About a year and half ago I felt like the cage opened up and I was able to create this wildly, abundant, and exuberant life– knowing for the most part that it wasn’t sustainable long term. I kept saying that I got a pass, I could do whatever I want and figure out the things that mattered to me again. It was like going from total control to unfettered freedom. But I knew it wasn’t sustainable, at some point the pendulum would swing back and I’d find that equilibrium that was missing for so long. Maybe that’s what made it all the more sweeter, knowing how fleeting it would all be, still is.
Last year I had about 70 days on backcountry skis, which is by far the biggest season I have had considered I started in Winter 2020, had about 3 days, 2021 about 8 days, 2022 about 12 days. I thought about that number about half way through this season and realized my trajectory probably won’t put me to achieve more than that this year. Does it matter if we aren’t always on a positive linear trajectory with what we’re doing? Is it naive to think that each year will just be a stepping stone to the next level without any back steps, maybe, maybe not. I’ve talked about this with friends in terms of the healing trajectory like once you open up the door to the dark closet where all your shame is you still have to go through all the muck to get to the light and sometimes the current carries you and other times you’re swimming against it and losing ground. But as long as you’re still moving, right? Does it matter if it’s forward or if you’re moving how you can, meeting yourself with grace, taking a breath and figuring out the line down.
Despite me knowing that I was getting off the accelerated train from the past year I still signed up for some big races/events(tbd?). Which means that I have been skiing when I can and trying to build and maintain the fitness that I’ve acquired. On a more recent outing I went down to Turnigan with Charlotte and despite reading all the avy forecasts and looking at surface angles I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was amiss. On the skintrack up I had the feeling of what if I just tumble over the side, or the whole side of the mountain just detaches and that’s it. Every trip outside remains a meditation on mortality. Once on top I still couldn’t really shake this weird feeling. Misplaced anxiety is what I’ve come to call it. Charlotte skied down first and once she was at a spot out of the way I pushed off.
My anxiety was accelerated and any sluff that was coming off put me in a heighten state of all the snow just fracturing and carrying me down with it. I got to the bottom and we skied back to the skin track deciding to take another lap. On the way up I told her about my anxiety with the snow, she said she noticed as I kept turning to look up. It was a weird feeling but saying it out loud took away a lot of the power and the next run seemed a lot smoother, at least from an anxiety perspective but maybe also a helpful hack of singing Kesha to myself on the way down…
This is a bit of a weird post because I’m in a bit of a weird place. I was at yoga last night and the teacher said that if you’re wobbly and uncertain that’s where you can grow, figure out the wobbles and find your footing. I’m sure he was talking beyond me finding my footing in dancer pose and that’s what it feels like, figuring out the wobbles and where I’ll land, what will be certain, what am I creating that will be certain, or is it just the fact that there is no certainty and that’s all we get. The impermanence of it all is all the permanence we get.
I’ve had some really great days out too, mostly with Charlotte as we have similar schedules but long days with Hailey as we’re resurrecting our long slogs home, Ana and I have done some boot packing to burn off some excess energy, and team couch (Ana and Grande) got me out the door for my one fat bike a year ride. Sadly, no photo evidence exists of that ride as it was like like -7 and I was cold. And have done more skate skiing this year than years prior with the Hot Laps group and squeezing in the occasional lunch break with others.
I’m set to do the Last Skier Standing race this weekend in Maine but my skis are still in Canada and it’s been a bit of a cluster to sort through. I’ve been grappling with what to do all week– do I race on rentals and piece together the other equipment I would want or just scratch it and go do something else. I was convinced I was going to scratch yesterday, calling Rosie to gain perspective and mostly support my decision to not race.
Then the race director reached out saying they have skis ready for me and anything else I need to get to the starting line and then that’s it. The wobbles– where is the solid footing. What part of me is wanting to race and why, Rosie posed this to me. I hadn’t thought about that. I thought back to when I registered, the excitement of getting to explore more of me in a new sport, a new area. But not wanting it to be like this– but how often do we not want it to be like this and learning to adjust to bend before breaking. Wobbles. Flashbacks to being stuck in O’Hare and not making it to the bike race in Iceland, am I becoming the person who signs up for races and just is accumulating DNS? Or is it me ignoring messages again and again until I finally learn the lesson– is there any meaning to make from this mess. Wobbles.
A friend recently stated that they have limited free time so they try to be intentional with what they do. I thought back to my philosophy professor in college who always talked about when she was a corporate lawyer and from the outside it wasn’t viewed that her external values aligned with her internal values so she changed course, moved to Boulder, got a PhD and started teaching philosophy. Don’t we all have limited free time and where we put it and how we spend our time is our message to the world, to the outside. Do my external and internal value system align, do people know what I value by what I do? Wobbles.
I recently watched two movies, Earthside, a tribute to Hilaree Nelson (having watched it twice now, I cried both times) and the Maah Daah Hey Film that focuses on Kelly Magelky and his last time lining up for the race (unbeknownst to him at the time). Both of these athletes have inspired me in my athletic pursuits in similar and different ways. Kelly and I have talked over the years about the challenges in sometimes even getting to the starting line, finding the balance, going after big objectives while also balancing life– racing is easy, everything before it, well. Finding certainty in the things you can control and letting go of the things you cannot. Wobbles.
Besides these two individuals, I’ve found a lot of inspiration in my life from those I’m surrounded by and the grace that they show while navigate tricky situations with motherhood, careers, marriage/relationships, chronic and terminal illnesses, reinventing themselves after loss, big objectives, changing course, getting to the starting line with grace and going from there.
I guess this is me still trying to figure out the footing, the certainty, the optimal line down, the getting to the starting line with grace and going from there.
In November 2019, Grande told me about the White Mountains 100 and I put in for the lottery and got in. In March of 2020 the race was cancelled (for good reasons) and I never made it to the starting line. This past November a friend reminded me of the lottery and I put in. I got in, along with Grande, Ana, and Holly. In a lot of ways it feels like this year is the year I was planning on having in 2020 without the whole pandemic thing. It’s been weird to think about, almost like the past few years didn’t happen.
Rachel and I on a ride in January 2020–I have learned so much since then including how to dress on the bike now
But of course they did and certainly left wounds that have become scars and speaking from the scar is certainly easier than speaking from the wound. In a way this month has been one of the harder ones with memories coming back in pieces– the stark realization of how much my voice didn’t exist and the things that I took on, the sink I became for emotions, the projections that happened, the suspended space I lived in. I pointed out to some friends that I feel like I still bring things up that happened and they were like of course you do because you didn’t talk about it for so long, we had no idea what was even going on. My therapist says that it’s because I’m more out of the fight/flight mode and no longer in survival mode so have a different perspective. I mostly spent much of April getting outside with friends, going for big ski objectives, and surrounding myself with those that didn’t leave me with feelings of being disposable.
Annnnyways parts of April still felt like I was speaking from the wound realizing at all that had come out last year and at some point I’ll share more of the story, the dark places my brain took me but for now back to the Whites.
Grande, Ana, Holly, and I were all in for the White Mountains 100 which I was grateful to have others to help figure out logistics. We found a friend to stay with and Grande rented a u-haul van. Oh, that was easy now the part where I hadn’t done much (re: any) biking since October. I did a ride the week before the race with Grande and Lil’ snugs– reminding myself what it was like to pedal. I borrowed Dusty’s bike and boots for the race since I still haven’t bought a fat bike. Charlotte was able to come up for the weekend so we left on Friday afternoon, which meant I was able to be somewhat lenient with what I packed still not exactly knowing what I would be needing.
We headed up the Parks Highway and I was reminded of how long it had been since I drove that road, at least summer of 2021. The road in the park has had some erosion and has been closed for some time so in terms of biking it, there really wasn’t an appeal to go up for only about 15-20 miles of road. But driving back up, I was reminded of the first time I drove to the park and how captivating it was to see Denali so close. We got stuck in between a few military convoys but made it to Fairbanks without much fanfare. We stopped by the grocery store and then headed to the house.
I went to the airport around midnight and got Ana and Grande, despite my optimism we could not fit 3 bikes and 3 people in Charlotte’s car but Ana was able to find a truck that served as a taxi and follow us back to the house.
The next morning Charlotte headed to the local ski hill, Grande picked up the U-Haul and Holly from the airport and we all went through our things to be race ready— mostly building up bikes and laying out gear, another run to the grocery store to stock up on more food for the race. Later in the afternoon we headed to the race meeting. It’s a mandatory race meeting and if you don’t check in, it’s an automatic disqualification.
It’s also the only race meeting I’ve ever attended that had a PowerPoint. There was some good info about overflow and trail conditions, but I left the meeting feeling more like I hope I don’t die than any type of excitement for the race. I conferred with the others and they agreed that it seemed more doom and gloom, I lamented that I hadn’t even thought to pack my puffy pants and what if I had to sleep out next to the trail. I didn’t think it would be longer than 15ish hours at the most but now I was concerned that I would miss my flight that was schedule for Monday evening (36 hours after we started). The pre-race meeting was filed with information about the harsh elements that could meet us out there and a reminder that the most remote place in the lower 48 is 24 miles from a road (this doesn’t seem accurate) and the race is 27 miles from the road, and if people scratch it can be hours or days before a snow machine can get you. Lovely.
Ana and Grande had done it before and reassured me that it probably wouldn’t be that bad. Holly was on skis and depending on trial conditions, we could all end up having very different experiences. We made dinner that night and caught back up with Charlotte about the ski hill conditions. We filled her in on the pre-race meeting and then all settled into the familiar routine of catching up and dancing back and forth between life (houses, relationships, work, school, books we’re reading) and race conversations.
The morning of the race we all worked in harmony around the kitchen preparing a big breakfast and doing last minute adjustments, I put extra layers into a dry bag and stuffed it into my sack, along with my inhaler, inreach, battery pack, and emergency sour patch kids, all for safe keeping and stuffed it into the bottom of my bag. I had decided to run a camelback and knew that I would risk freezing the hose for the race but also planned on putting a small bottle into the pogie on the bike to keep that from freezing.
We loaded up with three bikes, one pair of skis, and all our gear in the back of the U-Haul van. We caravanned up to the start, grateful that with Charlotte’s car we all had seatbelts. Charlotte was going to head back to Anchorage at some point during the race- I figured out that even if I somehow finished in under 10 hours, driving back would put us into Anchorage super late for the Monday work day so I’d take a flight back Monday evening and Charlotte would head back in time to get to work on Monday. We arrived at the start– really the parking lot to the start as we all had to meet at 7:50 to cross the highway to the start. I shuffled back and forth between Charlotte’s car and the van putting on layers, debating things, and finally feeling ready.
Except I couldn’t find the water bottle I was going to put in the pogie. No matter, I had my camelback and would just put warm water in as I got into the checkpoints. Charlotte was a life saver by being able to take our puffy jackets from the start right before we lined up, meaning we could keep them on for another 9 minutes before we released them– I shivered anticipating the cold I would feel throughout the day.
I had slotted myself next to the others and when the gun started lost them all in the chaos as the wheels started to move next to me and realized I needed to go too. I followed a group up from the parking lot on the course, knowing it would be a mile or two of uphill to warm up. I was worried that I would get slung off the back but was able to hold whatever pace was being set in front of me. This wasn’t like the fatbike rides I had done before, there was no leisure happening and I was just hoping to not cause a calamity on the trail.
After the initial uphill there was a few miles descent which helped to spread the pack out a bit more. Grande and I were close but kept leap frogging and I could still see Ana in front of me. My main concern was that I didn’t want to be hours behind everyone and they would be waiting at the finish for me. As I figured, my hose froze before I had the chance to drink any water. My new plan was to drink as much as I could at the aid stations and not plan so much on drinking any in between. I stopped to adjust the seat height (I had never ridden the bike before the race– thanks again for the loaner, Dusty!), take off a layer, and rejig my hose to run under my armpit in the hopes that the warmth would thaw it a bit. I got behind Grande’s wheel but at the first aid station (mile 15 or so) she kept going and I stopped to drink something. This was also the last point where you could self bail and head back to the start without having to wait for a rescue. I noted it but didn’t think about it and drank some warm tang before peeing next to the bike and getting back on my way. I was mostly by myself at this point and my mind was pinging between thoughts, “should you eat something; oh wow, look at that; I wonder what skiing this would be like; how do people even run this; how did I get so lucky; I hope my body holds up; this isn’t what I expected but so much better”. I saw Grande in the distance and thought I would catch her shortly but then I saw something on the trail that stopped me, an antler. I got off the bike and went back to it, it was pretty cool and I figured when would I be here again to find something like this. Most of it fit in my bag and the remainder stuck out but was cinched down. I got back on the bike before realizing that the smell of death was literally chasing me. The antler gave on a distinct musk, dense and heavy, and when the wind blew just right a pungent smell would hit me and I’d be reminded that I picked up this dead thing from the trail to take home as a souvenir. Motivation to ride faster?
A few miles later I saw Grande in the distance and worked to try and catch her realizing that riding with her would be better than riding by myself, plus I hadn’t printed off course directions. I was able to catch up to her after a bit and sat on her wheel while we chatted, we would take turns in the front with me leading the on the descents and her leading on the climbs but coming back together on the flats. We rode this way to the next check-point, Cache Mountain Cabin (mile 40), both deciding that we didn’t want to take too long. We got to the cabin and they had boiled potatoes, I loaded mine with salt and bacon and ate it before pocketing two more potatoes for later. I filled my camelbak with warm water as the hose had melted out and I had been able to drink some water in between aid stations. We made small talk with the volunteers asking about trail conditions, where they snowmachined in from, and one commented about the antler in my bag. I grabbed some more tang and we headed out. The next section would bring us over a pass and onto the ice fields.
