Blood, Sweat and the Body Electric

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Healthy Herd Instincts

The other day I was letting my mountain bike rip down the last steep section of an old mining trail. It was a hot 90 degrees. I was drenched with sweat and coated with red dust and the speed-created breeze felt good. With the front fork bouncing wildly, I came around a narrow bend and saw a jeep pull quickly off to the side of the narrow road to make room for me. I hit my brakes and climbed up a bank alongside the jeep, with two young guys inside. I nodded a greeting.

They looked surprised at the sight of an old guy making a hairy descent. One of the guys smiled and yelled, " Good for you!"

As I passed, I yelled a "thank you" back over my shoulder and enjoyed the last drop.

I recalled a thought-provoking 2009 article in the NY Times by Clive Thompson, entitled "Are Your Friends Making You Fat?", in which he explored a newly described phenomenon called "social contagion." Of course, it's not news that people influence each other. Consider it was 2500 years ago when Aesop, a Greek slave and philosopher, smartly observed that "A man is known by the company he keeps." But Thompson had a new slant. He said scientists are discovering that ideas and behaviors spread just like physical diseases studied in epidemiology.

What caught this TOJ's attention was that the scientists had studied the behavior patterns and health of the many thousands of participants in multi-decade study of heart disease being conducted in Framingham, Massachusetts. What they discovered is significant. People with bad health habits tend to socialize with one another -- the smokers hung around with smokers, fat people hung around with others with poor dietary habits. Likewise, people with good health habits tend to hang with one another. Evidently, the behaviors and habits are spread by the very act of socializing.

I thought about the truth of this. My fellow exercisers are more alike than we like to admit. Without thinking much about it, when together we naturally share information on diet, wellness, fitness, improving performance, training and gear. Sometimes we do it without even saying anything, like by what we serve when people come to dinner.

When I was putting my bike on the car rack after my ride was over, I thought about the two young guys in the jeep. I hoped the exercise bug spread like a highly contagious flu, and that the next time I saw them, they were pumping up the mountain on their bikes.

Don't Judge a TOJ by the Size of His/Her Shorts

On the Fourth of July over thirty years ago, I was at the start of a five mile race on a then-dirt road that runs along Horsetooth Reservoir, just outside Ft. Collins, Colorado. I had lined up in the second row behind the really fast people wearing singlets and skimpy dayglo shorts. Although I was in good shape and expected run the hilly course in pretty good time, I wasn't a serious racer with any expectation of placing, especially with some of very competitive local runners I recognized in front of me, including one who would soon be one of the top 10K road runners in the U.S.

One guy caught my eye when he took up a position almost right in front of me because he looked like he didn't belong there. He was large, with tent-like baggy shorts and ridge of fat bulging from under a x-large T-shirt. I wondered if he was arrogant or just plain ignorant lining up where everyone most of the field would have to run around him in the first hundred yards.

But when the starting gun fired, he pulled away from most of us and quickly disappeared over the first hill, with the lead pack, in a cloud of dust. By the time I crossed the finish line, he was relaxing with some other early finishers, laughing and drinking a beer. Later when they announced the results, I found out he had finished fifth. He had come within a minute of the winner, the guy who would go on to national fame and a contract with Nike. The heavy mystery runner had come from somewhere up in Wyoming. I never saw him again, but I never forgot him.

I thought of him when I picked up a book called Shape Up with the Slow Fat Triathlete by Jayne Williams, a large athlete who has weighed upwards of 240 lbs. and has also completed over twenty triathlons, among her other athletic accomplishments. I enjoyed her book for lots of reasons. Although it talks most directly to women, the book is full of useful facts and suggestions on training, attitude, competition, clothing, nutrition, and health. With humor and light heartedness, she addresses everything from Lycra and energy gels to hydration and the color of healthy urine. Her words have the authentic ring of experience; when she describes a greasy concoction to help avoid rubbing your butt raw on a bike seat during a long ride, you know she has been there, done that. The core information is pertinent to athletes of all ages and genders, including TOJs.

