Category: skiing

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The Bomber Traverse

On By kateginsbachIn Alaska, Mental Health, skiing, UncategorizedLeave a comment

In a way I’ve been completely unprepared for my life to return after trauma but thankfully my friends were prepared enough for me. I thought this the past weekend when I cancelled my therapy appointment because there was a weather window for one of the ski objectives Charlotte and I had this year. It’s been a year since I started working with my trauma therapist. I thought back to that first session– it was almost 3 months after my panic attack and the dark abyss I had been lost in was a lot. My therapist had her work cut out as this wasn’t a narrative I had ever envisioned having to navigate. The faulty narrative I was carrying around was holding me back, in that period I had no flexibility around the story and couldn’t see anyway it would ever be reframed. Now I figured a long day out in the mountains would do as much good as a 1 hour therapy session– plus the weather window. And if anything over the past few years Charlotte has seen me in most emotional and physical states of being.

Charlotte and I discussed the logistics for the day, we’d leave town at 7am and I decided to bring my heavy/wider skis. I’m still waiting on a replacement part for my race skis but also with the variable snow conditions that we’d potentially run into figured that would be a better bet. We headed out with our (Charlotte’s) Gaia track following the trail up to Gold Mint Hut. It was a mild grade and we chatted along the way and also making note of potential routes up and slide paths. I had never been back in the area in the winter and only once in the summer. The summer trip was in July 2020 when I was in the throws of it, I remember being out there overnight and sobbing in the tent because of how much uncertainty I felt– every time I went into the backcountry at that point I was always worried about what I would be coming back into when I gained service. The silence and solitude did not provide comfort then, instead only amplified how much noise I was missing out on. And then I cried harder for ruining the trip for others. That’s what I was bringing into this space.

We traversed the mild slope before reaching a point to start climbing up towards the Mint Hut. We talked about the different routes, opting to cut more to the left and to try and avoid extra time under a slide path and headed up. The line we took was a little icy and the side hilling didn’t provide for great traction. We kept space between us just incase something released. I was navigating up first when I saw a hole in the snow and looked in, some animal waste was by the opening– my mind thought to a bear den, is it too early, hopefully it doesn’t cave in and I wake whatever might be sleeping below me.

I know those of you outside of Alaska reading that are probably thinking what an irrational fear (like riding over a snake and having it get caught in my rear wheel and flung up on me) but this actually happened where a skier disrupted a bear den and the bear attacked him. I moved past the hole and waited on the shoulder for Charlotte to come up. We weaved our way up towards the hut and then stopped before we started our approach of backdoor gap to get some food and make some gear adjustments.

We kept our skins on and headed up but it soon became apparent that it was too steep and icy to skin so we’d have to switch to boot packing. I had been waiting for Charlotte to traverse so stayed put while Charlotte transitioned. Our plan was that only one of us would be exposed to a potential avalanche at a time while the other stayed out of the slide zone underneath some rocks. Charlotte started the first leg of the boot pack and I stood watch not wanting to transition too early in case something happened. She crested and was tucking back into the rock section when I had started to transition and looked up and didn’t see her– is that avalanche debris new or old, surely I would have heard something if it released. I transitioned quicker and called to her on the radio. No response. I got my skis on my back and crampons on my boots and looked up, she had popped back over the zone I couldn’t see her and was perched below a rock. I took a breath and started making my way up. Because she had put the bootpack in, my ascent was a bit faster and less laborious. I got to the top and we diagnosed the issues with our radios and got them working. I stepped out and navigated a route up towards another rock outcropping to take shelter in. I’m not great at boot packing and deployed all the tricks I had been working on, heel down, knees forward, push up, disperse weight over the polls. As I got near when I said I would stop, Charlotte radioed to see if I was still going, “yeah, almost to the spot.” I got up and radioed down to let her know it was clear. She came up and met me and we kept working towards the top with only one of us moving at a time.

We crested the top and looked at the other side, a nice little cornice. We talked about the boot pack and the choices we made and then talked about the next section. I offered to drop in first, telling Charlotte the line I would be taking to another meet up point on the slope.

I pushed off after finding a small opening that didn’t seem like it was right on top of the cornice and cut left before turning right while trying to get out from underneath the potential area of snow fall fast enough. We regrouped and then party skied down the more mellow slope finding some nice snow and turns. We headed down but the slope was gradual and we tried to keep as much speed as possible to make it to the valley floor. It mostly worked with some awkward side stepping to get over humps but we made it down and then put our skins back on to head up to snowbird glacier.

The skin up was pretty uneventful, we had a track from someone who did it last year and just made sure that we were climbing towards the right ridge. We got onto the glacier no problem and traversed up to the ridge line to drop down. After transitioning we talked about lines and started skiing.

The snow was anything but powder and cutting through it proved cumbersome for turning. The views were incredible but hard to take in with all the survival skiing going on. We looked at the slope of what we’d need to go down and realized all the avy runs we’d have to cross. Fortunately, they had released at that point but the avy debris we had to cross made me realize how fatigued my legs were.

Going across the avalanche debris made me grateful that I had taken my wider skis, having to navigate around chaotic masses of snow, ice, and whatever else had been picked up during the slide. I always think about this when I’m out in the backcountry, if one releases (again, Mom, I’m never in those areas) and the turmoil of getting carried only to then potentially be buried under this massive weight (compacted avalanche debris will weigh in excess of 500 kg per cubic metre). It’s like the snow just settles and immediately becomes like concrete, something like 60% of avalanche victims who died whilst buried show something on the surface but it can take a large effort to extract them– and that’s if they survive the potential trauma. So at least there was some reassurance that they had already slid, until we reached a gully that had only had small tracks of avy debris in it. We stopped and talked about how quickly we could get across and which line. I went first and skied in and popped out as fast as I could hitting ice on the other side and traversing down the hill side to the next debris field where I turned and watched Charlotte. There is always a moment in these situations where you run through worse case scenario, if something slid. But worst case scenario didn’t happen and Charlotte popped up the gully and traversed down to where I was.

We both agreed that being in a gully in Hatcher is the worst thing and have deep reverence for the whims of mother natures. After that we linked up with Archangel road and mostly skated back to the car. We did it in about 11 hours, I ate 6 donuts among other treats. We talked about how we probably wouldn’t have gone too much faster on different skis and we were both really happy with the day and our set up. We debriefed on the spots that were worrisome and how we could have done things differently but some times you’re just responding and figuring out how to best move forward with the information you have.

A long day in the mountains did help and also when you’re out there for 11 hours lots of time to think about things—especially a stark contrast to the last time I was out there. In some ways I feel like my awareness has never been sharper and taking that to the mountains allows me to be fully present. I think about the COVID times and often think of it as my life was on pause—a friend recently corrected me saying it wasn’t on pause and showing up in that space how I did was just as authentic as I am being now. But in some ways I felt like my life was on pause because it didn’t feel like I was growing or able to. How I showed on that summer trek of the Bomber is how I was assumed to keep showing up– all these negatives assumptions piled up against me until I started to believe them too. I sat with that for a while because I think of how I show up now versus then and how different it feels, in all aspects. But that girl during COVID while in some ways felt like a shell of who I can be was still me—it’s like going out into the mountains and not having a blue bird day but still appreciating just being out there—or enjoying the darkness without having to contrast it to the light. And all this duality can exist and growth can happen, someone’s best day in the mountains can be your worst—I can hate a trail and then love it– I can be a shell of a human and still have light in me—someone can be a not great partner and still exist as a good friend– I can be upset that I had a panic attack and also so grateful for it shaking me into being. This growth exists in the mountains and in a way it’s easier to hold space for –the days that fall short of the objectives, leaning into the progression, the changes, the trails that I’ve come to love that once destroyed me—the spaces I inhabit that no longer scare me—the solitude that no longer comes at the expense of peace. And I’m able to hold all these dimensions together–I don’t assume a trail I’ve once taken will remain the same and instead meeting it each time where it’s at.

