Glance under the hood

Beat and I are in Berlin, Germany, for his dad’s 80th birthday. It’s been a whirlwind week with lots of family time and less outdoor activity, so it seems a good time to post about the DEXA Scan I had on June 28.

Several weeks ago, I received an offer for a free scan in exchange for writing about the experience on my blog. I receive dozens of freebie offers on an annual basis, and usually ignore them because this isn’t a gear blog, and although I don't care to limit the content here, reviews rarely seem worth the effort. But I am a sucker for data … and it seemed like this data could be useful for planning my strength training for upcoming winter ambitions. So I signed up.

DEXA is an acronym for dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry. In a nutshell, this scan uses low-energy X-ray beams to measure body mass — parsing out lean mass, body fat, and bone. Most often these scans are used to measure bone mineral density, often in older folks with higher risk for fractures and osteoporosis. In recent years, DEXA has become more popular among athletes as one of the most accurate ways to measure body fat and predict muscle mass. I had my scan done at an office in Denver called Body Fat USA. It’s quick and painless — you just lie down on a table for six minutes, and then a technician spends another 20 minutes going over the results. The explanations only scratch the surface of the data, so if you don’t do much research before (as I hadn’t), you may walk away a little confused. However, it’s nice to have the data in hand for subsequent research.

I looked forward to learning my bone mineral density, as I carry several risk factors for early-onset osteoporosis — white woman with hyperthyroidism. So I had some concerns, but the news was good. My number landed me in the 91st percentile for women my age. Perhaps this is the reason why I can take so many hard falls but have yet to break a bone, besides toes. Typically people aren’t scanned for bone density until they have a problem, and by then there’s no way of knowing how much they’ve deteriorated from normal. I think this will prove to be useful baseline data to have on record as I grow older.

The most controversial information from DEXA Scan is body fat. It’s controversial because while DEXA is considered the most accurate test there is, it still has an error rate around 5 percent. It also measures all body fat, including hidden sources such as intramusclar fat and brain tissue, so the numbers read higher than your typical caliper test. I wasn’t expecting a great result, but it did prove discouraging — 29 percent. Discouraging, but not surprising. For much of my adult life, my weight sat near 135 pounds. Then, like many people with Graves Disease, I packed on weight after I started on anti-thyroid medication. In the past two years, I’ve been as high as 150 pounds — during “slumps” when I’m feeling less well, I also seem to skew heavier — and am currently sitting at 145.0. (Official DEXA scan weight. The scan also put me at 67.5 inches, which is a half inch taller than I thought I was.)

There was always hope that the weight was more muscle I was able to build once my thyroid hormone levels normalized, but now it’s clear that I’m carrying at least 10 pounds of fat I don’t really need. It’s also clear that not hauling that fat around will boost my long-range endurance. So, I should probably try to lose that weight. Grumble, grumble. I have historically been not great at dieting or restrictive eating, so I’m going to go the old-fashioned slow route of adding protein while cutting sugar and tracking calories through the rest of the summer, and then assess. (After we return from Germany. There's just too many delicious foods here. Look at me, I'm already making excuses.)

For me, the most interesting and useful part of the DEXA Scan was lean mass balance, which parses out the amount of muscle in each limb. Through the scan I learned I am carrying a full 1.1 pounds more muscle in my left leg versus my right — a severe imbalance that can lead to injury. My right leg is the one I injured during the Bryce 100, which I’ve been working to rehab since. However, I’ve also ramped up my cycling mileage, which allowed me to heavily favor my left leg in order to generate the power necessary to climb hills. Still, I wonder if I developed this imbalance in the short span of the six weeks I’ve been injured, or whether this is a problem I’ve had much longer. Such an imbalance could have indirectly led to my current injury — adductor strain and MCL tear. Either way, I now know I have work to do. One-legged squats, ugh. And I’ll be able to take this info to my physical therapist next week, to gain more insight from her.

Overall, the information from the DEXA Scan will be useful in planning my training for the next few months, and I’m glad I had this opportunity. The data is interesting enough that I will probably pay the $100 for another scan in six or seven months, to see whether I’ve moved toward improvements I hope to make.

To learn more about DEXA Scans, visit https://dexascan.com.

