Author: martha

To celebrate my brother Fred’s 10^th birthday my grandparents took him on a trip to the wilds of Alaska. I was only 5, but I vividly remember Fred’s descriptions of waters teeming with marine life – whales, puffins, more bald eagles than you could count – and woodlands full of bears and moose. He brought me back a necklace with a little gold shell on it, and every time I wore it I dreamt about the day I would turn 10 and have my own chance to explore Alaska’s wilds.

When my cousin Claire and I turned 10 my grandparents took us to Nova Scotia. We did not disguise our disappointment that the destination wasn’t Alaska. But we were promised that Nova Scotia was a lovely island teeming with birdlife. We set our hearts on seeing puffins.

There were no puffins. Fred had gotten the greatest adventure of his life and we’d gotten some seafood buffets. At least, that’s how two sullen 10-year old girls remembered it.

When Aaron and I started dating, he was informed that I was owed two things in life: a horse and a trip to Alaska.

When I found out that Alaska had made the short list of possible locations for the celebration of my mother’s 70^th birthday, I lobbied hard. And when we finally settled on Alaska, I pushed against the popular inland passage cruise from Seattle to Juneau. As an infectious disease epidemiologist, a cruise boat has about the same appeal as a hospital ward. I pushed for a flight to Anchorage, followed by a road trip around the Kenai peninsula, including a one-day boat ride. And I whole-heartedly threw my support behind my brother’s motion for a bear tour. The bear tour was not cheap, as you had to charter a private plane to take you to a remote wilderness inaccessible by road.  But when in Alaska.

The Nelson family has a Theory of Travel that the Amount of Time Spent in a Place should be proportional to the Time Spent Getting to the Place.

Vacation Time(Location 1): Flight Time (Location 1):: Vacation Time(Location 2): Flight Time (Location 2)

Thirty-five years of living on this earth have taught me that this Theory of Travel is patently false. As Aaron puts it, maximization is not the same as optimization. I whittled my parents’ two-week trip down to 5 days. Plenty of time to see a puffin.

 

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Day 1: Marthon don’t run the Mt. Marathon race….but sure put it on the bucket list

Aaron and I didn’t get picked in the lottery for The Mt. Marathon Race — a crazy 3,000′ scramble to the top Mt. Marathon, followed by a rapid descent back to town, all over the course of just three miles. It’s the country’s 2^nd oldest race (only the Boston Marathon is older). But we were in Seward on the day of the race and got a real taste for why this race is so famous. First off, the atmosphere is incredible. The small town of Seward swells on race day, held every year on the 4^th of July, becoming jammed with spectators who take the race as seriously as the Boston Marathon. This was a particularly exciting year for the race because a local Alaska cross country skier broke the course record set by Killian Journet last summer.

After the race Aaron and I took a short hike on part of the course. Well, it’s not really a ‘hike’, it’s more of a scramble. I haven’t scaled down cliffs like than since Finn took me and Sarah platypus-hunting in the Blue Mountains.

Day 2: Martha gets her puffin

Our trip was structured around two big events: (1) The Boat and (2) The Bears. Our primary reason for coming to Seward was The Boat. Of all the wildlife in Alaska (including the bears), Fred was most excited about the prospect of spotting orcas in the wild. I had waited 25 years to see a puffin.

On July 5^th, the day of my mom’s 70^th birthday, we took a full-day boat ride out of Seward to tour Resurrection Bay, the best way to see Alaska’s diverse marine wildlife. It was a rainy, overcast day, but that proved fortuitous as a large number of folks cancelled and we had plenty of room on deck to watch and photograph wildlife.

And despite the odds (orcas are typically seen only once per week), we had a gorgeous look at a pod of four orcas, including a calf. The trip was a bonanza of marine life: hoards of Stellar sea lions lazing on the rocks; playful otters tussling in the harbor; shy harbor seals popping their heads out of the water for a doe-eyed peek; a mother humpback whale romping with her calf, repeatedly slapping the water with her tail while her calf breached.