I think of the growth that has happened– the lens that I view things in and those that view me. For most of COVID I felt like my internal and external value systems were out of sync, what I valued internally wasn’t perceived externally. That’s been hard to stomach, like a coworker that told me she was startled when she heard me laugh for the first time (we had worked together for over a year before that happened)– or another unprovoked telling me how much happier I seem now– but harder to stomach is the conversations with friends, where things felt one sided, where I showed up with good intentions but my actions still caused pain. The negative assumptions that were held against me– if I hated this trail I will always hate this trail– if I didn’t enjoy something one day I would always feel that way– this growth that was paused, no new information was allowed. Realizing the friends that have extended grace to me in this period, those that allowed me to exist without ever knowing or suggesting I would return to my old (new) self– the darkness they invested in without knowing if there would be an endless summer to come. Now, figuring out how I can extend the same grace to others that fall short of my expectations or assumptions– I cannot anticipate the harm I will cause, we will cause, or that will be brought onto me, even with good intentions we have no idea what we are bringing into a space, what they are bringing into the space. Here’s the thing, you can show up in someone else’s story as the hero or the villain for the exact same behavior. We are neither the hero nor the villain in our own story but instead the narrator– and it’s our story to tell and rewrite, and edit, as we learn and grow and acquire new information. It’s like being on a long slog (more on those later) where you end up in a spot you didn’t anticipate and you can’t go back but only move forward, make the best decision for you in that time with the information you have but being flexible and adaptable as you make your way down the trail. At the end you look back and think wow, what a crazy story that is, but in the midst of the trail you can’t conceive how it will all unfold– and only when you get to the end do you finally feel like you can make sense of all the chaos in the midst. Anyways, thanks for staying with me on this one and for embracing the weird, chaotic amazingness that comes with being human– it’s my first time being alive (that I remember- haha!)

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Gothic Mountain Tour

On By kateginsbachIn Alaska, Alvin, colorado, skiing, Uncategorized, XC SkiingLeave a comment

I’ve gained weight, I don’t know how much or really where but it’s palpable. At first I thought maybe it was because of the chips I was eating, or the absorption issues getting better (more on that later). But then I realized that my body finally feels like it’s safe. Let me explain, from an evolutionary standpoint when we’re hunted by a predator, we try to get small, like really small as if that will keep us safe. Our bodies and minds haven’t exactly caught up to the modern world so the fight or flight persists to manifest in maladaptive forms. Anyways, when I did a skimo race last year, my friend asked how she could get so skinny, I half joked, have a panic attack. But it was true, I remember some days getting to the end of the day and realizing I hadn’t eaten anything and then would eat chips to try and compensate. This later became an issue when someone mentioned how odd it was that I ate chips so late at night, I realized that they didn’t realize that sometimes it was the only thing I had eaten. Anyways, it was a foreign place to be, I had always seen food as fuel, something that could sustain me on the long endurance races. A necessity, when I was in grad school I weighed myself every day to make sure I wasn’t loosing weight. I thought about this recently as I lined up for the Gothic Mountain Traverse. A race I had signed up for last year but didn’t make it to the starting line, last year I felt too weak, too fragile, too small. Instead I spent that weekend not racing hanging out with Allison and Kati while pouring out the contents of my brain. But it was a much needed weekend with them.

A little sickly looking here
Less sickly looking here

Fast forward to this year and I signed up for the race knowing that it would coincide with teaching in DC. Because I had left Alaska five weeks earlier I opted to not bring my race boots so I could just use the same boots for the Canada trip and this race (they required different skis, remember no skimo skis on the Canada trip). But by not bringing two pairs of boots I had more room in my suitcase to bring back Trader Joe’s to Alaska.

Texted a friend I had forgotten how big a medium was at Dunkin’

I took the bus to Boulder to get a car and pick up my skis (thanks again Dave and Neil for bringing them back after Canada). I finished up some work and stopped at Costco for the Crested Butte crew before picking Alexei up at the airport and heading to CB. We got in a bit late but Sam and Claudia (the cat) greeted us.

On Saturday morning, Zach made us crepes and we talked about a plan for the day. I told Sam I was down for whatever tour, as while I was there for a race wasn’t exactly prioritizing the race like I used to do. We headed out, only stopping to buy batteries as I had left my avy beacon on since leaving Canada and it was very dead. We headed up Snodgrass which I had only been on in the summer. Part of the skin track was on the race course so I just kept saying it was like a course preview. 

We got up to the top and poked over the ledge in a few places to see the best line down, we backtracked a bit and then transitioned. I took my skins off and then decided to go pee, which was quite hilarious when I went to squat, started peeing, and started sliding on my skis. Fortunately I was able to somehow not end up with any pee on me and stop the slide before I got too far but lesson learned.  

We decided I would go first because I didn’t have a radio, I told Sam my line and then pushed off. Except then I quickly tumbled and lost a ski, I heard Sam say, “what the fuck Kate” and reminded him I hadn’t skied in like a month. Alexei grabbed my ski as I had slid down and I put it back on— woof! Round 2! I pushed off again and immediately realized how much I had missed this in the past month. I cut down into the trees and weaved to a good stopping point. Alexei followed soon and then we cut over to meet Sam. Wow, this is nice, I might move to CB! The bottom half was even better with open glades for the taking. We got down to the end of the road and debating doing another lap, we realized where we had gone down didn’t exactly set us up for another lap and with a bib pick up cut off time decided to skin out. 

I got my bib with no problem, running into friends from Alaska and friends from Boulder. We went to the store to grab things for dinner and last minute race provisions. No such luck on the sour patch kids though. We stopped at the gas station where we were informed “they have the best candy section in town, maybe the valley” and they did. I had actually only been able to get some flavors in different countries and thought they were specific to those countries. So we bought 4 bags to be safe of different varieties. 

We got back to the house, made dinner, Sam adjusted my bindings for my boots and I prepped my stuff for the next day. There was a lot of discussion about going to karaoke but I was unsure with karaoke not starting until 9pm.

It didn’t take much to convince me to join karaoke and figured I would go for an hour and then come back and go to bed. I changed and then changed again when it became clear everyone was wearing costumes and dawned a banana outfit— any house that has a costume closet is my jam. I drove so I wouldn’t be tempted to stay out too late. It was well worth it, with the CB crew really showing off their voices and dance moves. One of the friends had a skinsuit as her costume, she asked if I wanted to borrow it for the next day, “it’s a kid’s x-large, I found it at a thrift store.” Ohhh maybe, that could be fun”, but was concerned about the weather and if it would actually keep me warm. By the end of the evening I was convinced I would wear it if I could fit my layers underneath it. I stayed out a bit later than I had planned but got a skinsuit and a top 10 at karaoke. 

The morning of the race came early, the race started at 6 so I got up around 4:30, made coffee, ate breakfast, and toiled around a bit. I put on wool baselayers and then pulled the skinsuit over, oh wow, this is amazing.

I shoved the rest of my layers into my bag anticipating having to put them on at the start line as previous years it had been -20. I had almost left the house when I realized I needed my skis. I grabbed them and got in the car, leaving the house a little later than I had planned but fortunately everything is close. I looked at the temperature in the car, 20 degrees. That can’t be right. I got to the school, put some last minute things in my bag, my helmet and headlight on and headed to the start. In talking to people the night before it seemed like the start tactic would be to go without skins and skate. I’m not a fan of skate skiing but figured they knew best. I slotted into the start and made conversation with the girl next to me, it was also her first time. She said she thought I was very serious because of my skinsuit, I told her I borrowed it from a lady at the bar last night so not that serious.

We started and I started, pushing off to skate, okay this isn’t too bad, definitely faster than on skins, I can do this, I was kicking and gliding when something got tangled and I starfished face first onto the track, oh my gosh please don’t hit me. I scampered up, well at least I got that out of the way and was relatively unscathed, and because it was dark no one could see my bruised ego. I followed the headlights in front of me feeling the divide between the skaters and the skinners opening up. I got to the spot to transition and put on my skins and stepped back onto the course. The next section zigged and zagged over the Nordic trails, but we remained mostly in a congo line going up the single track. I wondered if those in front had to break trail and thanked myself for not being that fast.

I got to the first descent, transitioned and set off, convinced that I’d be able to make up time on the descents. I think of it similarly to mountain biking where I feel confident taking the B line to make up time (I’m sure my friends who have seen me ski are like, “plz Kate don’t ever take the B line, your mountain bike skills are non-transferrable). I was going down the groomer and feeling pretty fresh, I saw a little jump and took it which fed into the next transition area. I unlocked my heels to put my skins back on but one of my heels was already released, oh maybe I didn’t actually step in properly. Then I looked, oh that’s not right and the heel attachment was gone but the tower was still there. I looked behind me as if it would be there. I thought about bailing, I mean I was only 3 miles into the race but realized I didn’t really need a heel piece.

I decided I would keep going, there would be one more descent before Snodgrass and if it was sketchy I could bail and walk back to Zach and Mary’s. I sent a text to the boys with a photo and kept going. I thought of how it could have happened but it didn’t really matter and just hoped I could warranty it.