We wove our way into the forest to begin the climb up to the pass, Grande would relay what the section had been like the last time she had done it and how it compared to now. I was grateful for all the knowledge that had been passed onto me and the tricks that were given. Grande had brought extra trash bags for us to all grab and use for the overflow. I had stashed them into my pack with some ski straps making them accessible when I would need them. I joked with Grande on how we had both been in for the 2020 version of this but now we were doing it three years later. When I moved up to Anchorage, I met Grande and her husband Dusty on one of my first weekends in town. I joked that I paid for them to be my friends because I had signed up for a bike packing course that they taught and after that weekend we became good friends. When I was in the throws of it in January of 2021 we went on a walk and she reminded me that she knew me before I was dealing with COVID and in a relationship and assured me I would get my mojo back, I certainly didn’t believe her then but it was comforting to hear. Someone who knew me prior, it was like those who knew me prior knew I would return even when I had my doubts. I tell her this in snippets, half joking if it’s weird that her and Dusty are married since I think of them like older (wiser) siblings.
As we were about to start the real climb up onto the pass we ran into a biker coming the other way. Grande knew her so we stopped and chatted for a bit, they were doing the route backwards and had been bikepacking for a few days. After departing I said it would definitely be cool to come back and bikepack this and really take in the views.
OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA
As we were about to crest the pass I turned around to see Holly making her way towards us. I yell ahead to Grande to let her know and we both got off the trail to cheer her on. We briefly chatted about her skis (she had been debating which ones to take beforehand) and quickly started following behind her. She was able to pull ahead of us on descent as the firm snow turned into loose powder and we both had one foot out to steady us as we descended. Grande had mentioned that in previous years she actually had to walk up and down the pass because of snow conditions and I was just grateful that we weren’t having to do much hike-a-biking.
We got to the anticipated ice fields that would have the overflow but were pleasantly surprised at them actually being ice fields and no overflow. We picked our way through and seeing a clear path, I was in front when my wheels lost traction and I went down, sliding along with my bike. I got up and did a quick assessment, bike was okay, I was surprisingly okay, not even really being able to indict what the first impact was (don’t worry it was not my head) as I seemed to just disperse the impact on my left side. I got up and we continued on, I was a bit more tepid and followed Grande’s lead when she would get off and walk on the ice. The ice lakes had no overflow and while we walked some spots we were able to move quickly through the sections and before I knew it we were back into the forest and headed towards the third check-point. The views here proved unlike any that I had seen in Alaska with dramatic limestone cliffs jetting out from the drainage we were in. We approached Windy Gap Cabin and headed in.
We asked how far ahead Ana and Holly were and were both excited when we heard Ana was in the lead and Holly wasn’t too far in front of us. I took some rice and then in current state decided to put some tang powder on it– after a few bites I immediately regretted it. I felt sheepish about asking for new rice so ate some of it quickly and shoved the rest into the trash. I grabbed a handful of other treats and we took a few extra minutes at this station than we had previously done. I still had plenty of food that I had brought and had been supplementing ‘real’ food with sour patch kids every few minutes to keep my sugar and energy levels up. We left the cabin and stayed in the drainage weaving in and out of trees for the next 10 miles and hugging the limestone rock. We crossed the intersection to another cabin which wasn’t on the race route but someone had set up a chair and bike as if they were spectating but we didn’t actually see anyone. After a brief little climb and descent, the course felt more enclosed and some of the view points were obstructed by weaving in and out of the hills. We saw signs approaching the last checkpoint and parked our bikes at the bottom of the little hill to walk up to the cabin. A high school ski group was running it and we ran into Holly here — we talked more about the race as we independently grabbed food and filled water. Woohooo! Almost done, right! We took a few photos, thanked those who were out here and took off again. Grande and I headed back down to our bikes with Holly out in front of us.
We got back on the trail and remained in the drainage with a few more frozen creek crossings. We caught up to Holly and I was jealous of how easily she was able to navigate the slick creek crossings on skis. Watching people who are really good at their sport is always really inspiring, there is such beauty and grace in how their bodies and equipment flow together. Holly and Grande are both two prime examples of this. After the creek crossing we jumped back ahead of Holly as she stopped to make and adjustment. We climbed our way up towards the final trail shelter, there is no support here except some water and a duralog if you need it. Seeing it meant we were close to the end but the Wickersham Wall loomed in between us and the finish line.
We had been able to see the Wickersham Wall for the past few miles, raising 600 feet in just over a mile above the valley floor. The crest of it would take us back to the finish line. We started up it and after a few pedal strokes both got off to push our bikes up. We laughed because at one point Grande had told Holly that she would just be able to fast feet up it (moving her hands and making a noise to denote how quickly she’d be able to ascend). I joked that I wish I was able to do the same mechanics now. We got to the top and then took pictures of each other (like a proud mom moment). Over the past few years one of the sayings that Grande and I have passed back and forth to each other is, “You’re doing great sweetie” (it’s a references from the Kardashians when one of the daughters is crying during a shoot or something and her mom tells her that).
We started the descent and Grande took out her light, I waited to take mine out as with the summer sun coming back there would be few opportunities left to soak in the darkness. I followed her tracks and settled into the feeling, the flow of being at ease with the movements, the stillness that comes from knowing your own body and mechanics. This didn’t last long as I realized I would be real dumb if I crashed because I didn’t have a headlight and stopped to dig mine out. I caught back up to Grande after she waited for me and then she yielded the trail for the descent. I ran into a guy I knew from the area who was out running and who had done the bike and he was like, “oh we all thought you were on skis” and I was like, “absolutely not”. The tracker showed that I was on skis for the whole race and for not being a known skier everyone was terribly confused by this. The confusion cleared up when he saw that I was on a bike. We followed the trail back down into the parking lot that we had started from, crossing the line together. Ana met us having been done for a bit (she crushed it, winning the race, her second year in a row!) and had moved the U-Haul van closer for us to have easy access. I went into the warming station to grab some hot water and then immediately when back out when I hear more cheering and Holly crossing the finish line. Grande, Holly, and I all finished around 13 hours– much better than the 36 I had started to expect after the race meeting.
We all finished relatively close to one other and a brief rest in the U-Haul van we got packed up and headed back to the house. Ana and Grande had an early morning flight to catch with Holly and I leaving later on Monday evening.
By the time I woke up to start work the next morning at 5am, Grande and Ana were gone. I worked most of the day and then packed up my bike and did a short walk around the river with Holly. I shared with her some of the parts of the panic attack, the anxiety, the intrusive thoughts, the feelings of OCD, the demise of my sense of self and relationship. And also talked more about female athletes and the culture that exists today to operate in, she was reading Kara Goucher’s memoir so we talked a lot about the issues women still face today in the sport, from the elites to middle school level.
What came out of the bike pogies
The weekend was really fun and it had been a while since I had done a race with other people. People asked if Grande and I planned to ride together and we never talked about it prior it just so happens that after 20ish miles we seem to be the same pace and riding with someone else is always better than riding by yourself (at least for me). I spent a lot of time during the race dipping in and out of my mind and processing all that had existed during the past year.
Dad, if you’ve made it this far, feel free to stop reading here.
It’s hard to find the words of what transpired over the past year(s), but the feelings certainly were there. I thought a lot about coming into the White Mountains with very little bike training, but I knew my body and my history enough to know what to anticipate for 100 miles and could be prepared for it. I think about the Tatanka 100 a lot—it was the worst race I ever had (in a lot of metrics). I loosely thought I’d be going for the course record and then everything went sideways, I got lost, I bonked, I had to hike-a-bike over so many boulders, I laid on a cardboard slab for an hour, I thought of pulling the plug so many times and I cried and I cried and I cried. I hated that course so much when I was done—it took me to the darkest places I have ever gone bike racing.
Because of that race I know so much more of what I’m capable of—if I have to hike for 50 miles during a race, I’ll survive, if I get lost, I’ll survive, if I spend 4 hours crying, I’ll survive. In a way it’s given me the confidence to be more sure of what I can sign up for and attempt. I think about this a lot now in terms of life—the trauma of the past few years—the perfect storm—thinking back to being asked “what will happen if you [I] have another panic attack”. That question no longer startles me with the potential tizzy it would send my life into. But instead, this place of acceptance of having some confidence that if I do go to those dark places again, there will be a trail of a light that I can follow to get myself out. Maybe that’s why I’ve written about it so much in my blog in case I need to find my way home again.
With the Tatanka 100, I realized that so much hurt came from this place of expectations versus what actually happened—the outcome that I was attached to. In life, this chasm exists the expectations of how things will unfold, how people will show up (or not). The timeline I had for healing the expectation that one more meditation, journal entry, yoga class, would be what healed me. But we never actually get to this place of arrival of enlightenment, we are constantly growing (or not). But I think that’s what keeps drawing me back to the various trails, they hold no expectation for you—they meet you where you are.
I heard someone say recently that they couldn’t tell a story until there was a happy ending—and I don’t think there is ever really this happy ending but this place of acceptance, of fulfillment –of learning to not get attached to the outcomes, the expectations, the behaviors of others and myself. I always found it strange when people would say that their goal is to be happy, happiness is a fleeting emotion, it’s not realistic. We’re all happy humans and none of us are happy humans and we get to experience it all, this full range, this joy of being human, of dancing with the darkness and re-finding the light again and again and again.
I was reminded of this while out skiing in New Hampshire recently, someone asked us if we were having a good adventure and Alexi replied that if you’re looking for adventure you can find it anywhere. I think for me in the past I was clinging so tight to what I thought this life and adventure should look like that I didn’t realize how much was beyond the walls I had built around myself. But isn’t part of being human learning to no longer seek out the homes that do not (cannot) hold us.
I had to do this exercise in therapy where I listed all the ways I have grown in the last year (from post-traumatic stress comes post-traumatic growth) and I told her that every day (if not multiple times a day) I have a realization of wow, I can do this thing and there is no problem and all the freedom that has come with it in deciding how to show up. In this exercise I went back to the writings from that time, reminding myself of what I used to carry in me. The writings from that time don’t fit anymore- they feel panic, urgent, chaotic, but they fit who I was then, this comet on her way to dissolving upon reaching the atmosphere, the fleeting feelings of almost arriving, of almost being whole, of almost being enough. That narrative doesn’t fit me anymore because I don’t fit in that tiny box anymore- the uncertainly still exists, as it always has but it’s more tempered, at ease, at realizing that burning up the mess of restrictions allows for reclamation– of my talents, my energy, my priorities, my values. They say you can’t heal in the same environment that made you sick— I remember writing that in my notes at his house, realizing the end would be coming soon, new soil would be tilled, different seeds would be planted, and I’d be allowed to bloom in conditions that were conducive to my growth and creativity.
Who knew this would be such fertile soil for me to bloom on
I sat on this post for a while and went through multiple iterations, sending a draft to Jane, talking about it with others, deciding how to share. In the end I edited a lot because those that know me probably have heard more than enough at this point and as a friend reminded me those that know me know what I’ve been carrying – so in a lot of ways it’s like looking at a result sheet and only seeing the time but no idea the story of how one got there (like obviously contact me if you want the tea and the dark places my brain went—I’m an external processor and always happy to share). Narratives don’t form in vacuums and in being able to talk about what happened during COVID has allowed it to be molded in the world outside of me—and the pain becomes something outside of me allowing new things to grow in what was holding space for the trauma. I think of it similar to the Tatanka 100, where it was just a perfect storm of having the rug pulled out from me and everything going sideways at once—and it’s hard to parse out what was what and what caused the foundation to crack—but it doesn’t really matter as they say the only benefit of looking behind you is to see how far you’ve come. Just like the Tatanka 100 when I got to the end, Barb greeted me with a big smile and congratulations and held space for me to tell her all about my adventures from the day. The tears dried quickly and was replaced with more of a “I cannnnnot believe this happened” and turning it into a hilarious bit of the worst race of my life. I was able to move to a place of acceptance rather quickly, put that race behind, and carry the lessons I learned from it forward. Grateful for all of those who have held space for me to process everything that has transpired– I think societally we have a larger reckoning with what happened during COVID, all that took place, things that emerged, how we’ve arrived after. And just like the White Mountains 100 it’s sure fun to be surrounded by a great crew to get you to the starting line and meeting you at the finish line of some of life’s biggest trials [trails].
Anyyyyyyways, I could probably write a book on all the ways the healing process is like an endurance race but will stop here because I’m sure my dad stopped reading paragraphs ago- ha. The White Mountains was fun and realized that it was the last time I rode my bike but headed to Iceland in about a month for a race so training looks little different this year.
If you have it made it this far, thanks for sticking with, I realize this post is a bit all over but welcome to my brain.
The gear scattered is similar to my brain scatter sometimes
I half joke that the only reason I run is to stay in shape in case someone asks me to go to the Grand Canyon, it’s not really a joke and there isn’t much convincing needed on my part to go there but always nice to have a partner mostly to ease my mom’s concerns.
The last time I went to the Grand Canyon it was with Dave and Allison, and while I started that blog post many times I never finished it. We went down in a post-wedding celebration (of sorts) where I made them recreate multiple wedding photos at multiple locations and we all dawned bridesmaid dresses for one of the days.
