season. Then we raced down the mountain, as we both had tasks scheduled for the afternoon. Betsy was really running late, and we averaged more than 20mph on the final seven miles of gradual descent. I was riding a studded-tire fat bike at 8 psi with fairly low gearing, so I had to spin like crazy to keep up. It almost felt like sprinting, and it felt really good. 

The White Mountains 100 will live on

On top of Cache Mountain Divide in 2014

I want to diverge from my recent blog themes and indulge in some cathartic nostalgia about my favorite race, the White Mountains 100, which recently announced it will return for a tenth season next year. 

*****

It’s January 2010. I’m 30 years old and live in Juneau, Alaska. Night rain pummels the glass as I sit at my office desk with my back to the windows. It’s 1:30 a.m., which isn’t abnormal because I work more than 60 hours a week in an ill-suited managerial position for a daily newspaper with crumbling revenues and employee morale to match. Eventually I’ll wheel my long-suffering rusted Surly Pugsley into the rain and pedal home to the small room where I live with my cat Cady, ten miles away on an isolated beach called Fritz Cove.

Occasional bike commuting is all I do these days; I write disingenuous posts on my blog to make it seem like I still ride my bike, but I just don’t enjoy it anymore. Once I reach my room, even though it’s likely to be after 3 a.m., I’ll still strip off my mud-soaked clothing, take a rushed “screaming barfies” shower, curl up on a lumpy mattress, spoon peanut butter and jam out of a jar for “dinner,” and pour out my anger into the narrative I’m writing about the recent dissolution of my eight-year relationship. After a wise editor helps me cut out half of the words and most of the anger, this narrative will eventually become my book about the Tour Divide, “Be Brave, Be Strong.” But for now, it's my only outlet. My break-up distanced me from many of my friends in this isolated community. My job is frustrating. I can only afford to live in a cheaply furnished room within a large house owned by a fussy older woman who complains whenever I use the washing machine or the kitchen, so now most of my meals are spooned out of jars. My life is pretty sad, and my mood reflects this. I blame my bike, because I think obsession about endurance cycling led to this misery. I have no idea what the future holds, but I am certain that I will quit racing for good.

For now I’m still at work, reading through e-mails to my work account, when one comes through from Ed Plumb, who I know from another recent disaster in my life. The disaster was the 2009 Iditarod Trail Invitational, where I stepped through thin ice on Flathorn Lake, soaking and eventually freezing my right foot. Ed and I shared a room at the first checkpoint, where he snored away as I writhed through hours of the worst pain I’ve ever experienced, thawing a frostbitten foot. In the morning, Ed skied away and finished the race. I dropped out and went to the hospital. Now, ten months later, Ed tells me he’s started a new winter race in Fairbanks, Alaska. The White Mountains 100. It’s a great course. You’ll love it. “Everyone signed up is from Anchorage or Fairbanks,” he writes. “We need at least one person from Juneau.” I don’t write back to Ed immediately. Eventually I do. I’ll think about it, I tell him. At some point, during one of my late-night bursts of rage, I sign up. But I still mostly hate my bike.

Snowstorm near the finish line in 2011

***** 

It’s March 2010. The race will happen in a week from now. I haven’t trained. I want to quit my job, and still don’t care about racing. A trip to Fairbanks with its expensive flight and time away from the office is just too much right now. I’m about to write Ed and let him know I’m dropping out of the race, when I receive a call from a “friend,” in Juneau — actually a man I briefly dated, but we are definitely no longer dating. He needs to drive to Fairbanks next week. Maybe I want to join him? 

Now it’s March 18. My friend and I are boarding the ferry in his old Subaru with my dismantled Pugsley stuffed in the back seat. After the boat docks in Skagway, Fairbanks is still 700 miles away, over the wind-battered summit of White Pass and through hundreds of miles of mostly uninhabited taiga. My friend has made a single mix tape for his tape deck, and we listen to it over and over. Each song is a hollow echo in my heart; eventually I will hear this tape in my dreams.

Travel is a two-day affair, so we take a break to ski along the flanks of Sheep Mountain and camp near the shoreline of the frozen Slim River in Kluane National Park, Canada. It’s -10F, and the wind pummels our down coats as we sit on the snow blocks we scooped up to protect the tent, and listen to the wolves howl. My friend-psuedo-ex shows me how to make a hot drink by melting a Snickers Bar in boiling water. I think this is the first time I’ve been truly happy this year.

With Beat at the starting line in 2012

***** 

It’s March 21. The first day of spring. I’m riding shotgun in Ed’s old truck, on our way north from Fairbanks to the starting line of the White Mountains 100. Although I had previously visited during the summer of 2003, my memory of the region is vague — images of boreal forest, flat and unbroken as far as the eye can see. I suppose the name White Mountains 100 was lost on me, but I’m surprised by all of the hills. The truck rumbles up a dome and drops into a river valley. Ed, a professional weather geek, has a thermometer attached to the hood and wired to a digital display on top of the dash. At the top of the dome, the temperature was 5 degrees. Down here, it’s -18F. Ed giggles with delight. I tremble. Frostbite is still fresh in my memory, and still painful in my toes. I’m deathly afraid of the cold.