We climbed on the resort trails until reaching the first cut off point where it was another transition point. The guy behind me told me that was a tough time cut-off but we were in good shape. I had no idea and asked if he had done it before, a few times he said. I ripped my skins and locked my one boot in and took off. The descent felt pretty normal so I decided I would be fine without a heel piece (granted this was on groomers). I transitioned again and then headed up the Snodgrass track that we had taken the day before. The Alaska friends passed by me on this section, one having raced it the year before said they were just here to mostly tour and have fun. I felt similar even though I was in a pretty fancy skinsuit. I followed them for a bit until I fell off and settled into my pace. I made sure to occasionally grab a handful of sour patch kids. I got to the top of the next transition, the guy behind me was like “Oh wow, you’re missing your heel piece” And I was like “oh yeah, but now my ski is lighter!” The guy doing the checks asked if I wanted a ski strap and I said I had one but also like absolutely not was I going to strap my boot to my ski. I figured this would be the real test, as it was a little more powder and no groomers. I reminded myself that my right ski was stronger so to rely on that if I needed to. I started the descent and went skiers right looking for the flagging to tell me I was going the right way. I stopped as I couldn’t see the flagging anymore, I figured either way would end up on the road but waited till I could see another skier through the trees to my left and headed in that direction.

I got down to the road and debated putting my skins back on, some were skating so I decided to skate for a bit until it wasn’t worth it. The skate didn’t last long and soon I was putting on my skins, chatting with others on the way. I was familiar with the Gothic Road from the summers I spent riding in CB up to the 401 trail but the ski route went up the 403 trail. After skinning the road for a bit we turned off to start the climb– a guy near me told me that it was just 2,000 feet up and then you’re mostly done with climbing. With that encouragement I settled in and adjusted my pace. And up I went, a bit slow at times, some movements felt more laborious than others. I thought of my roommate Hailey’s instagram post from early that week, she talked about giving 100% of what you had in that moment and not just a blanket 100% (she definitely articulated it much better than I just did). I kept going up, and eating, and drinking. My mind kept wandering over the past year, the ridges and grooves that brought me back to myself– the absurdity of having gotten so lost in the first place. I got near the top and stopped to put on my shell and my warmer mittens. The wind had picked up and was blowing snow. I got to the top, called Top of the World, and took in the view, or what would have been the view if it wasn’t socked in, oh well next year. I ripped my skins and headed down. Someone told me that it was a straight line down to the next point and the last descent was the most technical. This was mostly true and while I didn’t exactly straight line, I did get down pretty quick. I stopped to transition again, I had my puffy gloves on and in the midst of it all it got caught in my jacket zipper and ripped, exposing all the feathers. They floated around and kept coming out, I don’t know how they fit so many feathers into such a small patch because a few miles later I still had feathers circulating around me.

I got to the final transition for the last descent. Another volunteer was directing where the line was. I looked down and while tracked out it didn’t seem like any powder at this point. I stood there for a moment and a guy came up behind me. “You’re the girl without the heel piece right?” I looked at him and said that was me, he told me to be careful on this descent. Sometimes I get annoyed when that happens but he had genuine concern in his voice as if he realized how easy it might be for me fumble this one. I let him take the first line so I could follow. I started going down and it was definitely a bit of survival skiing. I followed the tracks but the snow had gotten a bit more harder packed, I leaned onto my right leg to cut the turns. My legs were a little tired at this point and the hill down was pretty long, I stopped to release my legs and straighten them out. I noticed the guy in front of me would occasionally glance back, as if to make sure I was still okay in my descent. With a few more stops (it was a long descent) I made it to the bottom and the final check-in. They said there was an angry moose so a bit of a course reroute. But still about 6 miles from the finish but overall a net loss. In talking to people it also seemed like the best approach was to skate ski until you couldn’t and then put skins on. In all my winter skiing this year, I had done about 30 minutes of skate skiing total.

I started skating and I have terrible form but still managed to move faster than those around me with skins. Kick, glide, kick, glide, trying to channel all my physical therapy tools to keep my hips forward, upper body up, and channel my two roommates who actually grew up skate skiing. I got to the bottom of a big uphill, net loss my ass. The guy next to me took his skis off to boot pack. I opted for the same approach, realizing that transitioning twice would take longer and because I mostly penguin walk up hills figure it would be the same amount of time but just different muscles. I got to the top, put my skis back on and started back with the skating. I had no idea how much further I had to go, I opted to not race with my watch but did have the mileage on my phone but it wasn’t exactly easily accessible. I made sure to keep eating and drinking.

I was skating along when a snowmachine pulled up with Zach and Sam on it. I stopped and we chatted for a bit, offering them my sour patch kids, they told me I was close to the finish. I told them about the day and they told me where they were headed to ski. Sam said his machine had broken down about 100 yards from the finish so when I saw it I would know I was close. I thanked them and headed back on my way. It was around here that I thought about switching skis, my right leg had been attached to the heel piece for all of skating but my left leg was stronger so thought by switching maybe I would get a little further each time. I stopped and switched skis with my right heel being free now. I went to push off and it was like my brain stopped working, I could not go forward with any grace. I started laughing, how is this happening. I switched my skis back and wondered if anyone just saw the calamity. I started skating again and saw the course deviate a bit, I took my glove off to grab some sour patch kids and when I went to put it back on I couldn’t find it. I looked behind me and some lady said she would grab it, I stopped and waited offering her candy in exchange for my glove which she took some candy. I got up a short pitch and a woman on a fatbike rode by saying the finish was just around the corner and all downhill from there. I was skeptical but then I saw Sam’s snowmachine.

I got through the finish and that was that. I saw the friends from Alaska and chatted with them about the course waiting for the shuttle. I got on the shuttle and recognized the guy who had warned me about descending, I asked if that was him and he was like yeah I was worried you were going to blow a knee, I thanked him for his vigilance. Especially because blowing a knee had never actually crossed my mind.

I got back to the car and was feeling so fresh I thought I might go meet Alexei at the resort for a lap or two but decided to go home and shower first so I didn’t get cold. After the shower the exhaustion hit me and instead I laid on the couch catching up with Mary and waiting for everyone else to arrive and talk about their near-misses of the day. We all opted for an early bed that night.

On Monday, Alexei and I headed out to tour before heading back to the front range. We opted for a more mellow tour both being unfamiliar with the terrain but we found great little laps and the sun even making a few appearances exposing the valley, which would have been cool to see during the race, oh well, next year!

I spent the rest of the week in Boulder with Dave, Allison, and Ruby, catching up with other friends over dinner, going to Banff Film Festival, and getting an early morning lap in (where I forgot my skins but kind of made do).

I’m back in Alaska but for a work conference in Fairbanks and next week back in DC for a bit more work but then will be back in Alaska for a good chunk. Arriving back in Alaska no longer brings a sense of uncertainty with it and instead this immense gratitude for all that has grown around me. The past few weeks with traveling and reconnecting with friends has made me examine my value system, the standards I have for myself and how I show up in relationships and the expectations that I have for others. It made me think of the race because during it one guy made a comment to me “skimo skis aren’t great for skiing, huh?” and I was like why are you telling that to me, of course I know they aren’t great for skiing but like I’m not here to ski well, obvi. But realizing he was probably going through some shit and was projecting whatever onto me. Instead I try to think of all those around me during the race who were cordial, gracious, and vigilant towards me. This is somewhat related to my personal life as I had a very abrupt rupture happen recently and trying not to dwelling too much on that point of inflection, instead remind myself of all the others that continue to surround and inspire me with their actions and words. Don’t worry the story is bonkers and it’ll be in the book but I no longer feel like I have to become small because of others (cue eating all the Trader Joe snacks I brought back).

Radical Hope

On By kateginsbachIn Alaska, Alvin, Cycling, Endurance Races, skiing, Uncategorized4 Comments

In the past months I have started and stopped writing more times than I can count, thinking I needed to find the right words for the right audience but I’ve realized that I don’t do this for you I do it for me and if I’m trying to craft the right words for the right reader well then that will never happened because who is the right audience (like besides my parents who already get mini life updates 3-4 times a week).

I still spend a lot of time working on COVID so it still occupies a lot of my mind (globally, we had our highest daily case count this week) but with the vaccines coming online here it feels like I can breathe easier knowing my parents, family, friends, and community are protected. Then I feel guilty because all of those individuals who still can’t access the vaccine while still tracking everything that is happening worldwide and knowing that our individuals actions can have large and lasting impacts beyond our immediate contacts. I’m sure it’s been a wild ride for my therapist and she’s probably learned more about pandemic preparedness and vaccine deployment than she probably ever anticipated knowing about. And it’s been exhausting to see peoples’ response and while I won’t get super deep into my thoughts I will say that I hope when this is over we invest in public health, education, and mental health resources.

