An Exercise in Branding: Hard Girl Spring

Early this year I registered for two races, the Whistler Back 40 endurance race and the Sturdy Dirty all-women’s enduro. As I've mentioned previously, in my old age I’ve decided it’s okay to care about races, finally overcoming the feigned apathy all the local dudebros cultivated when I was racing in college and after graduation. I also now have riding friends who don’t judge me for my try-hardness. In fact, they celebrate it, which goes a long way toward me accepting and overcoming my bullshit.

 
And I cared a lot about these two, especially Back 40, a race that all the local speedy boys raved about, in a format I really like (timed stages with untimed transfers), on fun hard trails.

Even though I did really care about these races, I had the somewhat freeing knowledge that I had no hope of doing well at either of them. For Back 40, I didn’t know the trails well enough (and actual pro Whistler girls show up sometimes) and for Sturdy Dirty, I also didn’t know the trails and I simply am not fast enough downhill to be competitive.

But I did want to give it my best. I dubbed my "training regimen" Hard Girl Spring, an effective branding exercise that I let my friends interpret as they wished — half decided it was about fitness, and I used that to goad them into longer rides, and half decided it was about riding hard features, and they used that to goad me into hitting scary things I wouldn’t have dreamed of prior to this year.

El Diablo was the capstone of my "ride hard things" project

The strategy was effective. I didn’t really do enough high intensity riding to be at the pointy end of the Back 40, although coaching with the new kids XC team definitely helped, but I was fit enough, and I unlocked a new level of bravery, which somewhat improved my race descending.

Back 40 was during my dear friend Ursula’s bachelorette weekend, which conveniently was in Whistler, and she graciously gave me the okay to disappear for half a day to race.

A most excellent bachelorette crew

On the first stage I felt relaxed and strong as I picked off rider after rider on the steep climbs, and then mostly didn’t get caught on the descents even though I was really worried about that. The downhills were fun and technical and at the edge of my comfort level on my little bike at race speed.

After the day heated up and fatigue set in, I dragged my sorry ass up the last and by far hardest uphill of the day. I barely survived the final descent, my upper body crying from 5K of intense climbing. But I finished without crashing a single time, and pedaled slowly back to our vacation rental in the village and tried to recover so I could switch into party/drink/club/dance mode.

I truly loved racing XC in Whistler

Then I discovered I had placed fifth! The field was small, around 20 women total, and I was definitely toward the back of the serious racers, but I was still pleasantly surprised. I don’t usually like repeating races but I’m so excited to drag all my friends up there to do the Back 40 next year (after properly whipping them into shape).

For the Sturdy, I prerode the trails twice and felt excitement and trepidation. I registered for expert because that’s obviously where I belong in an enduro but then the courses were announced and the pro category had a longer course than the experts. And only the pros got to race all of Predator, the much ballyhooed double black trail at Tiger Mountain that I happened to really enjoy.

So I upgraded categories, as did several of my friends. I wanted to do the longest ride, and I wanted to relieve some of the internal pressure I was already feeling. I expected myself to podium in expert, and I knew if I didn’t I would be shatteringly disappointed, and if I did I would immediately discount it because “it’s not a real category.” Yes, being in my brain is terrible when it comes to racing. This is why I stopped pursuing it seriously. Holding myself to an unreasonably high standard would be fine except that I STILL refuse to adequately prepare or train to my fullest ability. So I just need to chill.

This isn't even all of us. Amazing day

We rolled down to the race with a huge crew of Bellingham women, which made the already festive event even more fun. I told everyone my goal for the day was to finish first, which is obviously stupid in an enduro when the uphills aren’t timed, but I just don’t like prolonging the nerves before each downhill.

I finished the first three stages totally clean, relaxed, happy, having so much fun, so far ahead of the rest of the pack, and feeling like I was almost kinda racing downhill well for the first time. It all came a bit unglued on Predator, where I had some very ugly bobbles and a silly crash, but at the finish I was elated to have a goodish race.

I am faster than I used to be but still haven't unlocked downhill race mode

I ended up being total pack fodder, sandwiched by all my friends very near the bottom of the results list. And based on comparable times, I wouldn’t even have podiumed in expert, the horror. But, I reasoned, I have raced the pro/open/A category at many races and been so sad about how tiny the field was, sometimes not even big enough to fill out a podium. At Sturdy, the pro field was huge, from actual world class mountain bikers to tentative, uphill-loving me.

