#mentally doing so much better. and physically... well the sunny weather makes for endless walks and bike rides 🚴‍♀️🙏

[lunasilvis]

My soul feels on fire (as in: positively energized 🌞🟨) with the life yet to be lived, and the increasing tangibility of it now

[workinsymmetry]

Nootka Travel Journal

My ride showed up and I loaded my things. Except for my headlamp and Nalgene. Inconsequential. A 1 litre smart water bottle like the pros. Breakfast at Green Gables. Edson, Hinton, Jasper, Mt. Robson, Valemount, all passed in a flash. Driving was fast and efficient. Clearwater for lunch, then past whatever small towns before Kamloops, Kamloops, Merritt, and finally Hope, where I write this in my wind battered tent.

Today felt...strange. Not working on a monday. The product of all that anxiety from the weeks leading here. On and off, confirmed and cancelled. I feel like I am cheating, skipping class. I hope everything at work is functioning without me. I know it is. Tristin is capable. I still feel mentally unprepared to be here, like my mind just wont shift into vacation mode. I feel like vacation mode doesn’t exist. What do I even think vacation mode is? Forgetting my normal life while by background stress dissolved and I laugh and have fun in the sun? Taking time to work out my frustrations in life? As I grow and chase a solution to this anxiety I have been fighting I wonder if there is a new angle I need to consider all together. Because this was isn’t working.

It's soothing to travel and experience all these new geographies and landscapes. Cresting a ridge to see the scrubby valleys near Merritt open up, or the dusty brown hills of Kamloops. Thinking of the unique issues and experiences of these different lives. I wonder what they feel when they're in my town. Its getting to dark to write. I will try to sleep, however the space between my head and Highway 1 is about 15 meters and the noise is insufferable. Earplugs should have been a consideration. I forget the name of the camp but at least on the other side is the Fraser River. My goal tomorrow is to find a way to sooth my mind and relax a bit. I can convince myself I deserve it.

Tuesday 23 Hope-Van-Nanaimo-Campbell-Gold River. Had a late evening and didn’t get to write. I recall loud traffic all evening but I eventually slept. Had a dream about kids harassing us in our tents. On the road early and breakfast in whatever suburb of Vancouver.Had to take some business calls: utility locators looking for keys. Seems to have worked out. Navigating Van was white knuckle. Ended up in Lonsdale Quay to meet Nick's friend. Tall blonde who works in HR for an insurance company.Toured the boardwalk. Floating houses, garbage barges, seals. Had a beer in the sun before heading out to the ferry. Was a nice ride but got slightly burnt.Regret not bringing 360 brimmed hat. Or any hat. Thankful for Buff, long har, and sunscreen.

Georges BBQ was excellent.  Drive to Campbell River felt fast.  Took wrong turn looking for Gold River resulting in a 1 h delay.  Overnight hotel in Gold River.  Stress inducing work related dreams. Thought there would be cell service in town, but there was none. I intended to set a voicemail recording to redirect calls, but that plan was cancelled.  I guess now I am truly disconnected. Upset Amanda before I left and was only able to send a simple late night message to her with hotel wifi. 

Wednesday 24 10:26 - Very poor continental breakfast.1/10.  Drive to Air Nootka was quick. Scenery is just unique enough to be interesting.  It's beautiful, but i have seen plenty of mountains lately. I miss open ranges and horizons. Luckily I am about to meet the biggest horizon there can be. We fly out shortly.

2:35 - Flight into Nootka was short and sweet. Trailhead had lush ferns and ancient giant cedars.  After 1/2 hour of hiking we were at the ocean and grey white sands opened up through the trees. The view was magnificent.  For a while I was at ease that this whole experience was worth the stress it took to get here.Missing is cold beer. The ocean wind is cooling and the sun and sand are warm. I will miss this scene.

Seeing the expansive ocean is a strange feeling.  The endless shimmering and long horizon are beautiful, however there is a sad and empty feeling to it. It needs something to compliment it. A boat or storm clouds. I feel my face getting hot. Need to make sure to stay hydrated. Tent is up and I'll have a short rest.

