Farming in Flannel, or Weekend WWOOFing

First and foremost, thanks to so many of you for the wonderful comments on my last blog entry. I've never had so much positive feedback on anything I've ever written. In many ways, getting to share my story with you all and receiving so many wonderful responses has pretty much been on par with the happiness I got from crossing that finish line :) So thank you, thank you, thank you. May we all continue to share our stories with one another - and be stronger, wiser, more joyful, and better connected because of it! 

(In the interest of sharing, here's one of my favorite inspiring reads of the past few years.)

Second of all: let's talk about how awesome Vashon Island is. Several months ago, I wrote about Vashon here on my blog and said this about it: A perfect little getaway from the city, Vashon boasts a lively community of folks, including many artists, musicians and, evidently, runners. It's always a treat to visit this rural, small-towny oasis.

The context in which I've visited Vashon (three times, prior to this weekend) has always been for the annual Vashon Ultra in June - my first 50K ever, back in 2010, and an event for which I feel a strong affinity and sense of loyalty. Every year, I've vowed that the next time I visit Vashon, I'd actually spend a decent amount of time there, seeing something other than the road from the ferry landing to the race start, and the 10-mile loop of trails that comprises the race.

This past weekend, I finally made the pilgrimage - with a weekend of work trades set up to structure the weekend. Steve, who's been interested in WWOOFing (World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms - learn more here), coordinated with a small farm on the island to exchange a couple days of manual labor for a weekend of room and board. I had set up my own work exchange elsewhere on the island on Saturday (thank you, Claudine!) to trade writing/website assistance for an amazing massage/bodywork session - before meeting up with Steve at the farm for a little taste of WWOOFing.

So let me state for the record that I'd be a liar to say that I truly experienced WWOOFing this weekend. More or less, I pretty much just mooched off the labors of Steve. While I was off drinking tea with Claudine and getting a 5-star massage, this guy was hacking through blackberry bushes, shoveling (literally) horse shit and seaweed and grape leaves into compost bins, and assembling a large-scale rainwater-collection system.

I did show up in time to participate in the grand adventure of digging up potatoes. Quite the treasure hunt in the dirt! After much shoveling, we finally unearthed some good ones - which were promptly boiled, mashed, and set out on the dinner table.

Our kind hosts, Scott and Andrea, cooked up a storm for us on Saturday night. It felt like Thanksgiving - with foods that were almost entirely grown in their garden. Salads filled with homegrown sprouts, apples, spinach, cucumbers, tomatoes, and sunflower seeds - all harvested that day (or that week, at the very least). Mashed potatoes, mashed squash. Unbelievably tender pork from a locally raised pig. Berry cobbler for dessert, with fresh blackberries from their yard. Heaven? Pretty darn close.

Scott and Andrea are very focused on simple living - making and building things from scratch, repurposing everything, bartering whenever possible, spending less money rather than racing to make more. At the risk of over-romanticizing the island life, I will say that there was a stark contrast in the pace of their daily life from my own - even just the notion of having time to sit down together three times a day for a genuinely relaxed, home-cooked meal...that was nice. (Surely I can, at the very least, afford to reclaim the lunch breaks I've already begun to lose sight of in my new job? Starting tomorrow!)

The weekend's takeaway, for me, was similar to that of the delightful "Team Sprout", whom Seyeon and I stayed with during our first foray into couchsurfing years ago in Austin: time is money; money is time; live humbly, and you can experience a different kind of wealth entirely. 

Much like couchsurfing, this experience made me hope to someday have a home (and garden!) big, warm, and welcoming enough to host strangers. I love the idea of meeting travelers from all over the world, sharing fresh food and terrific home-cooked meals, learning about one another's habits and beliefs and life experiences. It's an amazing thing to be welcomed into the home of a perfect stranger, and be given a glimpse into their daily life.

In the morning, after a hearty breakfast with Scott and Andrea, we put on our work boots and hit the garden again for a couple hours. I'll be the first to admit: for as passionate as I am about food, I know astoundingly little about gardening/farming. It was awesome to see what broccoli looks like growing on a plant, before it's been harvested. I loved seeing how enormous the beets were in the dirt.

      

The stems of the Swiss chard were such a brilliant pink. 

The tomatoes in their greenhouse, of course, were ten times more flavorful than anything you can find in a grocery store. I wish small-scale food production was part of our educational system. Sigh.

They were kind enough to send us away with bags of fresh greens and vegetables, a big bouquet of hand-picked flowers, and a bottle of wine (which will be eligible for opening in 70 days...) from the Andrew Will winery where Scott works.

We spent the afternoon exploring Maury Island Marine Park (connected to Vashon), which was gorgeous - and even made us feel like we were on a real beach on the ocean, tidal waves and all! :)

Although this entry has been almost entirely focused on food, I've neglected to mention the two other ridiculously amazing dinners of the weekend. It would do my blog, and the meals themselves, a serious injustice to leave out mention of them entirely:

1. Delicious dinner at the Preston household, featuring bacon/mushroom pizza, squash soup, blackened chicken in cream sauce, and creme brulee. My friends got fancy!
2. Sunday shabu-shabu dinner at Deby's house: traditional Japanese hot pot meal with virtually endless bowls of rice, noodles, meat, shrimp, gyoza (dumplings), tofu, and vegetables...all followed by copious amounts of homemade mochi, filled with red bean paste. Yummy.

