Better Than “First Aid”: Ultra Aid Kit Essentials

2019-07-13 Leave a reply

A few weeks ago I was running down a trail with a friend new to the amazing world of trail pounding. And then, they pounded. Caught a rock with their toe and landed with their ankle on another rock. Oof, and there goes a few ligaments.

We got back to the car and I chastised myself for having such a crap first aid kit. Lots of bandaids but nothing truly essential for trail runners or even ultrarunners. Then I started fantasizing about creating such a kit myself and selling it, even a Kickstarter, the whole shebang.

But…. no. Some Kickstarters are lame and mine was about to join them.

And then I got pragmatic. Instead, I’ll tell you what will be in my perfect Trail Aid Kit for your car, and you can craft your own based on mine. No commercial first aid kits tailor to the odd desires of trail and ultrarunners, so this kit might save your butt, or make your ride home far less unpleasant.

TRAIL/ULTRA AID KIT: FOR THE CAR

The reasoning behind each of these is usually self-explanatory, but I’ll elucidate when I have something to add.

START with a basic first aid kit with bandages and the usual. Most normal first aid kits have SOOOO many bandages and not enough of the ‘serious’ stuff. Keep the basic kit and get another sack for your ULTRA kit. 🙂

Instant cold pack(s). For injuries, usually, but also can be used to bring down body temp if you are finishing your run on a wicked hot day (just wrap it in cloth so you don’t frostbite anything, then stick under armpit(s), alternating as needed).
Stretchy compression bandage, any kind. Tons of uses. To hold an ice pack on or create stability.
Technu. (Or IvyX) Ran through a patch of poison ivy or oak? These are pretty much your only option.
Nut butter or other chafing relief stuff.
Electrolytes. Tons of options these days. I have definitely finished runs low on electrolytes because I misinterpreted the heat or the weather.
Space/thermal blanket.
Water filtration. Can help in more ways than you think. If you get to the trailhead and realize you’ve forgotten bottles, take a LifeStraw to purify water on your route (if there’s a stream/spring/lake!). If you bring bottles and run out of water, fill your bottles at a water source and bring it BACK to the car to filter later if you know you’ll be dehydrated.

CAR EXTRAS

Not necessarily in your first aid kit, but in your car: WATER. (If you keep a plastic water jug in your car, change the water at least every month because that plastic will leach… ick.) Also, some dry clothes, possibly a towel, and some calories that are heat-tolerant. Nut butter packets are great. I like to keep some protein recovery powder and my shaker bottle to have something for my quivering muscles on the drive home (or directly to a grocery store for some FRUIT).

Further ideas? What else is something you would LOVE to know is waiting for you in the car as you stagger down the last bit of trail, hurt or dehydrated or (gawd forbid) bleeding? Let me know!

[NOTE: this post is full of Amazon links; buy your gear where you choose!]

How To Induce Existential Terror Using An Inflatable Kayak

2018-10-13 Leave a reply

I found existential terror over just two days on the Green River outside Moab. Packrafting was going to be my next new skill, but it turned out to be far more complicated than I could have imagined.

We’ve all heard people say, “go with the flow“, intending to calm and get others to mellow out and let things happen naturally. Go with the flow even sounds harmless—you just sit back on the proverbial river and let whatever’s around guide your course. But in March, the opposite happened to me. On a literal river, in a literal blow-up boat, facing the flow transitioned into a crisis of self.

What if going with the flow was not calming but rather like trying to let go and relax during an avalanche? Or a dust storm? What if “the flow”, even as a metaphor, is a tsunami-sized wave you can’t stop, and it’s your own personal version of hell and death all rolled into one? And, jeebus, what is wrong with me? Why can’t I have FUN?

Women packrafters outside Moab Utah on the Green River in drysuits

I found myself pondering this and other obnoxiously huge thoughts when I was out on the Green River trying to have a nice packrafting and paddling skills weekend. Questioning my very purpose and meaning was not what I expected. Instead of quickly getting up to speed on stroke mechanics and how to put on a drysuit, I found myself over-metaphorizing the river itself. Each day I tried to navigate my craft downstream with varying degrees of success. I spent all my energy just trying to keep up with the group until I was exhausted, soaking wet, and freezing.