7:12 - We walked the beach and played in the tide.  The occasional cold drops of rain weren’t a concern then.  But sure enough, the rain came.  Slowly across the horizon like a grey wall of fog. Luckily I just finished dinner so I didn’t have to clean in the rain.  I encountered several problems with my cooking setup: I need more water holding devices OR a better water purification system. Ramen is NOT a good backpacking food. It leaves an oily mess and the smell is impossible to remove. The rice I brought requires too much waiting time and also leaves a hard to remove odour. Recommend just plain rice in the future. Tomorrow and today are feeling like non stop rain. Amanda would love it. I admire her positivity in adverse situations, especially being wet while camping. I like her a lot. I think we still need to learn more about each other and our relationship, but I think it's working. I miss her. I wish I could just say Hi. 

Thu 25 I had a terrible migraine in the night. at first it felt like a headache from being on uneven ground, but it didn’t go away when I rotated.  Agony from 1 am to 7 am when I got out and was able to get tylenol. Was good al day, but was worried about what triggered it. Must hydrate more.

  Rained all night. Not much, but enough to coat everything in fine sand. Packed up and hit the trail quite late. Luckily the weather was favorable.  Everything has dried off now. Today I saw the ocean in the way I hope it would be burned into my memory.  At least a kilometer of firm packed sand at mid tide. Low waves rumbled into the shore, small rolling crests crashing into themselves and then inching their way towards my feet as I walked.

7:57 - Sun is setting and again I am moved by the view. A small beach fire and high tide waves. I will take a photo. The ocean is vast and loud and dangerous but it's simple and I think that’s what I like the most.  It's not to bust to sit back and take it in. No concentration is needed to enjoy the scene. See the clouds. See the horizon. See the waves. Birds and boats provide little extra flavours. With zero hills, the walk has been fairly breezy.  I'm tired now, but not mountain tired.I get paid tomorrow. I have no way to prove or check, but I know I do and I like that. It's been an expensive trip. Worth it? We will see. 

Fri 26/Sat 27 Thankfully the rain didn’t start overnight or early morning while we broke camp.  The walk included large rock hopping and pebbles that would sink you to your ankles. It poured.  This walk wasnt noteworthy. The cabin was a nice feature (Nick's cousins own a cabin and invited us to stay with them). We were greeted with a fire, coffee, burgers, and french toast. Dave, Brian, and Janet were the adults. There were about 8 new high school graduates there as well. They began playing drinking monopoly. Part of me was jealous that I was stuck visiting with the "adults" but it's becoming clear that I have no place in drinking monopoly anymore. My skills have departed from drinking games. I am starting to find myself noticing the dissimilarities between myself and the youth- that is, I feel like I am departing fro being young. 

These girls are young and beautiful. One particularly, Kira, is absolutely magnificent. The boys are fresh faced, modern, handsome.  I feel like I missed out on that stage.  There is a youthful and free energy about them all that I dont think I can replicate anymore.  Perhaps it is less about direct attraction and admiration to the physical appearance and more about the attraction and jealousy of being the type of young man who would have a chance at connecting with these girls.

Our cabin hosts have been so great. Food never tasted so good as it did in the middle of this hike.  Dave takes to conversation like it's an extreme sport.  Charming, personable, funny, and great at telling stories.  Things I admire but never truly developed.  I can just sit on a stony beach and write my thoughts.  As a bonus, dave took me and Nick surfing. No waves, just paddling. But legitimate.  It was unexpected, as I always imagined my first time being in Mexico or California. But the foggy grey Pacific Northwest was incedible, and a memory I hope I hang on to. There were wedding preparations going on at the beach. A guy and a girl who were presumably there early for the wedding in a coupe days were also suiting up to go surfing. The girl, who was very fit, stripped on the beach to get into her wetsuit.  A+. 