But it's not the facts that drew me to her book. It was because she conveys such a deep and abiding love for exercise that is shared by every TOJ. Reading her insights, you realize she has fought personal and physical battles to be athletic, starting with being a heavy woman in an body image-obsessed culture and rising to the real challenge of moving that body with skill in one of the toughest endurance competitions. The simple laws of physics dictate that a heavier runner will expend more energy and effort to cover the same distance as a flyweight. And the heavier runner will endure exponentially higher forces on his or her joints, especially the knees.

"Heavyset" and "endurance sports" seem to be concepts that are at odds, but Jayne proves that is just conventional (and wrong) wisdom. Exercise is fun and good for everyone. People of all shapes and sizes love it and have a right to participate in any pursuit they choose. Much of what she has to say about heavy athletes is true for TOJs as well. Until very recently, it was an unspoken rule that as we age, we become less active, as if all there is to do when your hair turns grey is to voluntarily resign yourself to a sedentary life of checkers, knitting and television. The cultural signals are all around us. When you pick up a copy of Runners World, you will never see a heavy runner, nor will you ever see a TOJ.

Jayne Williams gets it -- you pursue your physical passions for your own reasons, whether it's a race or a jog in the park. You will likely never win anything. You may never look sleek or strong. Physical effort might be hard for you and sometimes you might get injured. Other times you will become tired and lazy. Sometimes you train like a Spartan and watch what you eat, other times you eat like a pig. The athletic life is dynamic because your body, the weather, the terrain, skills, techniques, equipment, everything is constantly changing. It's what you have chosen to do, despite all odds. It's how you fill your time, like a Zen master sits on a cushion and stares at a wall.

And after all is said and done, Williams, like a TOJ, feels a great sense of joy, humility, and gratitude. In a book with many memorable lines, my favorite reads: "Simply being able to move your body around is something that should make you feel awed and grateful every day." To that, this TOJ would only add: Amen.

Moabing in Moab, Utah

Moab, Utah, lays in a narrow, north-south valley sandwiched between the foothills of the La Sal mountains and the Moab Rim, a red mass of layered sandstone rising a thousand feet above. The core of the town consists of twenty or so blocks strung along State Highway 191, a two lane that is busy 24/7 because few routes go north and south in Utah, where the middle of the state is dominated by some of the most rugged and spectacular geography in North America.

When you drive in miday, you are in a procession of semi-trucks pulling mining contraptions, SUVs bristling with hard core mountain bikes or kayaks, long shiny campers with nicknames like Wanderlust , Subaru Outbacks packed with camping gear, hugh pickups hauling a trailer with multiple-ATVs, and battered pickup trucks loaded with hay. You pass a hodgdepodge of rock shops, motels, motorcycle shops, mountain bike shops, junk food and organic food restaurants, the obligatory Native American arts and crafts store, and a funky store with crystal curtains that looks like head shop.

The mix of hand-painted and neon signage gives you the feeling that the zoning rules are pretty lax, hinting at a frontier, libertarian bent, not the strict order you'd expect in a place with such deep Mormon roots. This may be a resort, but it ain't fru-fru; you won't see any Aspen Insitutute or Sante Fe Ballet here, or meetings of the World Bank. Moab can be very hot, windy and dusty and freezing during the winter. Like all places with a view in the West, some fancy second homes have popped up in the last decade, but not many. Probably too hard to keep them clean, and there is only one golf course.

I first learned about it many years ago from Edward Abbey in Desert Solitaire, in which he described the austere beauty of the canyon country and high desert. After reading about it, it took years to finally visit, but once I did, I've been drawn to it ever since. And when in Moab, I always pay a visit to Back of Beyond Books, which has a great collection of Abbey books (and sort of a shrine to him when you first come in the front door), maps, hiking and biking books, environmental books, and western history.