At night, I stared into the campfire and thought about death. Instead of talking to the rest of the women in the circle, I assumed a thousand-yard stare and went digging into that feeling of being out of control. I realized you can’t stop time or the creeping specter of our own personal grim reaper. Time flows, just like that river. You have to try to navigate as best you can, paddling downstream with as much skill as you can accumulate, not going too fast and not going too slow lest you get hung up on boulders or dead-spin eddies along the way.

And the river never stops. Never, ever. Until it does and that of course means you’re dead. But you don’t know if your river will end around the next curve or in the middle of the next set of frothy rapids or a bajillion miles downstream. You. Just. Don’t. Know.

Paddling isn’t so much about making speed. It’s about navigating well, avoiding traps, getting through the rough shit without a boat flip, bouncing over rocks without tearing a hole in the boat, bailing water sometimes, and just managing through everything while that water just keeps going. It feels scary to be pulled downward and to only have the chance to pivot this way or that but never to really stop. You could pull up in an eddy and rest, or spin, but the river still continues and you can’t spin forever. Or maybe you can spin forever, and then eventually your boat deflates and you get hungry and you doubt yourself and hate the water and think things like, “why can’t I just get up on the shore and stop moving and just WATCH!? Fuck.”

And that is how I discovered that paddling was no fun. River dynamics combined with my little human self whipping the paddle back and forth generated an existential terror that I could not face.

But I will. I have to. What else is there, after all?

Hostels vs. Introverts: Homey or Hostile?

2018-07-28 1 Reply

I am not a good hosteler.

I adore hostels. Let’s put that out there. The unique spaces often in renovated old houses with peeling paint and tin ceilings, the shabby common areas, the kitchen full of mismatched dishes and silverware and pots and lids. The clump of people on the porch all chatting with each other and seeming to enjoy it. That, too. And, of course, the reasonable fees to stay at hostels is another huge draw for any traveler, whether frugal or legit short on cash.

And yet, I do not conform to what seems to be the expected social contract one signs when staying at a hostel.

The accepted and expected behavior for a hostel-goer is something like this: check-in while chatting with the staff, say hi to everyone in the hallway, ask about nearby bars and music venues, dump your gear on the bed, wander down to the kitchen to see who’s cooking and who is going to the store for provisions and who is ordering pizza and choose your team, head out to the porch to sit and gab with whomever else is out there, stroll back inside for a bit of unpacking while planning evening activities with your new bunkmates, whether that’s playing guitar in the common area until 11pm or finding nearby social events to drop in on until well past curfew. Sleep, drink free kitchen coffee, repeat.

Playing records for no one but me at Salida Hostel.

Here’s my routine behavior at a hostel: check-in, say a few words to the staff, admire the funky building decor and/or freaky disrepair of said building, deposit belongings on bed while giving a slight nod to roommates, wander down to kitchen to admire mismatched dishes and scope options for meal prep, give a sideways glance to the drum kit set up in the common area, closely inspect the bookshelves for anything interesting, go back to room, get food, cook food, eat food in common area with other people present but reading a book, smile at other people but talk little, play the little portable record player when no one is around, eventually speak at length to the one person who seems compelling on final day at hostel. Leave.

Nothing better than a couch, slippers, and a book.

I’m also uncomfortably aware of some of my social pain-points, so when I am staying at a hostel I am doing what feels comfortable to me but also realizing that I am not fulfilling my ‘duties’. I am comfortable but uncomfortable. I engage little, which results in some curiosity from the other residents, I’m sure. Who is this person? Why doesn’t she hang out with us? Didn’t she hear us offer her some smokey treats if she wanted to chill out in the garage? If she’s so antisocial why is she at a hostel!?

There are folks that I do meet at hostels that I like very much. But they don’t tend to be the people you are supposed to meet: those travelers from a different land, a different creed, a different generation, a different worldview. I gravitate toward a specific kind of friend who in retrospect seems a lot like myself, only “better”. More creative, more inquisitive, more accomplished. But still a grounded adult woman, probably white, probably a little shy, probably a little tomboyish.