This morning, some of the boys and girls went upriver to swim.  A quick glance revealed nudity, and again I was filled with envy for the youth and a growing up I never got to expereince. This cabin is definitely a departure from my summers when I was 18. At one point there was a ziplock bag of weed on the table. Definitely different.

11:34 - Today is sunny and warm again.  Clothes and tents are just finishing drying and we should be on our way soon. One more night on the trail, but the experience has definitely climaxed. Nightmares of work still continue. 

7:37 - I'm sitting on a rock watching the last tide roll in. The last sunset on the ocean that I will see for presumably a long while. And to be true, the actual sunset will be concealed by a cliff to the west of the campsite. We had a black bear encounter.  He was digging through a pile of seaweed seeking out sandflies.  He noticed me first and we stared for a bit.  When the guys showed up, the bear just sat there, scratching himself, unconcerened with us.  We found a way around him. Drinking water was scarce and had to be taken from a hidden little grove. It was tea coloured but seemed to be ok, if you dont think about it to much. I slipped on the logs twice trying to get to it. It was the first night with a clear sky, so I made an effort to stick my head out of the tent once it got dark.  I wish I would have been more awake because the sky was undescribable.  It has been so long since I could see the stars down to the horizon. I could immediatly see the glow of the galaxy spiral arms. Bright stars or planets that I might have been able to identify if i hadnt just woke up. There is something that Whitecourt just doesn't satisfy within my, and that could be it.  Perhaps someday I will find a place to commit my life to. But until then, I will be without home. A complete unknown. Like a rolling stone. 

July 28 8:55 - Outer tents were soaked with condensation.  For the first time, I feel how dirty my hair is and I cannot wait to scrub it. Who knows when that opportunity will be.  At least I have a cleanish set of clothes for the ride home.  My finger and toenails are getting long and dirty.  My facial hair is driving me insane. A wash and shave has never felt more appealing.  Makes me wish I didn’t cancel my anytime fitness membership. Free showers across the country. It is a couple hour hike to Friendly Cove where hopefully we taxi back without much delay. Does the taxi run on sundays? These questions plague me.  Im not sure another day out here would be welcome, just due to the unexpectedness. We will see.     

July 31 Back at home and am recounting the last few days of the trip. We did catch the water taxi back to Air Nootka and the car, but only after experiencing the white guilt served up at the church turned museum at Friendly Cove.  Starting around 7 pm we drove from Air Nootka, caught the ferry in Nanaimo from 10:45 pm to 12:50 am. Got a hotel in Hope.  The following day, drove from Hope and stopped in Kelowna.  Had a beer and watched butts for a while. Continued driving to Vernon where Nick met up with another friend who worked at Predator Ridge Resort. She was very cute.  k_duuub on instagram for anyone wondering just how cute. Continued driving to one of those popular houseboating communities. Stopped and ate. Drove to Golden where I took over driving. Cruised through the mountain parks at night, which was a bizarre experience. Non stop driving til I got home. Now I sit here contemplating if I just burn up the rest of my vacation days this week at home. Thank you for reading.  

[doa-et]

Race Report: UTMB, 2018 or (How I learned to stop worrying and ran 2 races in 70 days)

When I won the starting place for Western States 2018, I thought I had used up all my race lottery luck for this year. Little did I know that I’d get into UTMB as well, second year in a row. Once the initial excitement subsided, I was faced with a small challenge. The races are only about two months apart and they feature dissimilar profiles and terrains. How would I go about training for both? The short version: I opted to focus on the more “run-able“ WSER first, then reassess in July.