One thing is for sure: I died and went to food heaven this weekend. It was a bit of a rough transition back to Earth today...

A big thanks, as always, to everyone who made this weekend a stellar one. I shared so many wonderful meals with people I only just met this very weekend, or a few months ago, or in the case of a select few (Cam and Avey, this means you!), a full 3+ years ago now. All of you, in my relatively brief time thus far in this beautiful corner of the world, have become like family to me. I thank you for bringing color to my life!

IMTUF 100 Race Report: Some Things Were Beautiful, Some Things Hurt

The strange dichotomy of my life continues! As I'm finally sitting down to write about the 36 harrowing hours I spent running through the rugged backcountry of Idaho last weekend, please note that this entry is brought to you from the luxury of a plush hotel room, complete with room service, in Salt Lake City, where I'm on business (and, soon, play) for the next few days.

In sharp contrast, last weekend, I was a filthy wreck of a human being, coated in dirt and sweat and Duct tape.

I suppose I need to start at the beginning - dinner with Deby after she finished the Pine to Palm 100 in Oregon three weeks ago. Deby is one of my badass-ultrarunner-mom-extraordinaire friends. She's run five 100s in the last couple of months, which is ridiculous, amazing, and thoroughly inspiring all in one. Though all my epic runs and pacing gigs this year have undoubtedly stoked my enthusiasm for knocking out my own 100, there was something in particular about seeing Deby's strength on the beautiful trails at Pine to Palm that really got into my pores.

So, despite the fact that I've said all year that I wouldn't try to run a 100 until 2013, there we were at dinner, and I was busy on my fancy phone researching potential 100s for the remainder of 2012. Sadly, though, there was not a one that really appealed to me. They all had issues: too far away from home, too flat, too many loops, too many leaves, already sold out. Grumble grumble; first world problems, I know.

So I dropped my pipe dream. For a week, at least. Then I took a look at the website for IMTUF (Idaho Mountain Trail Ultra Festival), the 100 that would be Deby's 5th this year. There were reasons to be cautious: the entire course is at significant elevation (5,000-8,000 feet). It would be an inaugural race, which could mean poor logistics or course markings. Then there were the race directors' ominous disclaimers: "It will be a loop course of uncompromising quality and difficulty through the Payette National Forest. You are highly encouraged to have a mountain 100 under your belt before you attempt this race." And: "This is the high Rockies and these giants make their own weather."

Shiver.

But no matter; I was already seduced. IMTUF boasted everything I wanted: tons of elevation, almost exclusively singletrack trails, a generous 36-hour cutoff, a hot springs at the start/finish line, sexy laser-engraved finishers' belts, and perhaps best of all - a race far away and mostly full of strangers, so I could sneak away and give it a try without hardly anyone in my life knowing. Deby and I were the only Washingtonians in it. Somehow, given the sheer impulsiveness of my decision, I really wanted the opportunity to run without the pressure of anyone in my life knowing what I was attempting. To be honest, mostly it was because I felt wildly uncertain I'd be able to finish, and well...I guess I wanted to protect my ability to DNF (Did Not Finish) if need be. I worried that if I knew all my buddies at Seattle Mountain Running Group were tracking me, I might explode from the pressure alone.

So I sent Deby a quiet email: "I got this spontaneous, harebrained idea in my head that I might want to try IMTUF. Please don't tell anyone. Am I crazy?"

She promptly wrote back: "You already know how to be tough and to get it done. So no, I don't think it's crazy and am all for it! Check with your boss and start dreaming Sister."

So, asked for the days off from work: Check.
Asked Steve if he would be interested in coming to crew/pace for me: Check.
Registered on Ultrasignup at 2 a.m., six days before the race: Check.

The following Friday, Steve, Deby's crew/pacer Erin, and I got up before the crack of dawn and hit the road for Idaho. Nine hours later, we rolled up at the woodsy paradise of Burgdorf hot springs.

We met Deby, and the four of us shared a cozy, primitive cabin with no running water or electricity. We cozied up by the wood stove, which proved infinitely valuable through the well-below-freezing nights.

Which brings me to the start of IMTUF: 6 a.m. Saturday morning. The temperature was 8 degrees Fahrenheit. The drink tube on my hydration pack froze almost instantly (and didn't thaw out until three or four hours into the race). I had a handheld, too, but that, too, froze quickly.

The first few dark miles of the race were absorbed almost entirely with hydration maintenance. Every time I wanted a sip of water, I had to breathe heavily on my handheld for at least a minute to thaw it enough to unscrew the lid to drink. Then the moment I took it off, new water froze inside the grooves of the lid, making it impossible to screw the lid back on. I devised a plan: run for several minutes while holding my open handheld upright so as not to lose any water, and with the lid clenched between my teeth, so my breath would melt the ice in the tracking grooves. Then I could screw the lid back on and run for another mile or two before getting thirsty again and repeating the whole laborious process. The water itself rapidly became a slushy, ridden with ice chunks.