A fierce wind greets us at the Wickersham Dome, where the salmon-colored sun is casting its first rays on the ice at 7:15 a.m. I hoist my bike out of Ed’s truck. The steel frame burns my hands. Up on this dome I can see a long distance — steep, rolling hills over every horizon. Nobody told me about all of these hills. I’m so afraid that I am physically shivering, although that may just be the cold wind. But I drove out here with the race director, so there’s no backing out now.

At checkpoint one in 2010

***** 

The race starts. I take my place near the back and gasp up the first hill, drenching my base layer in sweat. We drop into a deep valley, where the temperature plummets 30 degrees in an instant. I’m so cold that I’m convulsing. The process repeats, for seemingly endless steep climbs and descents. I’m too cold and strung out to feel the burning from my undertrained legs and lungs. I suppose this is a good thing. A couple other cyclists and I are close together; we frequently gather to negotiate long sections of bumpy glare ice, known as overflow. Neither my bicycle tires nor my boots are studded, so I have to tiptoe across the ice with utmost care. Because of my previous experience with falling through ice, every loud crack or change of color in the overflow is heart-stoppingly scary.

I reach the first indoor checkpoint at mile 38, housed in an adorable little shelter cabin at the base of fierce-looking mountains. The volunteers offer a baked potato. No, I’m far too nauseated. I drink hot chocolate and press into the unknown.

The Cache Mountain Divide is Just. Unbelievably. Steep. Or perhaps not, but I am shattered. I stumble along, dragging my bike through the soft sidewalls of the trail. Several skiers pass, justifiably gloating at my anchor. Eventually I reach an altitude of 3,500 feet, which feels like the High Himalaya in Interior Alaska. The wind is howling but the snow-bound mountains fill my heart with warmth. It’s so beautiful.

I drop into a long descent on heavily drifted trail. I crash my bike a few times, leaving perfectly-pressed impressions of my body in the snow. At one point I’m face-down on the trail when I hear the cries of a skier above me. I grab my bike and roll into a drift with a fraction of a second to spare before he whisks past, unable to stop.

Soon I reach the edge of blue ice that fills the entire valley. These are the famous “Ice Lakes” I’d been warned about. The skier who called out to me and another are also there, taking off their skies and putting on microspikes. I am going to have to walk across this ice without spikes, dragging an unruly bike. It could be miles. But I am stranded out here, I suppose by choice, so I’m just going to have to gulp down my terror and keep going. With every step, the ice cracks and moans. I almost want the Ice Lake to open up and swallow me, just so I won’t have to feel so terrified anymore. Logically I know these lakes are actually just overflow and only a foot or so deep. This should make me feel better, but it doesn’t, because that only means more frostbite or slow death by hypothermia if I break through.

Above Beaver Creek in 2015

 ***** 

A semi-stupefied state wrought by fatigue and fear follows me to the end of the ice and all the way to checkpoint three, which I reach as the sun sets and casts dramatic orange light on the limestone cliffs. The little cabin is stiflingly hot. A volunteer offers me a small bowl of rice soup with three meatballs. I ask for more, and she says I cannot have more. I feel a little like Oliver Twist as I stumble, still stupefied, back into the cold.

Night falls. There’s a slow descent into a valley, where the cold is otherworldly. Frost builds on my balaclava. My legs have virtually died, and I can barely climb out of the valley. From there, the trail feels like sandpaper. I can barely turn pedals. I pass a number of skiers who passed me earlier in the day. They are shuffling along as though stupefied themselves. The cold seeps into my lower body. My butt and thighs are numb. I think about stopping to put on all of my layers, but then I see a sign announcing it’s one mile to the checkpoint. I pedal. I pedal some more. It’s the longest mile in the history of distance. By the time I reach the cabin at mile 78, I can’t feel anything.

 “It’s cold out there for me,” I announce. “Yeah, I’m from Juneau,” explaining that all I know is temperatures in the 30s and rain.

“It’s 25 below,” the volunteer replies. “It’s cold for everyone out there.” I gratefully accept a cup of hot coffee, but as soon as the volunteer hands it to me, my upper body starts convulsing so badly that I spill all of the coffee, every last drop, in a two-foot radius around my feet. I put the cup down, embarrassed, hoping nobody noticed.

I sit down on a bunk and remove my boots to add warmers. A skier in the other corner eyes me jealously. It’s Chris Wrobel, a man from Anchorage with whom I’d spent several hours chatting the evening before the race, about his adventures on the Iditarod Trail. He accidentally washed with conditioner, and his hair is handsomely coiffed at mile 78 of an endurance race, which will lead to a permanent nickname from the White Mountains 100 community, “Perfect Hair Chris.”