Relying on the base training laid down for WSER, the 10 weeks leading up to UTMB concentrated on recovery, slowly increasing my mileage in a reverted taper and just listened to my body. There are dozens of training plans for marathons and ultra-marathons out there but they are mostly tailored for one race, not two races in fairly quick succession. A few weeks after WSER, my legs regained their freshness and I began to incorporate hill repeats: hiking up with poles, running down steep slopes fast, chasing some Strava KOMs. In hindsight, I may have done the latter a bit too vigorously as my hip flexors, lower back and quad muscles felt a bit stressed 2-3 weeks away from the race. Uh oh. Regardless, I still felt pretty strong and confident overall when I entered the tapering phase. Time to pack. A quick summary of UTMB 2017: As mentioned, this was my second year in Chamonix. Martin and I completed the race together last year in 34:53, just a handful of minutes under the 35 hour goal we set for ourselves. It was an especially cold year and we even encountered a blizzard on one of the peaks. It was tough and unforgiving. I forgot my poles at one of the stations and to double back to retrieve them. That sucked. Took a short nap. Felt refreshed. Started to lose our minds a little on the second night. Hey, we finished.

As an “experienced” UTMB runner, my goal for this year was simple. Improve on the previous year’s record. I really took my time at aid stations, sticking around for 30 minutes at some places. I don’t necessarily regret that for my first attempt, but if I keep the dawdling to a minimum, it just might be possible to shave off an hour or so. And the weather was looking more favourable this time around. Even better.

I arrived in Chamonix on Monday and did a couple of short runs and hikes with my girlfriend during the week leading up to the race. The excitement of the race week in Chamonix was coming back to me: the tension, the dramatic silhouette of the mountains, thousands of runners from around the globe, the weather. THE WEATHER. As Friday approached, the weather prognosis worsened and the dark clouds hanging low over Mont Blanc brought back the fears and traumatic memories from 2017. Cold, rain and with bad visibility. Frozen fingers. Shudders.

I guess I did indeed use up my luck this year on the race lottery. With not much to do after lunch except to anxiously pace around the hotel room, I headed out to the start line two hours early. Why not. A good spot would save me the queueing later. Unbeknownst to me at the time, it also meant standing in the rain for two hours. Just like the year before, the atmosphere was a bit like we were going to war than going to enjoy a trail race. Eventually, Conquest of Paradise played over the PA system and the gun went off. As I was positioned more or less directly behind the seeded runners, I found myself running amidst a pretty fast group at 4:40 min/km pace for the first 3km. Stupidly fast, I thought. I dropped back and fell in with a group running at a more comfortable pace all the way to Les Houches. With the cheering crowd giving me all the motivation I needed, I took on the first climb.

I had my splits from 2017 laminated in my pocket to keep track if I was going out too fast or needed to make up time. My plan was to take it easy until Courmayeur (80km) and keep something left in the tank for the latter half of the race.

Nevertheless, I arrived 15 minutes ahead of last year’s time in St. Gervais and 22 minutes ahead in Les Contamines (32km). Physically, I was fine but mentally I felt my motivation slipping. The rain came down harder over the first climb and I dreaded going into the night in the worsening weather condition. There is a commuter train from St. Gervais to Chamonix. Maybe it’s still running. A taxi from Les Contamines. Surely, the €50 I have tucked away in my vest for emergencies should be enough. Alas, I didn’t have a solid reason to DNF. Not yet. I can’t quit because of rain. Not while my legs felt fine. But knowing how long the journey ahead is, knowing how it was last year, just knowing was becoming a burden. Sometimes, experience isn’t an advantage but an obstacle. As I continued the endless climb up away from Les Contamines with these thoughts, the rain finally ceased, instantly turning my mood. At La Balme (39km), I heeded the warnings of cold and wind from the volunteers and put on all the layers I could to face Col du Bonhomme. I guess I was committed now. Into the night of climbing and descending we go! It was all flooding back to me. That 50km-stretch between Les Contamines and Courmayeur. That sight of impressive parade of headlamps on the climb to Col de la Seigne. And the anticipation of daylight ahead. I arrived in Courmayeur at 06:47. I stalled the most between Courmayeur and Champex Lac (125 km) the previous year. I hesitate to say “wasted time” because in the grand scheme of things, it’s hard to know. Maybe I needed to take it slower back then. Maybe not. Still in good physical form, it was nice to be in not just the daylight, but also the sun. It seems always sunny in Courmayeur, no matter how bad the weather overall is at UTMB. I grabbed my drop bag, changed shirts, ate some pasta and left within 25 minutes to take on the 800m climb to Refugio Bertone. On the 15k-long stretch of rolling high country from Bertone to the foot of Grand Col Ferret, I moved fairly well. The ascent to Grand Col Ferret (the highest alt. point in the race), however, was stormy, foggy and indeed very cold. At least it didn’t snow like last time. Yes, let’s focus on the positives.