Alvin did become a pretty good trail partner

To catch you up from last fall I drove through Canada while the border was closed, with Alvin- the best backseat driver. I didn’t think I could handle an Alaska winter during COVID and it was the longest I had not seen my parents in person like ever (which is very fortunate). We left here in late October (figured if there was a coup during the election resources to Alaska would be cut off first– and that was only funny to joke about until an insurrection happened).

When I drove up to Alaska I promised on my return I would not do it in that amount of time again, I’d take like 2-3 weeks really make a trip of it, well I at least kept half of that promise and did not do it in the same amount of time, but rather quicker. The border was closed (and still is) except for essential travel. My plan was to drive most of my things down before the roads got too bad in case work was like hey we need you in DC and honestly was not sure I could handle Alvin flying beneath me in cargo, let’s be real. I had to show way more documentation to get into Canada than I thought was possible (they did not even seem to care that Alvin was vaccinated). I was given strict instructions and a number to call if I developed symptoms on the drive. It wasn’t too bad just long, and having Alvin at least forced me to stop every few hours to get out and walk around.

When we got to the US border I was met with one question, “where did you stop” and well because I’m me had a list of all places that I had stopped even briefly in case they needed to contact trace, I handed them the list and he goes “oh no, we just need to know if you have any fruits or vegetables that could be carrying something” I looked at him as if I was not the potential carrier of something. I said I had no fruits or vegetables and he waived me through (again not concerned about this wild village dog). I turned my paperwork into the Canadians to avoid getting a bench warrant on me and entered the US. After another 12 hours of driving, and quarantining before hand, I finally made it to my parents and was oddly relieved to see them alive (even though weekly Facetime calls told me they were).

I planned on going back to Alaska and decided to sign up for a running race the first week of March figuring it would give Alvin and I something to do while we were home. And it did, I spent most of the time hiking, trail running, and entertaining both Tenzen and Alvin.

I found a friend to run with who knew the trails in Wind Cave, which I had never spent much time in because too many snakes in the summer but with winter only had to do a few bison detours. And she was even down to run 15 miles without thinking twice about it.

I left Alvin at home when I came back to Alaska because I wasn’t sure how long I’d be staying for. It was incredibly challenging, because we had basically spent the past 9 months together like all the time and obviously very worried about traumatizing him by leaving him with Tenzen but he seemed unfazed by it, probably had to put up with more in the village. I do get daily updates and pictures from my parents, and my sister has sworn that she will not be getting a dog (as my parents are currently watching both Frank and I’s…)

I came back to Alaska and continued running and started skiing more which was similar to a baby giraffe figuring out what to do with its legs but had kind friends who would take me out, share tips, and wait for me as I side stepped steep hills (you’re welcome mom).

I did the Homer Epic and raced (ran) 30 miles, it was a time trial start with each participant spaced out by about 30 seconds so I started alone and spent most of the day alone. I figured it was a good way to get to see Homer, albeit a bit slow but it was a blue bird day so could not complain.

I felt great until mile 12 and then the snow lost it’s firmness and it became soft and squishy with a sideways wind picking up the snow and whipping it around me, reminding me that it was in fact a winter race. I made it to the half way mark and recognized one of the aid workers from previous bike races, we briefly chatted and then I took off again. Because of COVID I didn’t make any plans to stop at aid stations and carried what I thought I would need in my backpack and then Kevin carried other things I thought I might need and met me at two points, mile 10 and around mile 21.

After the halfway point I started what seemed to be the only climb of the day, or at least memorable one, it seemed to go on for about 3 miles. It started with a short climb that made me think it was over but upon cresting the summit realize there was still more to come, I started the downhill before getting to the next uphill approach when a woman rode the opposite direction towards me, she yelled something like, “woohooo go lady!” And that was enough to make me cry, like full on sob, I think because in that moment everything felt so normal, like every other race before there there is always someone yelling “go lady” or “girl power” or cheering in some form and it felt just like that, except it wasn’t, we were (are) still in the midst of a pandemic that had claimed so many unnecessary lives, caused so much financial upheaval, and torn at the very fabric of our society. So I think it was a culmination of things, plus having ran like 17 miles before maybe didn’t help my ability to control my emotions but then I cried most of the way up the hill and just like embraced it, like let it all out and it felt real good (or maybe it was the runner’s high).

I met Kevin at mile 21 and was very much looking forward to the processed turkey meat I made him haul out for that mile. I ate the food from him, lamented on how much I wished I was running on concrete since the soft snow had been my nemesis for the past 10 miles. Kevin packed up to ski back to the finish line, but it was rather anti-climatic as he never fully disappeared from my viewpoint for a few miles. I finished in around 8 hours and got 2nd (but the field was very small, although more than 2). The finish was pretty anticlimatic too, I almost tripped going across the finish line and then walked to the car and convinced Kevin to get takeout food from Alice’s Champagne Palace and that was it.

I took a few weeks off and putz around going back to skiing and lifting and then realized it was March and should probably start thinking about biking–got a little thrown that spring was here given how much snow was still around. I loosely started training and have some things in mind for what I want to accomplish this summer/fall but feel like it’s still too premature to state concretely that I’ll be doing these things, like I’ll somehow jinx it and will spend another summer grieving for time that keeps marching on. It’s been nice to get back on my bike, last summer I struggled without much structure in place, among other things, and I feel like my risk factor assessment was skewed in being able to properly assess what was required of me and others.

My academic training taught me a lot about how to prepare for pandemics but in all of those years studying I never once stopped to think about the day-to-day life of the people living through an outbreak– again law focuses on facts and not feelings. But now I realize how detrimental it is to neglect feelings and human behavior and I’m sure all the behavioral scientists are like yeah, duh. After the Exxon/Valdez oil spill a lot of researchers moved to the area, scientists, toxic marine biologists but also sociologist and anthropologists. We had never dealt with an oil spill of that magnitude and weren’t exactly sure how to respond, like after the crash happened nothing happened for 3 days, the oil just stayed in the water while people tried to figure out the best course of action for retrieval, the 4th day a huge storm moved in and displaced the oil up and down the coast of Alaska going from an isolated area to impacting many small communities that rely on the water for fishing and other ways of life. A class action law suit happened, with something over 30,000 plaintiffs but as my dad will point out, justice is not always swift with the lawsuit dragging out for more than a decade. The lawsuit got appealed all the way to Supreme Court and they did in my opinion a terrible job of articulating what punitive damages are for– basically reducing them from an initial award of $5 billion to then $2.5 billion at the Court of Appeals and finally to the Supreme Court saying that punitive damages for maritime related cases should not exceed compensatory damages which was an award of $200 million. So Exxon went from losing one year of profits in punitive damages to 1-2 days. But in exchange we’ve recovered 8% of the oil that was lost. Why did I just tell you this rather depressing information, well because in addition to this legal information, we have sociology and anthropology research that came out it too. I’ve often found the law does an awful job of telling the true realities, which makes sense because you want facts and not feelings making legal precedent but as I’ve written about before, law school only teaches case law and not the human emotions that go into walking into someone’s life on their worst day, as I often felt when walking into a patients room to complete a Will so they could be discharged into hospice and die. My story stops at completing their will and their story stops shortly after but there is no mention of the turmoil one goes through in having weeks to get their affairs in order before leaving this earth. So what did a lot of the behavioral research show after the Valdez oil spill, well it showed that communities come together when dealing with a natural disaster (i.e., disease outbreak.acts of God) but they get torn apart based on acts of humans. Basically technological disasters (acts of humans) were more psychologically stressful than natural disasters, n=177. In addition to the trauma response to the disaster, the community became divided because the longer it went on the more people were split on how it should have been handled- if it should even be litigated vs. just moving on. But there is no playbook for things like this, there is no trauma response class in schools, some people going through the legal system is healing, for other’s it’s putting salt in a wound they don’t want to have open anymore. This is all to say that I’m not sure this leaves us post-COVID, it’s been hellacious seeing our response and I often think of the 1918 Flu because we don’t have a lot of information on that, and some of that was in part because of the sedition acts but I think a lot of it was it was probably really traumatizing for individuals. Now we have all the information but will it get suppressed because of human behaviors. I don’t know but that’s what I spend time thinking about, how do we heal, how do I heal.

