Ron Lichty: A marathon on snow to end cancer in 2006
This site describes my 2005-2006 season
To support my current effort on behalf of Leukemia, Lymphoma, Hodgkins, and Myeloma, please go to my
----------- 2005-2006 season's story ------------
I have accepted the challenge of cross-country skiing on the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society’s fund-raising team for a third season. I intend to ski a double marathon in the Tour of Anchorage cross-country ski race on March 5, 2006.
While this is my third season, I’ve set goals to accomplish more for the cause:
• To ski 50K -- double the standard 25K marathon distance for skiing -- double what I skied two years ago. 50K is just over 31 miles. I expect to have to race nearly seven continuous hours to complete it.
• To raise $12,000 for the cause this year. I am asking you to help by supporting my fund-raising efforts with a donation. Your tax-deductible gift will make a difference.
• To recruit and cheerlead a team big enough and inspired enough to raise a third of a million dollars, double what we raised last year, and move us even closer to our goal of ending cancer forever.
Leukemia will take 50,000 lives this year. That’s the number of meters I intend to ski.
When I signed up to ski my first marathon two years ago, Marilou and I had been supporting leukemia causes for a number of years. Some of the people dearest to us had lost family members to leukemia. We wanted to do something tangible and positive to balance the grief we shared. While I have lifelong asthma, and knees that would never let me run more than a few miles, I believed TNT when it said it could get me to the finish line of a cross-country ski endurance event. It was my turn to do something personal for both my friends and others devastated by these diseases.
Focused on making a difference, I was blind to the possibility that blood cancer could strike my family and friends again.
It did. Over the last two years, my kids' dad was diagnosed with lymphoma; my Uncle Larry's leukemia, long held at bay by the very research and drugs we'd been supporting, once more came back, this time to kill him; and Peter, the husband of one of my closest lifelong friends, after seven months fighting a mysterious illness, was diagnosed with a rare lymphoma only after he had slipped into a coma, days before he died.
I dedicated my first race to Clay and Karen, two children who will always remain 11 and 12 in our memories. TNT's training prepared me for the race, but it was Clay and Karen who got me through it. I dedicated last year's race to Tom, Matthew, Carol, Georgia and Steve, who proved what the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society had said, that adults get these diseases in spades. Each of them also proved that with the right drugs and protocols individuals can come through a personal blood cancer battle the winner. But it was again grief -- Peter and Uncle Larry died just weeks before last year's event -- that pulled me through to finish 35K in the most difficult skiing conditions I've experienced.
It is to Peter and Larry that I dedicate this year's race.
If you would like me to train and compete in honor of someone you care about who has or has had leukemia, lymphoma, Hodgkins or myeloma, let me know. I wore 27 names on honoree bracelets last year. They inspired me to train harder and push through to the finish line. If someone dear to you has been affected, send me their name, tell me their story.
As I did last year, I will update this web site with my progress, both in training and in fundraising.
How you can help:
Please make a donation now, on this page, of any amount, large or small, to help advance the Society's mission to find cures for leukemia and lymphoma in our lifetime. (Should contributing via the site not work in any way, let me know via email. Also try donating again a little later - last year the rare glitches were fixed in a few hours.)
Or you can write a check made out to: The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society ...and mail it to me at: Ron Lichty, 155 Forest Side Ave., San Francisco, CA 94127
Your contributions are 100% tax deductible. Tax ID#13-5644916. The Leukemia Society will send you a receipt.
If your company has online matching, let me know and I’ll send you easy instructions.
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Training Log
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Nov. 24, 2005, Thanksgiving
Training: Week 2
Signing up to be sore
It's been a sore week. I'd sorta forgotten that signing up for TNT means signing up to be sore for four months. Being sore was certainly true last year and the year before.
And it's certainly true today.
We have basically three sets of training: aerobics, ski-specific dry-land training, and strength workouts. Targeting a possible 50K double-marathon this year, I'm following the TNT level 3 (top level) workout plan, and trying to adhere to its demands more closely than ever before. I'm going to need every bit of physical and aerobic fitness I can muster.
The aerobic part of the plan calls for two activities, one of which emulates skiing, for a total minimum five aerobic hours during this second week of training. My dry-land workouts previous years included hiking, backpacking, running stairs, and stationery biking. Technically, none of them involve the upper body, though adding poles to hiking is a good start.
Yesterday, I tried an elliptical trainer for the first time.
I'm also challenged in that Coach Scott wants us "building base" during November and December -- keeping the heart rate in the endurance zone, ideally 70-80% of max, about the point where, while you haven't got enough breath to sing, you're not breathing so hard you can't chat with a partner. I run a quarter or third of the track and I'm pushing out of the zone, so I slow down to a fast walk for a quarter or third of the track. But I've been walking hard for so long that I can't walk fast enough on flat to keep my heart rate in the endurance zone, so then I run again. And walk. And run...
I've been running stairs for the last 21 months, getting ski teammates out with me between seasons, and it's built aerobic ability. But I easily shoot to 90% of max on the up-stair segments. Like running the track, it's out of the question during these two base-building months.
So might I build enough base on, say, an elliptical trainer, that it would drop my heart rate back on the track? That's the question that put me on the elliptical trainer. That and the opportunity to get an upper-body workout as well. Being my first time on, I backed off to 45 minutes, finishing the hour on an exercise bike.
But 45 minutes was enough to be sore. It was why I was tight all over and stretching out my legs and arms before, during and after Thanksgiving dinner.
Soreness earlier in the week, on the other hand, derived from Saturday's team hike that had us taking on steeper terrain on Skyline Ridge west of Palo Alto, following a half hour of ski-specific dry-land training led by Coach Scott, all in all enough to press a few muscles I haven't stressed since the summer hikes in the Sierras.
A week earlier, during the first dry-land training, I'd caught my breath doing the "sauntering cowboy" movements. I'd earlier reminded Scott of the inner thigh pain many of us experience the first few times on the snow and asked him for an exercise to better prepare those muscles. I wasn't sure which exercise it was, but he'd found one! I'd been sore and occasionally wincing all week.
It's all "good" sore, of course. The goal is to be ready to be on the snow -- next weekend, if it ever gets around to snowing in the Sierra!
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Saturday, Dec. 3, 2005
Training: Week 3
First snow training of the season
The team is huge. We had 64 at our first ski at Bear Valley today. Out of 52 participants on the team, 47 came to the snow, plus 2 prospects, 5 coaches, and additional mentors and captains and even honorees who are also fundraising. With those numbers, we have a serious chance of meeting my team goal of raising a third of a million dollars this season.
It’s such a relief to have snow. We’ve all been watching the weathercams, and worrying through the biggest November no-precip heat wave any of us remember. With no snow the weekend before Thanksgiving, the mountains were still dry. Opening days for ski resorts, all of which had prepared to bring skiers to the mountains over Thanksgiving, were pulled and delayed. Finally, on Thanksgiving day itself, the heat began to break, setting the stage for major storms to blow through this week, leaving several feet of snow in the mountains for us this weekend.
Bear Valley scrambled to groom trails in the meadow areas where snow cover was deep enough, making our first weekend in the mountains correspond with their opening day.
Interestingly, the limited skiing may have made for a better first team training day. The coaches divided us up first by striders and skaters (the two kinds of cross-country) and then by levels (as has been true previous years, we have a large number of teammates who have never skied, some on skis of any kind). The newbies got pure lesson. Those of us with more experience got lesson combined with drills. George had us poling without doing the striding (arms, no legs), a drill I’d never tried before that really gave me a sense of how much the core– the abs – contribute to good poling work.
With limited trails, we weren’t tempted to go long-distance skiing, instead sticking to drills and fundamentals. Further, for striders like me, the easiest skiing is in groomed tracks, which control sideways motion. But with most of the trails groomed smooth -- no tracks -- we had to focus on controlling the horizontal, not just forward motion.
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Saturday, Dec. 3, 2005
Training: Week 4
Learning balance
My challenge is balance. Good skiing is really a one-footed sport. A good skier will be perfectly balanced on one ski, then the other. In yoga, years ago, I couldn’t balance long enough to even get into tree or eagle or standing-bow pose, let alone do the pose. It wasn’t any better two years ago when I started skiing. Standing still on solid ground during dry-land trainings, I had almost no ability to balance on one foot. And while I had these long strides, I never actually shifted my full weight, my balance, to one ski, and then back to the other, but kept my center of gravity somehow between the skis.