Also it was just a damn good time with my friends. Hard Girl Spring was an absolute success.

Our House

So we loved it here, of course, how could you not once spring hits, every day sun-warmed and be-blossomed and life-affirming after the Big Dark, the smells and sparks of new growth and lengthening dusk so intoxicating. So yes, this is home. But Cy wanted a Home, capital H. 

He made persuasive arguments even though I had been eyeing the balance sheet and was not compelled by emotion because of the pure calculation: we could live forever on the fat largesse of selling our house in Idaho, or we could spend that excess down to buy a house, but what happened if our landing strip ran out, what about a serious injury or job loss or cancer or other emergency? There are things in life that eat up hundreds of thousands in one fell swoop. 

But then, you know, the AI bubble loomed, and then “we” went to war, and fungible assets felt a bit unsteadier, a bit less of a security blanket, a bit less compelling compared to that biggest and least fungible security blanket, a house, in a place we loved with all of our hearts. 

And why be a dragon, covetously hoarding gold for no purpose, when we can still very comfortably exist with the pile of gold somewhat depleted? 

He did the shopping and I held it at arm’s length because I have a bad habit of getting VERY invested, and I’ve grown too accustomed to getting what I want — my husband, my last house, my job, our last rental — so I don’t do well with disappointment. But then this big nice 20-year-old house with a dog-friendly yard on a dead end street next to an arterial pathway popped up and we put in an offer the day it posted.

Despite the loan officer finagling that made us doubt our life choices (“We don’t care what you have in the bank, why do you earn so little as a couple?!”), we were nimble and liquid and decisive and good at e-signing and collecting tax documents and answering emails.

Obligatory closing day photo

After closing, we got the keys a bit before noon and were moved in by the end of the day. A friend offered a hand and I told her we were already finished, explained that when Cy and I are both turned up to 11 we’re a formidable team, strike mission speed with no amphetamines required. We both hate the in-between, the butt scratching, the disrupted and disorderly life, so why not sprint for a day or two rather than turning unpleasantness into an ultramarathon. 

And then we were in the new house and I had my reservations, because we had been in the rental for three years and it had broad kitchen counters with capacious cabinets and was a little closer to our favorite swimming hole and I had to game out my new bike routes to work and shop and trails — and as I learned, and Cy greeted with zero surprise, apparently I am not great at coping with change — but here we are two weeks later and the yard is ripe green and the bedroom is cool and quiet and the neighbors poke their heads over the fence to say hi and Cy has a workspace in the garage for the first time and my pedal to work is shorter and everything is good. 

Really good.

Some Things I Thought About in 2025

Music in All Its Glory

I read Mood Machine, the book about Spotify, and it really reinforced how I’ve been trying to be more intentional about listening to music the past few years – only taking recommendations from humans and listening to new releases as whole albums rather than surrendering to algorithmic playlists that are undermined by the platform’s desire to underplay, and thereby underpay, real artists, and replace them with vibe-based facsimiles. 

Also NPR Music tickled my nostalgia so hard by doing a 25-year retrospective on the hosts' favorite or most zeitgeisty songs of each year – exactly the same amount of time that I’ve been a conscious consumer of music. I knew, and loved, most of the songs they shared from the opening notes. I like that I keep abreast of music. As with so many things, I am a creature shaped by my father and he is very dismissive of people who let their taste in music calcify. 

One album I was really excited about this year was LUX by Rosalía. All the critics drew the inevitable Björk comparisons but honestly I’m not familiar enough with her work besides Post for that comparison to resonate with me even though intellectually it feels apt. Rosalía more so reminds me of Beyonce in that she seems like an utter perfectionist, with a firm and exacting grip on her creative vision. She injects meaning and intention into every single reference, sample, word, and inhalation. Big Virgo energy, really – I never believe in astrology except when it makes sense to me, a Virgo, who is also a control freak. 

New Athleticism 

Being a control freak has been a disadvantage in mountain biking. I’ve had to be open to letting go and being willing to fail or be buckwild or go fast just briefly, as an essential step in losing some of my fearfulness when I’m on scary trails.