We realized that dusty rose might actually be Dave’s color. We ran down to the river, got the world’s best lemonade and then made the trek back up. In the months that followed the panic attack, I lost my narrative, my sense of self, and sense of belonging. Most days I could not even believe that I was the same girl who had ventured to the depths of the canyon mere months before.
In November friends started putting in for cancelled rafting permits and one was drawn. The dates didn’t align for work but half joked that I could always run down to Phantom Ranch, say hi, and run back out. Joke is on me. As the plans transpired it was realized they would be at Phantom on Sunday which meant I could feasibly do that without running into a work deadline. It should be noted that I don’t mind dancing around work deadlines, I love my job, what I do, and feel incredibly lucky for the life it enables me to live. Anyways, more logistics flew and realized that a friend would be hiking out, cool I could join him and figure out who was taking his spot to go in with. More planning, Carly would also be hiking out, amazing, and Jordan a friend from Alaska and Avery (friend of a friend) would hike in. Done and done, I’d have people to hike in with and people to hike out with. The logistics seemed more complicated on my end with my return ticket being purchased before my departure one as I hemmed and hawed when I’d want to arrive so I could be stable for a late Friday work call. I opted to leave on Friday and enjoy the Sedona sun Friday evening before picking the boys up at the airport on Saturday.
I arrived and drove up to Sedona getting to a trailhead parking lot just as the sun was moving behind the rocks. I put my windbreaker on forgetting how cold the desert could get as the sun went down. I started jogging up the Cathedral Rock trail, the most powerful vortex in all the land. I ventured off the trail a bit to get in some different views before linking back up onto the trail. I climbed up to the top and perched out on the rocks watching the last of the light cease from the day.
A very common issue is that I think it only gets dark in Alaska, because people outside of Alaska always ask if it really gets dark there so it has convinced me that nowhere else gets dark. As a result,I left my headlight in the car, but with a clear sky and moonlight was able to dance my way down the trail, amazed at how my body navigated though the rocks. I was approaching the parking lot when I saw a change in tone on the rock and stepped on it with my right leg before I could change my footing, my foot had struck ice and slipped out, my left in an already downward step motion, bent at the knee and kept going as I slid down. I stopped and got up feeling a foreign pain in my left knee all the way down my leg, oh wow I haven’t had an injury in a while. I slowly walked back to the car taking in the stats of my pain, location, and any altered movements I was making. I could move and haven’t heard anything popped making me think it was just a strain but was a little nervous that I had effectively nulled my Grand Canyon trek. I stopped at store and picked up some epsom salt to soak it and KT tape for the next day. I soaked it and propped it up on a pillow for the night.
The next morning I taped it up and headed to a fairly easy trail for a loop to see how my knee felt. The trail started with a half mile descent to link up with the loop, I gingerly pushed off my left leg, altering my gate for my right leg to carry more of the load. How odd, my right leg has been the weakest and now it was picking up the slack of my left. I notice what caused a sharp pain, down step with leg fully extended and a heel strike. I wove around people and the rocks. The pain was intermittent giving me hope that I hadn’t done any real damage. Once the trail leveled I settled into a slower pace than normal and ran the loop around. Sully and I used to come down to Sedona to visit his parents, I remembered riding the trail with him but running it now I couldn’t believe this was one of the easier ones in the area. I made it through the loop and felt better towards the end with no actual residual pain. Definitely got lucky on that one.
I picked up Avery and Jordan in Flagstaff and after a few stops at REI, three grocery stores to get some of the requests from those on the river, the dollar store, and gas station, we headed north. We stopped halfway to do a short hike where a volcano had essentially melted in on itself. After about a mile or so of post holing, we decided we were good with going back. I asked Avery (he’s a doctor) about my knee, he basically said the fact I could walk on it means there isn’t anything serious wrong. Worked for me!
We spent the night packing, them mostly repacking to fit some of the groceries in. I messaged Evan about the possibility of actually needing to pack my camping things in. He thought they’d be to Phantom around 1 at the latest so we’d be able to hike out the same day. Perfect, more room in my bag for groceries. In what is the most bizarre pack I’ve taken down to Phantom, it included a large block of cheese, two bags of arugula, bell peppers, and cuties, in addition to my layers and snacks.
We left the hotel around 8 and got to the trailhead around 9:15, I figured out my layers and we headed to the trail around 9:30. I have never been to the Grand Canyon in the winter so was excited to see what it was like. I carried my micro spikes as we crossed the parking lot and upon reaching the trail junction, put them on. We started the descent, it was about 15 degrees on the top and a pretty good layer of ice on the trail.
We started down the trail, the familiar switchbacks revealing themselves as the spikes pierced through the layer of ice. I was just taking it all in as we walked down the trail. We fell into a similar pace and chatted about what those on the river were experiencing and when we thought they would arrive. Before I knew it we were at the first outhouse, about 1.5 miles down. We stopped to grab some water and snacks, I passed out some sour patch kids and then we kept going. About 800 yards later I took off my spikes, the trail had mostly tried with just some lingering spots of ice. I thought back to the times before on the trail, the versions of me that had existed here — sometimes I think I’m almost reclaiming spaces that I went to during COVID, as if a part of me has been left there for safe keeping and I was returning to pick her up. I didn’t share this with Jordan but we did talk about crystals and vortexes and also everything else, dog mushing, growing up in Alaska, skiing, relationships, families, on the trail anything is fair game— but I’ve noticed that death is coming up less frequently.
We continued down and about half way I stopped to take off more layers, cursing that I had left my shorts in the car. A few guys were stopped too and commented on the beer Avery was hauling on his pack, there weren’t a lot of people on the trail but those that were certainly were curious about the boys’ large packs and my tiny one, in addition to the beer. We explained and they were like oh next time you should send it down on a mule, it’s $80 but that’s what we do to get out stuff down there to camp for a few days… ohhhh that’s good to know.
We ebbed in and out of being able to hear the river. It’s intoxicating to think about something so wild, so fierce, that spent years carving out the canyon and is still a force to be reckon with #Goals. As we got closer we could see the beach and we saw a few kayaks, oh I wonder if that’s them. A raft approached confirming it was there from where we perched about a mile above. I joked with Jordan I could run down and tell them we were on the way, he said okay and I said really? Okay! And took off down the trail. As I was running I was filled with what I imagine is the feeling of immense gratitude, which I find myself having more and more of these days, this overwhelming warmth that radiates in my body. I kept running down the trail, elated that I’d be reconnected with friends I hadn’t seen in a few weeks and others a year. I ran through the tunnel and into the light on the bridge to cross the river. I heard them yelling and hollered back. I dashed off the bridge and looped around with the river crew getting covered with shrubbery. I kept going and stepped off the trail and made my way to the beach— ohhhh heyyyy
Roomies at the bottom of the canyon
We exchanged greetings and then a few of us wandered up to Phantom Ranch to get some lemonade and drop post in the mail. I heard more of their adventures from the river and told them about all my travels. I’m never sure what it is but the lemonade is amazing here.
We went back to the beach, this time Jordan and Avery were there and Carly and Evan were packing there things up. I took a few of their things in my bag and after saying goodbye we split up and they headed down the river to get a few more miles in for the day.
I’ve never hiked up South Kaibob, it’s 2 miles short than Bright Angel but doesn’t have any water on it. But since all the water is turned off in the winter figured it didn’t matter — and decided with Tom it was the best route for more sun exposure on the trail.
We started back up all the switchbacks I had just come down. I heard about their week, how it snowed on them early on, the rapids they encountered, and the food they packed in. I told them about Canada, Geneva, and DC. They both used to live there and I would usually spend my DC time with them. We talked about everything again, work, relationships, life, the geological time scale.
Going up wasn’t too bad but we made it a point to stop every mile to drink water and take a break. I half joked that we just needed to be near the top by 7 for my family FaceTime call. Even with the more frequent breaks we were taking we were mostly on track to reach that. We put on our micro spikes a little later after I had taken them off with the sun making the trail less icy over the day and more slushy.
Better to be safe than sorry. We kept going up and were able to see the last light of the day cast over the canyon before disappearing for the night. Fortunately, it was a clear night and enough light from the moon made it so we didn’t feel a need to bring out our headlights (but I did have mine this time). About 15 minutes from the top, I called in to my family, realizing that my text saying I was headed in never actually sent.
I told them of the day and Carly and Evan said hi too. We got to the top or as Carly said, rimmed out, packed up the car and headed towards the nearest McDonalds. After some food and coffee we drove back down to Flagstaff for the night.
The next morning, after barely making it to the hotel breakfast, we wandered around Flagstaff, Carly and Evan both served as my personal shoppers in the book store pulling a book on boundaries (these days I’m half in/half out the self help section with my reading). Given all they know I figured these options wouldn’t hurt and got a few postcards as well. We said our goodbyes with them driving out to California and I was headed down to Phoenix for a flight. I had enough time that I stopped for a yoga class on the way, and buying a tshirt from the place to do yoga in (this will be important later). I then stopped again in Sedona to head up to Cathedral Rock and see it in the daylight.
I squeezed out all I could to make it back to the airport in time for my flight. I dropped my car off at the rental place and hopped on the tram to transfer to the terminal. It should be noted that I don’t usually get to the airport very early (unless I’m traveling with someone who prefers that), the one time I did get there a few hours before my flight I fell asleep at the gate and missed my flight. On the tram I went to check in, except I couldn’t find any email with the check in information, huh, that’s weird. I looked at my account, nothing had ever been charged for a flight, although I do remember getting up to get my card information to purchase the flight but now wondering if I just didn’t wait for the transaction to get completed. Anyways about 30 minutes before departure I realized I didn’t have a flight. I also realized I didn’t have enough time to get to the ticket counter and through security. No matter, this was so exciting, I’ve seen this in the movies where someone goes up to the counter and is like, I need one ticket to DC and I have to be there by 9am tomorrow and slams the credit card down on the counter. In reality I did need to be back at work by 9am for an in person meeting. I walked up to the counter (while whispering big money big money, no whammies) and they asked if I was there to check-in. “No, I’d like to buy a ticket!” trying to hide my excitement, “you can’t do that here, only online or calling.” What? I imagined the plot of Home Alone getting rerouted. Well there goes any future spontaneity air travel. I quickly logged onto Kayak and found a red eye that would get me into DC at 7:30am. When I told my mom she couldn’t believe I got a ticket for $200, I responded that God works in mysterious ways- ha. But then I was at the airport a bit early so caught up on some reading and wandered around. When it came time to board, my mom Facetimed me again to make sure I was in fact awake and at my gate.
I arrived in DC without any time to go home and change. In my layover in San Francisco I managed to find some black leggings and a scarf to make it work. I got in an Uber and changed into my clothes, using the yoga shirt I had purchased the day before as it was the cleanest option in my bag, as well as putting a face mask on to depuff. I’m still not sure what rating the Uber driver gave me but no matter. I arrived to work to find out my 9am had gotten pushed back. I made it through the day and what did I learn, well not much actually because luck was on my side and behavioral economics was too. So I might just make sure I get an email confirmation on my travel before I get to the airport. I was joking with a work colleague that after feeling constricted for so long I feel like the pendulum is swinging the other way, with seeing how much chaos I can handle, turns out a lot when I’m not in fight or flight mode. Guess I’m back, chaos queen reigns supreme. I knew she was in there.
Don’t worry, my next post is all about rest, as I’m sure you (like most of the guys I seem to meet these days) are wondering when I actually have downtime.
No adventure is ever complete without commemoratory stickers
After I left Alaska (like a year ago), I traveled around a bit, went to the Grand Canyon (will write about that some day). And then 2 months after thinking I would be gone for good, returned. Leaving Alaska in that moment didn’t feel right and I was determined (albeit stubborn) to figure out what the pull back was. As I got on the plane in Seattle I wrote Molly a postcard musing if by my returning I would make a mess or find meaning of my life. I found both and neither.
At the end of December, on the third anniversary of getting a notice of a novel pathogen causing pneumonia like symptoms in Wuhan, China. I experienced a panic attack– traditionally the third anniversary is suppose to be leather.
The panic attack fractured my sense of self, cutting off any narrative in my head. I didn’t even know that I could have so many pieces of me laying in a disarray. It dismantled a lot of the scaffolding I had spent my life building. After what felt like drowning in the abyss I was able to fashion a life jacket and start swimming to shore but remained unsure of what that shore would look like upon arrival. Six + months later I feel like I’m finally standing on solid ground but still some days feel myself getting pulled out by the tide. I spent most of the months that followed trying to piece back a sense of my life, this goes here, that goes there but sometimes the pieces didn’t seem to fit and I stubbornly kept trying to shove things back into place. I spent part of the winter in DC where I carried skis and a bike around both rarely getting used but thinking if that girl inside of me was to re-emerge she would want them. I had already signed up for the Maah Daah Hey 150 this September and was continuously texting my coach to say I wasn’t ready and would keep doing what I could, she responded always very kind and gingerly supporting my “pivoting”.
I stopped making plans unsure of what waking up each day would bring. Friends talked about doing a trip to the Grand Canyon in July when I saw them in February but July felt too far away and I felt too unstable, what if my brain never recovered, what if I felt like this forever. I couldn’t commit to anything because I didn’t trust myself enough to be able to handle what came my way.
I arrived back in Alaska in mid-March just in time for a skimo race, not even deciding to do it until the night before and even then after signing up resigned to calling it off at the last moment if I wasn’t feeling it. I mostly went for the costume contest but feeling getting a trickle of racing back into my veins helped, even it it was at max VO2. I didn’t win and didn’t win the costume contest either, getting beat out by a Chewbacca and Avocado (those things are so political anyways).