I’ve spent two years working on balance. Once or twice a week watching TV or a movie, I stand in the doorway (for lateral stability tipping either direction), standing on first one foot then the other, touching the door frame only when necessary to catch myself from falling.
I detected no progress for the entire four months of training, two years ago, nor for the next couple months, but I doggedly continued the effort. I’d seen results with my body take six months once before and I was motivated by teammates who had the balance to life one leg into a standing stretch and stay there.
When, about 18 months ago, the time I could maintain on each foot before tipping began to lengthen, I was both surprised and not. I looked for other places in my life to strengthen and realized that while standing on one foot changing clothes in the health club locker room (shifting feet only when necessary -- try it and you’ll know) probably looks pretty odd, it seemed like a reasonable place to look odd. That gives me two additional one-footed workouts a week.
At this point, after two years, I’m still very wobbly -- something genetic? -- but I can stand on either foot for a pretty long time -- long enough to draw the alphabet in the air with the other foot, or to maintain a standing-bow pose for several minutes (reach behind your back and grab your free foot, arch your chest into the bow, your arm and leg forming the bowstring).
That’s all standing still. On skis, sliding sometimes rapidly over intermittently rutted snow and ice, it’s not so easy. In part, I think my problem is trusting that I can move my center of gravity -- my body and my balance -- over just one of my feet -- when it’s a foot that is gliding rapidly forward over subtly unpredictable terrain -- and maintain balance. I’m not exactly smooth in the balance department with two skis, even with a pole on either side to help catch me if I go further to that side than I had intended.
But as one of my coaches told me last year, skiing is a one-footed sport.
Balance is my challenge.
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Sunday, Dec. 4, 2005
Training: Week 4
Skiing in the back country
Skiing around Lake Alpine with Elaine, Paul, Mary, M'Lis & Fennel
...and then, with Paul, Fennel and Dave, skiing up a mountain to the view on Inspiration Peak
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Dec. 9, 2005
Training: Week 4
Helsinki: No time to ski (no snow nearby!), but a good gym...
Helsinki has the best hotel fitness center I think I’ve encountered. No pool (though a sauna). But an elliptical trainer (and several other choices for aerobic workouts including treadmill and stationary bikes) and almost as much strength-training equipment as my club at home. Awesome! I’m getting those workouts in on this business trip, after all!
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Saturday, Dec. 17, 2005
Training: Week 5
O-dark-hundred
The weekend started this morning at O-dark-hundred. Four am, to be specific. Ouch. I'd forgotten when I signed up for a third year of doing this, how early Saturday mornings can be, heading up to the snow. Up at 4. Out of the house before 5. Pick up a carpoolmate at 5:15 across town. Hit Dave's parking for the carpool at 5:30. (Dave, one of our coaches and a certified cross-country ski instructor, has a Subaru wagon which, with its all-wheel-drive, is a substitute most times when the signs go up requiring chains. That didn't happen once last year. It would happen on our return. Enabling a safe and legal return down the mountain.) Halfway across California before sunrise. Arriving in Bear Valley by 9:15. Renting, throwing on another layer of clothes for snow country, followed by thick wool socks for warmth, wicking out sweat, and preventing blisters. And then ski boots.
Put in almost a day's effort before even getting on the snow at 10!
I'd forgotten how early Saturday mornings are. I'd remembered the challenges and worries of fundraising. Overcoming my reluctance to ask people to support a cause I think is really important, made a little easier by how personal my own experiences with leukemia and lymphoma were, and now, with Larry's and Peter's deaths this year, how very recent.
I also remembered facing the challenge of doing endurance mileage that I've never accomplished before. I'm reluctant to say whether it's the 40 or 50 kilometer race I'll attempt this year (both of them beyond the 35K race I completed last year, and the 38K prep I topped out at in training). I'm wondering if I'm getting into range of distance that I can't exceed prior to actually racing it.
I'm also a bit intimidated looking at the profile of the March 5 Anchorage course and the black-diamond section starting with a 350-foot climb at the very beginning to which the 50K'ers will be subjected. Challenging.
But I forgot O-dark-hundred.
And I forgot -- or maybe didn't believe -- that I'd be signing up for another four-month stint of soreness and aching muscles. Surely pushing my body last year and the year before and the two offseasons of running regular stadium stairs to maintain -- surely there's no pushing now that would set me back into regular every-week sore-muscle pain? Au contraire.
Coach Scott has us on a plan of ski-specific strength training that began in week 1 with three sets of 13 reps each, increasing three reps/set each week, so that I'm now at 23 reps times three sets, with the three set program nearing an hour's worth of lifting and pulling and lunging two to three times per week. Plus hours of aerobic work. With running so hard on my knees, and biking and rowing not specific enough, I've taken on the elliptical trainer for the first time, an hour at a crack, pushing the top end of my endurance heart rate range and coming off it with sore calves for the first weeks. Just as with the previous years, not a week so far without some part of my body reminding me that I'm doing something hard.
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Saturday, Dec. 17, 2005
Training: Week 5
Snow Training Day 2
Remarkably, our team now numbers 57 participants!
That's huge, half again more than we've ever had before. We had 52 two weeks ago, plus two prospects, five coaches, and mentors and captains and two of our honorees who are also fundraising. With those numbers, we have a serious chance of meeting my team goal of raising a third of a million dollars this season.
There were only four inches more snow since we were at Bear Valley two weeks ago, when there'd been just enough to open for cross-country skiing, but they'd groomed more trails through the meadow. The training consisted of four “stations”, the first with two of the coaches critiquing us as we looped a short trail for a half hour; the second training in hills, both getting up them and coming down; the third a lesson in tight turns, aided by a long row of caps that we skied in and out through; and the fourth a time trial to give us a base to compare to later in training.
The warming hut was serving food this weekend, which meant burgers, dogs and chili on the patio. One of our honorees, who had come up for the day to ski with us, told us about his life before and since getting leukemia.
The coach laid out an 8K course for us for after lunch, and the coaches skied along, giving us tips and encouraging us to improve. Cross-country skiing can be done by almost anyone, but doing it well has almost unlimited nuance.
Completing the afternoon’s prescribed 8K, I determined to do a second time around. With a marathon goal in Anchorage of 40K or more, I need to be building the stamina for distance both early and repeatedly this year. While the whole first lap, I'd been skiing with teammates, on this second lap I was skiing solo. It was just me and the snow. And was it ever beautiful. Quiet. Challenging myself. Incredible vistas.
I was about 3K out when Coach Dave caught up with me. He was skiing without poles and he caught up with me -- an indication to some extent how much faster his skis are than my rentals -- and even more so how strong a skier Dave is. As pleasurable as the silent solo skiing had been, having a partner to ski with -- Dave without poles, we really were pretty evenly matched -- was welcome, especially as fatigue was setting in.
We were about 4K out when it began to snow. It had been overcast all day. Snow was forecast for overnight. But it began to snow somewhere around 3pm. And it was beautiful. We were skiing through a winter wonderland. Big snowflakes. Beautiful.
At about 5K, I realized it was the first time I'd skied in a snowfall since the race in West Yellowstone last year, when I completed 35K despite the buildup of snow becoming sometimes inches of buildup on the bottoms of our skis that had made forward progress exceedingly difficult. I began to be watchful. But I remembered how much I enjoyed the first few K (kilometers) of that snowfall, as well, before it made the going difficult.
At about 6K, I began to realize that, while the snow wasn't clumping, we didn't have the glide we'd had just a few minutes before.
At 7K, we turned into the wind, each snowflake now a sting on the face. My speech was becoming more slurred with my chin and jaw too cold to form words properly.
At 7 1/2 K, just a short stretch from home, the smell of the barn in my nose, Dave turned to me and said he'd like to ski the one long trail not part of the afternoon’s loop, the trail called Stables Cruise, probably the longest trail open at 2 1/2 K. I was really tired. "See you back at the ski shop," I said. I peered up the trail into the wind, realized I'd need to take some care, but that there was no skier I'd rather have beside me to push my limits a bit further than I'd already pushed them. "Changed my mind, I'm coming with...," I said, turning into the wind once more.
