Switchback

Last week, Beat headed out to the Bay Area for a business trip. I planned to tag along for the weekend, for a whirlwind visit of old friends and a little 50K trail run in the Marin Headlands. But for a few days after Beat left I was anchored at home, where I enjoyed a blizzard, icy wind, a subzero cold snap, more icy wind and sunshine, all in the span of two days. 

 I suppose saying I was anchored at home is misleading, because I did venture out. Wednesday brought a blizzard and some reasonable cold — near zero in the morning, only climbing as high as 7 degrees when I headed out for an afternoon ride. The riding was tricky, with erratic tire ruts through several inches of snow over ice. Wind drifts were already more than a foot high. I descended to the reservoir, where I skimmed along the shoreline, following what really looked like a rectangular sled track skimming over faint footprints. It was the exact kind of track an Iditarod walker would make. The track veered onto the lake ice, heading toward the deep end before disappearing into the mist. I couldn't tell where the track led, but I was intensely curious. Who was this strange sled-dragger walking into a blizzard onto sketchy reservoir ice? I was much too frightened of sketchy ice — knowing recent temperatures had topped 55 degrees — to investigate. But the whole atmosphere — the blowing snow, frigid wind chill, flat visibility, and having seen no other vehicles on the road — was unsettlingly eery. Chills rippled through my limbs when I imagined the ghost sled-dragger who haunted the shoreline of Gross Reservoir.

 I caught a chill while descending from the reservoir, so I threw on my puffy jacket. As I climbed, the wind intensified and I became colder and colder. Damn it; I'd already put on my extra layers. This was a good puffy jacket. Why was I so cold? I started to think back to the many adventures of Thermoball and remembered that I acquired this jacket way back in 2013. Six years is a fairly long lifespan for a well-loved primaloft puffy. The insulation is likely not as effective as it once was. Gusts of wind drove what was certainly a subzero windchill right into my core. The pedaling was too tricky and slow to generate enough heat, so near the top of the climb I spent a few minutes off the bike and running. That actually worked, but I had another descent coming. I knew my only choice was to suffer, but then I'd be at home. Man, I was so happy to roll up to my house. I know I've had a number of posts about not being well-prepared for weather conditions, but I really thought I had it this time. Maybe it was just my hormone levels on this day, or lowish glycogen, or a failing insulation layer. Winter comfort is forever a puzzle to solve.

 Thursday morning dawned clear and a startling 11 degrees below zero. This is the day of the week that I need to transport our trash down to the county road by 7 a.m. I hadn't expected the cold to sink in so rapidly, and trundled outside in my pajama bottoms and regular running shoes with no hat or gloves — luckily I at least put on a down coat.

 It was a beautiful morning to be out and about, with frost crystals adding sparkle to mundane objects, pink and gold lighting up the sky, and new snow billowing from tree branches. As I rounded a corner, a large elk herd had spread out all over the road.

 Seeing me, they moved away and bunched closer together, and I didn't find my camera before they were well beyond close range for my point-and-shoot. But I had fun walking the perimeter of the road, watching them ... that is, until the -11F air sliced through my cotton jammies and exposed ears and fingers.

 Bear and South Boulder peaks in the background.

 I still lingered much too long, enjoying the views as I wiggled my toes while walking and stuffed my hands under my armpits. As soon as my ears went numb, I knew I couldn't stay much longer. Instead I dropped off the trash and returned to my still sort of frigid house. Subzero air outside drove the inside temperature down to 51 degrees. We supplement electric heat with a wood stove, which I was both too lazy and too reluctant to fire up, knowing I was leaving in the afternoon. Instead I bundled up for real and sat at the dining room table. No doubt I looked silly drinking my coffee while wearing expedition gear indoors, but it was a great vantage point to watch the elk, which I could still see in the field below.

 An couple of hours later it had warmed up to 5 degrees, accompanied by strong winds. I finally got out for my pre-race shakedown run. I surprised myself by feeling really reluctant to go outside — remembering how cold I'd been the previous day, and my ears still hurt because I'd willfully flirted with frostnip in the morning. I was standing at the door with all of my gear on, playing all of the quitting excuses in my mind. None of them were convincing enough, so again I trundled into the frigid (so frigid) wind.