 

Photo by Michael Lebowitz 

Early on, I fell into line with Brandi - an Idaho local, fellow 100-virgin, and also the race director Jeremy's wife. We more or less ran the first twenty miles together, cruising along the gently rolling terrain at a 10 or 11 minute mile pace, chatting it up, chasing the sunrise, having a great time.

The course was rugged and beautiful from the very beginning. The fall colors were stunning. My body felt fantastic. My mind was high already.

 

Photo by Michael Lebowitz  

 

The course began the first of many brutal climbs shortly after mile 20. I fell away from Brandi here, and had my first "Oh $%&#, what was I thinking trying to run this thing?!" moment. My lungs seared at the thin air on the first big climb. The first 20 miles had felt so effortless, I'd forgotten that the zen-like runners' high was more an anomaly than a standard and that, in fact, most of this would actually hurt quite a lot. Humbled already.

I planned my blog entry: the subject line would be IM(not)TUF(enough). 

Around the 50K mark, we runners got briefly dumped out on a road. Against my mind's willing, I found myself walking - even on an easy downhill. I counted down from 5, then picked up my feet and began running again. Right then, Steve and Erin came barreling around the corner in their crew vehicle, honking their horn like crazy, and nearly giving me a heart attack. They were on their way down to meet me at the next aid station; I was running about an hour ahead of my very loose time projections, but already feeling tired and a little discouraged. It was definitely a boost to see them both.

Such a boost, I guess, that I forgot about paying attention to course markings, and missed a giant orange sign that would have told me to hop the guardrail and veer right into the woods. I could see the aid station on Payette Lake that I knew I was supposed to be headed toward, but as I continued down the road I was on, I was moving beyond it. 

Then, the orange ribbons guided me left into the woods - the opposite direction from the aid station. In my already slightly dazed state, I was only vaguely aware of the fact that something seemed off. I ran a half mile or so up the trail before finding a welcome outhouse at a trailhead that I dashed into. When I emerged, Steve and Erin had pulled up in their crew vehicle, and were frantically waving me down; "You missed a turn!" they told me.

So I turned back around and retraced my steps. Embarrassingly, the race director Ben happened to be driving by and saw me running the wrong way on the road. He tried to get me to turn around, but I explained that I hadn't been down to the aid station yet, because I'd missed a turn, so I still needed to get down there before running onward. He was dumbfounded, "Didn't you see all the orange flags and the the giant orange sign?"

When I did get down to the aid station, the other RD Jeremy pulled me aside. "Ben told me what happened. Didn't you see all the orange flags and the giant orange sign?" he asked me. :P Silly, already-delirious, 100-newbie me. User error! And only 32 miles in, oi vey. It was going to be a long race. I was so shaken up by my wrong turn and the RDs' mention of potential disqualification (obviously, they didn't disqualify me, because I'd made the effort to retrace my steps and probably even ran a bonus mile or two - but their use of the word at all spooked me) that I blew out of that aid station, completely forgetting to drink or eat or restock my pack. Steve and Erin hadn't been able to find a road to drive down to the aid station to meet me, so they weren't there either. I dashed out in a hurry, and only realized a mile or two later that I had about 30 oz. of water and 150 calories in my pack, to last me the next 12 miles (roughly 3 hours). 

The day had heated up. The air was thin and dry, my throat already full of dust. I felt parched, hungry, low on energy. The terrain was rugged. I was stressed about my wrong turn, then forgetting to drink or eat at the aid station. My mind got stuck on a self-defeating broken record. I couldn't stop beating myself up for my mental fuzziness, for careless errors that might well cost me the opportunity to finish. I was pretty sure, at this point, that I'd be DNF'ing - perhaps later rather than sooner, but as my water and food ran out and I started to feel dizzy, a DNF already seemed inevitable.

In Eat & Run, Scott Jurek wrote: "The ultra distance leaves you alone with your thoughts to an excruciating extent. Whatever song you have in your head had better be a good one. Whatever story you are telling yourself had better be a story about going on. There is no room for negativity. The reason most people quit has nothing to do with their body."

Although I had mostly been running by myself for the past ten miles, a couple runners had passed me during that long stretch, and taken the time to chat a bit before moving onward. Any kind of social contact offered a terrific mental boost. When the next aid station at Foolhen Meadows finally showed up - happily, earlier than expected! - I was finally able to change the soundtrack in my head to a positive one. I gulped down water and HEED, ate liberally, jammed a thousand calories inside my pack, and instantly felt better.

Then, just a couple miles more, and I arrived at the spot where pacers could jump in for the first time. Steve and Erin were both there, smiling brightly, positive and encouraging as ever, geared up, and ready to run. The greatness of the mental boost I got from Steve joining me cannot be overstated. I'll go ahead and say it now: there is absolutely no way I could have finished this race without his company, conversation, camaraderie, and coaching. I have renewed appreciation for the role of a pacer. In all four of my pacing experiences this summer, I'm not sure I ever served as a genuine savior/race-salvager to my runners, at least not on the level that Steve did for me in this race. Indebted is an understatement.