And a good thing we had Fred along to identify the diversity of marine birds: rhinoceros auklets, marbled murelets, phalaropes, jaegers, sooty shearwaters, red-faced cormorants, etc., etc. And, yes, I got more puffins than a girl could dream of. Horned puffins, tufted puffins, puffins flying, puffins bobbing in the water, rocky outcrops teaming with puffins. Twenty-five years worth of puffins. I also learned my new favorite word: puffling. As in, Duck:duckling::Puffin:puffling.

 

Day 4: Bearfest

The only point of Day 3 was to drive from Seward to Homer so that we could have our much-anticipated bear trip on Day 4. Maybe if it hadn’t been pouring rain the drive across the Kenai Peninsula would have been more memorable. But honestly, if there was a day for terrible weather, we couldn’t have picked a better day than Day 3.

On the face of it, a bear trip sounds like a terrible idea. A tiny plane flies you to a remote stretch of Alaskan wilderness called Katmai, drops you off, and sends your party off out into woodlands teeming with very hungry bears for several hours unaccompanied. I can’t be the only one to whom this seems like a great way to feed some famished grizzlies that have lost 40% of their body weight during a long hibernation with some fatty tourists.

Grizzlies are not to be trifled with. During our stay in Seward the local newspaper had just reported two recent bear attacks: one in Denali and one right along the drive from Seward to Homer. But for the price they were charging us, I figured there had to be sounder plan than Make Noise and Carry Bear Spray.

It turned out that making sure tourists didn’t become bear food was taken very seriously in Katmai National Park.  The whole thing is actually extremely well organized.  Yes, you have to take certain precautions to make sure you don’t turn into bear chow.  But I was very impressed with the park’s infrastructure.

• One thing in our favor is that July is the month that the salmon travel upriver in droves to spawn. Which for the bears means feeding frenzy. Bears have to catch about ten fish a day to get back the weight they lost during hibernation. Bears are much less likely to pay humans any mind when there’s loads of delicious salmon around.

• No food was allowed to be carried in the woods. Not even gum. All food had to be safely secured at the visitor center before we ventured out. For someone who doesn’t go out for a 30-minute run without snacks, the prospect of going snack-less for four hours almost caused a panic attack. But I recognized that it was in my own interests not to carry snacks in areas teeming with hungry bears.

• A wooden platform was built adjacent to the waterfalls that were the most popular spot for the bears to feed. Under no other conditions could a human possibly feel comfortable being that close to a dozen massive grizzlies.

• We took full advantage of the Bob Boom, making my dad walk in the front. For the first time that I can remember, we actively encouraged my father to talk loudly about politics.

Nothing can prepare you for the scene at Brooks Falls. More than a dozen massive grizzlies stand below the gushing water, waiting for the right moment to swipe at a fish. A young mother stands on the shore with three tiny cubs treed next to her. On the other shore, a hulking male rips the roe out of his salmon, gulls squawking and darting in for stray pieces. A bald eagle flies in, sending the gulls squealing in all directions. Mergansers bob in circles in an eddy in what seems like constant confusion over who the leader is.

Each bear had its own personality. All the bears cleared for the dominant male, who got the choice fishing spot and caught three times as much salmon as the others.

A young female bear with three tiny cubs struggled on the shore as she tried to protect her young from the marauding males while finding moments to dash out and catch fish.

While the larger, older males stood Zen-like for long periods of time in a single spot before gracefully snatching a fish with a quick swipe of the paw, an adolescent male did spread eagle belly-flops off rocks and spent most of the day looking like he’d just gone through a washing machine.

Whereas the dominant male carried new catches to a large flat rock to peacefully engorge, other males consumed their slippery catches right in the spot where they caught it under the waterfall. Even after decapitation the salmon still flops vigorously, and several forlorn bears watched their catches slip away in the swift current.

The bear pecking order was mostly set and most bears knew their place, skittering away immediately if a more dominant bear approached. But there were still tussles. Grizzlies are so powerful that most fights are over in a matter of seconds, with one animal quickly backing down rather than face the alternative. But one bear was covered with scars. Another was chased fully out of the river.