Always trying to be braver

Then on the other hand, in cyclocross, even though I didn’t have a great year results-wise, it was my best year yet in terms of maturity and effort – I had several races where I was forced to try as hard as I could, with a grit and good attitude I never used to possess. I hope to keep getting better at both aspects of cycling, being brave and trying hard, in 2026. 

Abundance and the Weaponization of Liberalism

I can’t resist the *discourse* around Abundance, every liberal’s favorite or most-despised book of 2025. The discourse is more fun than the book itself, which is quite adequate. Having covered local government as a reporter for almost ten years, first in Idaho and now in Washington, it’s been interesting to see the realities of government impediments in a blue state – Washington is famously second only to California in terms of being hard to build in. 

I’ve actually heard conservative Washington elected officials say with longing that in Idaho, planners will approve a development proposal scrawled on a napkin. I’d love for the conservative county commissioners of my former Idaho home to hear that – they’ve used the exact same phrase to bemoan their own perceived government overreach and extol the lax planning policies of even more rural communities. Perhaps these napkin submittals are apocryphal. 

Napkins aside, I’ve already seen much more weaponized public process in my short time in Washington. Homeowners here couch their NIMBYism in much more culturally accepted jargon about the environment and vulnerable communities rather than only using the NIMBY 101 tropes of traffic and noise. As someone who pretty much just thinks building more housing is a good thing, it’s hard to suppress my raised eyebrows when I hear these anti-growth dog whistles. 

Still Hating Generative A.I. 

I can’t stop reading think pieces about all the ways it’s bad and destructive and deeply lame and how it’s infantalizing our population. (Here are two of my favorite grumpy reads on the topic: Why Does A.I. Write Like … That? and The Reverse-Centaur’s Guide to Criticizing A.I.)  

I’m afraid my complete intransigence about it might mark me as intellectually incurious – I’ve never tried using one of the LLM tools or generated a single image or video because it would make me feel unclean, and I scroll past Google’s stupid A.I. search synopses as quickly as possible. But I don't think A.I. offers anything novel. It’s just the residue of human knowledge scraped off the internet and repackaged in the most basic way possible.

I’m not sure feeling so much antipathy toward A.I. is productive and it makes me unpleasantly dogmatic in casual conversation but my god I hate it. 

Eudaimonia

I discovered this word and held it in my cupped hands like some kind of gorgeous moth. I feel intellectually and emotionally stimulated at all times. I have a deeply fulfilling job and financial stability. I have lots of great friends to do fun things with and an amazing backyard in which to do those things. I am blessed with a relationship that’s better than any fantasy, that never feels like work, with a partner who is 100% on my team and who constantly amazes me with his empathy and creativity and humor and awesomeness. It feels contradictory to the heinous reality of everything that’s happening right now, but in most ways my life couldn’t be better.

My loves

Baker!

As a backcountry skier I’m in the middle of the spectrum among my friends. To me, summiting a volcano isn’t a huge deal or a bucket list item I have to spend months preparing for, but I’m definitely not bagging peaks all the time. And aside from that one failed attempt on Hood, I actually haven't done any volcanoes, so I was excited to head up Baker on Tuesday. 

When we moved here, we were quickly adopted by Jon, a guy who’s fresh out of college and probably the most rabidly enthusiastic skier I know. In the Tetons it’s easy to live and breathe skiing — not like there’s much else to do, and you’re only twenty or thirty minutes from any given parking lot. But here the riding is distractingly good (and much closer) and the snow is consistently inconsistent and so dang far away. That doesn’t adulterate Jon’s glee though, so he’s always the one trying to reverse our slump into non-skierdom each winter. 

As spring arrived, he had a mission to get us to ski Baker. Cy had various ailments and prior commitments that kept him from doing it but when Jon told me there was a choice weather window coming in 48 hours, I decided to shirk my duties that day. 

We had a call on Monday to talk gear and timing. I reminded him I wouldn’t be an equal partner on the hill. I have zero glacier travel experience and only a nebulous understanding of what all the ropes and dangly bits are for — don’t fall in a crevasse is the number one rule, I guess? And I know tackling an objective while operating with a guide or mentor mentality is more fatiguing than being with a peer. He said he was understood and was looking forward to that aspect. Fortunately I was confident that, unlike in the usual guide-client partnership, I could hold my own on fitness. 