As soon as I started running, the cold didn't bother me at all, but my legs felt terrible. Just heavy, stiff and somehow incapable of the running motion. Inches of fresh snow did not help, nor did the bumpy ice hidden beneath the powder. I wore studded shoes, but I still slipped every fourth step or so. Whether or not a planted foot would find traction remained a mystery, and I submitted to walking most of four miles. I won't say this run is solely responsible for destroying my confidence, but it did me no favors.

"I am such a terrible runner. I can't even stay on my feet in a few inches of snow. I need to admit I'm a hiker and give this up. Damn it, running, why can't I quit you?"

 I flew out of Denver on Thursday afternoon, and woke up Friday morning in Sunnyvale, California, where it was — cold and rainy and windy. Earlier that week, the Santa Cruz Mountains had seen their first snowfall in nearly a decade. Another big storm was approaching. Temperatures were in the 40s at sea level and the day promised to be wet and gray. As I played the excuse reel, my mind reminded me in strong terms that "rest is best." But my heart wanted to visit a good old friend, Black Mountain. I borrowed my friend Liehann's Moots YBB, which is just like my beloved Moots YBB, except for being recently converted to a drop-bar gravel bike. Still, for a bike that is not my bike, we get along really well.


Moots and I headed west from Sunnyvale toward a truly missed old friend, Montebello Road. My Strava has on record 157 ascents of Montebello, and I admittedly looked up my PR, wondering how I'd fare in the post-fitness-crash era of 2019. So of course, a day before this 50K race over which I'd psyched myself to the point of dread, I found myself effectively racing up Montebello Road. I wasn't pushing the red line — I'd resolved to keep my heart rate in the 150s or lower — but I was going much harder than I should have been. At the top, my watch said 50 minutes, and I felt devastated. "Fifty minutes? I think I did better than that when I did 10 of these in a row." And once again, I was looking back on the ghost of 2015 Jill, filled with regret.

It's quite silly, but heading into this trip, I scrutinized my stats and race report from the Golden Gate 50K in February 2015, and made a plan of sorts. I wanted to prove to myself that I could be every bit as good as 2015 Jill, when I had no reason to believe this was a reasonable goal. I also had no reason to be so sad about a slowish Montebello. This bike loaded with stuff probably weighs twice what my road bike weighs. Anyway, as it turned out the climb time ranked 80 out of 157, so I can't complain about middle of the road. Rather, my sadness was a side effect of low confidence rearing its ugly head. I recognized this as I continued up to Black Mountain, where I sat on a rock in the cold, cold wind to take in the gray-shrouded views. My entire body was racked with shivering, but I did feel more at peace.

 I bundled up for the descent. The added gear included vapor barrier socks under fleece socks, a furry fleece buff, wind shell, mittens, and a warmer hat. I was effectively as bundled up as I'd been at 7 degrees with a harsh wind on Wednesday, minus the nonworking puffy jacket. But I'd let my core temperature drop too much while sitting on Black Mountain, and became deeply chilled as I descended a series of muddy trails to Page Mill Road.

"Aw, Page Mill, it's just like old times," I said out loud — meaning I'm not sure I've ever descended Page Mill in the winter and not frozen every part of my body. This canyon is a refrigerator on a good day. I managed to continue steering the bike with completely numb arms and made it back to Sunnyvale just five minutes before the gray sky unleashed a deluge that lasted well into the evening.

I didn't want to admit to myself how tired I felt after this ride — the hard climb, the cold temperatures, the three-hour-and-fifteen-minute duration that would certainly extract its fair share from the energy bank. I had made poor choices this week, but now was not the time to dwell on them. Now was the time to gather what scraps of confidence I could find in the wreckage, because the Golden Gate 50K was going to be hard. 

Groundhog Bear

While I was taking my recent break from racing, I ruminated on what my future in endurance sports might look like. After three-plus years of medical treatments, I had come to believe that I'd just always have to deal with "the breathing thing." Unless I learned to manage my breathing with more consistency, every goal I made would be steeped in uncertainty. Only one thing was certain — I am no longer interested in stubbornly gutting things out for the sake of gutting them out. I do not want to spend another minute of my life at that ragged, gasping edge. Fumbling forward through desperately hard breathing and dizziness isn't "Type 2 Fun." I don't just not enjoy this experience  — I fear and despise it with every fiber of my being. My passion for racing is driven by a desire to "live intensely" and my breathing difficulties cause the opposite — a sensation of slowly dying. 