Hanna from Oslo and her notebook.

Many people come away from their hosteling experience with friends from every segment of life and planet conceivable. Shy white midwestern gals become friends with that guy from Argentina, that woman from Singapore, that couple from Senegal. That’s hard for me. But maybe THAT is another reason why I choose hostels: there’s something in me that wants to have the ease with others, the ability to connect, the social grace. And in a hostel the barriers are removed almost completely. No need to approach a stranger on the street. They will come to you. They will be on the top bunk to your bottom. They will see your shower clothes and your disheveled suitcase.

In a hostel, the ice has already been broken. So maybe I stay there, in part, to let myself melt a little.

When You Get to Barstow, Keep Driving (Calico 50K)

2018-01-13 Leave a reply

Near to, but not, the Calico 50K course

Outside of Barstow, California, up the literal hill to the north of town, is a ghost town named Calico. To get there, drive east from Los Angeles. Pass Barstow and keep going on the 15 in a Vegas-ish direction (rather than in an Albuquerque direction on the 40) for another 15 minutes until you reach the Calico Ghost Town exit at Yermo. This is where I was headed, to meander in the hills with 99 other runners on a moderately warm day in early 2015.

Every January (barring flash floods), a collection of able adults line up to run through those hills, over sand and desert scrub, paying for the privilege to pin a number to their shorts and get a little too sunburned for a late winter day. The regular visitors (read: tourists) to Calico pay them minimal mind, barely stepping out of the way as the runners finish their half day out sometime between late morning and mid-afternoon, so intent are those visitors on seeing a staged gunfight or spending far too much money on sweet shop fudge that likely came off a Sysco truck.

But for those runners, this is a relatively crucial day in the year, the day when the post-holiday indulgences are bartered against training miles over the last several months. Those runners might have plans for goal races later in the year, say, a hundred-miler far from home, a new adventure race, a destination 100K. Calico can be the first validation—or harbinger—of what’s to come in the spring.

Here’s why. For an ultrarunner (or any year-round competitive athlete, for that matter), what happens early in the calendar year doesn’t hide in the training log. It sticks with a person moreso than any event in December. In December you can write it off as “oh that was during the holidays”, or “oh that was last year!”. In January, though, it’s on the record.

And that’s why the first big test of the year needs to at least not go horrifically wrong. Anything less than a neutral result can be hard to shake (though there are some good ways to cope and move on, if you find yourself in that position), but good or positive or great results can bolster future training through the summer.

It was mile 6 of Calico 50K and I was struggling to get away from the morning’s OYP (Overly Yappy Person). Now, let’s be clear – I did begin some of the conversation by asking this guy questions about his ultra history. But he continued to talk for many minutes after my responses turned to grunts and finally pure silence. I can chalk it up to cluelessness but I still needed to escape. Ah ha! An aid station was approaching and this would be my chance. But the food table starting calling to me and I grabbed a few jelly beans, chewing while my bottle was getting refilled. Abruptly I changed my mind and jelly bean cud went into the aid station trash can. Problem solved!

(Poor aid station trash can, the brunt of all the fickleness of ultra runners or their moments of extreme despair.)

I picked up a few boiled potato chunks, dredged them in salt, and moseyed on. In that moseying my OYP had leapfrogged me and was several minutes up the trail, a fact I wouldn’t realize until much later. But at least I had some silence for a bit.

After the first bout with gentle downhill miles, we racers were ready to trudge uphill. A seemingly gentle grade of about 3 percent, relentless for the next 7 miles, meant that the truly slow were having a hard time already. I was keeping a steady clip of about 11 minutes per mile, which meant it felt neither too easy nor too hard. Good. This grade, from my course knowledge, was supposed to continue and get gradually steeper until the 17 mile mark. I supposed that when it got too steep to run I’d figure out an alternate plan for moving forward.

Around the 17 mile mark. Photo by Geoff Cordner.