We left the trailhead at 4:30 a.m. We were both wearing running shoes for the three-mile dry walk on trail, but Jon changed his mind at the last minute and instead we committed to some semi-heinous PNW-style forest 'shwacking in exchange for a lot more on-snow time on the descent. 

We started skinning up the first col as the sun rose. The snow surface, pebbled like a lizard skin with ice crystals, was firm and slick. I churned forward, feeling good until the track got steeper, the snow got icier, and we climbed into a wind tunnel at the toe of the glacier. I longed for ski crampons. During a snack break I had a small crisis of confidence. Wind plus icy skinning always makes me feel vulnerable and irrationally scared. Cy has dealt with me in this deer-in-the-headlights mode several times. 

But the wind let up and we strapped on boot crampons and my mood immediately improved. The crampons made me feel beyond safe, like a superhero she-panther stalking up the steep pitch, the snow the perfect firmness for fast side-pointing progress.

We summited with little ado. We needed to wait for the snow to soften up on the main descent and Jon had his eyes on the Park Headwall, a slope that had already received the right amount of sun. The extra ski meant we had to climb back out of a hole, but I was game.

Jon dropped onto the perfectly slushy pitch with fluid, powerful arcs. When it was my turn I realized the slope was much steeper than it looked — 50 degrees, we later confirmed — and I shakily made clumsy hop turns, my eyes glued to the row of bergschrunds below. Is this bad glacier travel behavior? An intermediate skier hopping for her life in a no-fall zone? Maybe. 

Something I’ve realized about Jon is that he’s such a good skier and spends so much time with other good skiers that he sometimes forgets that the downhill, not the uphill, can be where someone falters and finds their limits. As a result, I have accidentally followed him into some scary places where I'm in over my head. I learned to ski as an adult and only started feeling proficient a few years ago, and skiing has taken a backseat in Washington. But I have survival fundamentals, and I did indeed survive the Park Headwall. 

We were still on a steep, hot slope when we switched back to uphill mode and I tackled another of my fears — transitioning in steeps. Cy has coached me through this several times to help me overcome the irrational terror of falling backward and the more rational terror of a vital piece of equipment sliding away, never to be retrieved. I am generally a meticulous person and being meticulous is essential when you’re managing gear in the steeps. 

With crampons back on and my skis safely strapped to my pack, I was back in control, happily punching steps into the snow. I felt remarkably strong even as we exceeded the vertical gain of my biggest ski day ever. Then we skied delicious bonus turns on the Roman Wall, skinned up again, and enjoyed 6,000 feet of the best, most consistent corn skiing I’ve ever experienced. 

After we picked our way down the snowy banks of Grouse Creek, I bumped up against bonk-flavored frustration for the first time. Jon called a reset and we doffed sweaty clothes and helmets, drank water, ate snacks, and prepared for the thankless final ‘shwack. 

The day went as well as I could possibly have hoped. We did the volcano quickly, in good style, in perfect conditions, and as a smooth team. 

Even though I’m relatively inexperienced with big objectives, I’ve done so much backcountry skiing (and have benefited from Cy’s gear and knowledge largesse). I have a very light setup that I'm comfortable with, I have a tried and true layering system, I know how my body and brain work (and yes, as usual, I didn’t eat enough, but I never actually bonked), and best of all, I have so many years of endurance stored up in my legs that climbing feels almost effortless. 

The next day I was riding home from work and saw the snowy behemoth on the skyline. I didn’t expect it to have an effect on me, but I got goosebumps. I skied that!

Bougie Ski Vacation

We flew back to Bellingham from the Tetons on a sunny clear morning and as usual I spent the entire flight with my nose pressed against the window, devouring the landscape. 

It’s a landscape I obsessed over for a decade. I’d trace lines on the map, piecing together routes to travel on foot and ski and bike and car, and then bushwhack up drainages, chase dead end trails, tiptoe over airy ridges, and get turned around but always refuse to turn around. 

