On fear

It's December now, and Leah's and my evening rides no longer begin in the daylight. We crossed the Golden Gate Bridge as sunset's last gasp of crimson sank into the horizon. The low-angle light gave the ocean surface a startling depth of texture, with white caps and indigo shadows etched into every tiny wave. There was a clear frost to the air as we climbed over the Coastal Trail and dropped into the encompassing darkness of Rodeo Valley. The thousand-foot hills of the Headlands loomed overhead like black summits.

"It's pretty cool how you can ride bikes from the city, and twenty minutes later end up somewhere so dark and quiet," I said.

"The Marin Headlands are magical," Leah agreed.

We climbed over the ridge into the next valley, which was even frostier than Rodeo. I was trying to get the hang of my clipless pedals, which I put on my full-suspension Element precisely so I would get more used to clipless pedals. It felt awkward and uncomfortable as I navigated these now-unfamiliar trails, reduced to intimidating contours and shadows by the white beam of my headlight. I hesitated often and crept over tiny ruts as though I were maneuvering a steep rock garden. Mountain biking these days ... what's wrong with me?

The night was clear and stunning; every time we climbed over the ridge, we could see sparkling detail in the sea of city lights across the Bay. The the west, there was only the Pacific, black and infinite. I loved being out there, but continued to fight with my bike, wrenching it over rocks and once tipping over while I was still clipped in, unable to free my left foot from the pedal. Argh, clipless. But there was a deeper, more pervasive feeling than my clipless frustrations — something I've wrestled with every time I've ventured onto trails with my bike since late last year. Fear.

I caught up to Leah, who had unclipped at a tight turn where she crashed the last time we rode. "I can't believe I stopped here," she said. "Ever since I crashed ..."

"I'm the same way," I replied. "This is why I only get worse at mountain biking, not better."

It's difficult for me to deny anymore. I am afraid on a mountain bike, genuinely. And it's not that I believe this fear is something I can't or don't overcome, but I do need to acknowledge it's there. This fear rose to the surface after I crashed in Steven's Creek Canyon in August 2011. The resulting injuries were not serious, but thanks to exposed nerve endings deep in my elbow, did develop into the most physically painful experience I've been through yet. It left an impression. One I'm not proud of, but I have to be honest. Trail riding hasn't been the same since. And I find myself avoiding challenging terrain, becoming rustier and more timid by the week. Friends like Leah are encouraging, but I'm not sure what to tell her. Yes, I need to practice more. But what should I do about an activity that doesn't bring me the same level of joy that it used to, largely because I'm afraid? It a difficult, but genuine question.

I was going to write more about this today, my fear and how I can overcome it, but like most of the rest of the nation, I feel somber and sad after the Friday morning school shootings in Connecticut. It's not a day to dwell on bike fear. As we reflect on tragedy, there are a lot of voices demanding solutions, each one trying to be louder than the next. I suspect it's not a question that can be answered, but rather a symptom of an infected culture — one that's been fearful for far too long. 

Trail running as a contact sport

Ah, to be slightly injured. Most endurance athletes develop nagging muscle pains or tendon issues that slowly build into an overuse injury. I actually haven't had one of those in a while. But minor blunt force trauma, that's something I know all to well. I'm appalled by all of the scars I've accumulated since I moved to California — both elbows, both knees, upper right leg, left forearm. A woman in her thirties with no involvement in contact sports should not be wracking up this many scars. I was out of commission for several weeks last year after a mountain bike crash ripped open my right elbow, but most of the rest are from running crashes, simple tripping and falling. Just so horribly clumsy. I know what I'm doing wrong but still make mistakes, and sometimes these falls happen for no apparent reason at all. It's funny, and yet, I'm getting to the point where I'm not laughing about it anymore. My clumsiness wasn't nearly as visible when I lived in the land of moss and snow; everything was slow and soft. Year-round dirt is apparently a hazard for someone like me.

Leg bruising. I couldn't include
the bruise on my hip in a photo
without venturing outside
of PG-rated territory.