I hadn’t done a 50K in well over a year and had no idea what was in my legs. My last 50K had been a mountainous romp more than 15 months prior, in western New Mexico full of fall colors and frigid temperatures. It was preparation for a 100 miler near the Grand Canyon (the Stagecoach 100) later that same year – more apt than I had even anticipated when Stagecoach’s overnight chill got down into the teens, turning cola into slush and catching aid stations and runners alike perilously off-guard. That New Mexican 50K was relatively slow but faster than one in Flagstaff a month prior where I was truly still recovering after a summer hundred-miler.

What does all of this mean? Every ultra is different, but it does mean I’d not run anything resembling a respectable pace—in any event—in a heck of a long time. My fastest 50K, a pretty decent 5:22, was already 10 years behind me. I had no expectation to get near that time for Calico, given the climbs on the course. But I had a difference race that might have tipped me off to some latent potential, and that race is Pikes Peak Marathon. I ran that bugger in 2009 in 6:02, a fact for which I am still proud. With 8000’ of climb, it is a beast of a course.

Now, how does that mean anything for Calico, many years later? Parallels. Training is all about patterns and periodization. In 2009, my weekly mileage was growing well above previous levels of “the 30s” and “the 40s”, averaging 50 miles or so. Despite the fact that that base was created to support road racing performances, it was having a spillover effect in my trail speed. Pikes Peak was a hard race but it was doable by my training level. Speed is speed and lactate threshold is lactate threshold, apparently.

Prior to Calico I had finally gotten back up to some really strong big mileage weeks, and without injury. From marathon training I know that race success for almost any distance is primarily three things: base mileage, specific speed training, and not getting over-trained. Just before Calico I had logged a good number of 50-60 mile weeks with tons of climbing. Much of that was due to my move to Los Angeles and my newfound trail running partner, Geoff. We ran and ran and ran and enjoyed the company through December and January. Barring acute injury, I was strong and potentially a wee bit fast.

Elevating the ankle post-race

Acute injury, you say? Yep! After weeks of high mileage and lots of climbing, I followed that with some accidental low-mileage weeks with a stomach flu and some travel-related sleep deprivation and holiday disrupted training time. Just one week before Calico I put together a devastating combination: I ran a flat 8 miles on worn-out shoes, AND changed the seat position in my car to make my clutch leg extend in a new way. Sounds minor, but no. BOOM. Anterior Tibialis Tendonitis. I’ve had this injury before and it’s not fun. Since then I have increased my recovery knowledge in a big way, so immediately I went with icing and anti-inflammatories. I did not cancel the race, trusting the recovery.

I went into Calico with a lot to lose but much to gain.

I slowly chugged up the slope to the half-way mark around mile 16 in three hours flat. Not bad. Jogging all the way up a hill was not my idea of fun, but I got it done and now it was time for some moderately flat stuff and then a whole lot of rolling downhill. I saw my boyfriend Geoff somewhere around here, leaving the aid station as I arrived. Or the other way around.

As I meandered down the next section I remember someone saying there is a scrambling chute kind of thing and OH YES there it is! It’s actually a bit of a rock slide and I waste a little bit of time picking gingerly down it, babying my foot and my sense of balance. When finally at the bottom I take off again, now in mile 20+ feeling a bit of a surge. There’s a long and gentle downhill that I feel like a luge sled, gently swooping through curves and trying to pick off runners. I get a few, and make my way to the scariest part of the course (to me): the jeep trails.

Jeep trails scary? Yeah, just wait until you see these things. Up and down and up and down at crazy angles with ball bearing pebbles on hard dirt. It’s a recipe for slips and butt slides, but somehow I keep it under control and my ass intact.

Woot! Here’s the final aid station with less than 4 miles to go; they are amazed that I am jabbering and in good spirits. My mood in ultras is often the opposite of everyone around me: slow and morose in the beginning, neutral and apprehensive in the middle, and giddy and “get ‘er done” at the end. It confounds aid stations but makes the end of races a huge morale booster for me when I pass people who have run out of mojo.

The last few miles drag on, and on, despite what I just said. At one point you get within a few hundred yards of the ghost town and the finish, only to loop around again through a distant parking lot and up a steep hill to gain the finish chute (thankfully downhill). I’m happy even if my leg is complaining, and cross the line in 5:44 with a slight negative split and a 1st place master’s female. Sweet.