I peered down at Teton Pass and tried to pick out the treed slopes we pillaged during our two days of skiing. I watched the march of mountain ranges east to west from the Wyoming state line through central Idaho, the geographic names bubbling up from my random access memory: Pyramid Peak, Mosquito Creek, Garns Mountain, St. Anthony Sand Dunes, the Lemhis, Pahsimeroi Valley, Salmon-Challis National Forest.

We planned for a quote-unquote Ski Vacation, something I’d never done before: flying with skis, booking a car and a short-term rental with a hot tub. Bougie-like. But our secret vacation hack was renting a house within blocks of several friends and coming equipped with a decade of knowledge on where to ski, what to expect from the weather, timing, and aspects, where to eat, and how to avoid ever turning left in traffic. 

We arrived in the middle of a little storm that blessed us with supremely excellent backcountry skiing. And we spent plenty of time with friends, slipping back into the exact same conversations all over again, relishing sharing so much history and so many stupid jokes, the sense of being known by the people you are enjoying unstructured time with. 

We sought out only a few of our many Teton Valley acquaintances and they were kind enough to give us a lot of their time on the skin track and at The Wolf and on the tailgate and on the chairlift and in their homes and in our hot tub. 

After they left, Cy and I talked and agreed that, honestly, we don’t miss the place at all. We drank so deeply of the Tetons and upon return found the cup empty. We are so happy with the life we’ve found in Washington. It's even better than we could have hoped when we severed the line of comfortable familiarity holding us to Driggs. 

But my god I love my friends. I can remember the first time I met each of them, at trail days or on the chairlift or at parties or trying to find new roommates. 

I have made some really good friends in Bellingham and I’m so excited to build a shared history with them too, but I’m so grateful for my time in Teton Valley.

Big Wow vs Little Wow

I was unemployed for a year and a half and got to experience a lot of big wow - a stellar, once-in-a-lifetime ski season and then moving to a new place and diving in, devouring it whole. I am guilty of overly romanticizing the free times now, conveniently forgetting the hours spent glazed-eyed looking at my phone, feeling restless, unfulfilled, and lonely. 

But there was so much big wow in getting to know a new community and a new landscape with the luxury of all the time in the world - long meandering runs and rides, trips to Canada, the ability to say yes to mid-week invitations, and the motivation to exercise constantly until I felt invincible. 

Now I'm mourning all that, kind of - the loss of spontaneity, the loss of fitness (I am really deeply sad about this one) - while acknowledging all the little wow at my fingertips: a standing coffee date with my coworkers who are so wicked smart and plugged in; riding to town unless it's raining, in which case the bus is lovely; the windows of time where I am free and thus value the outing so much more; being part of a company I'm proud of; still finding incremental improvements as a mountain biker; my weekly shift on the assembly line at the food bank, where I can be my parents' daughter and do manual labor with blunt force efficiency and anticipate the logistical needs of all the volunteers before they can even ask. Such a teacher's pet, I am. 

I have a lot more thoughts roiling around inside of me as the sun sets on 2024 but writing makes me tired because I do it constantly (happily) so instead here's some lighter fare. 

My year in culture 

Favorite album 

Short n' Sweet, Sabrina Carpenter - I could not stop listening to this impeccable pop gem. She's so GD funny and horny and she wears all of her influences on her sleeve. 

Favorite song 

Screamland, Father John Misty - Maybe it's recency bias because I just found this orchestral song but I am loving its massive crescendos and crashing soundscapes. 

Favorite nonfiction 

Number Go Up - One helluva yarn about crypto that includes some mighty fine reporting. 

Favorite fiction

Menewood - This didn't come out in 2024 but I don't care, this book (and Hild, the first in the series) rocked my world. It's astounding, powerful, lyrical, suspenseful, deeply human. It has every element of my favorite hero's journeys, from the scouring of the Shire to Lyra Belacqua plus Sabriel and the machinations of Game of Thrones, but with the nature writing of Ernest Thompson Seton in the landscape of Watership Down. I already want to read it again.

Runners-up in fiction

The Vaster Wilds - Beautiful and visceral. 

Good Material - A lovely and easy and funny book about the existential pain of break-ups.

