Angel's Death March 60K, featuring Zombie Tom and other friends

Alternate title considerations include:
 - In which it is discovered that I am not Van Phan
 - What cans of spinach are to Popeye, jars of kale smoothie are to Yitka
 - White River stole my mojo
 - Humbled!

Let's begin with the letter I spent 9 hours on Saturday composing in my head:

Dear White River, you fabulous, cunning beast,
You remind me of falling in love at 14. You wooed me, you made me giddy, you gave me the world. Turns out that I gave you everything, too - so when I tried my best to recreate the euphoria you let me taste, I found I had nothing left to give. You took it all, White River, you handsome, sly devil, you.

On Saturday, I attempted to run a 60K in the stunning Methow Valley of northern central Washington. I think that when I signed up for it months ago, my thought process was this: Well, I'll be such a badass by the time I've run White River, I'll be able to handle running 38 miles with 10,000+ feet of elevation gain two weeks later, no big whoop.


Granted, I have crazy friends who encourage this sort of thinking. I consort with folks like George and Van and Jason and Jenn and Stacey who do things like run a couple hundred miles in one go, or run across the desert in Jordan, or run from Seattle to Vancouver in a few days for the hell of it. Unfortunately, often as I associate with the nutcases, I am not quite (yet?) of the same blood. After Van finished running her own 200 mile race, she marched gracefully right into the role of race director/cheerleader/pizza-wrangler, and likely ran a cooldown marathon the next day. I'm pretty sure I'd be comatose at that point, not jogging.

All this to say that two weeks had somehow come to seem like a reasonable amount of time to recover between ultras. This turned out, for me, to be less than accurate.

Like any runner, I have a plethora of excuses ready to explain why I felt so miserable for approximately half of the Angel's Staircase 60K:

• 90+ degrees Fahrenheit = 25 degrees above Yitka's melting point; I'm Dutch, not Kenyan
• Not enough sleep for two weeks leading up to it
• No green smoothie or boiled egg morning of (I am nothing without kale!)
• Crappy diet overall the week leading up to it
• Running at 6,000-8,000 feet elevation all day, where the air is certainly thinner than at sea level
• Intense headache verging on migraine that lasted about four hours

The funny thing is, I did a better job than ever setting myself up to have an enjoyable race. I truly accepted that I would not think of it as a race, but rather as a gentle, easy recovery run with a ton of great scenery. I put no pressure on myself whatsoever. Naturally, there was a tiny part of me that hoped I'd magically feel like a million bucks and be able to pull off a fabulous race anyway - but I was pretty confident going in that that wouldn't be the case. After the first few miles, I was certain.

But I was okay with it! In fact, I'm still okay with it. I loved the course. I loved all the fellows and ladies who absolutely rocked it; seven of the top 15 finishers were female - woohoo! I loved feeling no hurry whatsoever, taking my time along the way to think, take photos, chase butterflies in fields of wildflowers. (You think I'm kidding...)

Mentally, though, I had nothing to give on Saturday. There was no inspirational drawing on deep stores of psychological prowess. If there'd been a van at mile 27 offering to take me to the finish, I would have hopped in it without a second thought. Fortunately, (given the old slogan that pain is temporary, pride is forever), I was instead very much alone at mile 27, very deep in the backcountry at that point, where the only way out was on my own two feet. The mountain, not my mind, deserves credit for the lack of DNF on Saturday.


And furthermore, I wasn't the only one. People puked. Runners had to be fetched off the mountain. My friend Tom died somewhere along the course, and came across the finish line seven hours later as a purple-skinned, muscle-twitching zombie.

Of course, I'm being dramatic - though, only really about the Tom dying part. To be fair, the course was amazing. 100% pure sunshine, spectacular views, fun familiar faces, plenty of Snickers bars. I felt pretty good for the first half. I think I was in the women's lead for a mile or two - though, for what it's worth, all us top seven women finishers were within about 20 minutes of each other the entire race...pretty awesome to be surrounded by so many strong, inspiring women.


James and Candice, as always, did a fantastic job putting this amazing race together for the handful of nut jobs who showed up for it. Bonus points for the rattlesnake and alpaca sightings on the mountain, and for the awesome volunteers, and for whomever furnished the Trader Joe's Just Mango Slices at one of the aid stations. As broken as Zombie Tom and I were at the end of this saga, I'd be lying if I said we weren't already planning our return for next year.


Please note that my legs are not as pale as they appear, nor does the lack of filth on them indicate that I stayed clean during the death march. Ladies just know where to find the wet wipes at the finish line.

Lastly, for a dizzying video that's apt to make you feel as nauseated as I did for 4-5 hours on Saturday (and give you a little taste for the stunning nature of the course), here ya go:

Living my fullest life

Yowzaz! Pretty sure this is the longest I've gone without blogging since I moved to Seattle. Perhaps if I get some major life updates out of the way, I won't feel as daunted by writing in my blog in the future, because the big things are covered and I can go back to writing about small everyday joys and more mundane musings. Here goes:

1. Alan and I moved into our new place on Lower Queen Anne! We had a successful housewarming BBQ/birthday party at the new digs with friends, our newly minted grill, and the most delicious homemade red velvet cake ever - kudos and thanks to my friend and baker extraordinaire Lauren W.