The sun went down shortly after we left the mile 44 mark. We kept each other as lively as we could through the night. I'd said beforehand that I'd like to keep conversation going as much as possible, to help the miles go by. We'd also agreed beforehand that, short of a true medical emergency, both of us would keep running - no matter how much it hurt, no matter how appealing stopping might seem. Steve had never run longer than a marathon - but being the avid hiker and backpacker he is, and knowing that I'd be moving slowly anyway, I was confident he'd do just fine.

At some point, he asked innocently enough, "So, um, is this much walking pretty typical in an ultra?" And there I'd been, thinking proudly that I was running quite a bit more than I'd expected to by mile 50! I laughed. Steve added that if he'd known trail running was really just glorified hiking, he'd have hopped on board a long time ago. 

From mile 50 on for quite a few hours, I felt fantastic. Definitely caught my second runners' high. Saw a shooting star, made a wish. At mile 58, there was a fire roaring and the AS served chicken fingers and the most delicious instant mashed potatoes I'd ever tasted. Life was good.

Then came the inevitable crash. The stretch between Blackwell Lake (mile 68) and North Crestline was supposed to be 10 miles; however, the Garmins of several other runners indicated it was actually 14. Mentally (and physically), I was ready for the aid station about two hours before it actually turned up. Steve and I were rocking a steady run/walk over the mountains - yet this section wound up taking us 5.5 hours.

This was, by far, the most challenging part of the entire race. Sleep deprivation set in. My toes had begun blistering horribly. My legs, miraculously, still felt strong - but that was pretty much irrelevant, given the abrupt, excruciating pain of every step on my blistering feet. I was wincing - and eventually moaning - in pain, with every single footfall. Steve put up with my grumpy bitterness like a champ - even as he crossed into his own uncharted waters of ultrarunning. Let me tell you: if you can be so fortunate as to land yourself a rowing coach/coxswain for a pacer at your next hundred, you will not regret it. He knew all the right things to say to keep me putting one foot in front of the other.

Mentally, it was extraordinarily hard to feel as though we were chasing down an aid station that would never come. I started sobbing pretty uncontrollably, while running, around mile 75. The finish seemed so impossibly far away. My feet hurt worse than they'd ever hurt before. It was brutally cold out. Runners had already dropped due to nausea, altitude sickness, hypothermia, hypnoatremia, sheer exhaustion.

Worst of all, I was disappointed in myself for so thoroughly falling apart. My biggest question, going into this experience, was whether the distance would break me. I'd seen it break so many. Beforehand, I felt convinced I'd be stronger than that, that I wouldn't be broken. I told Steve, "I want to be grinning and doing cartwheels at mile 80, not grumpy and crying and talking about quitting." But there were no cartwheels.

Let's put it this way: even if Glenn had been there, I wouldn't have been able to muster a jump. I simply felt I had nothing left to give. And I still had nearly 25 miles to go. (The IMTUF course is, in fact, long by several miles.)

The aid station at North Crestline, when it did come, was a godsend. There was a cozy tent. There was real food. A kind man wrapped up all my raw, bleeding, torn up toes in Duct tape. Unfortunately, I'd slowed down so much overnight that I had gone from being even at mile 70 with the eventual first-place woman to being right up against the cutoffs. (Granted, first place woman Emily Berriochoa eventually finished in 34:23, just about an hour and a half ahead of the cutoff...just to give you some perspective on how tough this race was.) I still very much doubted my ability to finish - which felt heartbreaking.

But we started off again, awake, refreshed, and now with some time barriers to keep us moving. The sun was up; it was a new day. My feet felt (slightly) better, all taped up. My mantra was from Slaughterhouse Five: "Everything was beautiful, and nothing hurt." On cruise control, we blazed into the aid station at mile 87 with smiles, a half hour to spare to the cutoff there, and jetted right back out to tackle the last big climb of the race, up to Cloochman Saddle at 92.6. The climb was a challenge, and certainly got my muscles screaming - but it was gorgeous.

The ladies working the aid station at Cloochman were awesome. We sat down to enjoy some watermelon and no-bake cookies, and wait for Deby - who had been a half hour to an hour behind me for most of the race - to catch up to us. Unsurprisingly, she was in solid spirits. The three of us took off for the final home stretch together. 

Unfortunately, the altitude, sleep deprivation, mild dehydration, along with the whole running 50+ miles thing on pretty much no training whatsoever, caught up to Steve at this point. As we ran along the very sunny, very exposed, and very high-altitude (at least to us Seattle flatlanders) ridge, he started to feel extremely dizzy. I thought it very sneaky of him to fall apart right then, because it yanked my own mind out of the pity party it had been in - and I shifted all my focus to making sure he was okay. We did slow down; I waved Deby on ahead while I sat with Steve, got some water in him, and gradually got us moving again. It was wildly distracting from my own misery at that point! Well played, coach - a good trick for the pacer book, to be sure. 

When we finally dropped off the ridge again into the woods for the final final home stretch, we were both pretty wrecked. Nothing was beautiful, and everything hurt. That last stretch of downhill trail, which ordinarily I would have loved bombing down, felt like a death march to Hades. I was looking at my watch, knowing I was rapidly approaching the 36-hour cutoff. As we tumbled painfully down the never-ending trail, I felt my heart sinking.