Most overrated book 

James - This book has been showered with accolades and I just don't get it. I was never entranced by the Huck Finn extended universe but I think a reimagining could have been a lot more elegant and lot less anachronistic than this. 

Best long read 

The Penny Problem - "The United States has created for itself a logistical problem so stupendously stupid, one cannot help wondering if it is wise to continue to allow this nation to supervise the design of its own holiday postage stamps, let alone preside over the administration of an extensive interstate highway system or nuclear arsenal."

Best newsletter 

Little Fire Burning - My friend Amanda does beautiful things with words and I thought she absolutely nailed post-election sentiment with her piece "A Great and Difficult Transformation." 

Best TV show 

Industry, Season 4 - Messy riveting can't-look-away TV. 

Best movie 

Challengers - My pitch to everyone is that while this was advertised as a sexy romp (and it still is that) it's actually mostly a sports movie. I loved Challengers because I perceived it to be about how our culture doesn't allow elite female athletes to be driven, type-A assholes who only care about winning. 

Maslow's Hierarchy

It wasn't until after our evening bike ride - me and five other girls romping around on the trails a mile from my house, the spring greens so sharp, Baker picturesque on the horizon, the temperature perfect, the dirt dry but grippy - that I realized yesterday was the one-year anniversary of us moving here. 

First trillium of spring

It felt like only days ago that I stood in a semi circle around our shitty pit fire with my wonderful friends in the backyard of my home in Idaho. I felt so much love welling up in my chest through the final weeks before our departure. Adult platonic love really is something and I'm grateful to have so much of it in my little chosen families. 

One last good sesh

After we moved, it was pretty darn good for awhile. I've written about that a lot, about all the new experiences and wild adventures and constant novelty. But nagging at me was this sense that I hadn't really begun to live yet. I didn't know until I didn't have a job how wrapped up in my self image work was, how even though I was comfortable financially I was super uncomfortable feeling untethered, imagining my friends and family thought I was an indolent wastrel, having a beer with lunch, going to barre class, surfing job descriptions but rarely applying because I was too picky, looking at my phone all the time.

Exactly a year ago

And life was really so great besides that, but then suddenly the door opened at the one place that I really wanted to work, and I stole into the foyer and set about making myself indispensable. Everything I've learned, from my parents at my first job up to the myriad often painful lessons of my chosen career, I poured into giving them the best impression possible. Wow, I wanted them to say, she's so communicative, so fast, so responsive to feedback, so professional, such a great writer. 

(She's also a weirdo who loves playing dress-up)

The first article and the second and the third were easy, and then I got an assignment that really played to my strengths, and I knocked it out of the park. And they kept pitching me stories because one of the reporters was on leave, and then this week they said, does it make more sense for you to be on staff? and I grinned like a crocodile. 

Life was good before - I have new friends that I am head over heels in love with, I survived the rainy season, I'm really fit, I volunteer at the food bank to feel less bad about the state of the world - and now I have a job. The job. The job that I wanted for a whole year. 

The people here...

PNF

Brevard makes me a little angsty. I wrote about that almost ten years ago too - I'm starting to repeat myself. When I lived in California and Idaho I felt starved for constant canopy and wanted to drink it in every time I visited, but I'm getting plenty of that now. This visit, I felt less desperate to get out on the trails that I know so well. But I still went for a few runs, and the forest still grabbed me right in the same pleasure receptors that it always does. 

The forests of Washington are more beautiful and lush and primeval but Pisgah exists in my bones and flows in my blood. 

It's not even particularly lovely this time of year, just the mottled gray-brown of organic matter and the big bare tulip poplar stands casting their bar code shadows over the coves, the intermittent green of the rhodo and laurel. It's the only time of year that you get some hints of topography, ridges and subpeaks normally blocked by foliage. The smell of sun baked leaves is so strong it sits in your mouth and in your nose. It's quiet except for the punch of footfalls through disintegrating ground cover, the diverse bird call, the pugnacious chittering of tree vermin. 

For some reason running in Pisgah makes me want to write, maybe out of habit since I used to scribble something down after almost every run, before I was getting paid to do so. I just did it out of pleasure and necessity. 

I told Morgan that and she hypothesized that it's because the forest is so storied, so ancient. Yeah, I'd buy that.