Summer snow

I took my first steps back toward hiking and running this week. It's never the triumphant return I visualize at the onset of injury. Fitness has faded. The wobble-leg remains. Every little tinge from my knee raises alarm, and my leg muscles still feel unreasonably tight and sore. I long for freedom in motion, and instead find weakness and uncertainty. 

Here I am on my first hike in five weeks. When I announced my plan to walk up Mount Sanitas, Beat protested loudly. I balked. "I don't think you realize all of the hard biking I've been doing for the past few weeks," I argued, reasoning that my knee has already handled a lot of strenuous movement without incident. Beat put on his stern face, so I reluctantly amended my plan to the Sanitas Valley. Turns out he was right. I wasn't ready for a mountain. Under weight-bearing motion, my right leg tired quickly, and felt like it might buckle. I dug in my trekking poles and concentrated on the position of my hips and shoulders in an effort to realign by balance. It was a rather boring slog, but the morning was gorgeous and the Boulder foothills are as green as I've ever seen them, especially for late June. By the end of this four-mile meander, I felt like I regained control. This gave me a surge of exhilarating confidence. 

Here I am on my second hike, three days later. Look how happy I am, drenched in sweat and surrounded by fresh snow! This was the Great Summer Solstice Storm, an abnormally cold system that dumped as much as two feet of snow at higher altitudes in northern Colorado. I watched it in the forecast for days, and told Beat of my plans to go to Niwot Ridge on Saturday so I could hike slowly in the snain and maybe, just maybe, taste some fresh snow above 11,000 feet. He thought I was being silly, and it was silly. He declined to join because the weather was supposed to be cold and wet, unpleasant for any season, and my slow hiking pace wasn't going to be much of a workout.

 I set out under gray skies and drizzling rain. The precipitation tapered off after a mile or so, and I started to see hints of sunbeams through the fog. It was reminiscent of mountains I used to climb when I lived in Juneau, breaking through the marine layer to a bright blue world that felt like mine, and mine alone. Sunshine is not in short supply where I live now, and indeed I purposefully drove to the mountains to enjoy a brief escape from summer. But I still felt the thrill of potential sunshine tugging at my heavy legs, and marched harder to break out of the weather before it closed in for the afternoon.

 Driven by the external motivators of mountains, snow and sunshine, I felt no tinges in my knee or wobbly uncertainty. And sure enough, as soon as I cleared tree line, blue skies opened up overhead. A layer of fresh snow covered a frozen crust, offering perfect traction and almost effortless walking across the tundra. Beat and I often train on Niwot Ridge in the winter, in part because the weather up here is reliably awful, and thus good practice for the worst Alaska can throw at us. Niwot can be a harsh taskmaster, but it was laying out the red carpet on this day, the first full day of summer.

This ridge is always wind-scoured. So I was surprised to see more snow covering the ground on June 22 than the last time I was here, in February.

Kiowa Peak, a beauty.  This is also one of the watershed peaks that is off-limits to public recreation. Every summer I vow to spend more time in these mountains, climb more peaks, boost myself out of my comfort zone more often ... and I fail at this ambition. This summer, with record high snowpack and subsequently volatile weather patterns, may prove to be another season that slips away. But I do have some "projects" on my mind. I can't believe it's almost July, already.

 I marched to a high point on the ridge, still running scared from those dark clouds boiling up from below, which I feared held electrical energy as afternoon approached. As much as I think thundersnow is a cool phenomenon, I'd rather not experience it up close and personal. I did take the time to shoot a few selfies of my amazing achievement, walking on rocks and tundra. On my own two legs! The novelty!

I also stopped to admire the hardy little tundra flowers, straining for the sunlight of their short growing season while surrounded by patches of fresh snow. 

 Then I descended into the boiling clouds. Snow flurries swirled around me as the landscape darkened and blurred.

 By tree line it was nasty again, with fog so thick that I fretted about finding my footprints so I wouldn't become hopelessly disoriented and wander down the wrong drainage. Losing 2,500 feet in altitude proved more tricky than gaining it, but the ascent to the glorious heavens was well worth the wet and wobbly descent back to Earth.