Moab epitomizes the two cultures that co-exist, with varying degrees of success, in rural resorts in the West: the nature lovers and adventurers with mountain bikes, rafts, and hiking shoes and the motor nuts with ATVs, monster wheel jeeps, and motorized trail bikes. Moab has large and well organized contigents of both. You might say it gives Moab some economic diversity. I think the two cultures get along fine because most visitors don't spend that much time in town, and there are vast expanses for the two cultures to avoid each other. You want to avoid Moab during the annual Jeep Safari in April when the town is overrun by every 4-wheel congifuration known to man. They caravan up every nook and cranny and have contests to see if they can crawl over steep rocks without rolling down. When they roll down and smash their rigs, they then spend all night outside your motel room drinking Bud Lite and welding the broken pieces back together. They next day they head back to the slickrock, leaving smashed beer cans and pools of oil and grease all over the parking lot.

For a TOJ, most times of the year Moab is a paradise. There is great trail running and mountain biking. Moab is best known for the Slick Rock Trail, which is very challenging and, except for the most skilled and well equipped TOJs, potentially dangerous. On some days the Slick Rock Trail feels as crowded and hyper as Breckenridge ski resort on Xmas day. But there are hundreds and hundreds of miles of trails and roads both in the national parks and other public areas outside of Moab. I've found the Falcon series of hiking and biking books very reliable, as well as the Latitude 40 maps, which you can online at http://www.latitude40maps.com/ or find in many outdoor gear shops.

You spend limited time in Moab because it's a long drive into Arches and Canyonlands, truly among the wonders of the world. There is so much to see and do outside the town, which is why you go there, and travelling back and forth consumes most of your day. But Moab is a perfect base camp for your adventures, and you can still enjoy resort amenities like good food (try the Peace Tree for wraps and smoothies or Miguel's Baja Grill for Mexican food) or good beer (try the Moab Brewery).

Moab is a place that deserves to be a verb. It's a place where you go to do things in the outdoors, not just hang out. We just visited there for a few days. I got to run on a back road in a howling wind that drove red sand into my ears, mouth, and eyes, and to wander amidst the towering slabs of Entrada Sandstone in Arches that make you think about deep time. It was great. I was Moabing.

Rite of Passage

The year I turned 50, I entered a bike/run duathalon being held in a small mountain town in the foothills west of Denver, Colorado. It was a a new race, and there was a small turnout of 120 people or so. When I went to pick up my bib, the woman at the registration table told me the race would start with the bike segment and pointed to the start area in a nearby meadow.

I went back to my car, took a long drink of water, pulled on my helmet and gloves, then rolled over to the start. I took a position behind the first line of riders with their front wheels on a rope barrier demarcating the start.

I'd been there only a few minutes when a race official came up to me and said, "Sir, you're in the wrong wave. Your wave is the next one back. Look at your bib." Sure enough, "Wave 2" was scrawled in magic marker in the upper right corner. "Sorry about that," I said. He nodded and smiled, and I worked my bike backwards and made my way to the far side of the rope marking the second wave, which was just forming up. Again, I took a position in the second line as other bikers closed in around me.

A voice on a bullhorn called out, "Two minutes to start." I watched as the riders in Wave 1 hunkered down over their handlebars, one toe clipped into a pedal, ready to go. I noticed that all the people in Wave 1 were all young men. There was not a woman to be seen. Then I glanced around my own wave, which was all women except for a couple of older men scattered here and there.

It occurred to me that it was the first time in my life that I had been seeded in a race with women. I was well aware that many women are excellent athletes and many of the young women would easily beat me. I had come to terms with that years earlier when my daughter scorched me in the bumps while downhill skiing.

But still, when the starting gun sounded, and I watched the wave of young men pumping away up the hill, I felt a mix of anger and sadness. Somehow I felt demoted.