We were wet and tired but exhilarated as we pulled into the ski shop and I returned my skis and poles for the day, then took the outside stairs to the second story, the four-bedroom loft that sleeps 12 that one of my teammates had rented for the weekend -- split between those of us who wanted to stay for the weekend, it cost us each only $30 to stay. After a hot shower, I made green bean casserole, and my teammates made appetizers and soup and pasta and salad and dessert. Exhausted both from the day and from rising at o-dark-hundred, I was in bed at 9. It was still snowing.
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Sunday, Dec. 18, 2005
Training: Week 6
Snow! Finally!
Ron, skiing in wet weather gear, skis buried in new snow
There was a layer of snow 2 1/2 feet deep on everything outside when we awakened and made breakfast at 7, and probably 4 feet or more by the time we left Bear Valley mid-afternoon. Getting to ski meant not only making and cleaning up breakfast, and cleaning the loft, but finding our cars under immense snowfall and shoveling them out of the parking lot before we could move all our gear down from the loft to ski.
It continued to snow as we went looking for an adventurous area to ski, but not enough was plowed, so we ended up exploring the subdivision behind Bear Valley. As of this weekend, it won't be plowed again until spring, the roads becoming snowmobile- and ski- and snowshoe-travel only. (Believe me, when the snow depth is measured in feet, walking is not an option either!)
We had on our wet weather gear -- rain jackets, rain pants, gators (wraparound protection for the area between the tops of the boots and pantlegs that can be vulnerable to snow incursions from any direction) -- but sweat becomes vapor that soon makes the inside of wet weather gear as wet as the outside! We were damp through and through. But delighted to be out skiing, if only for an hour and a half before getting a hot lunch and a change into dry clothes and a four-hour drive home through continuing snow for the first 45 minutes, then rain most of the way.
Fabulous.
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Thursday, Dec. 29, 2005
Training: Week 7
Anchorage: The weather and the course
Anchorage, as of March (the event is March 5), is supposed to see weather resembling West Yellowstone's, which for the last two years has resembled our training weather in the Sierras. But unlike either of the other two places, Anchorage is at sea level, which is going to be (I hope) a significant advantage given our training at 7,000 feet. What has me hesitate about 50K is not the distance (so much) as that there are, for the 50K skiers only, several K rated black-diamond. Last year, I did my first and only black-diamond downhill, one barely qualifying given how short it was, but steep nonetheless. I did fine. But I'm not there yet for this season -- not for one downhill, let alone several. And then there's a 350-foot black diamond uphill just 5K into the race -- with 45K more to get through, no less! It looks pretty intense.
If you'd like a look at the course profile, scroll to the bottom of the official race-site course page:
http://www.tourofanchorage.com/coursemap1.htm
The profile reads from right to left (so the 50K group starts at the right edge at the 0 mark, the 40K group starts at the 10 mark, and the 25K group starts at the 25 mark, and all end at the far left. I think the profile is set up that way because the race is east-to-west, and the map is just above it. For the 50K skiers, the first 10K is a loop that includes all the steep stuff, arriving back to where the 40K skiers have already set off. From that point on, for all skiers, it's an east-to-west course that's mostly flat, from inland to the sea (or inlet or bay or whatever that is off Anchorage).
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Monday, Jan. 2, 2006
Training: Week 8
FAQ and a few stats
How far is the 40K I'm targeting to complete, anyway?
(A) 40K is about 25 miles. And if I can get trained to complete 50K including its early-on black diamond hills, that would be a 31-mile challenge.
How long does it take to ski that far?
(A) It took me 3 1/2 hours two years ago to ski 25K, and about 5 hours last year to ski 35K. If I'm no faster this year, then it will take nearly 6 hours for 40K, or 7 hours if I'm able to go 50K.
How many people participated in Team in Training programs last year, and how much did they raise?
(A) In Northern California alone, 3,000 people signed up for Team in Training (TNT) challenges (in addition to the ski marathon, they included run marathons, walk marathons, Triathlons, Bike-a-thons and Iron Man events), and they together raised 12 million dollars. In Northern California alone!
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Saturday, Jan. 7, 2006
Training: Week 9
Skating on snow
Skating on the Left and Striding on the Right. Both are as much fun as sliding on a wood floor in your socks!! (no, those people aren’t on our team, but isn’t it a great shot of the difference between skating and striding?)
The lesson I took this morning was long enough to point out the rental equipment challenges that have made learning to skate-ski difficult. It turns out that to have hope of learning the technique, I pretty much need to own skis, boots and bindings different than those I can rent.
And even after two years of working at aerobic fitness for this sport, I need an even stronger aerobic base before I can step up to skate skiing. I probably need to take up roller skiing during the off season, given my knees won’t let me run.
I’ve often said I have a five-year plan to learn to skate. Knowing that this year (year three) is not it, I hope five years is enough. But I have seen results from the now-two years of focus on balance. Two years ago, I needed to stand in a doorway to prevent toppling either way as I tried to stand on one foot -- in a tree pose or a standing bow. For two years, I have risked looking most odd in the men’s locker room at Fitness West as I changed clothes standing on foot, shifting to the other only when a sock or pant-leg change demanded. For two years, I have stood in a doorway while watching DVDs or TV and slowly extended my one-footed stamina. I even had a session of guided visualization (hypnosis) led by my friend and former Schwab colleague Chris Beckman, who designed a striding visualization for me, skiing on first one foot then the other. At this point, standing on either foot, I can draw the entire alphabet with the other. But the muscles, while strong, are also weak: I still wobble incessantly.
Wobble or not, it was a thrill this morning to, for the first time, experience skating as a one-footed sport. It was only for short distances. I actually skied first on one ski and then the other. Lots of glide on one ski, and then lots of glide on the other. Committing to one ski, then committing to the other. Oddly, I could start from rest and consistently skate for about a city block – skate beautifully – at which point, it would fall apart and I could barely make headway down the track.
Whether for training at 7,000 feet or for lack of enough aerobic base or simply for how much more aerobic skating is than almost any other sport in existence, my heart rate consistently shot out of the endurance zone (60-80% of maximum heart rate) in short order. I have my heart monitor set to let me know when I’m working at more than an endurance level, and I suddenly realized that it was going off almost simultaneous with my technique going to hell.
I almost can’t believe how much more work I’m going to have to do to build the aerobic base to accomplish my ultimate fitness goal.
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Sunday, Jan. 8, 2006
Training: Week 9
Four hours of continuous skiing
When we stopped in Tracy and I unwound my long legs from the passenger seat to step out and stretch, one leg seized up! Intense cramp. I surely must have put in some effort this weekend, training.
What an incredible weekend, complete with an incredible sunset on the way home, coming across the Central Valley.
A skating lesson yesterday that, while a disappointment for my aerobic fitness, was a triumph of balance. Followed by a return to striding and a long afternoon loop through Bear Valley’s meadows and flatlands.
Today, four hours was not enough time to ski all the green and blue trails at Bear Valley, but enough to have a very satisfying ski. I’m no fan of an hour on the elliptical trainer nor of two on a stationery bike, but I just can’t get in enough time on skis.
That’s good. Four hours is long enough to have finished a standard marathon, 25K (though I’m guessing I was skiing at a considerably slower pace that had me cover only 20 today).
But I expect it will take me close to six hours of hard-working, continuous stride-skiing to complete the 40K I intend to ski.
It’s great to have incredible training days on the way there.
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Monday, Jan. 9, 2006
Training: Week 9
Fundraising
Our team manager told us this weekend that our team fundraising is already above $80,000.
We still have a long way to reach the $300,000 goal she’s set for our team, let alone the third of a million dollar goal that I’ve set, but we’ve made a good start. Wonderful, in fact. Worth cheering about.
Marilou and I contributed a thousand dollars ourselves to the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society last year. While far from being our only or even our largest cause (monetarily, at least), this one is important to us. Curing cancer is important to us not only to remember my friends John and Karen’s son Clay Miller, and our kids’ step-sister Karen Racz, and my uncle Larry Schroeder, and my friend Carolyn’s husband Peter Bellfy, and my sister-in-law Pat’s father Robert Schmitz. And it’s important not only for survivors like my kids’ dad Tom Doyle, and my former boss Nadene’s husband Steve Re, and my employees and colleagues Georgia McNamara and Matthew Moore, and my friend Pegi Wheatley, and my Apple colleague Charlie Stillman, and our neighbor Carol Buonagurio...