Finisher’s awards are gorgeous: hand-painted rocks!

What happened with the tendonitis? Proper anti-inflammatories kept it tamped down, but I did have to gimp around a little in the next month and yes, it did play a dampening role on my Black Canyon 100K in mid February. But all in good training, good learning, and a good January out in the middle of nowhere, somewhere east of Barstow, that strangely large little roadside town.

It seems unlikely that folks truly intend to stop in Barstow, whether for a night or for a lifetime. I could be wrong about that. Perhaps Barstow has a bit of hidden charm. Or perhaps it is just not all that much different, for better or for worse, than any other place. When I stop in Barstow, it is for one of two reasons: a pit stop for gas and/or coffee and/or sugar, or staying at a hotel for the Calico 50K.

See you there: January 21, 2018!

Vegas: Unlike Virginia, Not For Lovers

2014-05-17 Leave a reply

Las Vegas is many things to many people, but opinions vary on what it is not. From the surface appearance, it is not for the long-term, the serious, the romantic. In other words, it’s for fast fun frolics. At least that’s what everyone says. I wonder how often the casual-meetup section of Craigslist or the hookup apps crash under the sheer weight of panting people in party apparel.

Now its mid-May and the first blast of heat for Las Vegas in 2014: four solid days of 100-ish temperatures with barely a bit of gauzy clouds to filter the rays. Tourists pound the pavement in search of whatever it is they think Vegas is, with barely a bit of gauzy clothing to filter their derrieres.

The King (of photobombs?)! Photo by Geo Perdis

I use the word tourist deliberately, optimistically, and elitistically, for I no longer consider myself a tourist. In my first few Vegas stops, sure. I “did” the Strip, stayed out relatively late, ate comically-cheap-in-every-sense-of-the-phrase buffets, and tried to not make an ass of myself. (In that last bit, perhaps I’ve isolated myself from many tourists here.)

These days, and this trip in particular, I’m a visitor. I work with Vegas to coax out what I need: wonderful but not stupid expensive food, trail running, social opportunities. Getting lost in the thicket of Caesar’s Palace is amusing and a bit sad instead of exciting, even if Bourdain and Ruhlman lived it up within those walls. In the mornings I escape for dirt pounding on trails south or west of town, or find a local coffee shop a drive away from the hubbub. Note to coffee-fiend visitors and tourists alike: Sunrise Coffee is THE SHIZ.

Las Vegas, this visit, is the vehicle for a group get together of sweets professionals: the 2014 eGullet Confections & Chocolate Confab. I’m no pro, but good friends with some in the bunch, including the amazeballs James-Beard-nominated Rob Connoley of The Curious Kumquat. I’m not a pro, so I’m just spending my time doing writing, researching for Rob’s book, and attempting to take in some of the local non-strip offerings.

I’m not sure what I hope to learn from the stay this time. A trip to a completely divey spot like the Double Down might be awesome. I’ve had Lotus of Siam now, and that is well worth the visit for crispy fried prawns. Tonight will be taco trucks a go-go and hey, sometimes that’s all a person needs.

Please Gawk And Stare at North Korea

2014-05-05 2 Replies

As a modern internet-addicted lazy person, I pondered two wormholes of internet interest recently. They made me think about celebrity culture and our human desire to LOOK. The first was new to me – a family that has spent the last 5+ years documenting every single day of their lives. They seem very nice, and normal. I have no problem with what they do or how they broadcast it. Neither does their 2 million subscribers.

As humans and social creatures, we are all compelled to LOOK.

If you visit countries that have different social and cultural expectations, such as China, you’ll find something stands out – people STARE. If something is interesting, they’ll form a crowd and just look. Americans seem to constantly be fighting with themselves over whether to look at something interesting or do the “polite” thing and walk on by. The idea of “rubber-necking” is frowned upon as something crass and unseemly – wholly apart from any actual risks from the act of looking itself (such as causing another car accident while you drive by staring at one already happened, et cetera).