With that in mind, as recently as October I still believed I might just quit racing forever. But I am a creature of habit. And for an avowed pessimist, I have a streak of abiding optimism as well. I still enjoyed good weeks, effortless rides and runs when miles flowed out of my legs like music. I still wanted to visit the hard edge — not the edge where I feel like I'm dying, but the one where I feel most alive. But where do I go with this desire? I can't just pick up the shattered pieces of my passion and continue to climb the ladder where I left off — the upper rung being the 1,000-mile ride to Nome in 2016. 

During one of my good patches last August, I started riding with a new friend in the region who's a relative novice in endurance racing. She started dabbling in competitive fat biking about a year ago, and wants to keep climbing that ladder. She has big dreams, and I envy the newness of her journey — the wide-eyed experimentation, the willingness to learn and change, the difficulties and discoveries. I've done what I can to pass some of my experience on to her. In turn, she's helped me realized where I need to go — back to the beginning. 

Betsy wanted to sign up for The Bear, advertised as a 50-mile fat bike race (it was closer to 45 miles) in the mountains north of Steamboat Springs, Colorado. The course, wrapping around big peaks and ridges on groomed snowmobile trails, had more than 5,000 feet of climbing. My feelings about The Bear wavered from "but I'm terrible at mid-distance bike races" to "that's still going to be a tough effort" to "wait, this is Colorado fat biking. It's probably going to be a 16-hour slog." None of these convictions created much desire, but Betsy was so excited for her longest race yet, and some of that excitement transferred over to me. The Bear did sound like a fun event. Shortly after I returned from the Christmas trip to Fairbanks — which gifted me with considerably more confidence in my fitness — I signed up. 

 We made a fun weekend out of it, heading out Friday morning under blazing sunny skies. We stayed at the start — a rustic and Alaska-like place called Hahn's Peak Roadhouse — and shared a small cabin with Betsy's teammate, Mark (Betsy is part of a bike shop team.) It was great fun to meet many of the folks racing the next day. This sport draws in an eclectic and eccentric group of cyclists. Still, at least compared to the Alaska contingent in winter endurance racing, these folks seemed to skew toward the athletic and serious end of the spectrum. For a small race, there were a number of sponsored riders, semi-pros, and according to Betsy, fast ladies (There were nine women in a field of 33, which is solid percentage.) I suppose we are in Colorado, after all.

We arrived early enough on Friday to pre-ride the course. Afternoon temperatures were in the high-30s. I almost let all of the air out of my tires in anticipation of mashed potato slop, but held off when Mark mentioned he planned to start at 6 psi. See, I am still a novice when it comes to fat biking in Colorado, and there's much I can learn from these folks. We set out for the first five miles of the course, which in itself had more than 1,000 feet of climbing. Mark just shot up the hill.

"Whoa, is Mark fast?" I asked Betsy.

"He's an animal," she replied nonchalantly. (Mark would go on to win the race in 4:18, beating the second guy by 10 minutes.)

Trail conditions were surprisingly solid despite the warm temperatures and blazing high-altitude sunshine. The trail was a bit churned up by snowmobile traffic, but rideable, even on the steeper inclines. I was shocked. It was such a beautiful day that I wanted to just keep riding. We were halfway up the first big climb when Betsy expressed trepidation about burning out her legs right before the race. It was such a gorgeous day with beautiful buttery climbing that I was like a husky on a harness, eager to run and run. Left to my own devices, I probably would have kept riding until dark, and that wouldn't have been great for my legs either. Save it for the mid-distance "fast" race, Jill. I have much to learn.

 The race started at 8 a.m. Feb. 2. Groundhog Day. The date was significant for me. Like many children of the 80s, this pseudo holiday conjures up memories of Bill Murray, repetitive experiences and finally breaking free after an eternity of mistakes. I was racing again. Sure, I had my share of rough experiences and failures, but this time would be different. This time, I would just ride and breathe. Ride and breathe. That's all I had to do. So simple. Why hadn't I thought of this before?