But also for my supporters’ friends and relatives: Joan’s sister Sheila Speer, Carmen’s nephew Danny Ramos, Ken’s brother Keith and his uncle Donald Braly, Larry’s cousin Albert Greenbaum, Gayle’s friend Arlene Bush and her sweet niece Maren Hunsinger, Lara’s close family friend Angela, Gillian’s colleague Brenda Bratt, Chris’ four-year-old nephew, Phac’s office manager Van Kim Lai, Colleen’s nephew, Christine’s mom Pat Moll, George and Linda’s employee’s son Kelvin Carreno, Diane’s aunt Kute Magee, Sally’s dad John Krautner, Virginia and Wally’s dear friend John Herman, Tim and Mary Ann’s Robin O’Neill-Barklay, Julie’s and Josie’s friend DeAnn Grommesh, Ellen’s mom Lillian Kerrigan, Teva’s father-in-law Richard Wolffers and her schoolmate Catrin Davies, Steve’s father Brian Kovsky (and his stepmom), David’s childhood Missouri classmate Mike Wilson, Carol’s colleague Ian Dumbel, Cinnamon’s step-father Ned, and Ruben’s mother.
We have a European guy on our team who was telling us this weekend that people in his country don’t do this sort of thing. They don’t contribute to causes. Let alone participate in fundraising themselves. Thierry says when he tells people what he’s doing, the Americans he works with all get it. The Europeans in his home country don’t. We live in one of the most generous countries in the world.
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Saturday, Jan. 21, 2006
Training: Week 11
A 36K day!
[4pm] I’m exhausted.
This time, it’s not from getting up 3 hours after I went to bed, to drive to the snow. (I got a stunning 5 1/2 hours of sleep last night – made stunning for the 4am alarm time on yet another Saturday of training in the Sierra.)
Of course, the exhaustion might have to do with having had a cold until yesterday. At least, I was pretty sure it was over yesterday. It was only Monday, only five days ago, feeling even worse upon waking than the misery I’d felt Saturday and Sunday, that I pulled the Merck off the shelf to be sure I didn’t have symptoms of pneumonia. (I didn’t.) Additionally, today’s effort came after being off training entirely for 12 days.
But really it’s 36K that’s the reason I’m exhausted. I just did almost twice the mileage I’ve previously done this season – 36K today with only five-minute breaks for bites of PB&J. I just completed more distance than I did in last year’s marathon in West Yellowstone, Montana.
I'm on track for a 40K marathon in Anchorage this year! I was only 4K short of doing it today. Though every bit as tired after 36K today as I was when I completed the 35K in West Yellowstone at the end of last season, I have three more training weekends in the Sierra to build and extend my strength. I can do this. I can do the distance in Anchorage.
I found myself reflecting all day on how much more I can do now than at this point two years ago. What a change.
After two years of critique and drilling myself, I finally feel like I'm "getting" the downhill posture. Knees bent, butt tucked, spine straight, arms in front as though holding a tray, shoulders relaxed.
Two years ago the little hill in front of the lunch hut in the meadow seemed daunting. Today I went down the black diamond Walden Cutoff, and came pouring down the long, curvy trail from the hut back of Bjornloppet, and loosed a cry of joy after coming down the Bjornloppet exit into Orvis Meadow standing.
Not to say I'm not doing a great deal of snowplowing on the way down. But I'm willing to pull out and shift to parallel skis and shoot straight downhill much earlier than ever (carrying much more momentum from the descent onto the flat and the next climb).
Some of it is strength. I particularly noticed it for my lack of strength coming down the steep hill at the end of my day today -- because I didn't have it. After skiing 36K, I did still have combined strength in both legs -- but not the individual leg strength that I wanted that I think would have given me control. Lacking control, I had broken into a mantra of "balance, balance, balance". And well I should have. I was not a pretty picture. But I was still standing at the bottom!
Some of it is technique. Just learning to snowplow effectively. Beginning to be able to step turn. Finally getting the posture.
Some of it is knowing what I can do. And that I can handle downhills without fear. (Or at least without unreasonable fear! :-)
I was also reflecting on the uphills. Two years ago, on most of the uphills I did today, I'd have been winded halfway up. I might well have pulled to the side, doubled over, gasping for air. I beat that rap at the very end of that season. Through all of last year and this, there hasn't been an uphill I haven't taken, bottom to top, and on over and down and up the next, K after K, nonstop.
I've come a long way. More, even, than a mid-training 36K day might suggest.
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Sunday, Jan. 22, 2006
Training: Week 11
Thankfulness on a mountaintop
I held church this morning by myself, alone, on a mountain peak.
We awoke this morning, in the "Nordic Loft" at Bear Valley, to enormous gusts of wind. It was as windy after breakfast, leading two-thirds of my teammates to pass up a second day of skiing. But 3 of our carpool's 4 wanted to stay and we managed to do a carpoolmateswap for another's 4th. It wasn't that cold -- it was just the wind (though that was enough that the Bear Valley downhill had shut down for the day, judging the wind too dangerous for its lifts).
By the time we renters had gotten our gear, our TNT coach Dave had scoped the trails. "Go out the "Runway" with the wind at your back and let it blow you almost to the end. Then head left into the woods. It's fairly protected there, as are even some of the high trails where there are rocks and formations to block the gusts."
It was windy. I hadn’t taken three steps onto the trail before the wind whipped my baseball cap off my head. I replaced it with a stocking cap.
I worked my deeper into the trail system, meeting up with Dave and one of my teammates, Paul, on the Headwaters trail (alongside a beautiful still unfrozen bubbling creek) just in time to, together, take a black diamond trail down into Walden Meadow. I took my first black diamond trail -- this one, in fact -- less than a year ago, under another coach's encouragement (and watchful eye). I've taken a couple this season. I realized today that I no longer have any fear of the trails marked black. I have enough technique and enough experience to feel confident I can handle what they bring, even if it means side-stepping down a steep hill or sliding down it on my butt. (So far, neither of those, but the confidence is in the knowing.)
I continued back into Aspen Forest, my favorite spot on the Bear Valley trail system for its grove of white-barked, birch-like, deciduous aspens that appear like a surprise in among the otherwise evergreen mountain forest. As I did two weeks ago, I stopped to eat the first third of the fresh coldcuts-on-roll sandwich I'd made that morning.
I continued on, soothed for having made the stop, skiing all the way to the back of the Bjornloppet Trail, where a steep spur winds up to the peak and a warming hut. Also like two weeks ago, I herringboned up the trail nonstop, a feat I could not have done two years ago. In fact, halfway into my first season, on trails a lot shorter and a lot less steep than this one, I'd have pulled to a stop halfway up, winded, heart racing, doubled over, gasping for air. Thinking about that and feeling heady, I pulled out my sandwich again, this time surrounded by a 360-degree view of mountain peaks.
And then I thanked God. I found myself thinking of the psalmist's words of looking to the hills from whence my help comes. I suppose it was being on a team that is about beating a whole category of dread diseases. I felt so thankful, not only to be able to connect with nature and with the mountains, and to be able to look at the snow whipping off the top of far-off peaks, not only to have been able to build the fitness to get me up that trail, but so thankful to have the health to be there at all. It was a truly worshipful experience, and one very connected with why I was there.
I've been thinking about a comment my friend Arthur made to his friend David, a lymphoma survivor. David had thanked Arthur for honoring him with a contribution, and me for the physical effort to complete this marathon. Arthur copied me on his reply. "Oh, he loves doing it."
I've been grappling with how true that answer is for the last 10 days.
I do love doing it. I love the skiing. I love the physical progress. I love the challenges I've overcome. All that said, I wouldn't be doing all this skiing, I wouldn't have made much if any of this progress, and I doubt I'd have overcome these kinds of challenges without the cause. Without that, I'd probably still be coming to the mountains with my daughter to ski one weekend every year or two or three. Without that, I certainly wouldn't have cranked the workouts to the levels I've been putting in in recent weeks. Without that, I wouldn't have known how much I love the skiing and the physical progress.
At this point, I've raised over $20,000 over three years for this cause. And I feel deeply indebted to the cause for the opportunity. I can't describe the complexity of the motivations and rewards. I was first touched by friends' loss of a son to leukemia 23 years ago. I was last touched by loss of a friend to lymphoma and an uncle to leukemia just last year. I can't write that first fundraising letter at the beginning of the season without tears welling in my eyes. And I feel gratitude for that.