The day after the Coyote Ridge 50K, I had to miss out on a fun bike ride with friends, and I somehow woke up even more sore the next day. My right leg is bruised but the main concentration of pain was in my right pinkie finger and wrist, and my right hip. The specific pain is in the part of my pelvis that juts out. There's a cut that maybe I ignored after Neosporin application number one, that got infected. There's a bruise, and below that, pain that feels like it's in the bone somehow. It's not severe pain, but noticeable. Beat and I have another long run planned on Saturday, so today I set out on a trail run to test out the pain threshold. The uphill section didn't feel that bad, so I continued for four miles, but the subsequent four miles downhill were grating. Ah, injuries. The hand is feeling better, so that's encouraging.

I've received some great feedback about Half Past Done this week, and I appreciate everyone who weighed in. I've been working on fleshing out the site with more content so new readers have a sense of what it's all about, and then I'll delve deeper into the structure. There are also a couple of writers who have expressed interest in contributing, which is exciting. Here's the articles up since I posted here last:

Enduring gear: A column about the unique origins and lasting usefulness of our favorite pieces of gear. 

A look at some of the gear Eric Larsen is taking to Antarctica.

Going for broke: A spotlight on Nolan's 14 and the three mountain runners who conquered this Colorado mountain challenge this year, the first "finishes" in a decade. Nolan's 14 could be described as Hardrock on steroids, certainly the toughest established 100-mile run in the Rockies.

Again, feedback and suggestions are appreciated. For "Jill Outside," I've been working on some year-in-review stuff. Then, later this month, Beat and I have cold and dark trip to Fairbanks, Alaska, scheduled for Christmas break that should generate some funny frosty face pictures. Just in case you were worried I'm slowly abandoning this site with whining about bruises and link-backs to my other blog. Thanks for reading.

Coyote Ridge 55K

Today Beat and I headed out to Muir Beach for the Coyote Ridge 50K, to run for fun. Because this is what we like to do for fun — gather with a few hundred of our (maybe not quite) best friends and take a whole day to run in beautiful locales and savor endorphin buzzes and little paper cups of defizzed Coke. Fifty kilometers is a great distance — long enough to be a challenge, but short enough that I feel relatively strong the whole time and it never has to devolve into a slog.

The Coyote Ridge 50K was actually my tenth of 2012 (I am counting the Diablo Marathon in this list because that race was as hard as any 50K I've run this year, but technically only 28.5 miles.) Add the seven I ran from December 2010 to December 2011, and that's seventeen 50Ks in my ~two years of being a runner. You'd think I had this distance figured out by now, but it seems like there's always something to trip me up (usually literally; it is trail running after all.) Someday I'll fully race a 50K and perhaps everything will go perfectly. Until then, I do have fun.

Coyote Ridge is a tough one, with 7,200 feet of climbing racked up during hands-on-knees-worthy grades, with a few flat sections. My plan was to keep a moderate pace and just enjoy the day — not kill myself like I did at Mount Tam last month. As it turned out, this was not my day for luck, per say, but it was a fantastic day for taking photos:

Beat look uncharacteristically intense at the chilly starting line — with dabs of sunscreen on his face.

Over-the-shoulder candid shot of the excitement of mile one.

It seems you can't pull a camera out and spend thirty seconds shooting from the side of a trail without someone asking you if they can take your photo ... at least where I fall in the pack.

Ah, I do enjoy a good sun flare.

Descending into Tennessee Valley.

Climbing out of Tennessee Valley. There's actually a lot more singletrack on this course than these pictures make it appear. Whenever we were on singletrack, I was usually too busy negotiating rocks, mud, wet leaves, steps, or a combination of all four, to pull out my camera.

The mist on the ridge had an ethereal effect.

An enchanted eucalyptus forest.

View of the big city.