I started volunteering with the GRIT program, which stands for Girls Riding Into Tomorrow, it’s a program for middle school girls where we ride around town going to different workshops and places for them to learn more bike skills (they are pro at First Aid needs) and different community spots like the Botanical Gardens. The program ends with a 40 mile bikepacking weekend. All the girls were troopers during the weekend and they definitely showed a level of tenacity that I’m not sure I had at that age. It also helped to provide some stability and grounding with a fixed schedule of activities.
During a GRIT session, Ana was like hey I have a weird question for you and given the past two years figured it was going to be some strange probability of COVID exposure and what she should do. Instead it was, “want to bike 600 miles”? I was most relieved and didn’t find it that strange. I immediately said yes and then asked what dates and then asked why and then followed up with let me double check with work but I’m in for the most part. I was mainly surprised at how fast I committed but took it as a sign. Since the panic attack I was trying to slowly gain pack parts of me through familiar things and biking had not really happened. I thought maybe just a long ride would help reset and remind my body of who I used to be and who I could be. We also talked to Grande about going but she had a work conflict but decided she would bike the first two days with us and then turn around and bike back.
We only do rides that are 100+ miles or with middle school girls
Because of the GRIT campout we decided to drive to Glennallen on Tuesday and take off to Haines from there. Mainly because we were on a deadline, Ana had to get to the start of the Tour Divide Race in Banff by June 10 and we’d have to catch the ferry in Haines. She joked that it was her way to get into shape for the race. I had a little trepidation, it wasn’t the physical part that scared me, more the mental, how would my brain handle being alone for that long with my thoughts– where would it go. When I had the panic attack I thought I was dying and/or would be stuck like that forever in this state of what felt like dementia and couldn’t remember who I was– making me question if I was living an authentic life (and like what even is that). That didn’t go away when the panic attack ended and instead released all the anxiety from 2.5 years of COVID research into my body. When the panic attack started all the adrenaline was getting ready to fight an external threat and instead released it all back into my body to fight itself. But I knew there was only one way to find out and it wasn’t going to be sitting at home wondering how I would handle something. I’d have to slowly start rebuilding the trust I had. Plus with Ana and Grande I knew that if shit did hit the fan, I would be in good hands– just did not tell them all this before we departed.
We left early Tuesday morning, double and triple checking that we had passports and things to cross the border. While we had a few weeks to prep for the trip the only decision we figured out before we left was if we were going to sleep in tents or bivy. We decided on tents for luxury living. A few people asked where we would sleep and stop but we figured it didn’t matter to do much planning, we knew when we had to catch the ferry and the rest we would just figure out as we went.
We departed Glennallen after getting some groceries, changing, and figuring out where to park the van. Only 600 miles, woof. We turned left, heading north as only a few roads out of the state meant we had to go north in order to eventually go south. We loosely planned on getting to Slana about 80ish miles away and camping there because it seemed like there would be some resources. We were met with very little traffic and chatted about everything and nothing of consequence. We relived moments of the Kenai 250 and the GRIT campout, and about bigger adventures to come. I let them into more of my personal struggles and in doing so learned as I often do that I’m not alone.
We rode on and stopped at Christochina, arriving a few minutes before their small store shut down. We warmed up, got hot coffee, a few resupplies, and chatted for a bit with the individuals in there. In our state, we seem to lend ourselves to conversations, where did you come from, where are you going, you’re biking all that way, which soon dissolves into more information about the area, the weather they’ve been having, how busy they are, how often people stop. We only had about 30 miles left to Slana when we left but bundled up as the temperature started to drop. We arrived in Slana only to find what seemed to be a dead town, I had never been there before but it’s the launching point for a lot of adventures that happen in Wrangell National Park so thought there would be something. The temperature read about 30F and we made our way off the highway onto a gravel street following our maps to what looked like something. We saw a post office and I stopped, “hey these are usually open at night” I got off my bike and opened the door feeling a rush of warmth overtake my body, “It’s open and it’s so warm!” Ana and Grande thought maybe we should try the inn next door before violating any federal laws. We went up after seeing the open sign and knocked on the door, a woman rambled down the hallway and confusingly opened the door, “hi, we’re biking through and wondering if you have any rooms we can get for the night.” The lady, seemingly not realizing that she was standing in the door to a place that say “Inn” and “Open” very clearly said they weren’t open, the rooms weren’t ready, winter had stayed longer and they had flooding they had to deal with. As if we should have known all this. She almost lambasted us for being out in the cold, as if we didn’t know. I hesitated but then asked, “Do you think we could sleep in the post office.” “Oh absolutely not!” As if it was the most absurd thing she had heard.
We left, debating sleeping in the post office but opted not to as her house was so close and figured she was the postmaster. We rode back to the highway knowing there was a store just a mile or two down the road that we thought maybe we could try. There was a sign that said while they were closed we could ring the bell and they would come down so we did, and then again, and then again. Nothing, we weighed our options, the ground was pretty saturated from all the run off and we’d need a dry spot. We saw a gravel pull out across the road and made our way there opting for the spot that we thought would shield us best from the highway. We made camp and because of the cold opted to fit all three of us in a 2 person tent. We ate, changed into dry clothes, I shoved my riding clothes into the bottom of my sleeping bag and went to bed barely fitting all of our sleeping pads into the tent without overlapping. Fortunately, when I sleep I don’t seem to move and found myself in the same position when I woke up. We all stayed mostly warm throughout the night and packed back up, joking about how much easier it is when you’re not packing up middle school girls’ gear as well. Our plan for the day was to go past Tok.
Our aim was about 100 miles for the next few days to get us into Haines on time for the Ferry, with less focus on reaching a certain destination as more just acquiring mileage. Doing less mileage in one day only meant we’d be doing more mileage the next day. We had about 60 miles to Tok and it’d be our last big stopping point before we reached Haines so we planned on stopping at the grocery store and loading up. We only really figured we would need to make sure we had breakfast for the following day but I realized the further interior we got the less dietary options I would have for my restrictions. We rode on trying to identify a curve in the road that was a result of an earthquake not too long ago and that someone had told us about the day before but missed it if it even existed. The sun came out for a bit and we delayered, still commenting on the water that was almost breaching the highway from all the snowmelt. We started a descent and saw a moose on the side of the road, we all stopped as it looked at us. It seemed curious and instead of running off like moose in Anchorage do, it turned around and started up towards us, we turned around too. Ohhhh no, it started trotting up and we started riding up pulling our bikes back up the descent we just got down. Not a moment too soon an RV crested the hill and came down alternating the course of the moose and it ran off the side and up into the woods. We turned around commenting how moose out here probably don’t see many bikers but still for little traffic on the road the timing was perfect from the RV.
The only thing we really knew about Tok was that it had a Three Bears Grocery and an electric school bus. Ana had shared that she had read about the electric school bus that can operate in -40 degrees which it does because it gets that cold. Ugh, I don’t even operate in -40 degrees. As we arrived into town we saw a school bus and wondering if it was ‘The’ school bus but upon further inspection it seemed that it was gasoline fed. We rode through town seeing a Three Bears small shop that was closed, surely that was not it and plugged in our google maps to realize there was a larger one around the corner. We parked on the side and I stayed out with the bikes while the other two went in. Have a brief spot of service I sent off updated texts to my family and Kevin letting them know where we were and our plan.
I also had my inreach tracking us the whole time so people could see our progress and keep tabs on us. They came out and I went in, what to get, what to get, I got some frozen bagels, frozen donuts, bananas, apples, a tube of peanut butter, and some gatorade. After going outside to eat a bit and repack, upon going back in again I found not frozen bread and some neoprene gloves incase we ran into bad weather. Thinking my load would get lighter as we went and I worked my way through the three pounds of sour patch kids I realized this would not be the case as I put denser food back in my pack. At this point I had almost over done the sour patch kids and was developing sores in my mouth from all the sour, which if you think that stopped me from continuing to eat them you don’t know me at all.
We left Tok and after about 30 miles decided that when we saw a good spot to camp we would pull over. On the slope of a hill we saw a spot we could climb up to that would overlook the highway but shield us from being seen. Perfect, we pitched our tents deciding it was warm enough to sleep separately, ate dinner, and went to bed. We got up in the morning and was greeted by sun instead of clouds. This is where Grande would turn around and Ana and I would keep going. We ate breakfast and then packed up and parted ways after figuring out how to connect our InReach so we could update each other with our destination for the day.
Ana and I had loosely planned on again riding as far as we could and seeing where we ended up. We rode without any mishap until we saw a bear in the road. Then we stopped debating what to do, we could go by it, low risk that something would happen but high consequence if something actually did happen. We rode off a gravel road to see if there was a loop around, we talked about bush whacking around it but without eyes on it was worried it would run our direction and finally opted to wait for a car. So we waited, and waited, and then waited some more and talked about our options. I sent people updates from the inreach mostly because I was bored and not because I was worried.
Then finally a car approached, followed by another car, we waived them down and they stopped.”Hi, there is a bear up there, could we follow behind your car while you drive by?” “Oh yeah sure, do you want a macaroon?” “Um, yes absolutely, would like some sour patch kids?” They passed on the kids but we got into formation with the jeep behind them realizing what we were doing, they were between us and the bear and what seemed like a little too close when the car finally reached a certain point the bear scuttled off into the woods. We got over to the shoulder and waived goodbye. We continued on discussing what we had done and decided that it’s better to be safe than sorry.
We reached the Canadian Border and got through with no real issues having our passports and vaccine cards. The border had only opened up about a month earlier otherwise we probably wouldn’t have been able to ride through. We had to fill out information about where we would quarantine and put down a random hotel in Haines Junction.
We arrived in Beaver Creek around 7pm and stopped at the gas station, again it being the only spot to get water and food for another 100 miles. We both opted for frozen food that we could heat up and resupplied. I didn’t realize then just how much the warm fried rice would carry me through the night. But it was nice to eat some what real food. The owner of the gas station made a lot of conversation with us and we heard all about the drama between that store and the next store the town over in Destruction Bay. And like most people gave us a fair warning about all the bears around Destruction Bay. We left after taking a break, charging up our electronics, touching base with people and buying more fruit roll ups and coffee. We talked about how good we felt riding and how we would just keep going until we decided not too.
I think some of the push to keep riding was not only our timeline but the fact that we were in proper bear country, it’s one thing to think about sleeping with bears abstractly and a whole another thing to realize that it’s still early in the season, they’re hungry and close to the roads right now for the dandelions. We kept pedaling and never really discussed stopping until it was midnight and we were descending down a hill. I have a terrible eye for animals and from behind Ana yelled out “Bear!” I slammed on the brakes and at the bottom of the hill was a grizzly on the side of the road. We got over to the side and waited, maybe it would leave. We knew our chances with a car at this point were slim. We watched it walk across the road and sit down on the side we were on. Okay that’s annoying, we decided to wait a bit and the could backtrack and camp if we did. Within a few minutes we heard the low hum of what seemed to be a semi-truck approaching on the other side of the hill. We put on our bright jackets and got into position to wave it down. It crested the hill and was just a large lifted truck, not a semi.
They stopped and we explained the bear pointing down the road and then asked if we could jump in their bed. It was three guys and they moved stuff around to put us in their cab and said it would be warmer in there. They did have a point, but this is also how a lot of bad Lifetime movies start. Ana and I put our bikes in the back exchanged quick words, I grabbed my inreach and we got into the cab. I offered up fruit roll-ups or sour patch kids. They were drillers headed back to Whitehorse after being in Fairbanks for work. We drove past the bear and the roar of the truck sent it down off the side of the road but we still decided it was best that we didn’t try to go around it given it’s size. We made small talk with the guys, in situations like that were it’s evident that I could be easily kidnapped I try to give enough information that they know people love me and would miss me without too much information. It’s a fine line but I’ve perfected it over the years. Plus we knew that our GPS was tracking and they would have to stop at some point so even if they didn’t immediately let us out we could navigate that.
Really need to do a better job of getting outside pictures of vehicles
We originally thought we would just be going around the bear but they also told us that they had seen a bear right before they saw us, reminding us of how many bears were there. We thought if we saw a good camp spot and/or a spot with another vehicle that might work but the night wore on we stayed in the truck. We reached a point where we decided to just catch a ride to Destruction Bay about 40 miles away so we wouldn’t have to deal with bears at the moment. We continued making small talk about their work, the wildlife, living in Deadhorse, and their music choice (a lot of Nickelback) for being like 20 years old. Gus messaged Ana to see why we were going 50mph so we at least knew people were watching us when it maybe mattered the most.
We arrived in Destruction Bay and got out of the truck around 2am, thanking them for the lift and telling them we would be fine. We thought about getting a hotel but the hotel was closed and not answering their phones. We debated sleeping in the door way that was open and slightly warm. We stayed in there while making a plan, there was a campsite just back and it seemed like it was open so we rode over there. There was a lot of trash piled up on the edge of the campground which didn’t exactly bode well for pitching our tent with bears. We saw a covered deck and thought about pitching our tent in there and then we saw a man inside the house (that seemed to run the campground) on his computer so we thought we would knock and ask him about camping. We did and when he answered we were greeted with, “Do you know what time it is?” Looking at us in bewilderment. Yeah, obviously that’s why we’re here. We told him we were just looking for a place to camp and for someone who owns a campground seemed angry about it but said we could camp. After that interaction we decided not to and rode across the highway and found a park with a pavilion where we pitched our tent at least getting some shelter from everyone. It was 3am by the time we went to bed and I was shivering myself to sleep as the mountains and water cast a cool blanket over the land.