When Wave 2 started a few minutes later, we raced across a flat section that narrowed to a single track making a long climb into the trees. The top racers quickly pulled away, and over the next couple of miles the field spread out. It was a bumpy, winding course. The track was narrow, and rocks and trees flanking both sides made it difficult to pass or be passed.

For the first half of the bike segment, I was tailed so closely by a girl that several times her tire bumped against mine. A couple times she called out "On the left" for me to pull out so she could pass, but I just cranked harder and pulled a few feet ahead to tire her just enough that she couldn't get by.

With about three miles left, which was mostly downhill, we were descending fast through a stand of lodgepole pine that hat been thinned for fire mitigation. The trail was brand new, blazed just for this race. On a tight turn my right pedal hooked onto a stump which had been hidden by a clump of grass, and the bike pivoted and hit a tree trunk, throwing me off to the left where I rolled on my shoulder. The girl who had been behind me hopped over my rear wheel and sped down the trail. Luckily, I had fallen onto soft pine duff. I had a few scratches, no broken bones.

My bike had not made out so well. The right front brake was twisted. I pulled it away from the wheel. The front rim was slightly bent, but rideable. I completed the last two miles with no front brake, but had a smooth, slightly out of control, ride despite a wobbly front wheel.

The 5 mile trail run was challenging because of the high altitude and the leaden feeling you get in your legs when you run after riding a bike. Breathing hard and concentrating on putting one foot in front of the other, I forgot all about waves.

I finished 2nd in my age group of male TOJs. There were only 5 of us. That was the last time I paid any attention to waves or any other measure. They don't matter. Whether riding alone on a trail or running in the Bolder Boulder with thousands of others, the prize is the joy you feel while doing it, no matter where you start, no matter where you finish.

Book recommendation:

Cycling Past 50 by Joe Friel is a good book for any TOJ, whether a biker or not. The first section provides an excellent overview of physiological changes in older athletes. If you are a biker, you'll find plenty of useful information and inspiration.

Into to Self-Made Road to Hell and Back

The Self-Made Road to Hell and Back

Age is no guarantee of wisdom. The Zen Buddhists say you make a heaven or hell of the place where you stand. It's true for where you ride bikes too, though I didn't know it at the time

A couple years ago, I decided to go ride the first 20 mile stretch of the Kokopelli Trail, which starts a few miles out of Fruita, Colorado, and winds all the way to Moab, Utah, over 140 miles away.Kokopelli Trail goes up, over and through mesas, sand washes, canyons, slickrock and desert. It is well known in Colorado biking circles, though few people do more than the first few miles of it. I had never been on it. Most of my biking had been confined to high mountain single track or jeep trails that looped out and back. But one day the Kokopelli called my name to come ride it.

I ordered a booklet online called "Kokopelli's Trail: The Utah-Colorado Mountain Bike Trail System," written by Peggy Utesch in 1990. It described the entire trail, though backwards from where I would start because it followed the trail from Utah to Colorado. The book included distances in tenths of a mile to turnoffs and noteable milestones like cattleguards. The introduction consisted largely of cautions which I skimmed through to learn more about the route and terrain. Reading the book made me excited to hit the trail. The ride would be rugged,remote, solitary and challenging.

At daylight Saturday morning of the ride I gathered my gear, checked my tires and brakes, got a couple bottles of ice and water for the two cages on my bike, and put an energy bar and some sunscreen in a small rucksack hanging from the handle bars.

When my wife saw me packing the car, she asked, "You have plenty of water?"

"Sure, I'm only going 20 miles. I should be fine." I figured I'd be out there for three to four hours at most. I remembered running many times over the years in the desert outside Phoenix, Arizona, where I got in serious water/heat trouble only once. I liked heat. And I'd biked way beyond that distance many times.

"How about some food?" she asked.

"I have an energy bar," I said.

"That all?"