The greatest testament to how thrilling watching the bears was is the fact that I went four hours without any snacks and didn’t even notice. When 7pm rolled around and it was time to head back to have dinner, I opted to instead spend every possible minute with the bears and save my sandwich for the plane. I can’t think of a time that has ever happened before.

http://wtkr.com/2016/07/07/watch-the-live-bearcam-at-alaskas-katmai-national-park/

Lessons of a Nelson Family Vacation

1.  Longer is not better.  Previous Nelson safaris to Africa and Argentina have been 2-3 weeks.  Alaska 2016 was proof-of-concept that you can have an amazingly fulfilling trip in a much shorter period as long as you plan carefully.
2. Mt Marathon is definitely a race Aaron and I would like to get back to some day, either in the short-term or long-term.  It’s bloody hard to get into the lottery, though.
3. Alaska will bring out the amateur photographer in anyone.  Aaron has always been an aficionado of film, and we knew going in that photography would be a major part of the trip for him.  But whether I was just snapping landscapes with my iPhone or borrowing Aaron’s super lens to catch some bears at the end of the day at the falls, Alaska proves you don’t have to be a gear junkie to fall in love with photography.  I still need to learn about aperture and lighting and such.  But next time maybe I’ll even try some birds.
4. Shell out some $$ to do the big highlights.  The bear-viewing was more money than the Nelsons had ever shelled out for any half-day event.  We thought it would be cool, but it was hard for us to believe that it could possibly be entirely worth it.  It was, no question.
5. It’s never too late to fulfill a childhood dream.  One might have thought that 25 years later the puffins would have been anti-climatic.  I’ve declared that the new house Aaron and I bought is going to have a prominent puffin theme.

Highland Sky 40

Canaan Valley, WV

June 18, 2016

 

We had a bunch of first-timers out at HS40 this year, peppering me and Aaron with questions about the course.  Aaron’s won the race a bunch of times, I’ve got the women’s CR, and we have a house in Canaan, so I guess we know a thing or two about the race and the area.  So for anyone coming out here next year, here’s a summary of our best tips for HS.  It’s one of my absolute favorite races.  Not just for its beauty, but also for its challenge.  You’d be hard-pressed to find a race that gives you a taste of everything.  You’ve got the full trail challenge — tough climbs, boulder fields, the gnarliest technical trails through woodlands.  And you’ve got a full speed challenge, with the Road Across the Sky, and some run-able trails through open grasslands.

1.  So, #1, HS favors chimeric runners, the ones who can switch back and forth between trail and road running — folks like Aaron.  Trevor, who finished 2nd this year, can attest to the value of having a little road speed in you.  At mile 20, he hit the 7-mile Road Across the Sky in 8th place.  By the end of the road, he was squarely in 2nd.  A little spring from marathon-training made up a whole lot of ground there.
2.  A key piece of advice is to think of the race as two distinct halves, with the Road Across the Sky starting at mile 20 as the turning point.  Prior to mile 20, you have a pure trail race: gnarly terrain and big climbs.  The year I set my CR in 2013 it was an extra adventure because large swaths of the course were under a foot of water.  The Sodds are always a bit mucky, but in this case you couldn’t even see what rocks lurked in those jet black puddle-lakes.  My best advice for this section is to not look at your watch and just take the terrain as it comes.  It’s going to vary from year to year.  Don’t push the climbs, keep your heart rate in check.  Have fun on the rocks, but don’t push them.

   

3. Because in the second half, air it out!  The good news, is no matter how the first half goes, after the half-way point you’ll have ample opportunity to make up some time.  The Road Across the Sky is a mean old man, with endless long dips and climbs that you can see for a mile ahead.  And hot exposed in the sun.  But you can make up so much ground here if you didn’t bang your little system up too much in the technical first half.  Let ‘er rip.

   

4. The Sodds are visually deceptive.  For some reason, hills in the open plains of the Sodds look less steep than if the same ascent were in the woods.  It’s something to do with your visual field.  So don’t let it bother when you find yourself walking climbs in the Sodds that don’t think you need to.  If you had trees on either side, you’d be walking.

5. 

   There are great food options in the Valley for pre-race meals.  There’s great pizza at Siriani’s.  If you need some protein, head to Tip Top in Thomas, WV for Friday Grass-Fed Burger night (there are veggie burger options too).  If you’d like a home-cooked meal, Highland Market is like a housed farmer’s market, serving meats, fruits, and veggies from local farms.  Save Hellbender Burritos for post-race.