We woke up around 7 and were still cold so we packed up and went over to the dinner in the hotel to get coffee and hot food. We stayed there for a while, almost 3 hours. So long that my mom texted Kevin to ask why we weren’t moving and having already checked in with him he said that I had service and could call. I Facetimed my mom to let her know we were still alive. After warming up as much as we could we made a plan of getting to Haines Junction, refueling and then riding on. It was Friday so the more we rode today the less we’d have tomorrow.
We left town with the sun finally cresting from behind the mountains and not even 10 miles out we wee greeted with cars coming the other way stopping to let us know there were two grizzlies on the side of the road about a mile up. Times like these make me realize how terrible people are at gauging distances. After we had gone 2 miles we thought we had changed our luck and the bears were off the road, not so as we turned a corner and were greeted by what seemed like yearlings hanging out on the side of the road. Completely unfazed that cars were driving by- this meant two things they would completely ignore us as we rode by or they wouldn’t (as is often the case). They were closer than we would have liked and again opted to wait for a car. A truck soon pulled up that was a member of the Canadian Parks Department and he let us load our bikes in the back but for safety reasons we had to get inside.
We drove past the bears and he drove us a few miles down to a good stopping point. We got out, reloaded up and took off. The sun was shining and the fatigue was starting to set in at least for me. I was pedaling but the slight inclines felt a little harder than the day before. I put in an audio book to distract me. I had been listening to When Breath Becomes Air, about a young surgeon who on the cusp of finishing residency gets diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer. It’s beautifully written and while I don’t have cancer a lot of the themes seemed to resonate with me, the turmoil in his personal relationships, the losing the sense of self, the questioning of what you should be doing with your life and given the time what’s really important. All things I had struggled with since the panic attack. And after I had some distance from Ana and as the ending came to a close my tears flowed, like they haven’t flowed since before the panic attack, big heaping sobs of the trauma, grief, and pain of the past 2 years and what had been brought on from the panic attacked. I cried for it all, for all the loses, collectively and individually, the pain I had caused and the pain others had caused me, the injustices that exist– it all came flowing out. The tears burned my face as they rolled down having been caked in the sun, wind, and rain the past few days. It took a long time to get here and only 500 miles of pedaling but I was finally releasing what felt like would never get out. I took a few deep breaths wondering if this was the ending or just the beginning.
Ana and I got together again and rode in tandem for a bit stopping before a long descent into Haines Junction. I told her about the book but stopped short of reliving my sob fest. At this point both her and Grande knew about the panic attack, I mean there is a lot of silence to fill, but this felt like mine to keep to myself, the grief that can’t be shared, and if she noticed she didn’t say anything. We sat on the side of the road, me laying down more, and talked about how tired we were. I told her I was tired but not as tired as the 250 but more tired than a normal ride of only 40 miles. The cold night before and lack of sleep really took a lot out of us and we were feeling the miles catching up with us today. We ate some food and didn’t really talk about anything other than making it to Haines Junction before the bakery closed.
We got back on our bikes and pedaled on. We descended down and arrived in Haines Junction opting to go to a grocery store before it closed. We found bagged salad kits and were gleeful at the prospect of fresh veggies after 4 days of commodity food (cue scurry).
We grabbed a few more things and then made our way over to the bakery where we ordered more food and sat outside planning to carry on for a bit longer before making camp. As time ticked on we slowly changed our plan, we had only gone 70ish miles so the need to do more was certainly there. But the bakery was so nice and we were so tired.
Okay, what if we stay in Haines Junction, actually get some sleep and then can do the last 150 miles tomorrow. We looked up a Hostel. I told Ana at the start of the trip that while I support her dirtbag lifestyle (I was young once) if needed to I would opt for a hotel and she could stay with me because what’s the point of having a good job if you can’t credit card bikepack sometimes. We rode over to the hostel and got a room with bunk beds. We pulled our bikes inside and put some food in the fridge. I baked some sweet potato fries that I had found frozen (the upgraded version of just letting them dethaw in your bag before eating). We were also able to shower which was a game changer as the grime of the past 4 days required some deep scrubbing and the occasional realization I’m scrubbing a bruise. I got into somewhat clean pajamas, put my legs up on the wall, and soon fell asleep. We woke up in the morning and packed up enough to ride to the bakery for when it opened. We ate breakfast and stayed there long enough for me to realize I forgot the sweet potato fries back at the hostel. After I returned I got another sandwich for later in the day and we took off to Haines.
The ride was mostly uneventful but we were warned there would be traffic and bears, which spoiler alert there actually wasn’t a lot of either. We rode for about 5 hours and then pulled off into a campground to see the Million Dollar Falls and maybe get some water. We thought even about putting our legs in the water but that was soon thwarted as it was linked off with the falls raging below us.
We wondered if you could run a kayak through it but neither us actually know that much about water so just figured someone had done it. We went back up and found a picnic table in the sun and ate some food. After eating, Ana laid down on her bench first and then I followed and we both fell asleep in the afternoon sun. And we slept so long we missed the ferry. Just kidding but that would definitely happen, we woke back up about an hour later saying we didn’t really have anything else to do and probably needed the rest and then rode around looking for a water faucet. No luck so we went back out on the road and figured we would filter when we found a good spot.
After getting some water we climbed up to what would take us to Haines Summit but it’s not a continuous climb instead you climb and then you are elevated for a while before reaching the actual summit. It’s surreal to be that high and surrounded by peaks. We saw what seemed like a weird public use cabin but there were two girls outside so we decided to stop and chat. The cabin is somewhat public use, a researcher built it and now it’s a first come, first serve type of thing but with it being so late in May they figured they wouldn’t have an issue. They talked about what they had skied and asked about our trip. They gave us some more water and they were the first ones who finally took some sour patch kids. As we rounded one of the last corners an avalanched released, I have never seen one in real life but it was a lot more subtle than I imagined it would be like.
We continued on our way after they told us we were close to the summit and then we would drop down to the Canadian Border. We reached the final actual summit and stopped to layer up. After that we dropped about 2,000 feet in 10 miles and it was a nice change from just pedaling.
We stopped at the border where it told us to stop but as we weren’t a car it didn’t seem to alert anyone and we debated what to do. I always get a little nervous about not doing exactly what they want but we decided we would slowly move towards the window and see if we could get anyone to notice us. The agent came out and was friendly enough taking our passports and asking if we had any guns or cash– welcome to America. It was almost comical with how little we were carrying to think we had some how stashed $10,000 in cash on us. I also wanted to ask how many people actually say yes to those questions but I realize sometimes it’s best to remain silent. The agent told us we only had about 40 more miles and we would descend for 20 of those and then it’s pretty flat for the last 20.
Grande had a friend in Haines that she had put us in touch so I sent her a message. We never try to presume anything so we asked her for campground recommendations, she responded with campgrounds but also said they had an off shoot in their house that we could sleep in and gave directions. Alright well she offered. We let her know we’d be coming late to double check and she said it wouldn’t be a problem at all.
We descended the 20 miles and then we were greeted by the flat pedaling coming into town. It was similar to the Valdez ride where you descend the pass and then all of a sudden you still have 20 miles to town. We pulled over at one point to delayer and two cars pulled over to ask if we needed rides, oh no we’re almost there and we should probably finish this section. Plus Grande told us her trick of counting mileage, once you hit 10 miles it’s basically like nothing and you’re there. So we figured we had two 10 mile segments and really that’s like nothing. But the flatness wore on and we realized just how far 20 miles is even if it seems like nothing after having gone 580 miles. We talked about how cool the landscape was with the big trees and even seemingly bigger mountains.
Neither of us had been to Haines but it was on my places to check out. The darkness came quicker with the canopy of the trees blocking out light and we put on our lights just to be safe. We put the address into our GPS to figure out where to turn as it’s just before the main part of Haines. The miles ticked by and we kept joking how we really had nothing left (clearly delirious at this point). We made it into Haines and turned to be greeted by a large hill to get up to the house, after some tricky navigation we found the house and followed the directions. We ended up sleeping in an office and bathroom that was separate from the rest of the house so we felt less bad about coming in late.
Two nights in a row of showers, what a treat and no having to set up the tent was even better. We showered and went to bed with no real plan for the next day other than to catch the 4pm ferry. When we woke up we saw one host outside, the other had to take off for a guiding trip, and chatted with him for a bit about Haines and the area, they had been crust skiing the day before at Haines Summit for 7 hours.
We made our way into town to the one shop that seemed to be open for breakfast and got coffee and breakfast burritos and sat outside to kill time for the next few hours. We had arranged for bike boxes to be ready for us in Juneau but the bike shop called and said that would no longer work so we were trying to figure out another option as we need to have them boxed for the flights the next day. Grande once again had the hookup who put us in touch with the guiding company in town who had boxes we could come get around 1. From there our hosts would let us use their van to transport the bikes and boxes to the ferry and then Ana would drive the van back and ride back to the ferry where we would box our bikes up. This was a great plan it only threw a wrench in the fact that we needed to ride our bikes from the ferry to the house in Juneau we were staying at. We hoped we’d be able to hitch.
We caught the ferry no problem and sat out on the deck before moving into a more sheltered enclave as the wind picked up. We got some food, snoozed, and read to pass the time. We made a plan of trying to get off the ferry first so we could grab our bikes and hold up a sign for ‘Douglas Island’ to try and catch a ride. We made our sign and upon docking went to get our bikes and make our way towards the cars. In what could have been out of a movie scene we grabbed our bikes, turned around and all the cars seemed to be gone. What? How did that happen. We made our way to the exit and held up a sign. A box truck stopped, “You girls need a ride?”
“Yeah, but we’re going to Douglas Island, are you?”
“I can take you, no problem.” We put our boxes in the back and Ana went there too as there was only one seat up front. I got up front and immediately texted Kevin, got in a box truck with some guy who is going to take us to Laura’s just in case something happens. He responded asking for a license plate number– too late I’m already inside. I again made small talk to let him know that people would miss me. But we were delivered unharmed and he was just a nice guy who had daughters and understood our problem. The final spot we stayed, another hook up by Grande was a house on the water in Juneau. It was so nice that it almost seemed like the past 5 days weren’t real as we both go our own king beds with sheets to sleep in. Our bikes had been packed so there wasn’t much else to do and we headed to bed after FaceTiming our boyfriends to show them our lux accommodations.
We woke up the next morning and Ana caught a taxi to the airport before I did as her flight was earlier so I just hung out and drank coffee and watched the massive cruise ships dock across the marina. I made my way to the airport, leaving our bear spray and extra fuel for Laura as they don’t allow them on the plane.
I arrived back in Anchorage and Kevin got me from the airport, in true summer fashion I already had a trip planned for the next weekend and it took me another 7 weeks to even reassemble my bike. I spent a lot of time on the trip in my own thoughts and I didn’t make any headway to knowing or figuring anything out. I try to making meaning out of meaningless things. Maybe the meaning of it all is that it validated my most exaggerated fears and in doing so I can be released of them or face them or deal with them now. Maybe it’s just in accepting the arbitrariness of what happened, in a moment a spasm of random damage in time and space, that just as randomly, a small number of humans got the opportunity to help me repair. I spent most of the months before this not trusting anything in my brain or my body as if in one fleeting moment it could all be gone the ground crumbling underneath me. I kept waiting until I felt better to make plans unsure of even what tomorrow would bring as if making plans for the future was something that I would get to do when I was better, when I was back to baseline and could rebuild from there. But at some point my body got tired of waiting and decided to act. I’m not back to baseline or maybe I am or maybe it doesn’t matter but I have a lifejacket on in case I ever need to start swimming again.
Anyways, it’s been a long while since I wrote, my narrative got cut much like Meg’s soul in Hercules and it took me a while to find it, like a long while. It caused so much pain for myself and for those around me that it’s still taking a while to sort through. But in this pain I’ve also found joy and learning that these can coexist–that shutting off joy doesn’t prevent the pain and feeling the pain only heightens the joy. Anyways I feel like I’ve spent the past few years running from the fear and not running towards the joy. Maybe it’s all the same. And maybe it’s just in the running that will lead you to where you need to be. 600 miles to no particular destination seemed to be a good place to start.
Grande, Ana, and I are back at it tomorrow but riding less than 100 miles and with no middle school girls– a first for us! Ha
Oh and if you’re wondering after departing Haines we took the ferry to Juneau where I flew back to Anchorage. Ana flew down to Seattle rode to Banff and then won the Tour Divide.
Alvin has taken to sleeping under the bed and even retreating there at moments during the day. After a quick google search it seems like dogs to do this to feel safe and to help them relax easier; after learning that I wondered if he had room for me under there.
The past two weekends I’ve been able to go camping. Which means life has simultaneously felt weird and normal. The Governor specifically addressed travel saying that you can go but cannot go into stores outside your community. The case count remains low here and with the physical distancing that took place early on gave the hospitals enough time to increase their bed capacity (and morgue capacity) so that if we do surge they are better equipped. As a result, some restrictions have been eased which I think we’ll know in about 2-3 weeks how that worked out.
The first weekend I found a friend to watch Alvin because apparently even the best trained dogs shred tents and not wanting to add a $300 tent to his running tab thought it was best to leave him home.
We headed down to Caines Head in Seward, I’m told it’s the trail that you take your out of state Alaska friends and also your girlfriend who doesn’t backpack. Perfect.