That's what I was standing on a mountaintop in the winter in the Sierra thinking about at 1pm on a windy day today. I was feeling overwhelmingly thankful.
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Monday, Jan. 23, 2006
Training: Week 11
Final week of strength training
Yay!
This endurance-program strength training stuff gets really old. Thirty-eight repetitions of pulling my right leg together with my left, fighting weight to do so. Another 38 with the left. Thirty-eight reps of pulling my right arm from in front of me to behind me, fighting weight over a high pulley. Then another 38 with the left. Thirty-eight reps of pulling both arms back -- but doing it using my core -- my abs -- my abdominals. Thirty-eight reps facing away from a low pulley, pulling my right arm forward. Then another 38 with the left. Ten pairs of lunges, carrying a 30-pound dumbbell in each hand, 60 pounds total. Thirty-eight reps on a seated adductor machine, followed by 38 of the abductor, seated. Kick my right leg high, balancing on the left, and hold it for three seconds before swinging it back down, and without touching swing it back up for three more seconds... 17 more times. And then 18 of those with my left leg. Pivot on the front third of my feet to raise most of the weight stack on the calf-raise machine 15 times. Then get full footing and lift the stack with just my shoulders 15 times more. Thirty-eight repetitions on the situp machine. Thirty-eight repetitions on the back extension machine.
That’s one set.
Now do it all again twice more -- two more sets.
At well over an hour, it takes longer and is more aerobic than any strength regimen I’ve been on since walking into a fitness center for the first time 14 1/2 years ago.
Of course, the 1-3 hours of aerobic work beforehand on the stationery bike or elliptical trainer... The aerobic work continues unabated for another month...
I’m not complaining, mind you. I’m just really glad to be almost done with those long strength training sessions this year.
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Wednesday, Jan. 25, 2006
Nifty Google-Maps-based pedometer
There’s a program online that lets you draw out your biking, hiking or running route on a Google map (rowers: I think this should work for you, too!), calculates the distance, draws an elevation profile (or elevation graph -- US only, since data is sourced from the US Geological Survey), counts the calories you’ll burn, and saves the route:
http://www.sueandpaul.com/gmapPedometer/
Its author calls it a Gmaps Pedometer, and he created it when he was training for a marathon for the first time.
For example, I quickly drew a stairway route I was running last summer in San Francisco by clicking the Recording button, then double-clicking at the starting point (where the two markers are) and again at each point where the route turns, finally double-clicking my starting point again, then clicking the “TinyURL” link to create this URL to my map:
http://tinyurl.com/btpxa
As the distance shows, it’s only three-quarters of a mile long. But it’s steep -- next to the word “Elevation”, click the “Large” link.
I drew the map counter-clockwise, the way I run it. The short segment from the marker where Oak Park turns the corner to the corner of Claremont and Christopher may look like a street on Google’s map, but it’s really a public stairway: 7 flights of 21 steps per flight, with 6 sets of 3 stairs between the flights, and 2 extra steps at the bottom, for a total 167 steps. I have once made it to the top without stopping - more commonly I make 5 or 6 flights before doubling over gasping for air. It’s every bit as steep as the elevation profile shows it to be.
The next piece of the elevation map is misleading. It looks like it heads straight down. Actually, Claremont, while not flat, is rolling. The descent is a set of stairs at the top of the left part of my drawing -- from Crestmont back down to Oak Park -- and I think the elevation map is correct in showing it not only as steep but falling considerably further downhill than where I started. Running Oak Park back is all street, but it’s back up and over a hill before descending to where I started.
Note that if you click the Satellite button on the upper right of the map, you’ll be looking at the houses along the route. You can’t really see the two stairways, but you can sure see that there’s no street heading left from the starting marker, despite what Google shows in its Map view.
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Thursday, Jan. 26, 2006
A Look at the Terrain
One of my teammates, Paul Ossenbruggen, mapped the course we’ll ski in Anchorage onto Google’s detailed satellite images of the course:
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Saturday, Jan. 28, 2006
Boots!
I’m the proud owner of my first pair of cross-country ski boots!
I’ve been renting all this time. But the rental choices in Anchorage do not seem to include the Salomon boots that everyone rents in the Sierra that I love. I drove out of the way last year and the year before to rent them in Montana for the marathon, but when I discovered how little there is to rent in Anchorage, I decided it was finally time to buy boots.
I found a pair of Salomon skate boots that appear to be almost as flexible as their Combis, have a Pilot binding (two snap-in bars, one at the toe and a second a couple inches back) for more stability (I may learn to skate-ski yet!) but that snap into the single-bar bindings on the striding skis I’ve been renting in the Sierra.
That’s ski tech talk that translates to my being very pleased. I just hope I can get them broken in in time to do the marathon without feet issues. Getting the right boots is the most critical equipment issue in endurance skiing.
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Monday, Jan. 30, 2006
Training: Week 12
Whew!
Last hour-plus-long strength training at the fitness center. What a relief. 41 reps x 3 sets equals 123 repetitions of all those ski-specific movements. Really, really tedious. The rep numbers are that high to train us for endurance, but I'm ready to back off. There were a couple Saturdays in the last month when, waking up and rolling over and just preparing to get out of bed, my body felt like someone had been pummeling my butt and my legs and my arms and my torso -- way beyond the usual soreness from lifting the heaviest weight I could manage six or ten or 15 reps of. I’ve done “fast” and I’ve done “slow”. But I've never done massive numbers of reps. Glad to be done with it!
Oh, I’ll still do a maintenance routine for three more weeks: three sets of 10 with the same weight I’ve been using for 41, stopping that entirely 2 weeks before the event. Coach Scott says that in the final two weeks we’ll lose no significant strength, while the full recovery of the muscles should have us feeling great in Anchorage.
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Tuesday, Jan. 31, 2006
Fundraising progress
I’ve been over my own $4,000 participant minimum since Christmas, but my hoped-for goal of $12,000 is still a reach.
Team wide: news from our team manager:
You guys continue to amaze. I got a phone call from our chapter TNT director telling me how floored she was when she saw our numbers. Way to go! As of Friday, we've brought in $134,155!!
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Wednesday, Feb. 1, 2006
Marathon Mentality
When you're young, deferring gratification is not a honed skill. As you get older, you get better at the marathon mentality.
--Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon, quoted in Esquire, January 2002
And a note from one who did hone that skill early:
Pain is temporary. It may last a minute, or an hour, or a day, or a year, but eventually it will subside and something else will take its place. If I quit, however, it lasts forever.
-- Lance Armstrong
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Friday, Feb. 3, 2006
Training: Week 13
Registered to do 50K!
With lots of misgivings, I registered today to do 50K in the Tour of Anchorage ski race. I had to choose the distance. I picked the longest, the 50K.
I had misgivings for lots of reasons.
- An official striding marathon is 25K, half the distance I just signed up to do.
- The longest training ski I've done was 37K in preparation for last year's race.
- I thought last year, after putting my all into achieving 35K, that I would never do 50K. I put my all into last year's race just to achieve 35.
- It was a lot of stress on feet, something around 5 hours in ski boots tethered to long, narrow boards called cross-country skis.
- It was a lot of stress on all of my body.
- 50K is 31 miles.
- While skate-skiers will take on 50K, they're much faster than striders -- they typically complete 50K in less time than I'd completed 35.
- The only striders who signed up to accomplish 50K in the last two years in West Yellowstone were two of my Team in Training teammates, two years ago. Most striders know better.
- And then there's the course. The extra 10K that's part of the 50K course is a 10K loop through the mountains with what looks an awful lot like black diamond hills -- steep going up, steep coming down. I only did my first black diamond trail at the end of last year's season, a short but very steep downhill at Bear Valley. I'm at best an average skier. I'm only beginning to feel some confidence about steep downhills. And our coach has suggested that any of us, skaters or striders, who are thinking of skiing 50K should be doing all the black diamond trails we can get to over the next few weeks. Yikes!
- While I set out to accomplish another endurance goal to honor my uncle Larry and my friend Peter, 40K would be enough.
But I've put in two years of running stairs and three seasons of training for this campaign to end cancer in our lifetime. And two of my teammates have proven that 50K can be done.