On Monday, I made time for a ride up Old Fall River Road in Rocky Mountain National Park. I missed this year's window to ride Trail Ridge Road without traffic, and this looked to be my last chance for Old Fall River before it opens in July. The weather forecast was promising, but then I woke to howling gusts of wind whistling through the trees and rattling the windows. In Estes Park there was a wind advisory, calling for gusts to 50 mph. At 7 a.m.! The volatile and unpredictable weather patterns continue. For the past few weeks I have not felt particularly strong, and hiking and jogging had ignited new pains. I nearly bailed, but reasoned that this likely was my only chance to ride RMNP this season.

From the park entrance to the Alpine Visitors Center is 13 miles, gaining 4,000 feet mainly in the nine miles on dirt — so it's reasonably and consistently steep. Add the persistent 20-30mph headwind and wet, wheel-sucking dirt ... well, it was an enormous battle for me. Enough so that I didn't question my motivations or anything else. All of my thoughts were a pinprick of light, just out of reach. Classic pain cave.

 As I neared the summit, slush replaced mud, and the wind diminished to a brisk but not quite fierce 10mph breeze. It was so strange ... how does the weather get better above 11,000 feet? It happened on Niwot. It happened here. It doesn't make much sense. But at least I started to have fun again, straining to power through the slush rather than simply survive each pedal stroke.

A few hundred feet from the top, the road had been cleared at one point, but had since filled with with about two feet of snow. Postholing fun! I wrecked an already poor showing on the Strava segment by covering the final three quarters of a mile at 1.2 mph.

 I admit I battled to the Alpine Visitors Center because I was not looking forward to the cold slush and mud bath that awaited me on the descent, and hoped to loop around on the paved road. But the visitors center was closed, as was Trail Ridge Road on both sides, as snow-removal equipment cut away at snow drifts deposited by Sunday's storm. The wind up here was again fierce, and the chill felt Arctic. Icicles that clung to the building weren't even dripping. Outhouse floors were covered in drifted snow. It felt like any typical winter day in a shuttered national park, on June 24.


A ranger was standing outside the building when I approached, and looked at me quizzically. The paved road was closed and blocked by working machinery and snowdrifts, and Old Fall River Road was considered impassable, so where, he wondered, did I come from? I explained the mile of postholing on the dirt road and admitted I hoped to escape on pavement, but was now aware of the road closure, so I'd go back the way I came. The ranger smiled and pointed up the road. "Around that corner there are still ten-foot drifts. If you think you can get around them, you can go."

Funny guy, that ranger. What he was suggesting was technically against the rules and probably somewhat dangerous, but he knew I wouldn't try it. My feet were already soaked and I was freezing in my little florescent roadie vest and sun-protective leggings. No way was I going to continue postholing at 12,000 feet for hours longer. Instead I settled for a brief pause to cross the road and enjoy the wintry view. One last snowy vista. I mean, summer has to come eventually, right? Temperatures in the high 80s darkened the forecast later in the week. But one can dream.

 

Postholing downhill is not much easier than going up. That snowy peak in the background is Ypsilon Mountain, which I've come to think of as my "birthday nemesis." It was the second of three 13ers I climbed on my birthday last August, and it nearly broke me after I slipped and fell in the loose boulder minefield on the north ridge. For a mountain enthusiast, I'm fairly bad at mountains. I'm nervous about exposure, I flounder on technical terrain, and I seem to become worse with experience. In some ways this injury feels like a bit of reset. I'm working on my stride, I'm more aware of my imbalances, and I'm focusing on the way I move. Will there be enough time left in this truncated summer to tackle some difficult problems? Should I make this a birthday goal? I climbed three 13ers for my 39th, so maybe four 14ers for my 40th? Truthfully I'd rather do something more fun and less harrowing for my birthday, but you only turn 40 once.

Summer gives me such anxiety. I'll be relieved with the peacefulness of winter returns.

Two intrepid cyclists, one with a fat bike, decided to push through the path I blazed. I followed another biker who opted to bail. We descended in a blast of slush and mud, stopping occasionally at hairpin turns to stomp some feeling back into our feet. He later texted me a nice photo that he took of me during the climb:

Yes, summer isn't all bad. But these snowy respites sure were nice. 

The peace and violence of summer

I decided to head out to Utah a couple of days before my grandmother's memorial services. Beat was going to be out of town anyway, traveling to Wyoming to run the Bighorn 100 over the weekend. He offered to skip Bighorn and accompany me, but I feel strongly that funerals are for the people who want to attend, and shouldn't be obligatory. It was more important to me that he run his race — which turned out to be a wet and muddy epic that would have been rather taxing for a crew person. So it all worked out for the best.  