The trail beckoned us into the forest with lush tree coverage and dark, rich soil. We had an early start in order to make sure that we were able to cross a section while the tide was low and had plenty of time to spare. We topped off our water at a waterfall and headed to a fort that was used during WW2 to eat lunch but only after having to walk through the fort and hope that no bears were hibernating.
After that we headed to South Beach, which I kept calling North Beach and set up camp. Unlike winter camping it was insanely easy, no digging a hole, no shuffling around on skis, no having to eat a snack before hand; tent set up and ready to go in less than 3 minutes.
Having so much time we wandered around the beach, watched some sea kayakers, filled up our water bottles for dinner, made dinner, walked around the beach some more, found a dead otter somewhat near our tent. In my mind I was like oh great, that will attract the bears not us, which the next morning I was told that it could make the bears aggressive and they could come for us–ignorance is bliss.
In the morning I crawled out of the tent, with just about as many layers on as for winter camping but without a -20 degree sleeping bag. Again, the break down of camp proved much faster than winter camping and we were on our way.
As we hiked up we lost track of the trail covered up in snow and in a few places had to post-hole our way through. As communities begin to open up I felt a similar feeling to apprehensively moving forward on top of the snow: is it safe, will it hold me, and then occasionally finding my leg plunging through the crust and only being stopped by my hip on the surface. I had no idea that the snow remained that deep in places (deeper than a whole “Kate Leg”) and feel like with COVID cases we are in some ways only on the surface (again, call your congressional delegates about mass testing +contact tracing). We got down from the snow coverage and back onto the beach were we (I) haphazardly looked for animals in the water. We got back to the car and had just enough snacks to hold us over for the drive back but did put a to-go order in to a place in Anchorage to pick up on our arrival.
Last week I had a roller of emotions. It didn’t help that I was also about to start my period (not to add stuff to stereotypes but should be noted). I took a new job, well actually I took it a while ago but it’s in Washington DC so was waiting for more information on when I would physically need to be there. Initially thinking June 1 but then maybe end of June and finally got word that it would be mid-late fall. Which means working remote starting June 1 until we can be in the same space, but with the caveat of having to work east coast hours (for those of you at home, Alaska is in a separate time zone) meaning 5am-1pm in Alaska time. At first I was really excited about getting to stay in Alaska, I felt like I was just hitting my stride and settling in, getting friends, a community, have a boyfriend, have an Alaskan dog, starting to do more activities, have a sweet work remote gig, the dream.
But at some point the reality of me having to get to DC with the logistics of a pandemic began to cast a shadow over this ideal situation, besides having to go to bed at 8pm every night for a 4am start to the day. I initially thought of staying till the end of my lease, through July. Part of me was like yeah, do that, getting to DC is a problem for future Kate to deal with. But that would mean either moving end of July and in all likelihood flying (which I was adverse to all the germs on planes to begin with so no thank you at the moment) or staying here until I could get to DC which realistically might not happen until after fall. I have time now to drive, and it’s not ideal because even though it’s essential travel I can’t stop anywhere except for gas in Canada. Thinking of going to South Dakota and hunkering down with my parents Tenzen and Alvin (still not sure which one would end up sleeping in my bed) until I needed to head to DC (a 20 hour drive from SD vs. 70 hour from AK). I’ve consulted with all my friends in public health and my therapist about what to do. I think with things opening up in about 2-3 weeks we’ll see how it’ll play out and the last day I can make a run for home would be May 25 in order to get there and start work on June 1. Right now I’m leaning towards going home but I feel like I’m leaving this safe cocoon in Alaska for a hot zone/inferno in South Dakota. It could be a game time decision.
Me telling Alvin to not embarrass me camping
Maybe some of this coupled with it being Alvin’s first overnight camp trip was on my mind when I had Alvin hooked around my waist and hiking up Point Hope. He’s been really good (mostly for maybe having no training in his life) but does pull sometimes. I was seated on the ground digging something out of my pack when he saw a puppy approach and he lunged for it. The belt had slid up above my hips and onto my stomach and so when he lunged, he performed the heimlich maneuver on me, which felt like getting the wind knocked out of me. And then just for good measure he did it two more times. And then I started crying, and it’s never about what you’re crying about–like when I bought the wrong size bed, it wasn’t about the bed it was about having a brain injury and dealing with that. It’s like all this uncertainty hit me and I couldn’t see how I was going to move forward.
Luckily Kevin un-clipped Alvin from me and took him to give me some space. Kind of reminded me of when your mom is on the verge of an emotional breakdown (as portrayed in TV shows) and your dad is like “okay kids, let’s go get some ice cream”. We made it to the summit without any other incidents and then Alvin took a nap.
Going down he was much better, probably from getting tired going up. We would alternate between jogging and hiking down with him.
We got back to camp and met our friends who also have a rescue husky. Talking to them made me feel a bit better as the owner told me she cried multiple times the first 6 months of having hers and now they take her biking, hiking, and running. Because the other dog was off-leash eventually we decided Alvin could go off too. In the moment of unclipping him from his tether saw the rest of my evening spent looking for him on the hillside. Fortunately, that did not manifest and he stuck close to us, the other dog, and the campsite. It was actually really fun to watch him play with the other dog and at some points it’s like he realized he was a dog. The other dog started digging a hole and then Alvin realized he too could dig a hole. Then came the moment of truth. Bedtime. Was Alvin going to hear a noise in the night and shred our newly acquired $25 craigslist tent (in case he did shred the shit out of it, would only be out $25….).
He was a champ and I’m not sure he moved positions the whole night, no holes in the tent, no holes in our sleeping pads. Here’s hoping I can train him to sleep more on my feet and keep them warm.
We packed up the next morning and shuttled Kevin for a pack rafting adventure. I walked around a bit with Alvin but mostly sat on the beach reading a book that had been on my list since September only pausing once to briefly entertain what my life would look like without the pandemic– no Alvin, more bike riding, I’d probably already be on my way to DC for the June 1 start so I could stop and ride my bike and see friends along the way. And yet, sitting on that beach felt completely normal.
Even this feels normal now
We’re going backpacking again this weekend but combining the two last weekends into one: Backpacking with Alvin. Last weekend we just car camped with him, but will continue to haul that beef-cake of a tent around in the backpack just in case though.
I don’t know what I was thinking when I agreed to sleep in a tent, outside, in 0 degree weather.
Actually the only thing I was thinking was I need to get out of this place and away from people and that’s how I found myself sleeping in a tent in a -20 degree sleeping bag near a glacier with no one around. I was suppose to be in Albuquerque for training and was so close to getting a mountain bike on dirt trails that when the trip got cancelled as a result of COVID-19, selfishly I was upset because dirt, finally, but as a public health expert (heyyo master’s in pandemic preparedness ironically not a lot of funding for a job when I was looking) realized that the best thing is to stay put and remain as isolated as possible, and pray to God they start testing everyone, soon.
Also tried to convince my dad to stop going to the jail
As a result last week was weird, I spent Monday thinking I would be leaving, Tuesday cancelling flights, Wednesday and Thursday on calls, and Friday packing up what I thought I might need from my office in the hospital in anticipation of leaving indefinitely. I imagine everyone kind of had a week like that; a lot of moments where I’m like what is happening. And it’s weird because there is nothing I can do right now except wait for what feels like this cloud to engulf us and see how quickly it will blow over or how long we’ll be trapped in an endless fog. Researching and writing about every pandemic during graduate school has really made me jump to the worse case scenario because I know how it can potentially play out, especially when ineffective leadership and missteps will literally cost our country lives (but that’s for a research paper discussion and not my blog).
With all this going on in my brain I didn’t even realize there would be no fire with winter camping.
I had gone the weekend before on a backcountry nordic ski trip to a hut where there was a wood fire stove where we dried our boots out and a stream nearby to collect water to boil and drink. On that trip I was comfortable the whole time, temperature wise, which I got a few comments on how small my backpack was and honestly felt like I overpacked, I didn’t even get to wear the shorts I brought. One of the guys did carry my sleeping bag in his pack because apparently it’s not ideal to just hook it to the outside of my bag (so many things to learn).
It even came with it’s own out house….
The hut trip was really fun and we skied about 15 miles each day, the first day was prime skiing conditions and the weather was nice too. The second day left a little bit to be desired as new snow had fallen, creating a heavy snowpack, very ideal for creating snowballs, less ideal for sliding through it on toothpicks. The snow would pack up underneath my skis rendering them mostly useless and then I would get frustrated and then just kind of run/walk with awkwardly long sticks to my feet and then I would see a downhill and stop and scrapped the snow off my skis and try to get enough glide to gain momentum to go down. I definitely ate a lot of sour patch kids to get me through that dark time. Overall it was a very enjoyable experience with good company (that’s not sarcasm given the next picture).
Having gone through the hut trip meant I was ready for my next Pawnee Goddess Patch: Winter Camping.
I won’t bore you with too much of the details getting there, we skied in a about 10 miles along a mostly flat riverbed area and then found a camp spot near the glacier and set up before going exploring.
We shared the glacier with some snowmobilers and even a few dog sleds (so Alaskan) before they all left for the day and we seemed to be the only souls for miles.
Also did some falling
I dug a hole in the snow so that we had some sort of bench to eat dinner on (because are we not civilized haha).
As we sat there I talked about how my mom tells the story about when she was a kid and she asked her dad what would happen if a nuclear bomb went off and he responded that they would just go sit on the backside of the hill overlooking the river. She joked how as a kid she was slightly mortified but as an adult realized he probably didn’t want to be in a small crawl space with five young children. I concluded by saying this seemed like a good place to sit and take a minute with all the chaos and uncertainty that we had left miles away.
I survived that night with the mantra, you might not ever be comfortable but you won’t die. Being in a -20 degree sleeping bag and almost every piece of puffy clothing I owned I was actually quite comfortable and only found out the next morning I had slept with the back of the sleeping bag covering my face (thought it was a little hard to breath at times but was also quite warm so…). We packed up in the morning and skied by the glacier before running into some friends on bikes. The ski out was nicer than the day before and I slowly peeled off all my puffy layers.
Photo taken by Rachel from 6 feet away
I have spent this week working from home which has come with it’s own challenges (like that I convinced myself I would never need a desk at home) but also endless hot water for tea and real windows in my office.
And in weird ways living in Alaska has helped me prepare for this as I felt like I was having to Facetime and call to maintain a lot of my relationships but conveniently now all my friends who were four hours ahead are also working from home so are more available to talk. And also with my mom working from home, just means I can Facetime and see Tenzen more.
I’m sure like a lot of people (me) right now have a lot of anxiety and it can be hard not to get consumed by it all. I worry about the people I know who are sick or will become sick, I worry about how it will ravish our healthcare system, I worry about my parents, my communities, the small businesses that will be impacted. I know these are normal feelings and acknowledging them is okay, but also dwelling and being consumed by them is not–yes yoga has been helping. Alaska is a weird place to experience this, I feel the distance with my family more than ever, but also realize if I was closer I still wouldn’t be allowed to have contact. In a lot of way getting outside here seems like a completely selfish pursuit at the moment but so few other people are around that it’s maybe safer than going to the grocery story–almost a weird guilt that I can still do most things while others are having their lives upended in irreparable ways.
I know I’m beyond privilege/blessed to have the ability to work from home while still being able to access the outdoors and have some semblance of life. The fatbike race that was suppose to happen this weekend got cancelled which even though there weren’t that many participants I really thing the biggest thing we can all do right now is restrict our movement until more tests get deployed to test for asymptomatic and mild symptomatic people– realistically until we have that data we have no idea what we are actually up against. If you’ve made this far I will make my one political plug and that is to call your congressional delegates and demand mandatory testing for every individual — they want to send everyone a check, great, attach a test to it. Typhoid Mary is thought to have infected 3,000 people with typhoid and she presented as asymptomatic, she was isolated by judicial order for 23 years…
I am headed in the backcountry again this weekend– who knew a pandemic would ignite my love for winter camping but really I think it’s more being able to turn off the email, news cycles, and case counts. Mostly, I’m trying to act as if I was contagious and don’t want to infect others; because while there are some great ‘Kate’ nicknames: Kissing Kate, Rattlesnake Kate, Big Nose Kate, #singlek8 –no these aren’t all my nicknames but would rather not end up with Corona K8 added to the list and be an asymptomatic individuals that is transmitting the virus.
Last weekend I finally headed down to Colorado to take the in-person ethics course and get sworn in. When I was booking flights figured end of February would be a good time to leave Alaska (it was) and was a convenient time for my family to come because I’m convinced if they didn’t see it actually happen I’m not sure they would believe I actually did it. Either way it gave me a nice excuse to get out of the darkness and see some family and friends while getting officially sworn in (even though Alaska gave me a license a few months ago via email). The course itself was a bit dry and somewhat redundant as I had taken an ethics course in law school and a national test that proved I could at least think about being ethical. My parents and Joyce (sans Tenzen) picked me up afterwards and we went to Colorado Springs to see Mary work–which is a bit strange as she works in the Air Force Academy Athletic Department, so basically just watched a basketball game.
The next morning we headed back to Denver so I could fill out my application to register and pick up my oath. We had a bit of time to kill so went to the History of Colorado Museum. My dad got me a museum pass to the Anchorage Museum for Christmas but I think when he was looking at which to purchase he just picked the most expensive and went with it– that’s how I ended up with a family of 4 pass and access to all Smithsonian affiliated museums–so I was able to get everyone in for free and we wandered around a bit.