I did my first big ride since before COVID this past weekend and it’s the moment I’ve been waiting a year for where this desire finally trickled up and I couldn’t put it off any longer (kind of like finally blogging). Before it wasn’t there, I would think about doing long rides and going on treks but just couldn’t get over whatever barrier was there in my mind. And they weren’t barriers put up by biking but more about how society functioned during COVID which I don’t need to get into here but they have been identified and working through it with my therapist. But I knew the moment was here when I was met with either driving 100 highway miles or riding my bike and riding my bike seemed easier and more enjoyable. Which I know you’re like what, and I would have been like what all last year too. And I was amazed at how quickly my body settled into the rhythm of riding, sure I’ve done longish rides at this point but nothing really over 2-3 hours. It became mechanical again when to eat, when to drink, like I had never stopped doing it. I got done and finished at 95 miles, Kevin suggested I go ride 5 more for a century but I thought best not to over do it right out of the gate.

Why ride 5 more miles when you can go eat hot dogs

I guess my hope is that whatever you have endured this past year, whether COVID related or something else, whatever barriers you had that made you stop, take a break, and question everything that you know, that when you pick up you don’t just think about going back to where you were but are in a place where you get to think about how to make things better than they were before for yourself, your community, wherever you feel called. I also got sent this article this morning by a friend on how the pandemic mental wounds are still wide open, it helped me so maybe it will help you.

I’m headed to Valdez this weekend, it’s been on my list to go for a while and missed the opportunity to get there this winter. I have a lot more thoughts I feel like I need to get out but seems like the best thing for me is to ride 300 miles and see how this community healed after trauma. And in a way all these things tell me that I’m healing.

“If you insist on entertaining hopes you might as well be ambitious in your desires do not bother fantasizing about a return to how things were before you might as well be ambitious in your desires hope that things will be better than they were before” -Plague Poems

Photo by Rachel Heath and I hope everyone has a friend like her in their lives

Weird Times

On By kateginsbachIn Alaska, Global Health, skiing, Uncategorized, XC SkiingLeave a comment

I’m not even sure how to start this post– honestly most days being in Alaska feels like I’m perched somewhere just watching the world burn. I’m grateful for the response that Anchorage’s Mayor took early on and Alaska as a state, our case increase has been a slow uptick, still under 300 and only a handful of deaths.

But we only have 880,000 people….cool, cool, cool.

Meanwhile, my parents in South Dakota still have no lockdown orders mandated state-wide. Some cities and counties are doing their part but most were slow to react and not everyone has an order. I’m proud of my parents for taking it seriously, finally got my dad to stop going to the jail (I wrote a motion on why inmate’s should be released– proud prosecutor’s daughter ha). Unfortunately, I also wrote a paper last year that focused on contrasting my community with another community which means I know there are 3,570 residents, 290 people (before COVID and people losing their jobs) without health insurance; 847 individuals have one or more disability and just over 1,000 individuals are over the age of 65. I know that our hospital has 25 beds and 2 ventilators. And I’m well over 3,000 miles away but even if I was closer, I know that if someone I love goes into the hospital I can’t go with them. And it’s terrifying because it’s like a ticking time bomb and we won’t know the extent of the damage for months to come.

Love the community that raised us– and yes after this is over I might be blonde again…

Beyond my family I think about the community that raised me, growing up in a small town (the same one as my mother) means that everyone knows everyone, so I think of my teachers, most of who are retired now, I think of my friends who work in the hospital, I think of the restaurateurs, the grocers, the ranchers, the funeral director, those in the assisted living facilities who became like second-grandmas.

Dug through some photos so needed to post more than one

I think of this virus and the response and I’m not sure I will ever forgive those in power who passively have let the virus wash over our communities. With recent cases, Sioux Falls just surged ahead of Chicago and Seattle with a higher per capita infection rate at 182.25 per 100,000 people [When I started this draft, SD had just over 600 cases, it’s now over 1,300 in the 2 days since…]. But I also know not every worse case scenario that is portrayed in the news is going to come true– but hard sometimes for my mind not to go there.

It’s just so good.

Did I need to find something to take my mind off of all of this, oh you betcha. Usually around this time I start training for the upcoming season but with COVID and most races getting pushed back haven’t felt the need to really jump into training–fortunately I planned on this year being most developmental and focusing on the Maah Daah Hey but now not wanting to suppress my immune system (check out this article my Godfather sent me about training loads during this time) and/or train for things that might not materialize means I’m actually in a pretty good mental state around bike racing right now (heyyyo, shout out to my law school therapist).

With physical activity focused less on gaining fitness and more on mental clarity, I decided to start cross-stitching again, it’s repetitive and I have to focus somewhat otherwise I tend to stab myself, perfect. I collected all my things and was engaged in a ‘this color or that color’ when my phone rang. “Hi, we have a dog that we think would be perfect for you.” As like most things in life until that moment I had forgotten that I put in an application for a foster dog. “He’s 6, we just got him in, he’s real sweet.” “Ummm, okay when do you need me to pick him up by.” “Can you get him before 3 today.” They texted me a few pictures and I confirmed with my roommates that they were okay with having a dog in the space. Alright, let’s do this.

I put an application in when I started working from home figuring it would be a good idea to take my mind off of everything– they said that they didn’t have any dogs at the moment so I mostly forgot about it until they called. I picked the dog up, he didn’t have a name, and they handed everything over to me, leash, food, poop bags, crate, and blankets. I got him home and unloaded all his things and took him for a walk. I had planned to go cross-country skiing with a friend later and one of my roommates said she would watch him so I could leave him out while I was gone. Perfect. I grabbed my gear and opened the door to leave when he squeezed by my legs–it took me a minute to realize what was happening, with Tenzen he’s allowed in the front yard because he stays there, when I realized this dog was not Tenzen I tried to grab him but he eluded my clutches and took off. I threw my ski boots down and took off sprinting behind him. I didn’t even have a name for him so couldn’t even yell anything. This dog is going to be gone and I’m going to have to tell these people, I’ve already failed. I kept sprinting with my heart rate not getting that high since cross nationals. Luckily the street he had turned down had a large fence at the end of the lane. He ran there and then kind of jogged around. I slowly approached without trying to spook him. Luckily, like most days, I had some jelly beans in my pocket so dug a few out and stuck them out to entice him to get close enough to grab his collar. Well my plan worked; in the 5 minutes I was sprinting after him I didn’t think once about the virus.

I had been mulling over a few names, I’ve had a few dog names in my mind for a while but only fostering him didn’t want to give him one of those. Upon catching him and bringing him back settled on the name Alvin. After Alvin McDonald, an early cave explorer in the Black Hills.

Since then we’ve settled into a routine of 3-4 walks during the day, which means I’ve reduced my running because I don’t want to leave him but have gained leisurely paced strolls with the occasional abrupt jerk when he pulls. It’s given me a reason to finally catch up on those podcast recommendations or call my family. After a week of feeding him several large heaps of dog food a day to get his weight up figured we were ready to try a short run. Run is a loosely applied term for what we did. It started off promising but with him being more interested in smelling things and I realizing he only has one speed (a bit too fast for walking sometimes, a bit too slow for running). We settled into some weird shuffle of 2.5 miles in 40 minutes.

Post first runish….

I’ve worked him up to accepting treats, and now we’re starting to broach commands [although my Dad has pointed out, he has me trained], although I’m not even sure he even recognizes his name at this point. The first weekend I had him I left him at home for the adventures, still unsure of his capabilities. One day I did a very mellow alpine touring ski which required some stream crossing and bush whacking, only to get within range of the summit and have it disappear.

Not wanting to loose ourselves in the abyss we turned around and followed our tracks down where the clouds dissipated and the sun seemed like it had always been there. Going down felt euphoric, as my skis seemed to float underneath me.

To avoid the stream crossing we did earlier we ended up skinning up and thought we had found a good place to cross the gully but after getting to the other side realized it wasn’t a good exit. We ended up skinning a bit up in the terrain trap, which just means that if an avalanche were to happen that’s where it would likely go. Obviously we assessed the risk, extremely low, but if something did get triggered it would be less than ideal. Basically we were kind of like sitting ducks and at mercy of others actions– and again thought about the virus because feel to some extent we’re all just sitting ducks waiting, feeling trapped at what might be headed towards us but unlike the current pandemic we were able to get out of the gully and to the other side quite quickly.

We then pitched our angle uphill a bit more so we could then gain enough speed to make it back to the car without having to put our skins on. I felt so bad about leaving Alvin at home for a few hours that I think I took him on close to a 90 minute walk that night.

I’m sure he must just stare out the window like this when I leave him.

The next day I did a shorter cross-country ski but again left Alvin at home. We ended up on the other side of the valley but the snow was a little more crusty.

What snow there was…

We had less of a finish in mind and more of a let’s see where this takes us approach. We skied for a bit, took our skis off, and hiked for a bit, and then had some lunch, deciding it was a good spot to turn around.

I’m not sure how much was the crust and how much was the champagne (I mean life is short, right) I drank for lunch that resulted in more than a few face plants. We skied down and stayed off the main trail to avoid as many people as possible.