As I am wont to do, I schemed a few bike adventures to squeeze between family time. I've long wanted to check out the mountain bike trails near Eagle, Colorado, so I planned my route and arrival time based on a two-hour stop there. 

I hate I-70 through Colorado. I genuinely do. It's taken me a while to accept this, but I think I am done with optional driving along that interstate. I'll do it if I have to, but only if any alternate route is potentially hours slower. Only then. Recently there was a discussion on a local mountain biking forum about naming new trails with an I-70 theme, and of course all of the suggestions were "Sittin' in My Car," "Road Rage," "Snow Closure," etc. Anyway, I usually consider summer travel a safer bet, and neglected to check the CDOT Web site before I set out. Of course, there was a tunnel closure. Of course there was. For routine maintenance. In the middle of the day. On a Wednesday. So I sat in my car at an utter standstill for 90 full minutes, then crept along behind trucks at 5 mph over Loveland Pass for another 90 minutes. Loveland Pass was lovely with snow-capped peaks beneath a bright blue sky, but by then I had to pee so badly that my vision was blurring, and above timber line there was nowhere to pull over that wasn't exposed to all. By the time I pulled into the REI in Silverthorne and stumbled through the aisles in search of the bathroom, I was filled with such rage that I vowed to quit I-70 forever, even if it means canceling summer bikepacking plans in order to stick closer to home. I've since revised that view, but I still have an "avoid at most costs" policy.

I was already running three to four hours late, so I was going to skip the ride. But more crawling traffic spiked my blood pressure again, and I decided this cool-off was necessary. It was 85 degrees in Eagle, which felt oppressively warm. I slathered my arms and legs with sunscreen from a little, likely expired tube of SPF30 and set out. The trails were lovely — mostly buffed-out singletrack, winding through scrub oak-covered hillsides, sagebrush and fields of wildflowers. Eagle is fantastic. Too bad it's on I-70, so I may never return. I was feeling much better by the time I returned to the car for six more hours of driving to Salt Lake City. Then I looked at my arms, and realized they were badly sunburned. I usually wear sleeves, because my skin is becoming so bad that sunscreen alone doesn't work well for me anymore. Dammit. Both dresses I brought for the funeral were sleeveless and short-sleeved. Rather than be the nearly-40-year-old woman with a bad farmer burn, I would have to scramble for last-minute wardrobe additions. 

For Thursday, I had another planned ride that I decided to steeply curtail. A former blogger I follow, Elden the "Fat Cyclist," has this incredible-looking route that makes a big loop through the Wasatch Mountains, a 75-mile monster with more than 10,000 feet of climbing. Unless I woke up at 3 a.m. after my long and late drive, I didn't really have the time before Thursday evening plans, and Monday's ride to Mount Evans made it apparent that I didn't have the fitness, either. So I changed the plan to an out-and-back on the more remote segment of the loop up American Fork Canyon.

I left later in the morning, when it was already hot. Just getting up and over Corner Canyon was a slog. Where, oh where did my fitness go? I nearly turned around when I saw the temperature was 89 degrees while it was actively raining in Alpine. Then the thunderstorm cleared, and I remembered the beauty of American Fork Canyon, and this relatively rare opportunity to ride here. So I pressed on, standing in more traffic jams amid summer construction closures (that could be another traffic-themed trail name ... "Melting Shoes on Hot Pavement.")

Finally I cleared Tibble Fork Reservoir and was released to the peaceful setting I sought — a narrow jeep road that continues to climb toward the crest of the Wasatch. It's a pretty but nasty road — nastier than I remembered, steep and strewn with ball-bearing pebbles and babyhead rocks. Caution about my leg caused me to descend nearly as slowly as I moved while climbing, and climbing was a slow struggle. My breathing felt off. I hadn't even climbed above 8,000 feet yet, and I live at 7,000. Where, oh where did my fitness go? My time cut-off came, and I turned around, feeling relieved. It was a frustratingly tough ride, but beautiful.