6. Nettles.  Yes.  In the first climb.  They sting, be prepared.  Some years are worse than others.  Some folks where calf sleeves.  Others realize that it’s the least of your problems on this challenging day.
7. Wear sunscreen!  Next time our aid station will have spray-on sunscreen and I’ll just spray it on cooking runners as they come through.

   

   

   

   

   

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Aaron and I have a favorite game we play called ‘Who’s Life is Worse?’  After a long weekend in the Laurel Highlands, we found our game caught in yet another stubborn stalemate.  What was worse, getting injured two weeks before the race and getting to run 0 miles (me), or Aaron making it 40 miles and having to drop out because of the severe bursitis in his heels?

I concede that a DNF is more acute agony.  That moment of defeat, when you throw in the towel, letting your race dreams slip away — that’s gut-wrenching.

But Aaron will be up and running again by the middle of this week.  He’ll be well on his way to training for the Fat Dog 70 in August, his priority race of the summer.

While I won’t be able to hit the trails for another month or so, possibly more.

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I had been talking about Laurel for a year.  I had turned down a paid trip (airfare, accommodation, food) to Oxford University because it would conflict with my plans to run Laurel.

Why was Laurel so important to me?  At one time, many years ago, I had come to Laurel bursting with possibility.  Back in 2009, the Laurel Highlands 50k was my first ultra.  We were having beer and pizza one Tuesday night after WUS and Keith and Mitchel were going up for the 70 that Saturday.  And the next thing I knew I’d signed up to do my first 50k that weekend.  Who needs training?

Race morning wasn’t auspicious.  I got lost driving to the shuttle bus that takes you from the finish to the start and missed it.  I didn’t have a GPS.  I stopped in gas stations at 6am to ask desperately, ‘How do I get to Ohiopyle?’  Laurel is a point-to-point, and driving is not nearly as direct a route as running.  By some miracle I got there 10 minutes before the start, all in a frenzy.

But fortunately Keith had told me everything I needed to know.  There was going to be a big climb at the start.  And I should just run it like a marathon.

And I had my tried-and-true Tom Cali Marathon Nutrition Strategy: 1 clif shot blok every 5 miles.  Took me to a 2:55 at Boston earlier that spring.  The miles along the Laurel Highlands Trail are marked with painted obelisks, so it was easy to pop a blok every 5.

As it turns out, marathon miles ain’t the same thing as trail miles.  One blok every 5 miles wasn’t even close to what I needed nutritionally.  The last 8 miles were so rough.  I felt sick to my stomach.  I stopped eating.  I felt dizzy and dehydrated.  I was barely walking at the end.

But I finished 1st woman, 2nd overall, and set a CR that still stands.  I was 28 years old, full of promise.

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Seven years later, that promise had all but snuffed out.  I never did much at the ultra distances.  Sure, I had moments of life, a CR at Highland Sky.  But mostly disappointment.  I wasn’t totally dispirited as a runner — even as I aged into the 30s my speed on the roads held nicely.  I just never got it going over the longer distances, mostly because I never even made it to the line.

But two events last summer got my ultra blood rushing again: Manitou’s Revenge and the Teton Crest Trail.  I made a big dark circle on the calendar around the date of the Laurel Highlands 70.  I was going back to Laurel.  Nothing was going to deter me, not tantalizing speaking gigs in Europe, not the training required.

Everything was going great.  Promise Land 50k was a great training run at the end of April.  The next week I had another great training run with Keith/Phil/Julian/Aaron around DC.  Aaron and I got some seriously quality training runs in the Sodds the following week.  And I got one last long run in DC before I jetted off to Belgium.

My first day of work in Belgium was Monday.  I couldn’t walk.  Something in my shin, an injury I didn’t recognize.  It hasn’t stopped hurting since.  I went to the ortho and he gave me his Rx: some serious painkillers and a definitive DNS for Laurel.

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My DNS and Aaron’s DNF kind of reflect the larger arcs of our running careers.  My ultra running career has been frustrating, but more in a DNS stillbirth kind of way.  I just never got it going.  Every time I sign up for a big ultra race I get injured and never even toe the line.