The second week with Alvin I settled more into a routine, recognizing his favorite spots to poop and when he’s most likely to go. He started sleeping out of the crate and after the first night gave him multiple pillows off my bed to accommodate him. Was grateful when a friend offered one of her dog beds up– now those floor pillows have just become his second bed….

Maybe I should give him a bath….

He hasn’t had any real accidents in the house, other than peeing on my bike attached to the trainer. He wasn’t a fan of it to start with but then really showed his feelings during that moment. I was yelling at him to stop and he didn’t even flinch, didn’t break eye contact just kept going. He’s more tolerating of my trainer rides now but not sure I’ll ever get him close enough to a bike to be a proper trail dog.

This past weekend I took him on his first hike, but not before heading out on my own the day before. I headed up Wolverine Peak, which was 9 miles and definitely not one for the dog at the moment. It was pretty steep uphill with some icy spots that made me grateful I bought shoes with spikes in them last fall even though I thought it would be an overkill (lover of treadmills and trainers). The trail head had the most people which again for Alaska I guess is crowded but compared to most other places it was like 6-10 people and we were mostly able to avoid people and pull our masks over our faces. The trail traffic was a minimum and the view from the top was well worth taking in.

On the way down we stepped off the trail to give distance to older guys who jokingly covered their faces and said they had the virus yesterday and were better now. I responded a bit snarky to some effect saying, “you think this is a joke but people are dying.” I really wanted to follow-up with and ‘you’re more likely to die than I am’ but left it at that and instead of getting back on the main trail, bush whacked a bit to get down into a gully that would avoid more people. Everyone else seemed conscious of maintaining distance and trying to minimize any potential spread.

We’re both not exactly morning people

For Easter planned on doing an early morning hike (kind of like a sunrise service) with Alvin to see how he would do but upon waking couldn’t see the mountains so opted for a later departure date and a trail closer to the water and out of the mountains. Alvin is pretty great on the leash and just likes to stop and smell and mark most things–at least on the way out. We hiked about 2 miles out to a vantage point to take pictures of the good boy before turning around.

On the way back he was less interested in smelling things and oscillated between wanting to sprint and dilly-dallying down the trail. He did quite well, given my history with Tenzen was more than prepared to have to carry him for some of it. He also did well around other dogs, he seems to be mostly curious and not aggressive in anyway. I’m not sure he’ll ever be an off the dog leash, for one he still does not recognize his name, and two I’m not sure he would ever come back.

Look at this trail corgi

I’m now on my fifth week of work from home, which means I finally gave in and assembled my desk and office chair. At this point my contract ends mid-September and honestly not sure I will be back in the hospital before then. Mentally preparing for a marathon but hoping for a sprint….

I remain grateful that my life continues to have some semblance of normalcy (definitely recognize the privilege that comes with all of that) as my heart aches for all of those who have had massive shifts in their lives and livelihoods as a result. Again, if you are thinking we need to open up the economy and don’t understand why we aren’t, call your representatives and demand massive testing for COVID and for the anti-bodies. Testing and contact tracing is our best bet at the moment (until there is a vaccine) while continuing to socially isolate. Just because our government is incompetent doesn’t mean you need to be (looking at you, South Dakota).

The Abyss

On By kateginsbachIn Alaska, Global Health, skiingLeave a comment

Last weekend seemed like an indulgent, illicit activity and now a lifetime away. Many people are finding themselves in spaces that don’t allow for them to escape for empty trails (looking at you, CO) and fresh air all while being able to maintain 6 feet of distance apart. I was finding myself with feelings of isolation in Alaska this winter and have found that this might be as good of place as any to weather out the impending storm. As COVID-19 cases have slowly uptick in Anchorage I’m now trying to consciously recreate in a way that would reduce the need for me to access healthcare services or require a backcountry rescue so will in all likelihood find myself on the local trails for the impending future–but fortunate enough to squeak one more weekend in.

We headed out to another glacier, this one was 20 miles one way–the plan being we’d ski out, set up camp, ski back the next day. I did 20 miles total the weekend before but my biggest fault when it comes to mileage is I still operate in cycling miles, 20 miles, psh ain’t no thang. Little different when cross-country skiing and having 30-40 pounds on your back (realistically probably 20 since I didn’t pack my industrial strength hairdryer this time– and if you don’t get that reference guess we know what you’ll be doing in quarantine).

While we escaped from the constant news updates and feelings of impending doom it was hard to completely turn my mind off from the virus. I would float in and out of scenarios and do comparative analyses to past pandemics and outbreaks (fun fact my favorite pandemic to study is the 1918 flu (you never forget your first) but my favorite disease is tuberculosis). I worried about being out of service for 48 hours and the potential notifications that might be awaiting my arrival. I also thought about if we should even be out there– there is a lot of discussion right now about if people should be partaking in these activities (yes, no, responsibly…I’ll default to my favorite lawyer answer, “it depends” (not legal advice).

The first day called for cooler temps than last weekend and snow. Okay going to get my winter camping badge for real this weekend. We drove 2 hours out of Anchorage and pulled off on the side of the road. I know the saying, “be bold, start cold” but I’m always convinced I will stay cold and never get warm so I bundled on layers with the thought I would take them off as needed. I was told that it was a river bed of flatness out to a glacier so was slightly surprised when we started on a slight downhill, followed by a pretty steep uphill, some more downhill, and some fresh tracks. Stopping to go pee I mused that I’d probably just leave my skis on so I don’t sink in the snow to which there was thunderous chorus that exclaimed of course I should keep my skis on just try not to pee on the bindings (still so much to learn). We descended down for about four more miles before the reaching the river bed.

With the clouds still surrounding us we just began skiing towards this white abyss. And in a lot of ways the physical landscaped matched my internal feelings about the pandemic. Right now we can’t see what we’re working towards (all these measures social distancing, quarantine, isolation against an invisible enemy) we have projections of what will happen if it works and if it doesn’t work but we’re in this abyss right now where we have pushed off from one side and have yet to see a safe landing. And yet we kept moving, I would repeat the mantra in my head, “kick, glide, feel the rhythm, feel the ride” (and if you don’t get that reference also prime quarantine opportunity). We would stop and change layers as needed–adding, removing, snacking. Talking about what the view would have given us without the clouds. On an exposed section the wind had picked up and the soft, fleeting snow had turned into fierce pieces of ice striking my face, it reminded me of acupuncture needles and just imagined I was getting a free facial –one guy talked about doing 100 mile ski race (yeah, read that again) and how it was like this the whole way and at one point he remembered thinking he just wished the snow would stop hitting him in the face. We only dealt with it for maybe 15-20 minutes but imagine I would have different thoughts if it was 100 miles…

After skiing for 19 miles with about 6 hours of moving time we talked about setting up camp, we were within range of the glacier (maybe depending on route beta) but could still be 2-3 miles away, it was getting late and dark and still a lot of things that need to be done to set up camp. We found a spot perched out of the riverbed and got to work. I dug out a hole to put the tent in, which at least helped to warm me up, while one of the other guys started the stove to melt snow and boil water for our bottles and dinner.

We got it accomplished and set up without too many mishaps– and even dug out some more snow for cooking and eating.

Even adding on another area for a firepit (as one of the guys packed firewood and we stacked it on shovel to get it going). It was nice to warm up next to and abate my shivering if only for intermittent moments.

After we had gone through all the wood we headed to bed. At this point I took off my damp ski boots, put on wool socks and down slippers, and got into dry clothes which helped to really warm me up (the -20 degree bag also does wonders). I still slept with a puffy vest, jacket and a hat on. I even figured out how to work the sleeping bag this time and only woke up once with a cold face.

Before going to sleep one of the guys thought about checking the weather for the morning, I lamented, that it doesn’t matter what the weather is going to be we have to face whatever shows up so we can just not check and pretend it will be nice. Which again took me back to the pandemic as we don’t know what tomorrow will bring but we’re in it and regardless will have to wake up and face whatever shows up overnight. Luckily, the morning did not disappoint. I stepped out of the tent and was greeted by calm skies and the sun starting to creep over the horizon releasing a nice alpenglow that quickly bathed the valley in sunlight.

We made breakfast, packed up camp, leaving our bags and gear to ski over to the glacier. It was alluring but in a more subdued enchantment than the previous weekend. It wasn’t piercing blue but rather dingy with intricate crystal lattices where water had frozen onto the surface.

We skied around for a bit, I learned that you should just follow in the previous tracks and not put in your own tracks on a glacier–not because anything bad happened, it was just pointed out to me as I was frolicking around.