So I signed up for 50K. And I’m going into this weekend, our third-to-last training, intending to find out if it's possible for me -- I’m going into this weekend intending to ski more than 50K.
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Saturday, Feb. 4, 2006
Training: Week 13
51K!
Twice before my training strategy -- to ski the length of the race in training first -- has worked for me. Because as hard as doing the distance in training was, it was immeasurably harder in the event, adrenaline pumping, surrounded by truly fast athletes that some internal primal voice keeps pressing me (impossibly) to keep up with.
When I put my plan to my coach, he concurred: "The best way to prepare for a one day event that is not so body-abusing that you can't do it repeatedly is to do the full distance."
That's what I did.
In 6 hours and 52 minutes today, I skied 51.3 kilometers.
I can do this race. I'll hold that in my mind March 5 in Anchorage -- that and 38 people you and I are honoring, who had and in some cases still are having a much tougher time than seven hours of all-out physical effort.
Today, it was thoughts of empathy for my ex-wife Janie, recently diagnosed with cancer, that reminded me why I needed to be doing this training and this event. Janie was diagnosed with one cancer just a month ago, and in operating they found another. We need more cures, if not vaccines.
The day was mostly snow and some rain at Bear Valley Cross-Country. But my teammates were all there training, despite the wetness. My last-year teammate Larry offered to accompany me on the beginning of my quest. Between the air full of flakes and the tracks filling up with snow, not to mention the drops on the front of my glasses and the fog forming inside, it was like skiing in a white-out.
I’d charted my route during the week, and included the four black-diamond trails I’d not skied. They were not a problem; the snow slowed them down considerably. Though I certainly got no speed boost from them. Only the short-but-steep, black-diamond Walden Cutoff was as fast as other days.
I’d also included trails I particularly liked, specifically routing through the inspiring Aspen Forest twice, and climbing to the spiritually uplifting Scenic Vista despite the lack of visibility in the storm.
As I came down the Bjornloppet descent, about 26K into my quest, the snow was beginning to let up. Bjornloppet was as fast (and as steep) as always, but I was facing into a wind that began to lift the bill of my cap. My hands, holding poles, moved instinctively toward my head to hold the cap. Racing downhill, with arms moving unpredictably, my fragile hold on stability began to fail. Now my hands moved instinctively back to where they belonged on a descent, becoming once again part of my stability system -- and I recovered. All but my cap, which flew off. I jammed to a quick stop, and herringboned up the lower 20 feet of hill to retrieve it, delighted in having stayed on my skis.
I was about 33K in when my coach skied over from another trail. As he asked me what was left to go, I realized I would be seriously time-challenged: the 6 1/4 hours I’d slated might not be enough.
I was about 40K in when I started down the black-diamond Equipe Trail for a second time. On my first, early in the morning, with snow falling profusely, I’d wondered why it was classed a black trail. Now the sun was out turning all those flakes to tiny crystals of ice and making Equipe lickety-split fast. I was still strong enough to stay on my skis down the long curving descent. But I realized how tired I was growing.
At about 45K, I started down the steep descent from the upper reaches of Bear Valley. Moments later, it occurred to me that resting my aching inner thighs would have been a good idea. Moments after that, my ability to control the braking action of my snowplow failed. I executed what must have been a spectacular heels-and-skis-over-head plunge. When I stopped, my cap and one pole were up the hill. Both water bottles were at the bottom of the hill. And I was sputtering but ok. Also fortunately, it was the last descent of the day.
From there on, across mostly flat terrain, I did more double-poling than I’ve ever done. I wouldn’t have expected that much strength from my arms and my core. I can’t say as I’ve ever had it before. But the tracks were icy and fast, and all that endurance work in the gym seemed to be paying off: my arms and abs seemed to have a lot of juice. So I let them have at it, and gave my legs a rest.
It was almost 4:30 when I came to the trailhead to let my coaches know I was fine but, despite the hour, I wanted 3K more. I wasn’t sure if that would actually let me exceed 50K -- I’d changed my route just enough that I knew only that another 3K would get me close enough to be satisfied. Dave went out with me as we did another 3K together, a great coach and teammate gift of moral and psychological support.
It was only later when I added up the distances and got 51K that I knew for sure that I’d done what I set out to do. And that I’d done 51K in new boots without a single blister. Small miracles.
My 8-minute Ks didn’t make me fast, but my 51K gives me confidence I can finish on March 5.
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Sunday, Feb. 5, 2006
Training: Week 13
81K weekend!
After a good night’s sleep, I was back out training this morning, putting in another 30K over 4 1/4 hours on very fast tracks -- some of the fastest snow we’ve seen all year.
I went back to the slow black diamond trails I visited yesterday and found out just how fast they could be. (I wouldn’t want to try them glazed solid with ice!)
At the end of the day, I went back in and purchased a pair of the skis that had borne me on an 81K weekend. I’ve been a renter all this time. I now have the first pair of skis I’ve ever owned.
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Saturday, Feb. 11, 2006
Training: Week 14
There’s still steep I’m not ready for
I haven’t fallen so much in years.
I also have probably never attacked trails as challenging.
After five trainings at Bear Valley this season, Team in Training took on Royal Gorge’s trails and found steeper intermediate trails (blue) and steeper advanced trails (black) than anything we’d tried.
Elaine and I, the two striders signed up to take on a 50K challenge in Anchorage, have been training on black trails, preparing for the first 10K, which the profile suggests may be steep. Last weekend, we tried out the black Bear Valley trails for the first time, which I managed Saturday with aplomb in fresh, wet, slow snow, but which caused me to take a couple butt stops coming down the ridge on Sunday.
But there’s a trail here at Royal Gorge, Sunnyside, marked blue on the map but black on the signpost that, at least in today’s conditions was, two times, the most difficult trail I’ve ever attempted. I got up to Lola’s Lookout, across the spine of the ridge on Razorback, and back down Crow’s Nest (with a fall and some challenge). But Sunnyside took the cake. I actually walked down the second half of Sunnyside after my third crash on my second attempt at its descent.
I could feel my hip after my first fall, early in the day. My back, perhaps. I worried it might stop me -- for the day and maybe longer. But an hour later I realized it had worked itself back out. Toward the end of the day, when it occurred to me that my knee felt funny. I reached down and touched it gingerly. Big bruises. And my right arm below the shoulder clearly took an impact, making that the focus of my worry that something might lay me up.
But aside from some steep trails, associated falls, and possible injuries, it was a great day. I’d caught up with Elaine, who’d had a head start, at the end of my first 3K trail. From then on, we skied together for the day. We skied sometimes leisurely, sometimes strongly, but from the point we met up, we skied 34K of trails I’d never in all my skiing at Royal Gorge been on. Besides the incredible views from the 7500-foot peak at Lola’s Lookout and the ridge on Razorback, we also headed out to Point Mariah, where I got my first look down the maw of the 4,417 foot deep Royal Gorge, from which the trail system gets its name. I put in six and a half hours, not much less skiing time than our 50K race in Anchorage may take.
After a tough but gorgeous 37K day at Royal Gorge
(None of the black-and-blue bruises are visible!)
We have one more training, but it’s just eight days before our race, a point in our training that we need to be tapering -- limiting distance, time and challenge.
So really, today was our last big day. And last week and this were our opportunities to test our mettle. I’m tested and happy.
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Sunday, Feb. 12, 2006
Training: Week 14
20K Race
Have I ever improved since my first season two years ago!
I raced the Alpenglow at Tahoe XC today. It was “just” 20K -- a virtual sprint. (OK, not really a sprint. 20K is, after all, 4/5ths of a striding marathon. But it’s certainly short relative to the 50K I think I’m ready to do in Anchorage.)
It took me just two hours and 20 minutes.
When I look back at what I did my first year at West Yellowstone in similar conditions, I’ve chopped almost a half hour off my 20K time (2:47 then)!
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Monday, Feb. 13, 2006
Training: Week 14
Monday morning
That was only a 57K weekend, but...
I guess racing makes a little difference -- pushing for 20K, grabbing bites of pb&j gloves-on and those and water while still moving on skis. The course wasn’t steep (though my skating friends beg to differ with that assessment, particularly I think skiing up what must have been a 4K uphill at the back), but there were plenty of shallower hills, and opportunity to practice controlled speed on downhills through turns.