And then the ocean. This photo was taken a good ten miles after the last one. My camera didn't come out for a while again because, as I was descending the Coastal Trail into Rodeo Valley, I started chatting with a woman from Sacramento who was in the race, and two guys who probably weren't (in other words, just out for a run.) We crossed onto the pavement and kept running west on the road until we reached Rodeo Lagoon. At that point I knew we missed the turnoff and went too far, because the aid station was up on the ridge and the Lagoon was on the other side of a three-mile section we hadn't seen. I called out to the woman, who by that point was about thirty feet ahead, but I don't think she heard me (or perhaps pretended not to.) No matter. If I turned around and ran back the way we came, I'd eventually see the pink ribbons of the trail cut-off. I ran a mile and a half back up the road with no sign of ribbons, and started to feel deeply confused. I make the worse kind of lost person, because I tend to get slightly panicked and lose much of my capacity for sense and reason. I *should* have just backtracked to the point of the trail where I last saw ribbons, but instead I became convinced of a parallel reality where all the ribbons are gone and how will I ever find the right way that is the only way for me to make it back to Muir Beach alive? I wasn't really that panicked, but I definitely didn't want to log my first-ever 50K DNF on account of getting lost. So I turned around again and jogged back to the Coastal Trail, where I found a veritable Christmas tree of pink ribbons pointing to a turn up another trail that never even touched the road. Whoops.

The volunteers at the next aid station confirmed I had run three bonus miles. Oh well. That just meant I had longer to stay out enjoying this beautiful day. The next seven miles were rough as the course followed a steep series of rolling trails and I developed a harsh case of IT band tightness. I slowed my pace because I figured if I already added 35-45 minutes to my finishing time while running aimlessly back and forth across Rodeo Valley, there was no need to kill myself.

And I nearly kept that promise. I took this self portrait at mile 29, I was the homestretch, IT bands unlocked, running fine, feeling strong, and then, less than two minutes later, this happened:

Full header. Yeah, maybe my feet were dragging a bit, and maybe I was looking around at the scenery rather than at the ground. I didn't even feel my foot catch that rock, and I was halfway to the dirt before I realized what was happening. Those few inches weren't enough to catch the fall, so the whole right side of my body hit the hard rocky trail, including my face. I jammed my right pinkie finger into a rock and thought I dislocated the middle knuckle (I didn't, but it hurts a lot.) Scraped and bruised my leg, hip, and shoulder, and ripped my shirt. Angry. I was also holding my camera in my right hand. That's probably why I jammed my finger so hard, because I was gripping the camera until the last millisecond and let go too late to save my hand. I didn't even realize the power was on, but it must have been, because it took this photo sometime during the tumble. I spent several minutes tonight trying to figure out what this could possibly be. I can't find these numbers on any of the clothing I was wearing. It's almost as though the camera took a picture of itself, in a fifth-dimensional Twilight Zone way, as I was falling to the ground. Although I wish I'd brought my good camera for this run, it's best I didn't. The Sony CyberShot DSC may have its (many) limitations, but it can take a beating.

A minute later, some of the blood trickling from my forehead was getting into my eye, so I decided to wipe my face with a Wet Wipe. Sting. I grabbed another photo where I stopped, and it turned out to be my favorite of the day, because the sky is so dramatic and the light is rich (it was, after all, sorta late in the afternoon by this point.) Also, the disheveled appearance and new dirt on my shoulder strap tell a story of a day well spent.

Alas, two miles later, all the endorphins wore off, and my punishment was to spend the "bonus" miles of 31 to 34 in pain, mostly in my hand, but also in my bruised leg whenever the trail trended downhill. Blah. But if you cut out the last 5K, and really I should to make it an even 50K, Coyote Ridge was great fun.


**I also wrote a new post for Half Past Done about the Bryce 100, a new 100-mile run near Bryce Canyon National Park in Utah, slated for next May. 