Here’s me in multiple puffy layers…frolicking

We headed back to our camp spot to pick up our things and I took off about three layers on the top and bottom. We started making our way back along the trail we came in on. The views were pretty spectacular so occasionally I would just stop to turn and take it in.

Skiing out was pretty uneventful, minus the view. I found myself more hungry than the day before and slowly made my way through all my snacks (and a few emergency ones-which made me a little nervous but never got to my emergency, emergency sour patch kid provisions so).

All those downhills became uphills in the later part of our day but saw it as an opportunity to try to get better at going uphill (spoiler alert, I did not) but at least it gave my legs a different position to be in for a while. We crested the last hill and could see the road off in the distance but there remained a false flat to get up to the car. I started on the slight incline that would lead up to the car but had no concept of how long or the distance it would be so pulled out another emergency provision when I saw the snow pile the car was situated behind and put the morsel back in my jacket for another time (because I had left a bag of Hippeas in the car as a post-ski snack, also learned that trick the week before).

We got to the car and my boots were frozen to my bindings so took the whole contraption off. Then got in and ate a bunch of Hippeas.

Putting the fun between the legs (mostly a cycling joke)

The whole time I kept making comparisons to being in the backcountry with the pandemic– feel free to keep reading but stop if this will contribute to your anxiety. I’ll also put some good websites that I follow you can check out at the end.

  1. Have a good leader: Going into the backcountry requires you to be putting your life in others’ hands if something happens. Our trip leader sent out a map, route guidance, and information on what to anticipate and expect. Right now I feel that most administrations are operating out of fear/unknown/uncertainty/poor planning and actively triaging while not doing anything to assuage the public’s anxiety about what we’re facing (don’t believe me, remember the 2009 pandemic, how long were you stuck in your house for that one?).
  2. Only take what you need: skiing 20 miles with a pack means making the conscious effort to really decide if you need an article of clothing or piece of gear. This is also relevant now with people buying insane amounts of toilet paper and hand sanitizer (pro tip: hand soap is better).
  3. But be prepared: It means I carried 4 pairs of socks, extra food, and multiple different layers to meet the potential challenges. Social distancing means reducing your interactions so be prepared to last a week between grocery store runs.
  4. Don’t be a dick: You’re in the backcountry with a long ski out, if you’re attitude goes south it’s going to impact everyone. Again, turn you speakers off at 11:30pm when ya know your next door neighbor has a small child and is also stuck at home all day.
  5. Communicate effectively: Talking about when to eat lunch, letting them know if you’re stopping to change layers or to take a rest. Giving others in the group time to anticipate (I usually announce that I’ll be peeing in 20-30 minutes to get everyone on the same page). Right now we don’t have one unified voice giving us direct messages (thank you federalism for reserving public health powers to the states; apparently the founding fathers did not know how viruses work and that they don’t respect boundaries). During Ebola the US had a Czar (what an amazing job title) right now you have the President saying one thing, State Governors enacting various orders, and Dr. Fauci trying to get a clear and accurate message out, but not one unified message telling you that this is going to be a long haul– are we up to the challenge yes, because we are responding by taking x,y,z steps and this is what the next few weeks/months are going to look like.
  6. Look out for one another: Checking in to make sure everyone is still feeling okay, do we need a break, how about some candy, how are people’s feet. When you’re in the backcountry you’re only as strong as your weakest member (i.e., me– also thank you to all my high school coaches who loved that saying and would occasionally linger their gaze a little too long on me when I had a lackluster performance.) For a pandemic, we’re only as strong as our most vulnerable, our most uninsured, our most elderly. Which means being willing to step up and take care of each other now- the cost of treatment of COVID-19 is estimated to be ~$34,000. Imagine not having insurance, are you going to go to the hospital unless it gets really bad and how many potential people will you be in contact with before it gets to that point. Our institutions are being challenged, health isn’t just the absence of disease but all the social determinants that make it up (access to food, water, housing…) all these things that provide stability so people can seek healthcare. I also don’t think it should take a pandemic for us to realize how broke some of our systems are but that’s a whole another blog post/paper.
  7. Don’t operate out of fear: Things can go wrong but staying calm and making decisions using logic will help you go a long way. My go to mantra for most things is: Facts over fear. The hysteria around contagious diseases is somewhat understandable; and only supports stronger legal regulations so that politicians cannot capitalize on this fear and uncertainty to gain political points. By enacting robust legal framework that safeguard civil liberties while taking into account an unprecedented necessity for quarantine we can avoid the mistakes of the past and abrogate the uncertainty of the future (lolz, this was a section from my conclusion on my paper on quarantine last year where I mostly argued that quarantine should only be used a tool of last resort because we have so many other provisions we can use to safeguard the health of the public– didn’t really factor into my analysis a 2 month lackluster response from the government for a contagious disease outbreak–jokes on me).

I remain angry at the situation because I don’t believe it needed to get to this point. China as the source of outbreak spent a lot of their time triaging and just trying to get ahead of it. They put other countries on notice and I believe our response is criminal because we had plenty of time to prepare and we squandered it away (it’s like getting a 30-day eviction notice and waiting till day 31 to take action). Lives will be lost because of the passive response our government (cutting funding to the CDC, designing their own test, not adequately providing healthworkers with protective equipment) has taken. I remain hopeful that communities are up to the challenge, we are up to the challenge, and just like the storm moving out and the blue sky shinning the next day, we will emerge from this cloud. Research actually shows that when disasters strike people become more pro-social, they cooperate and support each other, they’re better than ever. This storm isn’t going to blow over overnight and we won’t get through it quickly (Easter is highly aspirational– and without more tests to know what we’re really up against, highly unlikely) it definitely won’t be today, not this week, unlikely this month, maybe May we’ll take a breath and reassess. What I’m saying is it’s going to be a long haul at this point and things will probably get worse before they get better but we need to stay strong and do our part– oh yeah and call your congressional reps and demand mandatory testing and while you’re at it suggest that they commandeer private companies to start making PPE, ventilators, and getting respiratory therapists trained (grateful to the companies that have shifted their focus already–but the government should respond like a war effort, this is a war we are waging). Yah know, I love a good government overreach. But really if you think the free market will save us now, there has been a post circulating showing that Tuberculosis remains the number one killer in the world as if that means we should not be taking action with COVID-19. This actually shows why we need a strong government response. Antibiotics have existed for TB for nearly 70 years and yet it remains endemic in parts of the US (no, really, think about the last person you knew with TB in the US and now realize it’s still around circulating in communities– not your community? Maybe ask yourself why that is–happy to pass along a paper). Oh yeah and also tell them that the vaccine and treatment should be covered by federal funding. As much as it’s easy to get consumed with the negative I remain optimistic that this will shift our societal norms for the better. That doesn’t mean I don’t fluctuate between wondering if the tightness in my chest is anxiety or the virus–daily temperature checks and yoga to help assuage my fears. If you feel like this paragraph sounds exasperated with tones of eternally optimistic well welcome to the inside of my brain at the moment.

Unlike the 1918 Flu, I hope that when this is over we will not look backward and inward with fear and shame of our response. COVID-19 has exposed massive fault lines in domestic and global institutions but I remain hopeful that we will come out on the other side willing and ready to work towards a more perfect world. But as my brother would say, ‘hope springs eternal‘ with me.

I feel like I should apologize for how sassy this comes off as but I’m not going to because I don’t like having to counsel young parents who are in high risk categories of what documentation should be in place for their children because they have been informed by their physicians if they catch COVID they will likely die.

For your reading pleasure:

Duck of Minerva– Mostly focused on global politics but all the articles as of recent are focused on COVID-19 responses.

The Washington Post Monkey Cage– Also another political science based platform but mostly for domestic politics.

New England Journal of Medicine: Mostly focused on COVID-19 related science, stats.

And if you’ve made it this far here are some things I’ve combat my anxiety:

Down Dog: Free yoga!

These articles sent by my friend, Vega: The Science of Well-Being and one on the grief you’re feeling. She also shared a host of wellness tips, I won’t put them all here but my favorite was: Remind yourself daily that this is temporary. It seems while we are in the thick of it, it will never end. It is unsettling to think of the road stretching ahead of us. Just remember we will return to feeling free, safe, busy, and connected in the months ahead. You can find more of her stuff, here.

If you’ve made it this far, congratulations, take a breath and remember those blue skies will be back.

Corona K8

On By kateginsbachIn Alaska, Other Adventures, skiing, XC Skiing4 Comments

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.

Cheese Pizza Just for Me

On By kateginsbachIn Alaska, Other Adventures, skiing, UncategorizedLeave a comment

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.