I catch his eye and think about giving him my foot warmers. My feet aren’t really that cold, amazingly, because every other part of my body is. Because Chris didn’t ask, I don’t offer, which is something I’d still feel guilty about a decade later. Because of his cold feet, Chris would end up spending a long time at the cabin, as would most of the other folks trapped there at 1 a.m. I remember advice the previous evening, offered by one of my heroes, Jeff Oatley: “If you get cold on Beaver Creek, keep going.”

I decide to keep going.

Fossil Creek Valley, 2018

 ***** 

I climb out of Beaver Creek. It’s not 25 below up on the ridge, but it’s still very cold, the wind is again howling, and there’s overflow everywhere. As I tiptoe across a long patch of ice, a skier skitters past me, not remotely in control. He crashes into the snow and stands up to brush himself off. He comments about the horrible sandpaper trail and I agree. I’m plodding but tires are still faster than skis on such snow, and as the overflow dissipates, I pick up speed. I’m alone again. I feel very alone.

I drop into yet another valley. In a few years from now, I will know this place well as the Wickersham Creek Valley, but on this night it is a place beyond the end of the world. The entire rest of the course is uphill — at least it feels that way, but that’s also pretty much the case. I can barely turn pedals. I am beyond exhausted, perhaps more so than I have ever been — even when I had to walk for 30 miles in my first Susitna 100, and even I fell asleep on my bike during my first trip to McGrath, and even more so than any point in my emotionally fraught Tour Divide. Then again, our fresh emotions are always the most dramatic.

Amid exhaustion, I look up at the sky. Stars fill the black abyss, and the moon is a golden egg. I think I can see its yellow reflection on the trail, and this fills my heart with warmth. Suddenly I understand, intrinsically, that I will leave my job, and I will move away from Juneau, and I will strike out alone into the unknown. And I also understand, intrinsically, that everything will be okay. I’m filled with such gratitude I can hardly contain it. If you get cold in life, keep going.

The finish-line tent, 2010

***** 

At mile 90, I reach the Wickersham Wall. There are no emotions to contain the Wickersham Wall. It is an impenetrable fortress, an impossible divide, as terrible and soul-crushing as any physical barrier known to humans. In a few years from now, I will know this place as a reasonably steep snow climb that gains 800 feet in one mile. But on this night it is Everest. I take two steps and my leg muscles cramp. I take two more steps and stop to catch my breath. Every sinew in my body feels torn and ragged. I will never make it up this wall. But I have to. I have no choice. Keep going.

Time trickles by on a geological scale. The wall relents, and there are still some miles left to the finish. I am stupefied when I reach it, but I know it has happened, because suddenly there is artificial light and a trailer. A volunteer steps outside to point me to a propane-heated tent. Inside the tent is not really that warm, so wrap up in the sleeping bag I carried around the course. Checking to ensure the other person inside the tent is asleep, I burst out in a good cry. I’m so overwhelmed. The only way I can describe this emotion is love. I am in love with the White Mountains. I know I’ll never be the same.

With Beat at the start in 2015

***** 

Between 2010 and 2018, I raced the White Mountains 100 six times. Four times on a bike, and twice on foot. In 2010 I finished in 22:23, my slowest bike time. In 2011 and 2012 Beat and I started the race together (me on a bike, him on foot) and I rolled to 18- and 20-hour finishes. My fastest finish was 11:34 in 2014. My two foot finishes were 29:54 in 2015 and 33:59 on pre-tenderized legs in 2018. I skipped the race in 2013 because I didn’t make it through the lottery, 2016 because that was the year I rode my bike to Nome, and 2017 because I was sick, but I did volunteer at checkpoint one that year. My sub-30-hour finish in 2015 remains my best hundred-mile ultramarathon, much to my dismay (because the White Mountains 100 is absolutely a walking effort for me, and I have tried to run other hundreds.)

Still, physical challenge or accomplishment is not remotely the reason I keep going back. The White Mountains 100 is beautiful and hard and filled with friendly volunteers and interesting participants, but those are also not the only reasons it’s my favorite race. I have true affection for both the event and the region. This affection runs deeper than most of my experiences. The White Mountains 100 entered my life at exactly the right time. When I heard that the second race director, Joel Homan, was leaving the event after 2018, I surprised myself by feeling real despair. I believed the White Mountains 100 would go away, and it was disheartening.

Earlier this week, Fairbanks cyclist and previous winner Kevin Breitenbach announced he will take over race directing, and I was overjoyed. I don’t even know if I’ll race the White Mountains 100 again (I probably will, given the opportunity) … but the simple fact that the race will live on made my week. I love the White Mountains.