2. My temp copywriting job at REI Headquarters has been extended a few times, so I'm still commuting down to Kent daily to research, learn about and write about all the sweet gear we sell. Pretty pleased to still be working there! What kinds of things do I write? See here. Straightforward as our writing tasks often are, I am forever inspired by my colleagues' cleverness and creativity.

3. Yours truly has become a running/training/athletic MACHINE! Well, so I like to think. I got in a bit of inspired frenzy to sign myself up for a bunch of races. On the docket for the coming months are two full marathons, one half, and my third official ultra (50K). Oh! And I'm going to run 30+ miles around the perimeter of Mount Saint Helens in a few weeks with my friend and fellow Dutch/Swedish hybrid, Ged. Wish us luck!

4. Speaking of running...in July, a team of 11 friends and I tackled the Ragnar Northwest Passage 190-mile Relay for the second year in a row. Our team, the Alpacas by Day, Ninjas by Night, had a blast. I wrote a story about it for the REI blog here. (Beware: link does not always cooperate in Firefox. Try another browser if it doesn't work.)


I am blessed with good friends in this city.
5. Speaking of more running, I tackled my steepest, most rugged trail run yet last month, with my now-longtime trail running pals, Elodie and Tom - the Angel's Staircase run in the Methow Valley, about four hours east of Seattle on the other side of the mountains. 5000 feet of elevation change over 25 kilometers, peaking at 8000 feet, with stunning views in all directions. 6th place among women, I'll take it!


This ridiculously awesome photo courtesy of Glenn Tachiyama.




Beautiful views courtesy of race director James Varner, whom I interviewed and wrote this story on for Outdoors NW magazine several months ago.

6. Oh, and let's talk about where those marathons are that I've signed up for. I'm going to Vegas, baby! Running the strip at night - a nighttime marathon, how cool is that? Talked into it by my lunchtime running buddy at work, Logan (not that it was a really hard sell...)

7. But what's even better than Vegas? Answer: Flying over the North Pole on a direct flight from Seattle to Amsterdam to visit my mom and run the marathon there next month! Dutch Rosetta Stone lessons are in full throttle again. Can't believe it's taken me four years to get myself back to Holland, but it will great to see my mama and run 26.2 in the city that made me truly fall in love with running in the first place.


I took this photo in 2007. The marathon course runs along this river.
8. Alan took me to see Weezer on my birthday last month. In case you didn't hear the story (I love this story!), Alan and I were walking along a street in Seattle many months ago and passed a billboard advertising Weezer in Seattle on August 19. Knowing that I was once upon a time a big Weez' fan, he asked if I'd like to go. Snootily, I scoffed that the only way I'd go to a Weezer concert today was if they played Blue Album start to finish. We turned a corner and the next billboard we saw was, "WEEZER - Playing Blue Album and Pinkerton, start to finish." Wha?!! So we went! It satisfied in the nostalgia realm in big ways.


Yup, I was quite sure I could dig up an old photo of me in my trusty Weezer tee. Me, at 15, with my parents and Dutch cousins/family I haven't seen in years.
9. Been trying to ride my bike more lately...commuting a lot around on two wheels, including several bike trips up to Green Lake in the north part of this city, to go swimming with Oberlin friends - Ruth, who's happily staying another year in Seattle to continue working for Habitat for Humanity, and Shari, who spent the whole summer here leading kids' nature camps for the Audubon Society. Do I have cool friends or what?

10. So, I've been writing all this while sprawled out on a bunch of pillows and blankets on our balcony, looking at the night profile of the Cascade mountains, the shimmering Lake Union, the Seattle skyline all lit up, and even a good number of stars. Really, really happy in the new apartment! A good friend of mine whom I'll kindly keep anonymous recently paraphrased my blog as "Blah blah blah ohhhh Seattle, blah blah blah I'm so special because I love Seattle soooo much blah blah"...snarky, sure, but that's the nature of our friendship anyway (he's the big brother I never had!) and furthermore, I can't imagine a better summation of my feelings. Thank you, you know who you are, for stating it so eloquently. Indeed, I freakin' love this place!

11. Have we been over the fact that I get to have a reunion next month with this wonderful woman?


It's been a long time coming. Thank you, good world, for giving me the opportunities to work hard, play hard and accomplish so many of the things in 2011 that I hoped I could. And thanks to everyone in my life who's making this one amazing ride! You all are great.

Moments of Optimistic Impulse, i.e. Sun Mountain Race Report

Photo Credits to Glenn Tachiyama, from the 2009 Sun Mountain Run
Oi vey...where to begin?! I'll start with the most recent, and work backwards. My trip to Oregon last week might require its own blog entry altogether...