I knew that we were supposed to pop off the trail at some point onto a forest service road for the final 1.5 miles. When I finally reached the road, I let out a whoop, and found power in my legs I didn't even know I had. It was a total Hollywood moment. I knew Steve had nothing left to give at that point; I could hear him cheering and whooping behind me, yelling at me to go for it and beat the cutoff.

Something primitive was unleashed in me; I roared. I sprinted down that road. I was beyond all pain, all exhaustion. For anyone who saw Bob Satko run out the final fifty yards of his 200-miler at Pigtails earlier this year, I felt exactly like that moment. I was ecstatic as I went flying down that road. I could hear the echoes of Steve's cheers fading behind me as I flew.

 

Photo by Michael Lebowitz

The non-Hollywood part is that I missed the cutoff by three minutes. But let's be real; did I care? Hell no. I ran 100 miles! :) Ben and Jeremy were there to cheer me across the finish line, award me my finishers' belt, and invite me back to, as they suggested, "run a 32-hour race next year". 

I'll be back for sure. This race was unbelievable. Ben and Jeremy were some of the best race directors I've ever seen - so involved, so present, so supportive, so awesome. They had everything dialed. The course was ridiculously well marked. The aid stations were fabulous, the real food delicious, the volunteers amazing. Idahoans are some of the friendliest folk I've ever met. The hot springs at Burgdorf were the perfect way to soak exhausted muscles the following morning.

Group shot of the inaugural IMTUF's runners, crews, volunteers, and RD's:

 

Photo by Michael Lebowitz 

Thank you to everyone in this picture for making my first 100 experience as incredible as it was! Once again, I'm overwhelmed with gratitude for the people who've brought so much richness to my life. I thank you all for believing in me. I couldn't have done this without you. Love, love, love.

Pants, metaphorical tsunamis, and my new gig

Too many adventures to write about, too little time! Let it be known that over the past few weeks, I have donned a variety of pants - literal, figurative, and otherwise. I've taken turns wearing my fancy pants, my mountain pants, my eating pants, and of course, my running shorts.

(Please note: If you're tired of reading about mountains and running, you can find a brief interlude from those themes buried in the middle of this entry: just look for Cee Lo Green!) 

So, two weekends ago, I went to Oregon with my friend Deby for yet another crewing/pacing gig. While Deby knocked out her umpteenth 100-miler this year, I tagged along for the road trip down to southern Oregon and a long weekend of rich conversations, glorious meals, evening hot-tubbing, and sleep-walking mountain miles.

The race, Pine to Palm, is Oregon's only 100-miler. After cruising for two days around the backcountry roads there to support Deby and the other runners, I'm definitely adding P2P to my Ultra Bucket List. Beautiful part of the country, great trails, tons of runnable single-track, thoroughly challenging course. The time cut-offs, unfortunately, were rather aggressive early in the race; paired with intense heat on a lot of exposed ridges and a couple aid stations running out of water, the conditions caused many runners to drop out in the first half of the race.

Strong, steady, and determined as always, though, Deby cruised through like a champ. A little before midnight on Saturday, I jumped in at Dutchman Peak to run the last 35 miles with her. The thin air in the Siskiyou mountains got to us quickly. Around 3 a.m., while trudging up a long section of service road, we both began drifting into walking sleep. It's the strangest sensation, to be moving, to drift off for a second or two, and come to stumbling along in the darkness...your legs still walking, but your mind completely shut down. We curled up on the side of the road for a short nap, but found neither of us could actually sleep - so we marched onward. When the sun came out, it proffered a welcome energy lift.

Perhaps the most amazing moment of the weekend came in the form of a kind stranger at the finish line, who let us borrow her car for several hours to go retrieve our own from Dutchman Peak. Prior to her generosity, we had hit a bit of a panic, realizing suddenly we were not on our home turf in Washington, where we're both accustomed to knowing a good chunk of the people there and could count on hitching a ride with someone. The two other runners and crews we knew had both dropped out in the middle of the night, so we were essentially stranded at the finish line, with no friends, no prospects, no money (left our wallets in our car at Dutchman!), no cell phone reception...and certainly no energy to backtrack 35 rugged miles on foot to get back to our own vehicle. Disaster! Thank goodness for the kindness and trust of strangers. We live in a good world.






All the time I've been spending doing this sleep-deprived rambling around in the mountains has been good processing time for my little heart. 2012 has undoubtedly cast some tidal waves of change in my direction. Metaphorical tsunamis, for better or worse, require a good amount of energy to handle.

As many of you know, I recently accepted a new communications job with a mobile start-up. It was a difficult decision to leave REI, as for 3+ years it's been an absolutely amazing company to work for. Ultimately though, I'm really excited about this new opportunity to further develop my skill set - and hopefully make a bigger impact than I felt capable of making in my old role.

I wake up every day with new tasks to tackle, whether they be drafting letters, writing video scripts, designing newsletters, or in the case of last Friday afternoon - greeting, schmoozing with, and being the face of my company for 400+ members from all over the country. I met good folks from New Orleans, Tulsa, Salt Lake, New Jersey, Puerto Rico, and beyond. Really cool experience. Then jetted over to Seattle's EMP in the evening for our official launch party...rocking out to Cee Lo, scarfing hors d'oeuvres, and sipping Sprites at the open bar like the classy lady I am.