I am still a creature of habit, and came fully prepared if the riding and breathing strategy didn't work out. Watching the weather before the race, with pre-race snow dumps followed by warm temperatures and another big storm forecast to hit that night, I showed up for the race prepared for a 16-hour slog. I had a day's worth of food, emergency repair and survival kits, and enough extra warm layers to wait out a possible breathing attack. My initial gear list would have doubtlessly made all of those fast guys shudder. Luckily the pre-ride convinced me to remove half of the stuff from my bike bags. I probably should have removed all of it, but the pessimist in me will never allow such hubris. So I was a bit loaded down, but my legs felt springy as we launched uphill through the mountain village and onto freshly-groomed corduroy.

 For the first five miles, I rode in a tight pack of four to five ladies with no dudes in sight. Betsy and I traded positions on the rollers as the morning quickly warmed from a brisk 2 or 3 degrees to the teens and then 20s. The groomed track was coated in a thin layer of spindrift that caused slipping on the steeper climbs, but beyond that conditions were just about as good as they can be.

The first climb steepened and I developed my race strategy — at least the one that was a bit more specific than ride and breathe. My watch was set so I could monitor my speed and heart rate. If my pace dropped below 2.5mph, I'd step off the bike and push, because that was more efficient. If my heart rate climbed above 155, I'd back off further, as that "Zone 4" territory is where my oxygen saturation seems to drop off right now (this number has been much lower in the past, but my recent tests have shown ongoing improvement and boosted my confidence to push little harder.) Rough breathing in Zone 4 is probably pretty normal. Still, once I lose control of my breathing, everything after that has always been a downward spiral. So a conservative approach toward maintaining control was my overarching goal.

 Here I am pushing my bike up the second big climb, an intense 20-percent grade where the groomer decided to climb straight up a drainage rather than follow any kind of nicely graded track. (Also, the helmet. Almost no winter cyclist in Alaska wears a helmet while nearly everyone in Colorado does. I actually wavered on this because even in warmer temperatures, wearing a helmet makes my ears feel cold. But once you get started down these hills, speeds easily approach 30 mph, and hidden ruts can make for spectacular yard-sale crashes. Helmets are a really good idea.) Anyway, this climb was a mandatory big effort with my heart rate sustained in the high 150s for almost 45 minutes at 10,000 feet and I did not feel dizzy. Do you know how huge this is for me? I don't think many folks understand.

The view from the top of the climb, which continued to follow the rolling spine of a ridge for five miles. Hikers like to call these hills "Pointless Ups and Downs" because they're endlessly steep and gain no real altitude. But since we were already at the top, I loved this section. I'd coast downhill at high speed and then stand on the pedals and mash a big gear until my legs faltered to nothing, then I'd jump off the bike and push. While approaching one of the climbs, a couple of race marshals stopped their snowmobiles and began filming. I was in far too high of a gear but continued to mash the pedals, just to save face, until I felt like I might faint and faltered off the bike. "Oh, so close," the guy filming groaned. "Thanks dude," I grumbled under my breath. Race photographers are so good at capturing the most humiliating moments.


The descent off the ridge was fast and fun and more than a little bit scary. And just like that, I'd looped the top half of the course's figure 8 and was back at the aid station with just 10 miles to go. I felt great, like this race was just getting started, and was disappointed that it was almost over. Ah, mid-distance racing. I shot past the aid station because I was still carrying way too much food and water. All I could have accomplished there was standing around and getting cold. Derek — a veteran of multiple tough Fat Pursuit races who would definitely win the award for the most entertaining Bear racer — was standing under the canopy working on his third shot of whiskey. He chided me for not stopping.

After the turn from the aid station, trail conditions rapidly deteriorated — the result of temperatures in the 30s and heavy snowmobile traffic now that it was after noon on a Saturday. A woman, Beth, pedaled past me shortly after I stopped to air down my tires. Should I try racing now? I wondered. I was feeling really good, and with less than 10 miles to go I didn't have a lot to lose by pushing my pace. Beth cut a track through the mashed potatoes and I did my best to hold her line. She was strong. My legs and lungs were just barely able to hold on. During a long descent, she disappeared from view.

I nearly caught back up along a half-mile segment of pavement. Then we hit the final, steep, extremely churned up climb. I did that thing where I cling to an "I'm good at dragging sleds" mentality and try to push my bike as fast as the folks around me are riding. I managed to pass two men, but couldn't keep up with Beth. She was burying me. My resolve was slipping. One thing I lack, sometimes much to my dismay, is true competitive drive. Beth was still in sight as we neared the final descent, which was squirrelly and scary with a huge drop into a ravine to the right. I was all over the trail while skidding with locked brakes at 7 miles per hour. Beth was gone.