On Friday, the family gatherings commenced. The weekend was such a whirlwind of emotions. My grandmother was well-loved, and nearly everyone who could turned out for her memorial. All 19 of my siblings and cousins. Dozens of great-grandkids. Great-aunts and uncles. Second-cousins who I hadn't seen since I was a child. Friends of my dad. Family from my mother's side. Damaged relationships made a step toward mending. A few new wounds were opened, as well. Family stuff. It was meaningful and gratifying but utterly exhausting. I made a short escape Friday morning to ride Corner Canyon, but the trail system was too crowded. It wasn't really what I was looking for in my respite. By Saturday night, I was spent.

Sunday was Father's Day, and everyone in my immediate family was together, so I stayed one more day to celebrate with them. On Sunday morning I headed west for a three-hour ride up Butterfield Canyon, climbing up to a 9,000-foot peak in the Oquirrh Mountains.


The climb was enjoyable. My legs and lungs probably weren't much better off than they'd been earlier in the week, but it was so relaxing to be alone with nothing to do but pedal a bike. The road was fairly quiet, the weather cooler than it had been, and the views impressive.

Still some snowfields to contend with near 9,000 feet.

Overlook into Kennecott's Bingham Canyon Copper Mine, the largest open-pit mine in the world. Cutting nearly a kilometer into the Earth, the unsightly gouge is as deep as this peak (West Mountain) is high. Too bad they don't allow mountain bikes on those terraces; one could probably develop a pretty fun downhill trail.

Lovely day, but storm clouds were beginning to form.

At the peak I had resolved to get down quickly, but then I became distracted by trails near the saddle between Middle and Butterfield canyons. I was climbing a steep bit of singletrack when I heard the first thunderboom, looked back, and saw a relatively benign looking sheet of rain falling directly to the east. I decided to turn around right there, but I was unperturbed because it was only eight miles and mostly downhill back to my car. Should be down in a flash.

Less than 20 minutes later, the sky opened up and rained down a fury unlike any I have experienced yet. Yes, I have battled blizzards in Alaska, windchills to 60 below, utter whiteouts and 70-mph winds. This was another level. Sudden deluge, blinding flashes of light from all directions, instantaneous cracks of thunder that rattled my teeth. At first I was just running scared from the lightning. Rainwater fountained off the road with such force that I was breathing liquid, and felt like I was drowning. I didn't even realize it was hailing until the thunder quieted enough to hear reverberations on my bike helmet. My limbs had already gone numb, but I could feel stinging pelts against my back and butt, and knew I was being pummeled. The lightning flashes moved away, and I was able to gulp down enough panic to pull off the side of the road and huddle beneath trees to wait out the hail.

Wow, was I cold. I had a rain shell in my backpack, but when I reached up to unclasp the straps, I genuinely could not muster the strength. There was a thinner wind shell in the bike's frame bag, but after much straining to pull the zipper back, I realized it was entirely soaked. I was as wet as I would be after jumping in a lake, and shivering profusely. I have hiked through the night in temperatures down to 40 below, jumped into glacier-fed lakes, ridden my bike for hours in the relentless snain of Juneau, and I've rarely experienced this depth of cold. My legs were close to not functioning, my shoulders and arms quaking so violently I could hardly steer the bike. Nothing I could do but throw my frozen carcass over the saddle, pre-press my numb fingers down on the brake levers, and descend the final two miles as hail continued to pelt my skin.

Hours later, as I finally began to thaw after the ice bath, I assessed the damage. My left leg — which wasn't protected by sleeves, a backpack, a helmet, or a knee brace — took the worst of it, but there were dozens of stinging welts all over my body. The photo on the left is from Sunday night, when I found it difficult to fall asleep because my leg felt like it had been stung by dozens of bees. The photo on the right is the bruising that still remains today, Friday, five days later. Nature administered a solid beating. One I won't soon forget.

Now it's the summer solstice, and I'm working toward acceptance about the long season ahead. On Thursday I hoped to embark on a long ride — training for a weekend bikepacking race in Steamboat Springs in early August. But allergies kept me feeling lousy, it was difficult to muster motivation in the morning, and by afternoon there was thunder and rain and I am definitely experiencing some post-Father's-Day-deluge PTSD. The sky cleared and I managed two and a half hours closer to evening. But yes, it was a sad effort. Do better, Jill. People who expressly hate winter manage to train through the cold and snow, so I can brave the grass pollen and sunburn and early morning hours that become necessary to beat afternoon storms.

Hail, though. That is another level of nope.