And to push for 20K.
I’m stiff and sore and hurting like I haven’t been since at least a month ago. Part of what I feel this morning are the bruises from Saturday. But the muscle soreness comes from racing, I think.
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Tuesday, Feb. 14, 2006
Training: Week 14
Quote of the day
Skiing is very beneficial. It's good for your legs and your feet. It's also very good for the snow. It makes it feel needed.
-- paraphrase of Charles M. Schultz’s characterization of jogging
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Wednesday, Feb. 15, 2006
Training: Week 14
Quote of the weekend (or about the weekend!)
This, from Lior, one of my teammates, who had this to say about our Royal Gorge training over the weekend:
Blue Trails my foot! They ought to call them "Black-and-Blue Trails!” :-)
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Friday, Feb. 17, 2006
Fundraising update
The ski team's fundraising reached $196,687 at midday, a rapid rise from $170,000 midday Wednesday, with continued increases expected over the next two weeks as checks are counted. It will be a few weeks before we know how we did. I'm still hoping we raise a third of a million dollars. But regardless, ...
Together we're making a big difference. Thank you for joining me in contributing to this important cause.
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Monday, Feb. 27, 2006
Training: Week 16
Final Training
One downhill -- not black-diamond steep, though not a shallow slope either (the way up was steep and long enough that Royal Gorge named it Herringbone Hill, after all).
I thought I could handle the last section with straight skis. One of them caught on changing snow. It stopped. I didn’t. Head first. Wham! I was amazed, getting up, that I hadn’t broken my glasses or my nose, punched my teeth through my lips, or gotten a concussion, though it did draw a bit of blood on my eyebrow (my glasses?) and the inside of one lip and the inside of my nose.
It was not the final training I wanted to have.
Two days later, my left jaw back by my ear is, I think, bruised where it joins my skull -- it hurts to open it very far. I think it got jammed pretty hard. I'm hoping that goes away in a day or two.
I've been stretching my neck vertebrae all day -- no doubt from my head being slammed backward when it hit the snow, head-on.
My nose is a little tender but not bad, and nothing visible.
My lips and teeth and brow and forehead all feel normal, remarkably.
My confidence is a little shaken. But I keep reminding myself that the day after I got so beaten up two weeks ago at Royal Gorge, I had a heck of a 20K race at Tahoe XC (the Alpenglow). I'm hoping for a match to that analogy at the race in Anchorage.
It's funny. I prided myself two years ago for not falling once in training all season. I heard my mentor that year say that if you haven't fallen you aren't pushing hard enough, but I was fine with my progress that year and last year, too, when I also fell very little. Then in the last Bear Valley training this year, I pushed to accomplish both a 51K day and all the black diamond trails there. And I was out at the very edge of my ability. And fell a number of times, and even more often the next day, when the day dawned fast. I was even more at the edge of my ability two weeks ago at Royal Gorge, when I came home brused and beat up.
Saturday's downhill was well within my ability. Except that I went parallel sooner than I'm used to. So that took it to the edge of my ability and then, when my ski stuck, beyond it. I think I'm in a transition where I'm trying to ski stronger than I really am. That could be good. If it weren’t just a week before my 50K effort!
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Tuesday, Feb. 28, 2006
Aerial Map of the course
The 50-kilometer (31-mile) race starts at the red star at Service High School, winds through mountains on the 10K Spencer Loop, then heads across Campbell Airstrip before hitting a bike path through town (under some overpasses!) to the sea, then along the coast skirting downtown and the airport, finally turning back inland (and uphill!) into Kincaid Park and the finish line.
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Wednesday, March 1, 2006
Expectations
The race is Sunday. The official 50K start is at 10:10am, but the race is providing the three (?) of us TNT skiers who are striding 50K a 9am start, since we expect to take around seven hours to finish, hours longer than any other skiers on the course, virtually all of whom we expect to be much, much faster skaters.
I’m expecting I’ll ski from 9am until between 3 and 4 p.m.
I expect to be carrying several water bottles and two peanut butter and jelly sandwiches cut into ninths -- each nine bites of nourishment. If you look at the map, you’ll see seven aid stations along the course where we expect to find cups of water (and probably Gatoraid) and bites of banana or Snickers or cookie, with lots of helpers trail-side to hand them to us while we continue skiing past. At some point -- and we’re not sure if that’s early or late -- we’ll be so far behind the pack that we don’t think we’ll be able to count on the aid stations to still be open when we reach them.
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Monday, March 6, 2006
The Event: The Tour of Anchorage
50 kilometers is a really, really long way.
50 kilometers -- 31 miles -- is the diameter of one of Pluto's moons and the length of Chicago's lakefront. It's the distance from Washington D.C. to Baltimore, from San Francisco to Inverness, from Detroit to Ann Arbor, from Chicago to Elgin, and from downtown Las Vegas to the Hoover Dam and Lake Mead. (Did you know that the city of Anchorage, at 1955 square miles, is nearly the size of the state of Delaware and is half again larger than Rhode Island?)
That the fastest skate skier of the Tour of Anchorage Sunday took just two hours and 16 minutes to complete the course seems downright remarkable. It's skate skiers that 50K courses are intended for.
For classic skiers, 50K is two marathon lengths back to back. Classic skiing the race at my pace, even though I've become much faster over the last two years, nonetheless took me 6 hours and 55 minutes.
That's 6 hours and 55 minutes in virtually the same position, upright, gloved hands holding aluminum poles, body balanced over two slick sticks of wood.
Given I stopped a minute or two to throw back a half cup of sport drink and gobble down an Oreo, or two inches of banana, or three peanut M&Ms at the six aid stations, that leaves roughly 6 hours and 45 minutes of relentless forward motion.
The muscles that drive that forward motion were beginning to ache by the 30K mark. Maybe it was sooner, but it was there that I began to remind myself why I was doing this long endurance event and why I wanted to finish it -- about my friend Peter Bellfy and my Uncle Larry Schroeder, both lost to cancer last year, and about my ex-wife Janie Shupack, recently diagnosed and currently in treatment for two different cancers but with optimistic prognoses. I looked down at the six plastic bracelets dangling from my belt with their names and 38 others -- all people whom you, friends and family and colleagues, have asked me to honor. And I thought about the especially courageous fighters on our team, including Lior, whose determination let her overcome highly bruisable joints from three bouts with leukemia to stride 25K; and Thomas from Norway, who would would motivate himself with memories of chemo to skate 50K in just over three hours and who, while finishing 100 back from the front of the pack, would be the fastest finisher from our TNT team.
When I crossed the finish line, I was tired but not empty, regardless of how things may have appeared from my first post-race act -- throwing myself backwards onto the snow. Those Olympic finishers would have nothing on me. Some fast running-marathon winner is supposed to have said, in response to a question about all the citizen-racers who took 3 and 4 times as long to finish, that he wasn't at all sure that he could run for that long.
I now know I can ski for that long.
As was the case two years ago, both my kids came along to cheer. Mike did more than that. He skated the race alongside me. And Jean appeared at midpoints and the finish to take photos and shout encouragement.
The forecast had called for snow, but it dawned crisp, with the sun peaking over the Chugach Mountains as Randi and I warmed up.
There were four of us 50K TNT striders who started the race at 9, along with a phalanx of 40K TNT striders, Mike, and three non-TNT striders who immediately shot ahead of us. The tracks were beautiful -- deep and hard packed -- for the first 10K when we were the first on the trail, possibly the best tracks I've ever skied. After a few K, aside from occasional non-race skiers (no numbered bibs) and trail-side ski patrol, volunteers, and a few medics, Mike and I were by ourselves.
We were alone through the hills -- easy hills as we moved into the mountains, turning to a long, steep climb starting at about the 5K marker -- climbing and climbing to the ridge where a set of stunning views of white-capped razor peaks to the east alternated with Anchorage's downtown to the west. And then we pointed our skis back downhill. Mike, with his snowboarder balance, zoomed. After having spent the last two trainings crashing and burning on black diamond and even blue intermediate trails, I was more cautious, particularly until I had a sense of the snow and my own ability du jour. Once I found there was nothing intimidatingly steep, to the extent my slower striding skis allowed, I was often on Mike's tail.