For the swearing-in ceremony, my mom’s friend from law school was able to arrange a good friend who is a judge to perform the ceremony– making it a bit more personal than the clerk of courts.
I imagine taking the oath is similar to reciting vows when you get married–you’re a bit nervous, excited, but mostly you’re like oh shit this is for real–quite a different feeling from getting an email.
We took some pictures, signed the oath, and that was it.
Because I had scheduled my fight for a long weekend, we headed to Boulder where I was able to get a quick run in with Sully before meeting my family again for dinner and then convincing everyone to go to The Downer for kamikaze shots (figured getting sworn in was enough to persuade my family into going down to the greatest bar in Boulder).
Low quality picture, high quality bar
We didn’t stay out too late because we were heading to the mountains in the morning and had a 5 am departure (3 am Anchorage time for you folks at home). I slept most (all) of the way up and was greeted with a second cup of coffee (I chugged my first one when we pulled into their driveway) upon the arrival at our friends’ house. With the weather having been so nice and the roads mostly dry we settled for a road ride, mostly, with patches of gravel. I borrowed one of Sully’s gravel bikes and we departed.
It was so nice, I left my tights in the car and about 15 minutes into riding had to shed most of my other layers (one day I will realize that I don’t get nearly as cold as I’m convinced I will). We rode for just over 2 hours and about 40 miles. Providing a stark contrast to my last outside ride which was also just about 40 miles but over 5 hours on a fatbike. I was soaking in the sunshine and finally being outside on bikes. It wasn’t until we turned around did I realize how strong of a tailwind we had (even though we had been warned when Christa and I were apparently pushing the pace with a good tailwind…).
Lucky for me, I mostly tucked into Sully’s draft and sat on his wheel, until I feel off and then he would slow his roll and pull me back to the others. He said he didn’t mind because it was good training for him and I wasn’t going to argue.
We stayed in the mountains that night and did a short hike in the morning before packing up to beat the weather and traffic back to Boulder. We opted for running errands over working out but also both admitted our legs were a wee bit tired.
I schedule my flight for Monday evening in the hopes that it would allow time for one last activity. Because it had been snowing the day before, riding was out and no reason to ride the trainer in Colorado when I could do that in Alaska. We headed up to Sanitas for a hike/run. Most of the way up involves large steps up either stairs or rocks so power walked up followed by getting to the summit surrounded by clouds. We got our yak-traxs out for the way down and had just talked about what trail to take down when the clouds broke, creating an inversion and exposing the flatirons while Boulder remained completely hidden.
The sun was so bright but we quickly descended into tree coverage and onto a less popular trail (we theorized it’s because dogs aren’t allowed on it). We got down the trail by talking about different races, training techniques, and skimo races–joking about doing the Grand Traverse courses; bike, run, and ski from Crested Butte to Aspen. We finished having gone 5 miles and the most vertical I’ve done since South Dakota at Christmas (need to do more step-ups to prepare for the Grand Canyon).
I’m now back in Alaska, with a bit more daylight starting to creep in. This winter was a bit rough for me and I was surprised at how much the lack of sun impacted me–spontaneously crying on my way to work multiple times, check. It was certainly compounded by the cold as my penchant for merrymaking with negative temps was nowhere to be found. I keep thinking about the fatbike race–I think my only inclination to do it is, is because as Sully put it when else am I going to ride a fatbike for 100 miles in Alaska. It makes me feel like when I got recruited for intramural softball because someone thought since I was decent at riding my bike I must just be athletic in nature–very far from the case–and fatbiking is similar, being good at one cycling discipline doesn’t necessarily translate to another. But as if I did my planning quite poorly in anticipation of this race, I head to Albuquerque next week for a conference, and part of my is tempted to stay down and ride my bike in the desert instead of the snow. Stay tuned.
Wait a minute, I’ve been here before. I had just put the skin back on my ski and looked behind me to realize in those few moments I was struggling to wrangle it back on the entire field had blown by me. I looked ahead and saw what looked like a tiny ant line marching into the distance, I looked behind me to the edge of the hill which dropped off into darkness with no one behind me. Okay, so starting this race season like I ended last year’s. Dead last. I turned and began to make my way up the hill and made sure to consistently drag my feet and try not to allow any unnecessary movement that would knock my skin off again.
Photo from Callie
I got to the top and all muscle memory of removing my skins and switching my skis had dissipated, okay so it didn’t really help that the only muscle memory I had was from two days earlier when I had put skis on for the first time this season and watched a video of a ski racer during a transition, so hadn’t fully committed it to memory. I shoved my skins down my tights and pushed off the ledge, welp, here we go.
At this point if you’re trying to figure out what is happening, don’t worry I was trying to figure that out the entire race. A week before I had found myself volunteering at a 100 mile race. I’m not sure how it came up but by the end of my time there I had committed to meeting one of the other volunteers for a skimo race on Friday night. Perfect, first time on skis this season and my second time in oh about 19 years, why not start off racing.
Mile 90– yes that’s a space heater + straw very close by
Fortunately, I got a text that they would be going out on Wednesday to do a loop and bringing another friend who would be towing a baby so I should be able to keep up. I texted Sully that I don’t think this person understood that when I said I was a beginner he did not realize ‘I would be pulling my tags off my new gear in the parking lot’ beginner (I bought stuff in October but was still racing my bike till December and then it got super cold in January so really had no interest).
On our practice ski on Wednesday I only got one weird look at the start of the trail from a high school nordic skier, he was like “I’m not even going to ask” to which I responded, “just you wait, this is what you get to look forward to.” So we went up, down, up, down, and I practiced my transitions with lots of humility and openness to just about every piece of advice they could give me. I had hopes of practicing the transition in my backyard on Thursday but had some hard deadlines that meant I just watched videos of Killian Jornet transitioning and went over the steps in my head. I wasn’t too worried about how long it would take me, I didn’t really care about that, but more didn’t want to accidentally lock my ski in and blow out my knee going down or not lock my ski and and loose the stability in my knee going up.
The race started with us running to our skis, getting into the bindings and taking off uphill. I actually felt like I had a somewhat decent start for not knowing what I was doing. I made a comment to another cyclist that ‘this is a bit different than cyclocross’ and kept gliding uphill (trying to channel my inner Dottie Hansen, “gracefully and grandfully” but in reality probably looking more like Marla…). I was about halfway up when I looked up to see people starting to reach the top, and felt one of my leg’s lose traction, I looked down and my skin was lying in the snow behind me. I picked it up and shuffled off to the side taking my ski off to reapply it. I fumbled with it for a bit and put it back on, okay round 2, only to make it a few shuffles and have it pop off again. Por que, why is this happening. I stopped, put it back on again and looked up to realize I was dead last. I made it to the top without any more hiccups but was also conscious to have my ski keep contact with the ground. I got to the top, got a card, transitioned, stuck my skins down my tights as I was informed to do (cycling has left me with so little modesty #kiddingmom, kinda), and took off down the hill. Bonus about being last, not a lot of traffic going down, which I was grateful for because I’m still a bit cautious about the whole downhill speed/brain injury thing (you’re welcome mom).
Photo from Callie
I got to the bottom, handed in my card, put my skins back on and started working on the uphill segment again. I had passed some people, or they had passed me in their lapping of me, but either way had some company going up. Again, I got about halfway up when I lost my skin but had a hard time wrestling it back on, a dad who was with his young son stopped and gave me two ski straps to hold it in place to get to the top. Because of the rubber my ski turned into less of a glide and more of a grumble with an awkwardly long and heavy snow-shoe technique taking over. I got to the top, transitioned, and headed down hill. The downhill wasn’t steep, except for the last little bit before the transition area, I pizza’d so hard down that section as to not go very fast but also didn’t want to crash in front of everyone. I was 8 minutes from the cut-off when they were going to stop people from going back up, well it might take me 8 minutes to transition, it didn’t and I was back on my skis headed up with about 5-6 minutes to spare. I didn’t put the ski straps on and tried to limit any unnecessary movement. I made it to the top without losing a skin. I made it down and took some wider lines into the powder because why not at that point.
Photo from Callie
Before the race I thought that trying to do 3 laps was a good goal and I was able to get that with even the mechanicals (is that even what they are called in skiing, I have no idea). I also had a lot of fun for having no idea what I was doing– at the end of the race I realized I had never flipped my boots over from the ski mode the whole time but also as a beginner I have no idea how things are suppose to feel so just assume it must be how everyone feels.
After putting my legs up on the wall for an abnormally long time that night, I headed down to the resort to go skiing on Saturday. I did some snowboarding in the resort in Colorado when I first moved there but before I got my brain injury because after just didn’t feel like it was worth the risk. I don’t think I had been on skis in the resort since maybe a middle school ski trip.
Photo from Kevin
Fortunately, the two people I went with, while expert skiers were more than okay taking the day slow and spending time on only blue runs, and gave me pointers to practice turning, and showed incredible patience waiting for me at multiple points throughout the run.
Pizza for life– photo from Kevin
We were able to get about 7 runs in and I certainly felt a little more confident by the end of the day, not sending it down the mountain, but did have some french fry moments and not just all pizza.
Look at that french fry– photo from Rachel
In other non-activity news, death remains to feel exceptionally close in Alaska. At first I thought it was because of my position at the hospital, hearing all these ways people die or are injured that I normally wouldn’t be conscious of, and then I thought maybe it was because my counterpart in Fairbanks was violently killed, we were both fresh out of law school and she had only just started her career like mine when it was cut horrifically short, and then I thought maybe I’m just more aware of it–law school is a pretty selfish pursuit so often didn’t dedicate a lot of resources to things besides studying and training, so maybe I just wasn’t fully paying attention to how often death was happening.
Facetime with this dude at least once a week to say goodbye, just in case.
Then I finally realized, it’s just Alaska itself that reminds me of my mortality in so many ways, it remains the feeling that everything can kill you– the exposure, the isolation, the wildlife–being out all night in New York City and not being able to get home, something bad might happen but you probably won’t freeze to death– in Alaska getting your car stuck somewhere on a remote road that you’re trying to turn around on can become a perilous situation pretty quick (no that hasn’t happened but do have a shovel, blankets, and food in my car just in case). It just seems like the stakes are elevated all the time; you can do everything right and still die, you can do everything wrong and still survive, and that’s where I struggle- there are more wild parts of the equation that I can’t control. But like everything there is a certain amount of risk with everything involved and making sure that I’m prepared as best as possible just means maybe it won’t look totally terrible on the report–hope springs eternal.
And in more non-activities, activities, I keep thinking that the Fat Bike race is the week after it really is so now have about 3 weeks to get in shape-ish enough for 100 miles, oops. That is not going to look good on the report. Guess it’s time to finally start training.
I find the darkness disorienting, or maybe that’s still the head cold I picked up from CX Nats. It wasn’t until I went home for Christmas and returned to Alaska that I realized just how dark it is. The mornings prove especially difficult when waking up any time between 6 am and 9 am casts the same amount of darkness. It seems like everyone’s day sleepily unfolds, including mine. Normal weekend activities that used to begin at 8 am are now leisurely attempted at 10 am because there is only a fraction of light so why rush. My sunlamp helps and most morning I sit in front of it for longer than is recommended before peeling myself away and getting cast back into the darkness for my drive to work. While my natural tendency is to fight disorder and chaos realizing the importance of just sitting and acknowledging these times of off-periods is just as important before taking the next step (you can thank my therapist for that one).
Some of my leisurely attempts at life these days can be attributed to my lack of structured training. After Nationals, I decided to take a minimum of 1 month off the bike, to give myself a mental break and physically recover from what seemed like the longest race season of my life. Mainly because of the bar exam but seemed like I started training last March to really only start racing in September. And while I feel like I have a high penchant for trainer rides, I’m still not quite ready to get back on. I know, I know, but what about a fat bike you ask? I’m not ready for that either, mostly because it’s been (what I’m told is) abnormally cold for Anchorage with temperatures in the negative. If I don’t have to get outside right now, then don’t have the motivation to bundle up for minus 10 and look like Randy from a Christmas Story. The first few times the temperature dipped it felt colder than was reported. In South Dakota I’ve experienced -35 but finally figured out because the lack of sunlight here there isn’t any additional radiation of warmth happening.
Since I haven’t been riding my bike and obviously not blogging what have I been doing with my time? Well, after CX Nats I took the first week completely off, mostly to try and kick my head cold but also to just give my body time to recover. I flew home the next week and embarked on my first physical activity which was just a short run around my parent’s house- leaving the house at 5:30 pm I was thrust into darkness but had at least been able to enjoy the sun for most of the day.
Molly, Wayne, and I hiked Black Elk on Monday, almost convincing Mary Clair to come with us but she bailed at the last minute– but at least Molly and I finally had someone to take photos of us.
We even got her the essentials to come hiking
Coming down from the summit we were along the ridge line when the sun seemed especially bright and I started singing “sunshine on my shoulder makes me happy.”
The next day I headed back up Black Elk with my dad, I wasn’t planning on it but wanted to see if I could get to the top in less than 50 minutes and the weather for the rest of the week meant that Tuesday was my only window. I was able to get to the top in 47 minutes and back down for a round trip of 1:27, leaving me 4 minutes off of the women’s (unofficial) fastest known time–I didn’t even think to check the times before I left and thought of going back up to see if I could take the 4 minutes off but set myself back with my cold that day. I took almost another week off from any exercise because of my cold, but was still able to spend plenty of time with family and friends.
Some new additions this year!