But putting on my fancy pants (or dress, as it were) didn't prevent me from totally shifting gears and donning my mountain pants again at 7 a.m. the following morning.

We've had a truly beautiful summer here in the Northwest. 40 consecutive days without rain, and more sunny, blue-skied, 70-degree days than I could count. It's a shame to reach mid-September without having tromped around even once in the stunning North Cascades - so this weekend, with the help of my new friend Steve, I rectified that. There was a tremendous amount of fog, but happily, we enjoyed the little island paradise of Mt. Forgotten, rising above it all at 6000 feet.

It was a rigorous hike that began in deep fog - but the upshot was getting the mountain (true to its name!) all to ourselves. We ditched our packs for several little exploratory scrambles around. Tasty Ramen mash, mountaintop Scrabble, and cliff-side naps in the sunshine sweetened the whole experience. Not to mention obligatory post-hike milkshakes.

North Cascades for the win.

And...I like my life! Thank you to all who continue to make it a good one.

In the spirit of sharing

Just a few songs, articles, websites, and videos out and about on the internet that I've been loving lately:

 - Angus & Julia Stone: Australian brother and sister folk duo (Their Flash website is amazing!) My favorite tunes are "Yellow Brick Road", "The Devil's Tears" and "Living on a Rainbow"
 - Meditation Oasis podcasts: Great for clearing my mind and helping me fall asleep at night
 - This goofy, awesome song and music video by Seattle's own Macklemore on thrift store clothing
 - Codecademy: Learn how to program online for free
 - A conservative argument for marriage equality (thanks for sharing, Sara!)
 - The Jubilee Project: A few guys I went to high school with who are making videos for humanitarian causes...completely amazing. Go Jason, Eddie and Eric!
 - This tasty summer salad recipe: Corn and blueberries, who can say no?!
 - Someone else reflecting on why being > doing
 - Bop-Life! My friends Lauren and Ben just launched an IndieGoGo campaign for their website and mobile app project to help travelers better explore new cities on foot
 - Blackmill: Incredible dubstep music, perfect for running, writing or meditating
 - A sweet blog post on "JOMO": The joy of missing out
 - You ran that! Paul Ryan Marathon Time Calculator

On the glorification of busyness

This morning, I met up with a good friend and went for an early (but not crazy early), long (but not crazy long) run in the mountains outside of Seattle. As many of my one-on-one runs with ladies go, we wound up talking a lot about our lives.

At some point, she shared a mantra she's focusing on in her life: Stop glorifying busyness.

This, coming from a woman who works full-time at a fairly stressful job, but in a compressed schedule that gives her four days off each week to devote to things like raising chickens, growing vegetables in her garden, making jams and canning pickles, traveling, neighborhood bartering, and having some awesome running adventures here and there. To someone like me who hardly finds time to cook dinner once in a blue moon, she absolutely gives the appearance of someone who's figured out the balance thing in her life.

But, in our different ways, we confessed to struggling with this same issue of glorifying busyness.

What an apt phrase, I thought. I'm sure my mother would agree...I have an insidious habit of overcommitting my time and energy. Facebook friends and readers of my blog sometimes ask me, "Are you even employed? Where do you find the time for everything?"

I find it, of course, the way most everyone else in our fast-paced society finds it - by cramming it in. I multitask. I sleep less. I sacrifice time with friends. I'm a zealot for to-do lists. As I've blogged about here, I do things like read books while I'm on the treadmill, listen to podcasts while I cook, run up and down mountains between work and evening classes, or watch TED talks while doing crunches on my bedroom floor at 11:30 PM. I've gone from being an avid journaler who filled entire notebooks in a couple months to someone who hardly manages a few pages of written introspection each month.

Generally, I take pride in my productivity. I work hard; I play hard. "How have you been?" people ask me. "Pretty good," I say, "but busy!"

But does busy always equal awesome? Many times, yes; I wouldn't trade my adventures for the world.


Pacing at Cascade Crest 100: Photo by Glenn Tachiyama
But sometimes, awesome is also just a weekend at home, with no alarm clocks and absolutely nothing on the docket. For the past 12 consecutive weekends, I have had big (awesome!) things going on: being out of town for a race or all-day hike, having out-of-town guests stay with me, or staying awake for 40 hours straight to volunteer and run in the mountains. Of those 12 weekends, eight involved ultramarathon-distance runs. The last truly "unscheduled" weekend I had was June 2, and even then, it was two days before moving to a new apartment...hardly relaxing.

Part of it, I'll write off as an affliction of living in the Pacific Northwest. When so many nearby beautiful places are covered in snow for 80% of the year, I think it's natural to want to go soak up every hour of sunny summer daylight playing outside. But part of it, too, is indeed my tendency to glorify busyness. As if being constantly doing stuff somehow gives my life value. As if a to-do list can be an identity.

Where did that come from?

When I was growing up, I begged my parents not to schedule up my summers. Aside from our annual June trip to Colorado, where I happily attended a week of day camp to play in the mountains, I wanted my summers clear. I had novels to write, magazines to design, books to pore through, art projects to do, bike routes to explore, treasure hunts to design, and yes, I'll admit it, one summer, a virtual kingdom on Neopets to develop. (That was the year I had to explain to my parents and pediatrician that yes, I still had friends in the real world, too.)