Half Past Done

A snapshot of the brief sliver of sunlight that appeared over the Santa Clara Valley during my bike ride this afternoon, because that's the only way I've seen sunshine for better part of the past two weeks — brief slivers. I'm enjoying it, actually — the rain, the mud, the quiet fog, the deserted trails. But it means I've been doing a lot more trail running recently. Enough that I can actually monitor my daily progress and make little tweaks to my pace in an effort to learn the not-so-gentle art of increasing speed. Yesterday, I ran around a tight corner and directly into the obstacle of a massive fallen tree. My pace fell from 7:18 to 10:07 as I climbed through the maze of branches. An unwelcome side of my personality was actually annoyed that happened. Enough was enough. Today I got back on my bike.

Quick 18-mile pedal into the hills and back, and I felt like my strength was starting to come back on this route I pedal often enough to know what strong should feel like. I think the running, and perhaps even the "fast" running, is boosting my recovery from whatever it was I'm trying to recover from. (Oh yeah. The autumn full of endurance racing.) Fast trail running is full of conflicting emotions for someone like me — exhilarating and terrifying at the same time. Although I've been pushing for speed on descents, just to see what it feels like, I've gleaned much more enjoyment from my uphill grunts — going as hard as my ragged lungs will let me and feeling proud of anything close to a 10:07-minute-mile average. I have no doubt I'll always be a much more enthusiastic climber, but I am feeling (tiny) sparks of new confidence on descents these days. And I realize downhill confidence will do more to improve my abilities as a runner, and, ahem, my times. So learning to actually *run* downhill is something I want to keep working on, even if it makes me feel like I'm one step away from a horrible fall.

I've been relatively quiet this week because 1.) I haven't been able to shoot anything remotely resembling a good photograph, and 2.) In addition to chugging forward on a book project, I decided to start a new blog.

Don't worry, I'm not going to kill "Jill Outside" after seven long years of virtual life. It's just that recently I've thought about all of these subjects I want to write about, these events I want to cover, that don't fit the scope of a blog called "Jill Outside." And as I thought more about it, I realized that a lot of these subjects are things that don't get a lot of coverage, period ... or at least, not much more than superficial blurbs from the media. Since I'm so passionate about esoteric endeavors such as snow biking, mountain running, bikepacking, fastpacking, and explorations of the cold and remote regions of the world, I'd like to do more to tell these stories to the world (wide web.)

On Tuesday I launched a site called "Half Past Done." There's more about the focus of this new blog and its name on the About Page. I'm going to work on updating it regularly with news items, book reviews, commentary, profiles, and interviews. It will give me an opportunity to do more of that everyday journalism thing that I've been missing since I left the newspaper industry. And I do hope it will eventually catch on and become a successful site, but for now it's a "for fun" type of project.

So far I've added a post introducing Eric Larsen's upcoming fat-bike expedition to the South Pole (planning to follow up on this trip regularly), an awesome new bikepacking event in Scotland, an introduction to expedition racing, and a synopsis of the major bikepacking races of 2012. The site is in its early development phase, so I'd appreciate any feedback or suggestions about coverage, design, readability, etc. I'm definitely not sold on the layout, but I actually do like the way the rotating window allows me to display up to five posts with photos "above the fold." But I might rework it if too many readers find it irritating. I'll be grateful for any feedback about things like that. 

Fun mud run

Photo by Monika Arnold

I had a great day watching trail-running "superstars" and hanging out with friends at the North Face Endurance Challenge Championship. But I will say this — sitting outside all day in damp and windy weather is exhausting, and running a non-serious 10.5K during what for most runners was a grueling endurance test is a bit guilt-inducing. My leg came late in the day, long after the wet trail had been trampled into slippery mud puree — and a river ran through it. I ran hard because for the first time all day my body temperature was back to normal, and I didn't want to lose that warm feeling. Each time I passed a fifty-miler, I gave them a sincere (and hopefully not too gratingly enthusiastic) "nice work." If they responded with something like "killing it," I pointed to my bib and said, "Marathon relay. I'm just here to get in your way" ... which usually sparked a little smile.