"Let the better rider win," I said out loud. (I knew we weren't battling for first woman. But any mid-packer will tell you that they race who they race, and that can be just as fun.) Yes, racing is fun. It's not worth breaking an arm.

Beth finished a full five minutes before me, which really shows me how far behind I am in my snow handling skills. But I did skim into fourth place after six hours and 21 minutes. I finished around a large contingent of dudes, including Graham, the Kiwi former professional rugby player who is training for the Iditarod Trail Invitational 350 and raced fully loaded. We stood around at the gas pump telling our war stories and sharing tips about racing in Alaska.

Mark, who'd finished two hours earlier and was already showered and rested, came out to join the party. Betsy finished about 90 minutes later, tired but satisfied. The best finish of the race, however, was Erika, who rolled into the roadhouse after dark, after the awards ceremony was completed and more than 10 hours had passed. Her drivetrain imploded and all she could do was push or coast. But since she was also training for the ITI 350, she knew she needed a mental victory and resolved to walk it in rather than quit. Invaluable training in fortitude.

All in all, The Bear was a fantastic, fun, well-organized event. If the timing works out I'll definitely be back, but I'll be even happier if they reinstate a 100-mile event.

More than I bargained for

Forgive me, winter, for I have sinned. Long weeks of playing in your shadow lulled me into complacency. I was impetuous and I was arrogant. I didn't show you respect. For this I was punished. 

 It started with a Wednesday morning "run" to Bear Peak. I'd just been out on these trails two days earlier, and expected similar conditions. But while I was holed up inside all day on Tuesday, you blasted these little mountains with several inches of snow. Wednesday brought gale-force winds. Gusts shook my car violently as I suited up at the Cragmoor trailhead: a thin pair of tights, the tiniest pair of gloves, my summer Hokas, hat, long-sleeved shirt, a thin shell, and — luckily — short hiking gaiters and microspikes. I followed a single set of footprints through the Styrofoam snow, skittering over hidden patches of ice.

 I crested the saddle, ending my relative protection from the wind. The blasts were Arctic in proportion and feel; wind whisked the breath from my lungs if I faced it directly. The footprints I'd been following disappeared beneath thigh-high drifts. The trail was invisible as well, but it's simple enough here to just follow the ridge. I punched my own bottomless postholes up the steep incline. It was thirsty work and my drinking water hose had long since frozen. Still, reaching the peak was exhilarating. There was one other person up there, a man who hiked from Shadow Canyon. He was wearing hard boots and carrying an ice ax, and gave me a "silly trail runner" side-eye as I expressed my plan to carry on to Green Mountain.

 I shouldn't have been surprised, but still was, when Monday's friendly route down the west ridge had been erased. Now it was a mire of snow drifts as deep as my waist in spots. "Where did all this snow come from?" I marveled. It probably blew in from miles away, based on the gusts still pummeling my face. About a quarter of a mile and 20 minutes into my descent, I knew I was in some trouble. My feet ached with cold, but the pain was diminishing, which is always a bad sign — numbness means frostbite. I'd been complacent and thought I could get down the ridge quickly and start running, but that was obviously not going to happen. Now my options were to turn around for the slow hike back to my car, or continue knowing the trail intersected the road to my house in another mile. So I continued, slogging through the thigh-deep drifts and tracing the general route from memory, with single-minded focus on my wooden feet.

Within another half mile I was back in the forest. Sheltered from the flash-freezing wind, my core temperature rose quickly, which brought pain, and then life, back to my feet. At the road intersection I decided not to go home — where I still would have needed to figure out how to get back to the car — and instead continued toward Green. The trail remained unbroken, and I made comical efforts to "run" through the Styrofoam drifts.  In Boulder's weird way it felt hot for a while, and I was stripping layers less than an hour after my intense brush with cold distress. The slog never let up for a second, though, with deep drifts replaced by slush and mud as I traversed around the base of the mountains. Thirteen miles took me five and a half hours. My legs were cooked, but thankfully my feet weren't frozen.