The American Birkebeiner

On By kateginsbachIn Endurance Races, Law School, skiing, Uncategorized, XC SkiingLeave a comment

My first year in Boulder, I lived in a house with mostly engineers–and if you want an idea of what that experiences was like I suggest watching The Big Bang Theory–I’ll give you a hint, I was Penny.

While many hilarious antidotes came out of this living situation, so did some learning moments like the Fermi Paradox, Schrodinger’s Cat, and most importantly when throwing stars come out it’s really best to go to bed.

I think mostly about Schrodinger’s Cat at the moment (and quick recap for those at home: it’s this theory that if you place a cat and something that could kill the cat in a box and sealed it, you would not know if the cat was dead or alive until you opened the box, so that until the box was opened, the cat was both “dead and alive”– or you can watch it here–just like Wayne explained it to me). I think about it because I’m still waiting to hear back from anything and all those decisions are in this box where in theory I have something lined up for next year and also don’t have anything lined up for next year (and I’m sure I botched that analogy- but you get the point).

When your roommate gets you.

February was mostly this state of anxiety because one of the applications said they send out responses in Feb/March so most of February was spent refreshing my email. At the end of the month my professor told me to relax that it probably wouldn’t show up till after spring break (that would have been helpful a month ago).

It was so much that I thought about pulling the plug on the Birkie to just sit at home and wallow in my state of being, while also constantly refreshing my email. Instead, my roommate kindly pointed out that I like to exercise for long periods of time, there was a group of us going and all staying in a cabin, and she made me homemade granola for trail snacks. She made excellent points and so we set out on an 8-hour car trip to Haywood, Wisconsin.

1 dog, 3 people, 2 sets of skis, a million snacks

There were six of us staying at the cabin, with 2 doing the Korte (the 18 mile version); 2 doing the Birkie (the 31 mile race); and 2 along to crew and provide support (really the hardest job). It was nice because the 2 doing the Korte raced on Friday so we were able to go through the production of getting to the start line. Which involves parking in one lot and getting bused to the start line. We saw them off at the start and took the bus back to our car to drive back into Haywood to see them at the finish line in approximately 2-4 hours. I had some work that needed finished so headed to the public library (seriously, public libraries are soooo amazing!). I got back to the finish line just in time and when I greeted Ann at the end she said, “I wouldn’t want to have to ski another 12 miles- ha!”. Gulp.

Ann finishing the Korte!

The two of us racing the Birkie did packet-pickup where I bought another pair of gloves, convinced that the two pairs I had brought would not be optimal (I tell ya, you get caught in a blizzard during one mountain bike race without adequate gloves and it’ll leave a mark). Afterwards, we both picked their brains on a little more course information and race tactics but still slightly unnerved about what was going to happen. It felt different than any other long distance race I had done because my longest ski at this point (pretty inadequate snow conditions) was about 10 miles. And some of it was worrying about how to dress, balancing higher nutritional needs, and generally having no idea how my body would preform after 10 miles. After a few outfit changes and packing different clothes entirely for the start I okay about starting.

Still unsure of this whole skiing business

The morning was smooth getting there, the other guy doing it had a start time 15 minutes before me so I was knew if I just followed his plan I would be there on time. Megan and Jeff came to the start which was nice so they could grab our things and I could wait until the last minute to take my jacket off. They have staging gates (which really reminded me of a cattle branding) they herd you into one and then when one wave goes off release you to the next holding area until you get to the start. I jumped in right before they got to the start when you run for position and have to start in a track. If this makes no sense to you, I assure you it made even less sense to me at the start of the race. Because I had never done this race I started in the very last wave and while I had a good starting position before the gun went off by the time I crossed the start line (less than 30 seconds later) I was in second to last place. I looked around and everyone had left, there was one guy to the side of me who was literally leap frogging in his skis to gain position and boy did he. I blame him because I was so memorized by this form that I just stood there shell shocked and then realized I needed to go.

The last wave start

Right from the start the course went uphill, it reminded me of baby turtles making their way back to the water from the sand, everyone’s skis were splayed out and we all neatly formed four lines. The first few miles were pretty uneventful. Around mile 4 we were stopped at the top of a hill where someone had crashed and needed a medic (they were able to get up but the people were apprehensive to go down until everyone was on the side). I looked at my watch…oh wow, it’s been an hour. Now, I’m not good at math but knew I had 8 hours to finish and in my mind that didn’t really calculate to enough time to do so. I turned to a guy next to me who had a bib indicating he had done it multiple times, “how strict is the cut-off, will they pull us at the aid station?” He told me not to worry as long as I didn’t take 20-30 minutes at each aid station. I thought that seemed do-able but also have found myself laying on cardboard slabs at aid stations for well over an hour so really it was anyone’s guess.

I made it through the first 10 miles feeling okay. As soon I passed the 10-mile mark it was like my body realized this was the furthest it had ever skied and started to hurt. I made sure to keep eating as best I could but also knew I was behind on nutrition. I found the whole carrying a ski-pole, having to take off gloves and unpack some food, made me less wanting to invest in eating.

Snow nice to see people on the course (get it?)

I saw Jeff and Megan around mile 15 and stopped for a bit to chat and eat some more food. It was maybe the last time I felt good on the course and was entering a somewhat delirious stage. I went downhill (not a pun, there weren’t a lot of downhills) pretty fast after that and entered a pretty dark place for the next 11 miles. It was totally food related, the course was a bit crowded now with the two styles (classic and skate) merging onto one, but in my mind people were working together to keep me boxed in (yeah they definitely weren’t). One guy kept sprinting by and then halfway up an uphill would just stop to rest and turn his skis to take up a good chunk of the course. In my moment of wanting to ski over his skis to show him how inconvenient of a place it was to stop, I instead opted to eat some granola which helped.

The one thing I noticed is that when biking long distances, I definitely get tired and enter similar mindsets but my body knows what to do. It has ridden enough to keep turning the pedals over (like the MDH when all I wanted to do was sleep, my legs at least knew what to do). With skiing, there was no familiarity in the muscle memory, so each movement required conscious thought to keep propelling myself forward.

I had been leap-frogging with Judy from TDA most of the day and was also nice when I saw her on course, we both joked how we were ready to start biking after this with it being both our first Birkie. In the last few miles she pulled ahead of me and figured I would see her after the race was done. In the last four miles, I caught my second, really my first wind. I felt like I was able to somehow get into a groove, the snow was less slushy and more crunchy/icy, which was similar to what I was used to skiing in South Bend. I even got my sense of humor back, when one spectator said we were looking good another participant yelled, “you are definitely lying there is no way we look good.” I poked back, “speak for yourself”. The last two miles contain a lake crossing (1 miles) and then a passage through town over a bridge and down main street. The lake route was groomed and I felt like I could really move–and I did, I put in my fastest mile of the day going over the lake around 7:30.

I came into town and up the bridge, I was a little concerned about going down because of how many people would see you crash but was able to navigate it successfully. I came up the main street and saw Judy stopped right before the finish line, I caught up to her as she picked up her glove. Woooohooo! We made it and skated across the line together.

Skating in with Judy

Ann greeted me with warm clothes and boots- the other part of the group was with Aaron who had finished only minutes before me. We then went to the beer tent, and Megan bought me a sausage to get some real food and because I had no cash. We all talked about various aspects of the day and then went back to the cabin to cook dinner and decompress.

Megan was right, it was a fun weekend, despite having to ski for 6 hours, it was nice to get out of South Bend and hangout in the woods for a few days. I took a few days off without too much soreness only in my shoulders, before I started biking again.

Not a bad place to spend a long weekend

While I’m still waiting to hear back on applications, March seems to be so busy with deadlines that I’ve mostly stopped constantly refreshing my email and focusing more on what I have to get done. I won a free entry into the TommyKnocker 10 in Silver City, New Mexico this weekend. I changed my flights to reroute through Phoenix for break, but earlier this week realized that I just didn’t have the mental energy to race for 10 hours. So I pulled back and decided to stay in Phoenix for the Cactus Cup, which has a short-track, 40 miler, and enduro. I’m currently signed up for all three but still waiting for my bike to show up so might just end up doing the 40-miler. I definitely was not planning on starting my season this year, but also realize that when I’m studying for the bar I’ll do little to no racing so might as well even if I’m not in racing shape (12 days on the bike won’t do too much for fitness levels).

I’ve also been hitting up therapy again, because as my friend Gen pointed out on her blog, exercise is a great tool, but not really a substitute for actual therapy. Also realizing that anxiety and excitement mask themselves in the exact same physical symptoms, so now just tricking myself to be excited at the endless opportunities that are available instead of anxious about none of them being available.