"It's enough," I said, feeling stuffed from a large bowl of cereal and some grapefruit. I was carbo-loaded.

"Take the cell phone," she advised.

At first I didn't want to. It was going to be on a ride in desolate country. Why would I need a cell phone? There probably wouldn't be cell coverage out there. When I started to balk, she insisted. I tucked it into the rucksack. No big deal, it was lightweight.

She drove me to the start of the trail, near the Loma exit off I-70. We got there about 8:30 am. Our plan was that she would go back into Grand Junction, 25 miles away, to shop or whatever, then meet me in four hours at the Rabbit Valley exit, another 20 plus miles from where she was dropping me off.

I waved happily as she pulled away. It was a beautiful May morning in the desert. I had glanced at the temperature guage before getting out of the car; it was aleady in the high seventies. I took a swig of ice water, and started cranking up a dirt road to find the Troy Built Trail, the first leg of the Kokopelli Trail, which is actually a loose chain of single track, dirt and paved roads, deer trails (which I thought was a joke when I read about it) and, sometimes, a cairn here or there to indicate where there was no visible trail at all.

The trail started with a steep uphill, first over a wide section of loose rock, then onto slick rock with frequent layers of sandstone steps. I realized why this trail was considered "technical" and "difficult." You immediately dump lactic acid into your leg muscles because of the angle of ascent and the effort required to pull the front tire up and over the many long, irrregular rock steps.

When the trail leveled off, I was already sweaty and paused to drink some water. I knew I was generating a lot of body heat, but it felt like the air was waming fast too. The sky was clear and the sun was beaming down. While the scenery was fantastic, I couldn't spend much time looking around. In several spots, the trail followed along a sandstone ledge only a few yards from sheer dropoffs that plummeted several hundred feet into the Colorado River, flowing greenish-brown below.

The trail pulled away from the river and went up and down several rocky hillsides with more sandstone steps and loose rock. After cresting an especially difficult section, I stopped and finished off my first water bottle and started on the second.It seemed to get hotter and hotter as I rode for a long time over twisting, gnarly stretches of dips, climbs and drops. The clock was ticking. I had been out for at least two hours, but my odometer indicated I had only travelled a little over 5 miles. At that moment one of the cautions Utesch mentioned in her book nudged into my memory, something to the effect that the terrain could "cause difficulties estimating the time" it would take to cover a certain distance. At that rate it would take 8 hours, way too long.

I pedaled harder, as the trail shook my front shock and my body. Then I fell down for the first time as I tried to hump up a rock and caught my chain ring, tipping me sideways. I wasn't going very fast, so I just got a little scrape on my left arm. Another of Utesch's insights popped into my mind: that the rocky and sandy surfaces of the Kokopelli "diminish traction and speed, which makes climbing and descending ever more hazardous."

I stopped and drank most of the water in the second bottle; the ice had long since melted and the water was tepid. And I ate my only energy bar. I looked at my watch. I had been on the trail for almost three hours. The odometer read around 10 miles, but when I looked at the map, the terrain didn't match where I should be. Something was wrong. I had to be off course.

I thought about it. A few miles back I had come to a three way intersection. Although the Kokopelli is supposed to be well marked, that is not always true, and sometimes when you have your eyes locked on the trail, you miss signs even if they were there. I looked at the map again and realized that I had probably left the Kokopelli and was on Mary's Loop or Horsethief Bench. I doubled back to the intersection and, after pedaling a few yards in each direction, found a small Kokopelli sign pointing north, which felt right.

Off I went, pedaling even harder, but going slower because real fatigue was setting in. I just concentrated on turning the crank, rolling the tires. Finally, a half hour later, I came to a long downhill. It was steep terrain and dropped quickly. I knew I was on course, descending into Salt Creek.