Don't get me wrong: to-do lists have their place in my life. As I learned this morning, I'm not the only one who makes them on my fancy phone in bed at night. Oi vey. But how productive am I, really, when I put relentless, often exhausting, pressure on myself to do, do, and do more? Isn't it okay to sometimes just be?

This weekend I gave myself permission to just be. What a gift. Did I do nothing? Of course not; I read books and took naps and went for walks around the neighborhood and met up with good friends for tea, sushi, and backyard salmon grilling. I watched some Seinfeld over a pint of Haagen Dazs. I spent an entire morning in my PJ's honing my elementary programming skills. But none of it came from a list; it was all what I felt like doing spontaneously, in that moment. I feel calmer tonight than I have in ages, and am no longer panicking that I burnt myself out on running this summer. It's not the running per se that did me in; it's busyness in general that's left me metaphorically gasping for breath.

So. To my blog readers, to the bottom of this evening's mug of tea, to the almost full moon out my window: I am pledging tonight to stop glorifying busyness...at least for entire summers at a time.

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:

Ultra-Rambly Race Report: White River 50 Endurance Run

One week ago, I ran my first 50-miler, the White River Endurance Run. I'll borrow a couple lines from my friend and fellow 50-miler-first-timer Tim's race report on his blog, A Little Runny, and warn you that what follows is "kind of long, but whatever. You all have proven that you have the stamina for this kind of thing - either by running freaking forever, or by putting up with me to this point in life."

For those who aren't familiar with White River, a quick primer on the course: it's essentially a figure-8 course, with a 27ish-mile loop and a 23ish-mile loop, each of which has a monster climb, totaling about 8,700 feet of climbing (+ the same in descent; 17,400 ft. total elevation change) altogether.

The White River course profile superimposed over the Boston marathon course profile
Two weekends before the race, Jenn and I spent the better part of our Sunday doing a training run on the White River course. We ran 75% of the first loop, including most of the climb, and then ran the entire second loop on duly tired legs. This, probably more than anything, gave me all the confidence I needed for race day.

Our 38ish-mile training run had been tiring, but not awful. We got to know the terrain. In training, I felt wiped out and got grumpy by the time we hit Skookum Flats (6.6 mile from the finish; see course profile above) - but after an honest check-in with myself, determined that the exhaustion was purely mental, not physical. Once I shifted my perception of the last stretch on Skookum as a miserable slog to pretending I was just out for an unusually scenic lunchtime run (since Lauren and I frequently run 6ish miles in the middle of our workday), it actually felt pretty good. I promised myself to tuck that lesson in perception into my arsenal come race day.

Fast forward two weeks. I rode out to the course on Friday with Jenn and her boyfriend Greg, who was our supportive, exceptionally patient weekend chauffeur and cheerleader. Of the 340-some pre-registered runners, as well as volunteers, I counted several dozen whom I'd consider good friends. Most everyone camped out at the starting line on Friday night - so the evening was a great time, hanging out with so many of my running buddies, sharing in pre-race jitters, sitting around the campfire and packing our drop bags.


They let us request our own bib #s. Obviously, I chose my lucky number! I attribute at least 50% of my success to having this one pinned on my shorts :) The other 50% I attribute to, as I've said before, the spectacular training advice and encouragement of Major Jonathan Shark. A huge shoutout to him in Afghanistan - present with us in spirit, always, at these races.
Morning of, I got up to see off some of our friends who took the early start - Linh, Ras, Van, Maylon, Simon, Tracy, Dana, Craig, Lars, among others - at the crack of dawn. Breakfast was the usual green smoothie (blended at home the day before, mason-jarred in a cooler), boiled egg, and dark chocolate - plus a little leftover quinoa/berry porridge that I'd had for dinner the night before.

Somehow, Jenn and I both kind of lost track of time after that, dilly-dallying back at our campsite. At 6:27 a.m., we were both still hanging out in our tents, taping our feet, lathering on Body Glide, and doing who knows what else. When we suddenly realized how late it had gotten on us, we dashed toward the starting line, pinning our race bibs on our shorts as we ran, and made it just in time. Takao, who photographed the race along with Glenn this year, snapped this of the two of us as we took off. I'm in green; Jennifer in blue.

Amazingly, I felt pretty darn great the whole first 27-mile loop. There were so many familiar faces on the course, I had plenty of awesome company with whom to enjoy the course - George, Jenn, Kevin, Ben, Mike, and quite a few other folks running their first 50 milers, too - a couple young, energetic guys from Spokane, and an awesomely strong runner from Canada named Meredith. It was mostly cloudy for the first few hours, which was pleasant.

I felt like I was running a *little* faster than I should...but I used my breath as my pace gage; as long as I felt like my breathing wasn't getting labored, I maintained that pace - which, after two weeks of serious tapering, was a pretty darn good clip. I ran without a Garmin or pace chart of any sort; my biggest priority, truly, was to enjoy the course and have a good first 50 experience, so I didn't want any kind of time pressure hanging over me. I've been working a lot on trusting my intuition more (with running, to be sure, but also in life in general!), and as I said to Jenn during our training run weeks before: "I don't need to worry about pacing myself; I'll let the mountain pace me."