Why yes, Little Women is being remade…lolz
The trip back from South Dakota was a bit rough, having to drive down to Denver (thanks again, Barb!) and then fly back to Anchorage meant it was about 27 hours of travel time, which is about the same amount of time it takes to get to Viet Nam. Getting submerged into the dark, coldness has meant that I’ve been exploring more things inside, like swimming, bouldering, and a workshop on reduction poetry hosted by the museum.
Don’t worry Mom, only about a foot off the ground
Reduction poetry (or Blackout Poetry) is created by redacting words from already published work; it’s constraining and freeing because the words are there but requires you to be open to the possibility of what could be while also shifting your expectations as you go. Much like life you learn to let go of the expected outcome, go with the flow and almost count on getting interpreted by some guy asking where the bathroom is when you are on the cusp of a perfect sentence only to loose it and spend the next five minutes trying to recreate it. And no, I don’t know where the bathroom is–which I showcased later by accidentally walking into the men’s….
Reduction poetry is also a rabbit hole to go down, it’s most pronounced form is censorship with the works taking a political stance. But where does the line between editing and censorship for individuals exist? I thought it was a somewhat appropriate space to explore as I had just re-submitted a publication after suggested edits from the editors resulted in 580 revisions. And wondered how much of my voice or narrative got lost in the hopes of having my name in print.
It was 20-ish pages but still….
So now it’s been a month since Nationals, my mandatory period off the bike is over but still not inspired to get on a fat bike yet. Yes, I know I have that 100 mile race coming up in March but not looking or planning on being in peak shape for it mostly because my race season goals for next year are mostly focused for August-December so would rather not supernova this season where I burn super bright at the start and then explode for the rest of it. Plus, feel like as long as I do a few plate pushes and get on the bike 4-6 weeks out that’ll be enough, or it won’t.
Trying to find inspiration somewhere
I have been spending some time in the gym because (1) I don’t want to add too much winter weight, gotta keep my market value up; and (2) “exercise causes endorphins, endorphins makes you happy, and happy people don’t kill their husbands”. So until that sun comes out will be taking more than the recommended daily dose of Vitamin D and keeping my endorphins elevated.
“What goes through your mind at that point? Like what made you decide to keep going and not just quit?” My cousin posed the question to me when I was retelling my experience at Nationals. I didn’t have a good answer for her and told her so, I wasn’t sure what exactly was going through my mind when I took off running.
It’s now been almost 3 weeks since Nationals, my cuts have scabbed over but the cough I picked up on the flight is still lingering. I feel like I’m still processing the races but that’s mostly because unlike last year I didn’t have to jump immediately from finals to racing to finalizing a PhD application. This year I just raced–I pulled the plug on PhD applications about 4 weeks ago when I couldn’t get the appetite to actually submit them. But as a result I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about my preparation, travel, and expectations that went into Nationals. With being in Alaska and the racing season so short its been in the back of my mind that it would be mostly a development year, and racing Nationals for fun and to stay somewhat relevant. For going into a race weekend with little expectations I’m left feeling a little disappointed that I didn’t expect more out of myself but like my dad said I probably learned a lot, per usual, he’s not wrong.
Let’s start with Baby Masters. I got in the day before but arrived at the venue a bit too late to to get my bike built up and on the course. Instead I opted to spin on the trainer, which meant going into the race blind. I knew from talking and studying the course map a general idea but without riding it really wasn’t sure what to expect.
The morning of the race I warmed up and made my way to the starting grid. None of my races in Alaska counted towards points for National seeding so expected to be called up last. I was pleasantly surprised that my points from last year’s nationals counted for this year so was not starting dead last and instead found myself in the second row, slotted behind a friend from Colorado. The light switched to green and we took off, I followed my friend’s wheel down the straight away and as we turned on dirt anticipated the run-up and hesitated before realizing there was still another 200 yards of pedaling before we’d have to dismount. The hesitation allowed a few women to move by and by the run-up I was in a pack, I dismounted and ran up as quickly as I could (which was not very fast).
I quickly remounted at the top and followed another wheel down a path before turning 180 and another 180 into a muddy descent. I followed a wheel down the descent but my front wheel got sucked into some mud and I tumbled off my bike. The pace was moving so quickly that I hadn’t even registered what had happened until I was back mounting my bike on the downhill and hoping not to crash again.
The course went around to the first pits and up and over a fly-over before hitting the second run-up. I dismounted and ran up (really more power-hiked). I got to the top and re-mounted and followed the false flat into a few switch backs before descending down, looping through some trees and getting sent down a muddy shoot back into the flats and by Pit 2. Then it was into the sand pit, which I bobbled and had to get off after 4-5 pedal strokes but I didn’t get off quickly, it was like let me unclip, straddle the top-tube, and then pull my leg over, really one of my worst dismounts of the year. I dashed through the sand and then re-mounted to try and stick on the two wheels in front of me. The last section of the course looped back through the woods before hitting the straight away.
After the first lap the field had spread out a bit and I was sitting in with two other ladies as we started the second lap. Having then previewed the course I knew what lines I wanted to take and I took them, no longer having the traffic of the first lap. I was able to stay upright on the descent and at Pit 2, Sully called out he thought I was in 10th. 9th remained in my sights and I tightened up my lines, getting off before the sand pit to run it.
Lap 3 the gap remained the same between myself and the women ahead of me. My bike was making a bit of a noise, and I thought of switching it out, really for no other reason than there was a noise and I had a bike so why not. I waited until Pit 2 and then signaled. I hadn’t done a bike switch since last year and came in hot. I was so nervous for the bike toss and at the last minute another racer’s mechanic popped into the field so I threw my bike to him and got the hand off from Sully. For not doing it in a year it went very smooth. I hopped on the bike, since it was Sully’s the fit was a bit different and the shifting was also a different mechanism. It took me a while to realize that I had two chainrings in the front and shifted down to the easier one. The saddle was a little lower than I was used to (even though I had ridden it around and adjusted it). On the last lap, I switched the bike out in Pit 1 and switched back for my bike. At this point the woman in front of me had put in a little more time, and I was trying to reel her back in before I ran out of course. I chased her up the second run-up and around the top section of the course, before dropping back into the flat section, by the pits, through the sand, and the woods. I ran out of course and was 8 seconds behind her.
I ended up 11th, which I kept referring to being the most talented non-finalist, which no one in cyclocross seemed to get since they don’t have pageant backgrounds.
I was a little bummed to miss the top-10 but mostly because it just sounds nicer. I made some mistakes on the first lap that I just couldn’t recover from but showed me that the fitness was still there.
I then did the Mechanic’s mile which if you know, you know. It’s kind of like a beer mile except the length of the course and four beers, and mud, and mostly dudes. I crashed in almost the exact same spot riding but this one drew a bit more blood.
Friday, Barb and I did some sight-seeing. I’ve always kind of thought about living in the PNW, especially because Seattle tends to be a hub for a lot of non-profit health organizations as well as health law scholarship. But Friday confirmed that I’m not cut out for the broody, dreary landscape that sweeps the area. Clearly many people seem to love it, or at least tolerate it because there are a lot of people living there.
I also planned on racing singlespeed because I have a singlespeed bike, it’s a very nice bike. It’s actually what I started cross racing on. Sully built it up for me and took me to my first cross race in 2014, I think I walked/ran most of that race but it hooked me to say the least. I figured out in September that I had shipped it to Colorado and not my parents house last May. I had talked to Sully about getting it to Nationals but we also talked about rigging my geared bike into a singlespeed so I wouldn’t have to ship a second bike and then pack it up after. That seemed easy and less logistically complicated, done.
I know you’re wondering so that is real rabbit fur on my vest
Sully rigged it up and set me up with 42 x 18 gearing and told me to ride it around to see how it felt. I did a quick spin in the parking lot and the gearing felt good. Sully asked if I wanted to try it on course, I said nah, I knew the course, he said to double check the gearing and I said nah, because I’ll either be running or mashing and was pretty familiar with the course at that point. I think he was trying to nicely say to test out the equipment better but in my mind I was good to go.
All the gear but none of it for Singlespeed ha
I talked to Sully about pit logistics. Because I didn’t have a “B” bike he wouldn’t be switching anything out and realistically thought my only potential issue was with a front flat so joked about just having a spare wheel with him. Even without any equipment and my potential for a mechanical very low he still decided to go stand in the pits. I had a pretty good starting spot, and when the light changed I was I was grateful for a larger gear because of the straightaway. I weaved through some bikes and narrowly avoided a crash that happened to the side of me. It reminded me of when I run over a snake and impulsively pedal faster to avoid the danger.
Me on the far right having the best start of my life
I turned on to the dirt and looked in front of me, immediately recognizing Meredith Miller (former SS National Champion and former World’s team rider – very fast lady on a CX bike) as the woman in front of me, oh shoot, I might have started a wee bit too fast but no sense of letting off now. I attacked the run up, navigating up the right side, I was motivated from my good start and hungry for a top-10, if for no other reason than it sounds nice. I went down the descent and again found myself behind Meredith, okay stay on her wheel.
Mere seconds from breaking my bike
I was approaching the pits, rode by Sully and turned a 180 to start the back half of the course. I went through a mud puddle and stomped on the pedals, only to find my momentum dwindle. I was loosing speed but still pedaling, I quickly realized I had lost tension in my chain. I looked down to realize the chain was off the back cog. I hopped off and struggled to get it back on, giving it a quick pedal turnover to check it, popped it back off again. Time was standing still as each woman rode by, with each frenetic moment of struggle, another woman would pass by me, making it feel like the seconds took forever but a minute was lost quickly.
I should take a moment here to explain the pits, the pits allow you to receive help from your mechanic at two spots during the course, even changing out bikes. The only problem is once you pass the pit you can’t go backwards, only forwards (insert some cheesy metaphor about life). 20-yards earlier I could have been in the pits to get help, I called out to Sully what had happened, he said something about the barrel adjuster, which I fumbled to turn having no idea if it was the right away. Because we had zip tied the shifter (so I wouldn’t accidentally shift it off) I could not shift it back into realignment. If you’re struggling to follow what happened, my chain popped off the one cog I had, that was in perfect alignment and got out of alignment and I couldn’t get it back in alignment. I looked at Sully, “it’s not working!” I looked down the course, and back towards the pit. I didn’t even think before I took off running, in my mind I just needed to get to the other side of the pit to get it fixed. I ran with my bike next to me, and shouldered it up the run-up. At the top, people yelled at me to get back on, but joke was on them since that wasn’t an option.
And dragging my bike…
I kept alternating between running and fast walking. I got to the top of the switch backs and a woman handed me a shot of whiskey, she was like you’re going slow enough to grab it, and she wasn’t wrong. I was able to get back on and coast down into the switchbacks where I lost all momentum and hopped back off to take about 20 steps and hope back on for the steeper descent. I rode the momentum as far as I could before getting off and running towards the pits. I rounded the corner and put my hand up to denote to Sully I would be coming in, in case it wasn’t obvious.
I ran in and didn’t even have to tell him what had happened before he had cut the zip tie did some mechanic magic to have it back on the cog. I jumped back on and pedaled away, the bike was still cranky so I was gingerly pedaling, not wanting to pop it off again, even getting off halfway up the flyover so I didn’t mash too hard.
This went on again for the last half of the lap, being able to make it through the straight away and up to the first run-up, back down and by pit 1, and towards the second run-up when it popped off again. Since I was so close to the run-up figured I would keep going and deal with it at the top. At the top I fumbled and couldn’t get it back on, running through all the shifting which I’m sure only made it worse, so started running again. I got to the top of the switch backs and the lady again handed me another shot telling me my race was right there in that cup and she was there for my off day. I took it and hopped back on to cruise down, this time staying on the bike and kicking with my left leg to get enough momentum to carry me down the second steep downhill.
Once I ran out of that momentum, I hopped back off and ran again into the pit, Sully fixed it again and got me back out there. I didn’t trust it enough to full let go and got off for the fly-overs, and even some mud puddles just to be sure. I was able to pedal the entirely off the final lap, but still resisted going full gas, I have a bad habit of ripping derailleur a off in prime conditions and figured this was one of those times. I finished on the third lap, the leaders did 4, I was 8 seconds off beating someone but just like top-10 sounds nice, dead fucking last sounds better than 42nd so I guess careful what you wish for. I limped out of the finish area, more so with a bruised ego than anything else and met Sully and Barb.
Smiling but close to tears
I was glad to have Barb there just to take some focus off my emotions and just lay out the facts of what happened. She remained upbeat and positive that I had even finished with as much running as I did and some of it transferred to me. I thanked Sully for being in the pits and at least keeping me going, allowing me to keep fighting as painful as it was. It’s the hardest I’ve ever had to work for last place. I cried the next morning packing up my bike, which Sully was like crying while packing a bike is never about packing the bike. It took me a while to write this because I’m still wading through my emotions of it. Not racing for 2 months prior to Nationals left me coming in with a lot of doubt about my ability, which only nasty things stem from a place of doubt. I think it’s hard because that first half a lap of singlespeed showed me that I can compete beyond just showing up to show up. This logic is also following the premise that I would have had a clean, smooth race if I hadn’t broken my bike and stayed at the top, which in of itself is a lot of pressure to put on that thinking. It’s certainly left me hungry for more. I have some lofty goals for 2020 and not sure where Cyclocross will fit into the mix but I’m sure it will, although Nationals are in Chicago next January so might be taking a sabbatical on that race.
Kate Farrell Ginsbach 