Photo by Monika Arnold

As a late joiner I didn't find out until race day that I was part of team "Do the Bachmann," to which I immediately balked, "You mean that crazy-eyed Congresswoman Michele Bachmann?" No, as it turns out the bachmann is a friction knot that's useful for getting climbers out of binds. The four-person marathon relay started at the civilized hour of 11 a.m., so we had the opportunity to watch the first finishers of the fifty-mile race, which started at 5 a.m. After that excitement, we set up shop on a wet tarp under a tree, and let the drizzly hours roll by as we cheered for our own team — Jenn, Julie, Jill and Monika (or, as she rewrote on her bib, "Jonika.") I was slated to run last and didn't feel comfortable partaking in the pasta lunch or other after-race indulgences. So instead I sat on the wet tarp, becoming progressively more chilled and hungry. Weirdly, I paid $39.50 for that privilege, still felt stoked about it, and would likely do it again. The group was fun, the sloppy mud got into everything, and the jokes flowed freely.

When it was my turn to run, though, I was like a sled dog finally released from its kennel. I ran uphill until my lungs burned and then launched into the mud-river descent with a kind of reckless abandon I almost never indulge in, even when trail conditions are dry and manageable. Flawed thinking convinced me that it would be a spectacular finish for Team Do the Bachmann if I arrived at the arch covered in mud and blood, and thus gave myself permission to fall. And of course, because I effectively wanted to fall, I didn't fall. I lurched and skidded and once took a single-foot "ski" that lasted for two flailing seconds, but I didn't fall. When I finally returned to the flat section around mile five, whatever glycogen reserve I had left over from breakfast finally tapped out, and I sputtered through the last 1.5 miles in a bonked haze. I was still pushing to make it in under an hour, but just missed it. 1:00:45. Our team's finishing time was 5:01:32.

I stayed with Monika in San Francisco the night before the race, and we arranged a big group for dinner in the city after the race, so all told it was a 24-hour adventure with an hour of running, full and exhausting. But the best part? I think I convinced Jenn and Monika to sign up for the 50K version of the NFEC next year. There's nothing like a good mud run to coax friends into the murky world of ultrarunning. 

Have swimsuit, will run

This week has been an enjoyable one for running — empty trails, slopping through peanut butter mud, splashing into shin-deep puddles, skidding across wet wooden bridges, and feeling the cool caress of misty rain on a warm November afternoon.

This week has been a wet one in the Bay area. I'm not far enough displaced from my life in Juneau to be all that impressed by coastal California weather quite yet (60 degrees and steady misting rain for days? Southeast Alaskans call that "July.") But this particular weather system is the largest winter storm I've seen since I moved here 21 months ago, and may be the largest one here in many years. Scientists are calling this an "atmospheric river" — a conveyer belt of torrential downpours that threaten to soak regional hills and mountains with double-digit inches of rain and send flooding into the valleys. Scientific American ran an interesting article about "Megastorms" and the extent of damage such storms are capable of causing. It's a sobering reminder that even California's splashy fun storms are not to be taken lightly.

This storm also coincides with the largest trail running event of the year around here, the North Face Endurance Challenge Championship. It's a 50-mile money race for fast runners, and a high-participation event with multiple distances for the rest of us. There was a time when I considered signing up for the 50-mile or the 50K event, but decided that I prefer to run low-key trail races, of which there are abundant options around here. However, my friend Monika decided to put together a team for the marathon relay, and recruited me to run the fourth leg. Three women on our team are mainly road half marathoners, and I can't promise anyone an amazing or even adequate 10K, so this "endurance challenge" falls squarely into the "fun social outing" category for us.

Still, despite its short distance, this race feels eerily similar to UTMB — the NFEC 50-mile and 50K races were extensively rerouted due to flooding and safety concerns, so now all of the runners are going to be crammed into tight loops of fire roads in Golden Gate National Recreation area. And by the time our marathon relay starts, six hours after the 50-miler, the course likely to be a morass of mud as shoe-sucking and soul-crushing as those churned-up trails in France. Granted, running that kind of terrain for 110K is maddening, but for a simple 10K, it's likely to be more like splashy fun. Still, maybe this wet weather is just my bad luck. Maybe I should stay far away from anything deemed a "trail running championship."