On a funny sidenote: I did run with a simple Suunto stopwatch. At 9 hours, it beeped off. Apparently, at that point, it assumes there's no possible way you're still exercising. Silly watch.

But rewind a bit. I got a great boost at the Corral Pass aid station around mile 17, where there were so many familiar faces among the volunteers. Fellow 50-first-timer Linh and I hit the aid station at the same time, and Deby snapped a photo of us before we took off again for the woods.


The terrain up near Corral Pass is absolutely stunning. It cleared up by the time we got up there, so we were rewarded with spectacular views of Mt. Rainier. The scenery reminded me a lot of Colorado - rocky, remote, bathed in sunshine, dusty dirt and the delicious scent of pine. I felt high as a kite - alive, strong, verging on euphoric.


Photo by Glenn Tachiyama
The descent back to Buck Creek was a blast - though I resisted going full-throttle on the downhill, having been properly warned not to blow out my quads here so early in the race. Plus I had developed a blister on my pinky toe that was starting to give me some trouble. And my tummy, as usual, got a little hot and bothered during the high-jostling downhill.

At Buck Creek, I plopped down in the grass to change socks and deal with my blister before it got out of control. I also discovered that I had rivers of blood down my left leg, as I'd apparently gashed open my left knee climbing over a giant downed tree on the course, and failed to notice that it had been bleeding for miles. Thank goodness for the Best Volunteer Ever, who came over and took care of my every need, without my having to articulate a single one of them (good thing, because I was tired, panicked about losing time by stopping too long at the aid station, and generally a little loopy). He wiped off my legs, refilled my hydration pack, emptied out all my GU gel and energy bar wrapper trash from my pack, took my shoes and socks off and helped me change socks...all while I was sitting there, a little loopy and dumb-founded. What a hero!

Kathy was there to help me get my hydration pack all situated again, and cheered me on my way. I probably spent about ten minutes total at Buck Creek; once I got back up to run again, I didn't feel like it at all. I wolfed down a peanut butter and jelly sandwich as I trotted through the woods toward the second monster climb, and at this point, hit my lowest point mentally. A lot of cheery runners who looked like they were in far better shape than I had blasted through Buck Creek as I was sitting in the grass with my guardian angel wiping blood off my legs. My muscles were grumpy. My stomach was grumpy. I was grumpy.

As I began the next big climb, I felt pretty negative - frustrated I'd lost time at Buck Creek, worried I'd done the first loop too fast, berating myself for not moving faster on the climb, feeling panicked and unnecessarily competitive with other runners as they pulled ahead of me. But I quickly realized that there is ZERO room for negativity in endeavors like this; it would be a long 23-mile loop if I couldn't shake it.

So I shook it. I let it all go. I gave myself total permission to walk the entire climb and feel no pressure to run. Others pulled ahead; I fell back. Then, abruptly, I felt a deep sense of peace, because I was alone on the course for the first time. I must have gotten quite lost indeed in the joy of this temporary solitude, because without even realizing it, my legs got their mojo back. Before I knew it, I was passing people again on the climb, and energetically trotting up the very terrain I'd given myself permission to walk.

I even found it within myself to jump for Glenn (at his cajoling!) at mile 37, approaching the summit of the second climb at Sun Top.


The next stretch of the course is infamous: six miles of straight downhill on a hard-packed gravel service road. This was, by far, my body's favorite part of the whole course. Sophia and I fell in step with each other for nearly the entire descent, cruising hard at 7:30ish miles or so the whole way, making up loads of time, passing people left and right, and chatting it up. It was at this point that I started paying more attention to my stopwatch, and realizing that a sub-10-hour finish might be within reach.

Unfortunately, my stomach got pretty upset during the last mile or two of the downhill. Fortunately, I knew from my training run with Jenn that there was a little outhouse at the bottom of the road; I made a beeline straight for it. Unfortunately, there was already someone in it, taking her time. I waited several minutes longer than I wanted to, watching runner after runner blaze by me...but waiting my turn for the luxury of a bathroom was ultimately the right decision.

I hit Skookum Flats with renewed energy, drawing on the same psychological games I'd played with myself in training two weeks before. My legs felt remarkably lively. I'd fueled well all day, and still had plenty of energy to burn on those last few miles - so I cruised. I passed more runners. I wanted that sub-10-hour finish badly.

When I emerged from the woods to the cheering sounds of the crowd at the finish line, I felt so happy. What a crazy sense of accomplishment. JB - who I'd originally met when he came to rep SCOTT shoes at the Seattle REI Running Expo I helped put on this year - gave me the biggest hug as I came across the finish line in 9:53:34.

The wonderfully awesome team that is Jamey and Heather captured this great moment for me:


Thank you, thank you, thank you to absolutely everyone in my life who helped me pull this one off. To all of you, your support has meant the world to me - whether in the form of planting the seed in my mind to register for this (thanks, as always, Tom!), running with me in training, listening to me ramble about running, sharing WR-specific training advice, or for simply believing in me...thank you all. This day rocked.