Aaron, on the other hand, enjoyed some wickedly good years of ultra running in the late 2000s.  He got out there, hit his stride, and had some monster wins, including Hellgate.  Everyone knows Aaron.  But just as he was flourishing, he came down with Lyme disease, and has never been the same.  Tough to say which is worse, my DNS running career that never even got its legs, or Aaron’s DFN running career that faded unfairly before its time.

Regardless of who’s right, next year we’re just doing the Laurel Highlands Relay.

 

 

In the short time that I have been cycling to work, I have realized that there is a great deal of confusion about the best way for cars and bikes to share the prized tarmac.

There have been efforts to promote the concept of ‘Share the Road’.  This entreaty has made some inroads in making drivers more aware of the presence of bikes and the need to accommodate them.  But the slogan also has emboldened some cyclists to imagine that ‘share the road’ means ‘we have the exact same rights as cars’, a mindset that may be legally valid but when taken literally will only increase long-term hostility between drivers and riders.

The best way to interpret ‘Share the Road’ is a framework in which roads are understood to be the principle domain of cars (the roads were built and designed for cars, after all), but one where bikes have visitor rights.  Visitor rights are important: bikes are not intruders, bikes are not hazards.  Aside from the Red Wedding, the Rule #1 for how to treat visitors to your home is: Try to keep your visitors’ blood and central organs inside their bodies.

At the same time, bikes should recognize that Rule #1 for visitors is that they should be respectful and grateful of their host’s hospitality.  A cyclist who treats the road like its his own dominion is akin to the guest that starts clipping his toenails on his host’s coffee table.

A Few Specific Clarifications for Cars and Cyclists:

(1) Cars: do not pass a cyclist around a blind turn.  This happens all the time, and the problem is that if a car happens to be coming the other way, the cyclist is no longer alive.

(2) Cars: if you are stopped behind a cyclist at a red light and you would like to turn right, do not speed in front of the cyclist and swipe around them to make your right turn.  Most cyclists get up to speed quickly, and it will just be a couple seconds before the cyclist is gone and you can safely make your right turn.

(3) Cyclists: you know those ambiguous sidewalks without traffic lights?  the ones where you technically have right of way, but where the chances that a car will actually stop is a game of roulette?  assuming that a car will stop is like dipping Little Red Riding Hood into the wolf’s mouth.

I deleted my Strava account yesterday.  All the data….poof.

I don’t regret my 18-month dalliance with Strava.  Knowledge is useful.  It corrected a grave misconception that I was a rock star when it came to training.  I went into races cocky, despite being woefully under-prepared.

But even if Strava was good at pointing out the inadequacies of my training, it did very little to point me on a better path.  This is the general pattern of how Strava has gone for me for the couple times a year when I decided that I’d like to train for something:

6 weeks prior to ‘A’ race: Ah!  Crap!  I’m not trained at all.  Look at what everyone else is doing.  I need to get my ass in gear pronto.

4 weeks prior to ‘A’ race: Okay, so I’ve tossed in a couple long runs.  Feeling good about this.  Wait, crap, I still haven’t done enough?  Come on, Strava!  Seriously, I need to do another long run??

3 weeks prior to ‘A’ race:  Um, it hurts to walk.

1 week prior to ‘A’ race:  Soooo….I guess I should get this checked out?

3 days prior to ‘A’ race: Why does it always seem like training just = never getting to actually toe a line?  When’s the last time I actually got to run my ‘A’ race?

day of ‘A’ race: Well, at least the kitty likes it when I’m a cripple.  More weekends sitting around watching tv = more pets.  But not getting to run the race you’ve been training for is kind of like failing to orgasm.  There’s all this build-up of energy and tension and then no release.  You can try lifting weights.  But nothing is going to substitute for that loopy relaxed feeling at the finish line of having entirely drained yourself.  Feeling like a loaded spring all day is way worse than just having a cruddy race.  

I realized I’d hit a crossroads with two stark choices:

(a) Step up my game, hire a coach who can direct me in how to step up my training in ways that result in something other than more couch time with the kitty;

(b) Shut it all down.  See if I can relocate that lovely state of ignorance when I fancied myself a rock star runner for frittering around in the woods for half an hour and finding a bunch of birds.

Do I even have to tell you which way the wagon went?