The long downhill to La Fouly was a segment I really struggled with in the past and it was just as tough this time. My legs weren’t really up for much running at this point but I pushed myself as much as possible knowing that I’d make up time and possibly avoid doing the last three mountains with a headlamp. The plan was working. While I didn’t shave off drastic amounts of time from running, keeping the aid station stops to a minimum began to add up. Refill bottles, get coffee, sit and eat for few minutes, grab more food while walking out. Repeat ad nauseum. I hit Champex Lac before 4pm, about 01:45h ahead. Best of all, I was able to climb the third last mountain in daylight, leaving my headlamp off until Trient (141km). By now, I had been running with the same group of people for hours. With the end sort of within reach, everyone loosened up. We chatted about our shared dread of upcoming segment or informed each other of the dramatic turn of events that took place amongst the elites (so many DNFs!), making the time pass faster and the endeavour more bearable. What wasn’t bearable was my downhill running. Every single muscle was complaining and my brain was too tired to coordinate the feet over the technical terrain. Bad combo. Still, I must have been moving in some fashion because I was suddenly through Vallorcine (152km) and hiking up the last climb. Ah, the last climb. It’s actually two climbs, interrupted by an extremely steep and technical (albeit short) downhill. I recalled how frustrating that treacherous downhill was, and how much anguish I had felt upon hearing of the second climb. But this time, I came prepared. As I made my careful ascent and descent, I passed two runners staring at their mobile phones who asked if they were on the right track. I reassured them that they were, not losing the opportunity to spread the good news of the second climb ahead. Just paying it forward. La Flégère, 8km from and 900m above the finish line in Chamonix. I had been running for around 31 hours and 10 minutes. Sub-32 sounded tempting but also a bit too ambitious, considering the state of my legs. The first 5km of the last downhill stretch is technical and steep. No need to do anything stupid and risky at this point. With 3.5km to go, the trail smoothed out and as if placements would matter at this point, some guys behind me started charging. And well, so did I. I caught a person after a minute who subsequently also picked up the pace. In no time, we were a small group having a little 3km sprint to the finish. Or at least it felt like a sprint. I was breathing hard and sweating, although the actual pace wasn’t any faster than my regular jogging pace. But things are different after 32 hours. I entered the town closely followed by four other runners. A few meters later my girlfriend Esther was cheering me on at the base of the pedestrian overpass. This metal contraption, by the way, was a new addition for the race. I suppose UTMB had to erect this temporarily as it could no longer block the road for the event. According to Esther, it gave some runners unexpected grief. Stairs or no, I still ran as hard as I could towards the finish.

32 hours 06 minutes. 2:06 am. 2 hours and 47 minutes faster than 2017. 190th place overall. And one black toe nail.

So what have I learned from my second time at UTMB? That I can save so much time by just efficiently progressing through aid stations. And with slightly better descents (downhill splits after 100km actually were slightly slower than last year), I am certain that it should be possible to finish under 30 hours. It might have even been feasible this year, if I had concentrated the training solely on UTMB. I also learned from both WSER and UTMB that I can gain quite a lot of motivation from splits, either chasing or running away from them. Running in the mid-pack can sometimes lack the urgency and splits can add back some of the necessary tension and excitement into the sluggish sections. Plus they can provide reassurance and objectivity when I often feel slower than I actually am towards the latter parts of races. Nutrition: I ate mostly aid station food: noodle soup during the first cold and wet half of the race, coffee with cake and a dozen mini Snickers during the second half. Occasional GU-chews. Water in one bottle and 70/30 cola-water mix in the second. Did not feel bonky or bloated and no major stomach issues as expected on slower-paced races.

Strava