The trail narrowed to a notch on the mountain side, and footwide mix of sand and loose shale. As I braked a little too hard to slow my speed, my rear wheel skidded off the side of the trail. I flipped and slid down the side of the slope for about twenty feet in a mini-avalanche of loose rock. Slowly I scrambled with my bike back up to the trail then glided slowly the last quarter mile with my foot down and rolled up to the bridge across Salt Creek.

Finally on a flat spot, I paused to survery the damage. Not bad. I was bleeding from abrasions on my right arm and leg. Also I felt something warm on my scalp. Just below the back of my helmet a rock had grazed my scalp and blood oozed there too. Nothing serious. I biked across the bridge and short sand flat to the ascent on the other side, then got off the bike to follow a steep switchback up through rocks. Then the trail went almost straight up. It was unmarked and just a feint line in the rocks. I remembered a reference to the a deer trail that rose steeply. Maybe this was it, maybe it wasn't. My odometer was no longer useful for navigating because I had deviated off the trail for an hour.

I laid my bike down and sat down to assess the situation. I had been out for just over four hours. I was out of water. I remembered Another Utesch caution: "It is impossible to overemphasize the importance of taking and drinking enough water when riding in the desert." I felt stupid, but that was no time to grovel in self-criticism. I know what it is like to be very tired, but this was different. I was totally exhausted and dehydrated. My muscles were trembling. My glycogen and electrolytes were depleted. I had bonked. If I miscalculated my next move, I could get in trouble.

According to my watch, by then my wife would be waiting. If I had guessed my location corrrectly, I still had 8 or 9 miles to go. If I didn't show up in a couple hours, she would go to try to find help. I decided right then to abort the trip. I looked at a map and saw that the Rio Grande railroad, which was only one hundred yards away, would lead back to I-70. I got back down the hill, and walked my bike through the cheatgrass and willow, and climbed onto the trestle.

I biked a couple of bumpy miles over railroad ties, the black creosote sticking to my tires in the heat, out to the freeway, luckily without encountering any trains. When I climbed onto I-70, I tried the cell phone, but there was no signal. So I biked on the side of the freeway back toward the Loma exit. At the top of a slight rise near the exit, I picked up a signal. I called information and asked them to connect me to a bike shop in Fruita. When the bike shop picked up the phone, I told them about my situation and told them I would pay $60 if someone would come pick me up and drop me at Rabbit Valley.

Thirty minutes later a college kid in a shiny silver Audi showed up. He gave me a funny look and asked if I was ok. I told him I was just tired and thirsty. I guessed I wasn't the first he'd seen beat up by that trail. He sped me up to Rabbit Vally, where my wife waited, hot (she had turned off the AC to conserve gas) and worried. By then it was just under 95 degrees, over five hours since she dropped me off. I thanked the kid, paid him, and off he went. My wife looked at me and said very little. She didn't need to.

We went back into Grand Junction and stopped at Starbucks. I was covered with dirt, streaked with rivulets of sweat, and, here and here, trickles of blood. I went into the bathroom and washed the worst of it off.

Then we ordered some drinks. I got something iced and sweet. It was a Venti.

Postscript: Two weeks later I returned, after having studied a couple more books, including Dan D'Antonio's "Mountain Biking Grand Junction and Fruita" and David Crowell's "Mountain Biking Moab," which has a good description of the Kokopelli. I also was armed with a GPS, plus I had two water bottles (one with a sports drink loaded with electrolytes), a camel pack, and several energy bars.

I doubled back down the trestle, and continued up the deer trail that connected to an easy jeep trail at the top of the mountain, just a few hundred feet up. I finished the first segment, then completed the second segment a week later. Someday I will return for more of the Kokopelli. If you are interested in finding out more about it, go to the Colorado Mountain Biking Association at

www.comba.org or Colorado Plateau Mountain Biking Assoc.at www.copmoba.org.

Kokopelli's" Trail : The Utah-Colorado Mountain Bike Trail System : Route 1 : Moab to Loma (Canyon Country Series Number 22) (Canyon Country Series, 22)