 So, Thursday. I was sufficiently humbled, or so I thought, and was not going to venture outside. Snow fell all morning long, leaving six to eight more inches on the ground. I worked on a project, did some housework, felt blissfully grateful that I had nowhere to be. Then the sun came out. Suddenly it was one of those sharp bluebird afternoons with frosty air and new snow. How could I not take my bike out for a little ride on a day like this? "It will just be an hour," I reasoned.

 All I did was suit up and jump on my bike. I didn't carry extra layers or food; I didn't even bring any water. The temperature was 18 degrees and the omnipresent west wind kicked up with surprising fury. Clumps of snow rocketed from tree branches, with an glittery effect that was mesmerizing.

 I arrived at the eastward turn toward home, and instead followed the siren call of the wind, pedaling west. What can I say? I'm a weird human who feels most alive along the hard edges of existence. Blowing snow pummeled my face and I felt this as an infusion of power. Exhilarating energy prompted me to continue ever farther from my neighborhood, toward the deserted reservoir road, where no one would find my unconscious body for hours if I were to crash. But I felt invincible. I descended all the way to the bottom of the canyon and saw that the road toward the dam was freshly plowed. I'd never explored this route before, and again couldn't resist.

Now I was an hour and a half into my "short" ride, and finally acknowledging that I had a fair amount of climbing left in the ride home, the hard wind was beginning to needle through my only layers, and I was thirsty. But I just wanted to see where this road led. It kept climbing and climbing, and I questioned my sanity, but my resolve was locked in. Finally, just minutes from the top, I approached a massive snow plow. He was the only human I'd seen since I turned away from the road home.

The driver stopped his vehicle. "Great, I'm probably not supposed to be here," I thought. As I pulled up beside the plow, feeling penitent and ready to receive my verbal warning, the driver stuck his head out the passenger-side window and yelled, "I just want to let you know that you're my hero."

Ha! "Oh, uh, thanks," I muttered. "I mean, thanks for plowing the road. You make this too easy."

Weird and awkward thing to say, but what can I say? I'm a middle-age woman shirking weekday afternoon duties to pedal a bike through a frigid windstorm on a road to nowhere. I'm the definition of weird and awkward. But thank you, Mr. Snow Plow Guy. You made my afternoon, and it was already a great afternoon.

 So, Saturday. Beat had been wanting to get out for one more overnight shakedown with his Nome sled. At first I wasn't going to join — sled-dragging has been rough on my hamstrings, and I have my own races coming up that won't benefit from a pulled leg muscle. But, unsurprisingly, I became greedy for adventure. Our friend Daniel recommended Homestake Reservoir Road. He mentioned something about a piston-bully groomer, and good campsites along the way. I looked up the location and noted low avalanche danger. We debated enduring the misery of I-70 traffic and discussed local options, but there were high winds again this weekend. Towns near Homestake were supposed to have mild — but at least not horrifically windy — weather. Leadville's forecast called for a high of 28 and a low of 15.

 So we headed all the way out there. Traffic was awful, and the roads were so nasty that we ran out of windshield washer fluid. I threw a little temper tantrum and threatened to turn this car around and go home. By the time we hit the trail it was 2:30 p.m., much later than we hoped. It was a beautiful day, though — 24 degrees with a breeze just stiff enough to necessitate layers, dramatic views of red cliffs and snowy peaks, and whole lot of high-altitude sunshine.

Homestake Reservoir Road showed no evidence of grooming, at least not since several feet of snow had fallen. There was a single, soft skin track that had seen limited use — we chatted with the skiers who set the track on their way out. Dusk had settled in by the time we reached the end of their trail, about six miles into our hike. A sign said it was three more miles to the reservoir, but it would turn out to be closer to four. We knew these would be slow miles of trail breaking, and also that we could camp anywhere we wanted. But the reservoir was our goal. We were locked in.

 The road pitched upward on a series of steep switchbacks, which where buried in two to three feet of windblown snow. We were punching to our knees even while wearing snowshoes. The snow had that strange consistency of Styrofoam, but felt as heavy as cement and broke away in large clumps. Every step strained the limits of my hopelessly tight hamstrings. My heart and lungs were nearly maxed out as well on "The Endless Stairmaster," as Beat calls such trail-breaking.