I hope for the sake of California and its economy that this doesn't develop into a Megastorm, but I do think the severe wetness will make for an interesting experience for every runner involved in major races this weekend.

I've missed these mountain benders

Even after I nearly crumpled while inching out of bed on Sunday morning, it was difficult to accept how wrecked I felt. Despite appearances otherwise, it's actually rare that I so completely thrash my body. As an athlete, I'm conservative to a fault. I'm always holding back on the throttle for fear I'll burn out my engine, saving gas for the next mile while never quite knowing how hard I can go. That's one of the things I love about a mountain bender, when the sheer difficulty of the terrain forces me to engage those uncomfortable high gears. Timpanogos ran my quads through a cheese grater, tenderized my calves and crushed my glutes between a vice. The result was that oh-so-sore, oh-so-smug satisfaction that I gave that mountain my best effort. 

My dad, with the exception of his minor knee injury, seemed to be in a lot better shape than me on Sunday. He read my last blog post and mentioned something about "whining" so I wanted to add a postscript in case there was any confusion — my dad does not whine. He'll be sixty in January and he's strong, possibly as strong as he's ever been. He's also smart and knows when to say when, but he's open-minded and willing to try new adventure possibilities. Beat also had a spring in his step Sunday morning. I think I was the only one who was roughed up by the effort alone, proving that I do in fact need to work smarter with my training. 

Still, Sunday was our last day in Salt Lake, and we didn't want to waste it. Beat and I set our sights on Red Pine Lake, a relatively "mellow" climb up a gulch above Little Cottonwood Canyon. Yes, only eight miles with 3,000 feet of climbing in snowshoes. Easy peasy. A weak cold front moved in, and it was a bit of a blah day — gray, colder, with flurries in the mountains and a hazy inversion starting to spread over the valley. As we started up the trail, I struggled to keep up with Beat. My quads were throbbing, and I could no longer reach my high gears. Still, any day in the mountains is not a bad day. I would probably go into the mountains every day if I could. At least until my body gave out, which, at this rate, would only take a couple of weeks.

Lower Red Pine Lake. The wind picked up as we ascended out of the forest, and I had to put on my coat. The ambient temperature was a few degrees below freezing; the windchill was likely in the teens, and Beat was still in his short sleeves and no hat. I'm a bit of a cold wimp (it's true) but that shows how much heat we were generating during the climb. Hard work.

Upper Red Pine Lake. We walked along the edge, taking great care not to step into the hollow crevices between car-sized boulders. At the far edge of the lake, we watched two skiers and a snowboarder make their way down the ridge. Their position looked precarious. There were exposed rocks everywhere, and they would make one or two tiny turns before stopping for a long while, scooting laterally, then making two more tiny turns.

I can't say I envied them. A friend of mine asked why, since we obviously enjoy playing in the snow, didn't we just go skiing while we were in Utah? My quick answer is that I don't know how to ski, but that's not entirely true. Once upon a time I was a decent snowboarder, and I'd be more than willing to carry a board up a mountain. But as I've grown older, I've reached a level of acceptance about who I am and what I truly love, and gravity sports haven't fallen into that scheme. Descending a mountain is the price of going up, which is the part I enjoy, whether I'm running, hiking, snowshoeing, or yes, even mountain biking to some extent. Another benefit of growing older is that I no longer care if this makes me strange.

Sure, I can still have a good time on a snowboard, but I'd prefer to keep it to open, powdery, purely "fun" terrain. I understand that skis are more efficient than snowshoes, but I'd honestly rather be bogged down by gravity than constantly fighting against it. Fill me up with adrenaline, and I'm an anxious mess. But give me a good, endorphine-soaked slog, and I'm happy. In that regard, our weekend Wasatch mountain-bender was wonderful.