From Chinese News Daily

In China, if you see something, you look. Because, why not? Interesting things are fun to look at, so what is wrong with looking? That seems to be their attitude.

Source: Off Exploring’s blog

Here in the States we reserve much of our staring and looking for the safety of the internet and tabloids. We don’t want the objects of the staring to experience it firsthand, so we do it by proxy. This includes using paparazzi to get our celebrity cellulite photos for us, and YouTube to chronicle an entire family’s life, day by day. We feel strange or awkward if we were to see one of those interesting people on the street and were caught just looking at them for no good reason.

Where is all of this leading and how can it possibly involve North Korea? It is because in the case of North Korea, we cannot look directly. And yet we must, by any means available.

Rather than spend another minute on the Shaytards, I went back to the haunting photos of North Korea of the daily lives of their people. More and more I searched for photos and articles on what’s happening because it is so . . . interesting.

Source: The Guardian UK. North Korean workers at the Chinese border

Here’s one description of what eating looks like for citizens there: “Food shopping is equally problematic. Staples such as soy sauce, soybean paste, salt and oil, as well as toothpaste, soap, underwear and shoes, sell out fast. The range of food items available is highly restricted. White cabbage, cucumber and tomato are the most common; meat is rare, and eggs increasingly so. Fruit is largely confined to apples and pears. The main staple of the North Korean diet is rice, though bread is sometimes available, accompanied by a form of butter that is often rancid. Corn, maize and mushrooms also appear sometimes.”

Women in North Korea have recently started wearing some amounts of makeup, and it is noted that the reasoning is partially to hide blotchy and unhealthy skin – one side effect of underlying malnutrition. So a country where some people have enough spending money to buy cosmetics in order to cover up the health effects of not being able to purchase real food – that is North Korea.

Source: Guardian UK. Public transit in Pyongyang.

In the last few years, things appear to be getting way worse for an average person. For instance, this spring, outside of the capital city of Pyongyang, food is basically becoming a luxury. Food is actually starting to disappear as a thing you can “get”. Read that again, from a local, “In January, housewives were given two kilos of mixed rice and corn and households received 10 days of rations on top of that. But there has been nothing since then . . .”

There might be little as a single person I can do about the conditions in that country, but perhaps much we can do as knowledgeable humans, collectively. But to be blunt, just start with gawking and sharing what you see with friends and family. Spread the images and the situation far and wide.

Rubber-neck all you want. And then consider what you might be able to do, as wished for by North Korean people.

How’s That Working Out For You?

2013-12-17 Leave a reply

Jonathan Fields is one of my inspirational mentors; his emails help to keep me mentally ruddered. Definitely a good thing. His last email asked the “how’s that working out for you” question. It’s so important to use that question as a way to make sure you are doing what needs doing instead of stagnating.

To get out of stagnation, doing something crazy like skateboarding in Iceland (as seen in a brief image from the upcoming Secret Life of Walter Mitty) is highly recommended, at least once in a while.

So, what movie are YOU seeing over the holidays???

Chocolate Without Sugar = Paleo? Sure! . . . ?

2013-08-18 Leave a reply

Kakawa’s elixir and truffle

Yesterday, the final day of the Ancestral Health Symposium in Atlanta, I was in Santa Fe, former stomping ground of the Robb Wolf clan, sipping on a tiny cup of ridiculously good Aztec style drinking chocolate. The place is called Kakawa and it has seen a handful of owners in the last 15 years but never has the quality of those cups of chocolate declined. At least not that I can tell.

For those more keen on a bit of sweetness, they offer everything from sustainably sourced chocolate bars to handmade truffles with goat milk, rosemary, chile, and even local cherries. Not all in the same truffle. Usually.

On this visit I kept to the drinking chocolate and a truffle, forgoeing the very good housemade ice cream and a gluten-free, coconut-sugar-sweetened brownie that nearly tackled me and snuck into my paws.

If and when the Ancestral Health Symposium decides to alight on Santa Fe, we’ll be ready with treats like this, as well as a vibrant farm scene and some pretty awesome locally raised pastured meats. Santa Fe is ahead of the curve for a town it’s size, and that’s good for all of us.

IFS with Andrea