I didn't even realize how slowly we were going, but our pace had dropped to a truly glacial mile per hour. The night deepened. Beat sputtered to a stop and I took my turn up front. Hot blood surged through my limbs and every drop of energy and focus went into the effort. I lost track of time. Hours passed into nothingness. Onerous inches slowly became miles. A touch of cold found its way into my butt and shoulders. My feet started to hurt with cold whenever I wasn't the one breaking trail. I debated putting on another layer, but I was already drenched in sweat.

 We reached an intersection just below the dam and decided it would be a great spot to camp out of the wind, but still elected to climb to the reservoir because, well, I suppose we'd locked in. It was another three quarters of a mile of intensely steep climbing. Beat was struggling more than I realized. His feet had become numb, and he hadn't taken in calories in a while. I looked at my watch, which was about to tick over to seven hours. Seven hours? For eleven miles? Where did all of that time go? We trudged up to the frozen shoreline, noted the mountain scenery that we could scarcely make out with no moon in the sky, and rushed back to our designated camp spot. Beat looked at his thermometer.

"It's minus 1," he announced.

Wait, what? When did it get so cold?"

 We stomped out a clearing and set up Beat's lightweight winter tent, which both of us should know by now is not the way to go. I thought it would be nice to snuggle in together, but there's a reason bivy sacks are the much more popular option for winter racing. When you're sweaty and bonked and the temperature is below zero, you benefit most from immediately hopping into your sleeping bag. We wasted all this time setting up the tent, and by then Beat had lost use of his hands and I'd started to shiver. We jumped into our bags, but those, too, were just as cold as the subzero outside. And when your body is depleted and damp, sleeping bags do not warm up quickly.

 The minutes passed like hours and I was painfully alert, shivering until my feet went numb and then massaging my toes with stiff fingers. There was nowhere warm to escape to, and while I knew things would be okay, those long minutes felt desperate. Meanwhile, Beat was deeply bonked and complaining of nausea. I had a bottle of Diet Pepsi in my sled bag — I didn't want to leave it to freeze in the car — so I ventured outside to find it. The soda did that crazy thing where it was mostly liquid, and then as soon as I cracked the lid (outside, thankfully) it instantly turned to slush and exploded everywhere. There was a small amount of carbonated liquid left, which Beat drank to help settle his stomach. Minutes later he rushed out of the tent to vomit — I didn't realize this until he told me about it the next day. But I could tell that he, too, felt similar desperation. I thought this was interesting, with all of his Alaska experience — but winter can catch anyone off guard, anywhere. We had made mistakes. We worked too hard and let ourselves become too sweaty, we didn't deal with our nagging issues — such as bonking and cold feet — when they first cropped up, and we hadn't expected subzero temperatures and thus didn't approach the night with the proper preparations. We'd been complacent, and we'd have to pay the fine.

 I must have dozed off, because seeming minutes after the Diet Pepsi episode it was midnight, and I finally felt warm. Our tent door was still wide open, so Beat got up to close it. We discussed making dinner and decided it was worth it, so we crawled outside in our down coat and pants to sit in the snow and fiddle with our stoves. It was now minus 10, and we finally weren't desperately cold anymore. Still, a hot drink and a few calories would make everything even better. My first sip of hot chocolate was an amazing elixir of life — I could genuinely feel warmth surging into my toes.

During our midnight dinner I drank so much hot water that of course I needed to get up three more times in the night to pee, and hardly slept otherwise. Instead I laid in my sleeping bag with my drinking water pressed against my back, marveling at the miracle of warmth. When I stepped outside, minus 10 air surrounded me and I'd look up at the sky, with its stars upon stars, and the snow-capped mountains now illuminated by a wedge of moon, and marvel at everything.

 It was a long but magical night. We arose at dawn to find we'd climbed far above the valley below. The views and morning light were gorgeous, and we were in a rare place to feel like the only people in all of Colorado. Then it was time to hike out, and we learned that the walking had not become much easier despite the downhill grade and cold temps to set up our track. My legs were half dead and my "bad" hamstring — a grumpy little muscle in my right leg — was throbbing in a way that was disconcerting.

"If I can't race in Steamboat next week because of this, I'm going to be mad at myself," I thought.

Then again, the beauty, the intensity of the experience, the hard but invaluable lessons — it was worth it.

So thank you, winter, for the trials that come my way. Lead and guide me away from comfort and complacency, toward understanding and joy. Amen.