I kept looking over my shoulder for the fastest of the 50K skaters, whose start was something over an hour behind ours. They were my other worry. A downhill that I can handle with control can become downright terrifying with a phalanx of speeding skaters, jockeying for position, coming up fast from behind on either side. No rear view mirrors. When we slowed at the 8K aid station for warm poweraid, we could hear them -- but then through the trees, we saw they were just headed up to the ridgetop from whence we'd come! I would get down these hills safely!
We turned a corner and rejoined the 40K route to find our beautiful trail and tracks cut to ribbons by the waves of 40K skaters. It confirmed we were down out of the mountains.
At 12K, the first of the 50K skaters caught up with us. The first three groups passed while we were safely on the flats, but the fourth caught me, just under control, speeding fast down a slope. I angled right from the trail where I'd been snowplowing toward the tracks, only to realize that while the first skater passed me on the left the second was taking the fastest route to the bottom -- in the tracks I was about to step into. I pulled back just as he zoomed past, but that left me off balance -- to regain it I straddled the tracks -- not knowing if there was another in the tracks right behind him. Incredibly, one cut around in the few inches between me and the forest. Our coaches had urged us just to be deliberate -- the elite skaters ski so much better than we that they'd figure out how to get around us safely regardless. I couldn't have had a better demonstration of their skill!
We skied through wild parklands for K after K. Given the Tour of Anchorage traverses the city from east to west, I'd expected to see city. But I kept waiting for it. The first real civilization was skiing over a highway overpass, the bridge having been filled with snow and groomed just like the trail. We skied around lakes, past parks, and through tunnels under roads. But never through city, not city that we could see.
At 24K, we crested a hill to look down a slope that was the terrifying downhill I'd been worried the first 10K might bring. I certainly hadn't expected it here! I was not anxious to test my downhill control on 24K legs. I would hear from teammates later that this hill was their greatest source of falls. But the practice I'd done (and the beating I'd taken in the last three weeks doing it) had prepared me. A mix of caution, will, and fighting and riding the hill, along with a dose of luck, got me to the bottom still balanced and standing.
Now our trail joined the 25K one, and the route became almost flat, even as the tracks became ever more rutted. Most of the 1500-plus skiers in the race were ahead of us, and it showed. The tracks were gone entirely in places, and in others were mere semblances of what they'd been.
Throughout the day, aid stations appeared every 7K or so. Mike, faster, would arrive before me and stop, then after I'd skied through, quickly catch up. I, on the other hand, would attempt to keep moving forward, catching a cup between gloved hands attached by soft leather to my poles, swinging the cup up while I moved, swallowing the often warmed liquid and struggling to handle an Oreo or banana section or two M&Ms with gloved fingers as I skied on.
We continued to put K after K after K of mostly flat terrain behind us. Long after I thought we should see it, we finally arrived along a section of trail that we'd walked the previous day as we'd followed the route of 85 dog teams in the start of the famous Iditerod dog sled race. At the time, I'd thought the Iditerod would play a thematic role in how I thought about my ski race. The Iditerod is the reenactment of an 80-year-old race to get diptheria serum across the rugged, forbidding, wintry Alaska interior to remote Nome, 1,049 miles away. The now-ceremonial 12-mile Anchorage leg takes three hours just to start, with a sled leaving the corner of 4th and D Streets downtown every two minutes.
Flying to Anchorage a couple days early, we'd chanced to meet one of the dog teams and its crew of handlers and watched its musher, the legally blind dogsled driver Rachael Scdoris, handle her dogs -- not like an engine -- but with love and respect and partnership. I saw something I hadn't expected. I was moved and inspired by the deep relationship to see dogsledding in a different light.
It was their trail we'd walked, for a couple miles, yelling encouragement to one team after another. It was a piece of that trail that I was now skiing.
I was inspired for my own race. But now, skiing that race, I realized that it was its own story. While it happened to coincide with the Iditerod, our Tour of Anchorage came with its own esprit and lessons.
We were only a few minutes on the dog trail before we crossed by bridge to the other side of the creek and left it behind. We went past a long stairway that I knew led up to a short eight-block walk to our hotel. I put it out of my mind and kept skiing. We went under four more roads via snow-filled tunnels and then we were at a lake, the other end of which was divided from the sea by a berm of earth.
We'd skied 33K -- "only" 17 to go. We'd skied right through the middle of Anchorage, but all the city we'd seen was a power plant, a high school hockey rink, traffic overpasses and tunnels, and a few suburban backyards. Remarkably, the rest was all greenbelt.
Our ski trail is also a multi-use path, and there were people on it in this section, a few standing around watching us go by, but more going about their weekend business, walking, running, skiing, even biking, with a few hauling sleds of groceries home from the supermarket.
Now we turned southwest along the sea. In summer, most of this trail is a bike path. To the left is forest. To the right, huge foot-thick sheets of ice were piled helter-skelter on the mud flats with what appeared to be an ice cover on the water for as far as we could see. Looking over our shoulders, we could see the skyline of downtown Anchorage. Again we skied K after K. Nearly to Point Woronzof, a trail took us up from sea level to the cliff. We could just see the tops of a couple very tall Anchorage International Airport hangars as 737s took off just over our heads, but forest blocked any view of the runways and airport activity.
Finally, the trail turned 90 degrees left and we saw the open water of Cook Inlet. We skied more Ks. With a plane to catch himself and sore feet, Mike sped off at skating pace to finish the remaining 12K. Now I was alone. I passed a 25K strider, then another, in quick succession, but that was it for racers. No more bibs. Except for a very occasional recreational skier, I was alone between the woods and the sea.
I realized that I must finally be beyond the airport and into enormous Kincaid Park when mine became just one of a network of trails. Soon after, the terrain became hilly again. The hill at the 3K-to-go mark had been described as "the cruelest hill," but I'd been skiing on flats for so long, it felt like a relief to be challenged by a change of terrain. And then I emerged through the trees to see people ahead of me -- Jean and various teammates and coaches cheering and madly clanging cowbells. It was 3:55 in the afternoon. I took off my skis and threw myself on my back on the snow.
50K really is a long way.
(Even more photos by team friend Jack Walshe of our time in Anchorage)
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Friday, March 10, 2006
Epilogue
After 6 hours and 55 minutes of skiing on Sunday, I was tired. But after three seasons (and two off-seasons) of training, I was ready to ski 50K. Oh, I had some soreness, after. I was stiff getting out of bed Tuesday and Wednesday mornings. And those inner thigh muscles I'd felt start aching after only 30K were sore until Thursday. But the aches were really very minor.
Just after I crossed the finish line, I said, "Never again. Not 50K." And maybe I won't. But now, a few days later, I'm no longer ruling it out.
Thomas said after the race that it's nothing like doing chemo, nothing like fighting cancer. He would know.
I can certainly recommend skiing 25K with Team in Training. That's what most new teammates do. Even if they'd never skied before. Every year, a bunch of our team hasn't. Every year, virtually every one of them finishes a 25 kilometer marathon. Of course, if 25K and $4,000 in fundraising aren't challenging enough for you, you can set your own goals, as many on our team did.
It's gratifying to carry the names of loved ones who have fought cancer -- your own and others' -- and to be motivated to fundraise and to compete for them and for those who follow them.
I imagine I'm also motivated by having been a sickly kid myself, having struggled with asthma from when I was born. Like me, you, too, may be surprised by what you can accomplish, especially with the support TNT provides both to experienced athletes but especially to rookies and the recently sedentary. I learned a lot more about skiing and about endurance events and about training again this year.
I love the camaraderie and the community. Doing something this team-oriented is an incredible complement to the solitude of a job search. Doing something this physical is an incredible complement to the mental exercise of managing software development. And between fundraising and recruiting and being a seasoned TNT skier, there are opportunities to practice writing and speaking and leading and mentoring that are enormously satisfying.
- Tempted to join the team? Here's a little of what you get:
- you raise money to fight diseases that are heartbreaking
- you get a whole community of people to ski with
- you get coaching likely beyond any coaching you ever experienced in high school
- you get camaraderie -- the team spirit is amazing
- you get to be an athlete -- and with the coaching and the camaraderie, it’s not that hard to become one
- you get to make a difference in the world
I don't know if I'll do a year four, but if you let me know you're interested, I'll make sure you find out when the team is forming next year. (If you've read this far, you may be more ready for it than you know.)
And if you've been thinking about donating to help end leukemia and lymphoma, why not donate right now?