So. I don't know that I've mentioned it on my blog yet, perhaps out of fear of jinxing myself into injury, but I am registered for a 50K trail race on Vashon Island this coming weekend. I've been lucky to get in two training runs a week for the past few months, given my crazy schedule - but fortunately, this is not the world of road marathons with hard and fast training plans etched in stone. No, in the trail running world, it's perfectly acceptable to train when you can, register for ridiculous distances in a moment of optimistic impulse, and come race day, show up with a tub of Vaseline and a backpack of gels and snacks, pin a number to your shorts, and see what miracles your body can pull off.

In yet another impulsive fit, I decided to also register for a 25K the weekend before - a decision made some 50 odd hours before the race began. I figured I'd take it easy as a pleasant training run; I've been doing almost exclusively 2+ hour runs lately anyway, so why not make my Sunday's training run one with the company of a hundred or so other runners, in a gorgeous part of Washington state to which I'd never been before? No matter that it would be a 415-mile drive roundtrip, or that I'd have to set my alarm for 4 a.m., and didn't get home from work until 10 p.m. the night before, or that none of the five people at various points who thought they might join me for the adventure actually wound up doing so; I love a good adventure all the same, especially when running is involved.

In my usual punctuality-obsessed ways, I got to the town of Winthrop about an hour and a half early. Pumped full of adrenaline, peanut butter & jelly sandwiches, cheap gas station coffee, and useful Dutch phrases such as "De vrouwen proeven de rijst" ("The women taste the rice") from listening to my Rosetta Stone Audio Companion on the drive out, I arrived at the trailhead. I quickly found some interesting folks to chat it up with, including one guy who remembered having run with me for part of the Orcas course. It's always amazing how quick runners are to open up to each other...I walked up to this circle of people, and everyone greeted me with, "Hi! We're just talking about how we all got involved with running...divorce, Diabetes, mental instability...what's your story?!"

As for the race itself - I made my usual race mistakes and (1) accidentally started at the front of the pack, and (2) started off way too fast. It generally takes me a few miles to get into my running zone and feel good, so if I actually start off feeling good and strong, it's usually not a good sign. So this time around, while the first mile was full of happy race adrenaline, I felt trashed by the second...not a good sign when you're going 16.

After a few plodding, self-doubting miles of getting passed and being terrified I was going to epically fail to run even half the distance of what I'll be running next weekend, the course unmercifully turned into pretty relentless uphill until about mile 10.


Course profile.
Rough...though a bit of nuun at the aid station helped. Once the course dipped back into a pretty steep downhill, I got all my running zest back in an instant; I tore down the steeps and had a blast pretending to be a sprightly gazelle instead of a lethargic human who probably wound have been better off sleeping in after all.

The second half of the course was a lot of mixed terrain - some uphills, some downhills, some rolling flats, and one particularly brutal scramble up what can only be described as a near-vertical wall of dirt. (Leave it to race director James to contrive of such a thing...) Nevertheless, I felt much stronger. All these long runs I've been doing have trained my body how to keep going, even when I've been running for two, three hours already. At some point, even though I was feeling vaguely nauseous and rather ready to stop, I just shut off the entire mental soundtrack and let my body do its thing. My pace picked up. I plowed right over all the hills, rather than walking them as I had earlier on in an attempt to conserve energy. By the last few miles, I caught up with many of the people who'd passed me in the early ones. I crossed the finish line (measured by several runners' Garmins to be at 16.7 miles) in 2:45:something...not too shabby for a "training" run! (Ha. I'm incapable of not "racing" a race, I've learned.)

Because I'm lame and failed to actually take pictures at the race, and because the usual race-photographer-extraordinaire Glenn was busy prepping to shoot Western States and couldn't make it, I have no imagery to show for the day except from the drive out there on Highway 20:


I hung out at the finish line for awhile, chatting with many of the runners whom I ran stretches of the course with at different times, and enjoying some of the post-race pizza and good ol' party cups of keg beer. (I'll chalk that up as yet another reason why trail runs beat the pants off road runs.) I thought the pizza would tide me over, but two hours into my drive back to Seattle, I found myself pulling into the parking lot of this palace: a restored 1944 caboose turned Southern-style barbecue joint, with grills smoking on the patio. I wolfed down half of the Big Daddy's Brisket Sandwich (appropriate, I thought, given the holiday yesterday) and thought I'd make it to Seattle with the other half intact...no such luck either. I don't think I'd even made it past the Marblemount town limits (population: 281) before I'd devoured the whole thing. Nothing like darn good food after running your butt off. I can only hope the lingering barbecue scent has overpowered the other, less favorable smells in my car, thanks to yesterday :)

With all that said...here are a few other photos to make up for the lack thus far in this entry. They are of other various adventures in my life over the past week and a half. (And, indeed, the Oregon trip + accompanying photos will be a separate entry.)


Canoeing with Elodie!


'Twas a gorgeous day to paddle by the arboretum indeed.


We watched a few members of the Seattle Hash House Harriers play in the lake.


Sounders game! I've been lucky to get to a couple of them in the last few weeks. World Cup break now...which I've been woefully lacking in my observance of.


Hike with Wayne at Lake 22.


Mmm mountains...


Clearly, still doing too much, it seems...but at least doing most of "too much" in the great outdoors, which breathes life and energy into me :)