Intensity

Date: Oct. 7
Mileage: 23.1
October mileage: 124.1
Temperature upon departure: 42
Rainfall: .31"

Everything about my October training plan has been a bit of a struggle for me ... more time crouched over sweaty weight benches, less time on the bike, with the time I do spend on the bike generally of the red-faced-and-huffing variety. This picture I took on Thursday was all about pleasure ... a mountain bike ride with Geoff. That was a day off. The days on, of which I am gunning for five a week, consist of trips to the gym and these lung-burning cycling intervals that I don't enjoy but believe are crucial to my fitness - if only in my own mind.

I still haven't figured out how to integrate my intensity training with the fall monsoon. A workable medium between hot, cold and face-stinging rain is nearly impossible to find. Today I rode the most difficult route in my rotation - the sprint climb to Eaglecrest (which is less of a sprint and more of an energetic chug.) My legs are currently in great shape for such a project, but my lungs protest and protest, and gulping down all of that 40-degree air is not helping matters. By the time I reach the ski resort, my chest hurts, my throat hurts, and my clothing is saturated in enough sweat to nullify all of my rain gear. Then, just like that, I have to turn into the 40 mph descent and its sub-freezing wind chills, blinking back the rain in a confusing strobelight of spruce trees and pavement, until I start riding the brakes because I don't know which way is up and I can't feel my toes.

When I finally reach the bottom of the hill, I'm so fatigued from the climb that all I want to do is tip over and take a nap. But I'm so chilled from the descent that I have to mash the high gears through all of the six miles home, just to stay warm. When I finally make it home, I'm so completely wiped out by my 90-minute ride that I really do need to take a nap, but instead I choke down a lunch for which I have no appetite and slog off to work.

How do people train this way? It's tedious in all of the ways that long, slow mileage is fun. And between the sore lungs from these intensity rides and aching muscles from weight lifting, I'm almost starting to dread my workouts. But I'm not going to quit, because I do think it's helping. I'm finally confronting all of my weak points - the knee crackling and lung burning - and the longer I face my weaknesses, the better I'll understand them, and the more likely I'll be to overcome them when it really matters.

On a lighter note, it seems there are even tackier choices for full-face neoprene masks than the one I posted yesterday. eBay offers a wide assortment of designs, all with their own touch of sophistication. I think I should hold a vote. Which one should I buy?

Choice B: The full-face skull mask. This one says, "My mother never let me dress up as Freddy from "Nightmare on Elm Street" on Halloween, she always made me be the fairy princess, and now I just want to light things on fire."

Choice C: The bald eagle. Never mind that it looks more like a constipated duck. This one says, "I'm proud to be an American. And I have definitely never lived in Alaska."

Choice D: The clown from "IT": This one says, "Oh yes, Georgie, they float. Down here, they all float! And when you're down here, you'll float too!"

Choice E: The Confederate flag. I won't venture to guess what this design says about its wearer. I think these face masks are marketed toward winter bikers (as in motorcyclists); but I gotta say, I'm not sure about the crowd I'm falling in with here.

Spending spree

So the other day, when I admitted to feeling a little guilty about greedily accepting my big check from the state, I also admitted I already spent it. This is technically true - over the summer, while I was dropping something in the range of $1,300 to build up my Pugsley, I promised myself I was doing so on PFD credit. But there are those nagging facts that the credit card bill has been paid, I still have a big guv'ment check trickling my way, and I have needs, real needs, itchy needs that recently erupted into a full-blown case of spenditis.

The first box from Sierra Trading Post arrived today. Inside was a badly needed pair of new trail-running shoes (because, yes, I am in the process of blaming my current foot woes on my assortment of terrible shoes. My overuse injury is definitely not my own fault, no way.) Also inside was this sweet new Marmot winter shell, all waterproof Gortex with all the pockets on the inside to keep your Power Bars and fruit snacks from freezing. I ordered the size large, which is a bit of a tent on me - plenty of room for a mixture of fleece layers, a full-sized Camelbak, and maybe a down coat that could be purchased sometime in the future.

Then today, while lamenting about losing an eBay auction for a sleeping bag, I finally bought the GPS I have been eyeing for a few months. Garmin eTrex Vista HCX. I was mulling all kinds of different GPS gadgets and their perks - heart-rate monitoring and elevation profiles and the like. But when I read somewhere that this one could record the points where you've traveled and relay them back to you should backtracking be required, well, I was sold on this one. Maybe someday I will care about how high I've climbed or how far I've come, but for now, with the whole big world threatening to leave me lost and wandering forever, I'll be happy with something that can simply tell me where I've been.

Among the other eBay treasures I have my eye on:

A Marmot -40 degree down sleeping bag. Never mind that I may only end up using it a couple times a year, and that I would have to travel quite a distance to camp somewhere where it even gets this cold. This bag would be my security blanket, my pacifier, and if I can somehow acquire it for a slightly less bloodsucking price by buying it used, I will cry warm tears of relief.

Two pair of Golite vapor barrier socks. All the warmth of wool, with none of the weight. The overcautious auction description promises that only a few people in thousands would even actually enjoy wearing these, given that they don't breathe at all. But given my love for Neoprene and PVC jackets, I think I may be one of those few.

A down coat to go under the shell. Also not a definite need. But can you tell I've become really, really obsessed with staying warm?

I really don't have any ideas for ski goggles dialed in just yet. I am skeptical of anti-fog claims ... every single one is dubious at best if you ask me. But I am looking for goggles with a clear lens, and probably just something really cheap so I won't feel bad about ruining them by supergluing a duck-bill-like flap of neoprene across the bottom (that's the best idea I've had yet when it comes to avoiding irreversible frost buildup.) If anyone has any suggestions, let me know.

I need a new face mask. Don't roll your eyes. Really, would you be able to resist something so delightfully tacky?

Almost like fall

Date: Oct. 4
Mileage: 46
October mileage: 101
Temperature upon departure: 41
Rainfall: .01"

When I first moved to Juneau, a friend told me that the Native people of Southeast Alaska had a dozen words for rain, a dozen words for wind, and nothing to denote the seasons. That's obviously a complete fabrication, but when the gray days really start to stack up, you begin to wonder what that would feel like ... to believe things never changed.

But every once in a while you wake up in the morning, and the day just feels the way you think it should, the way you think October should, the way October used to feel, back when you didn't live in a temperate rainforest, and the Pacific Ocean didn't hold the temperature hostage, and the leaves didn't stay green until they died, and things changed.

Maybe it's the morning after a the first frost, after the night sky was so clear that the stars burned into your retinas before you could close your eyes. Even when heavy fog moved in with dawn, you knew it was still clear and bright up there somewhere, and you intended to find the sun.

Maybe you used your mountain bike to look for it, pedaling through the sticky air as your breath swirled in cumulus clouds around your face. The leaves crackled and disintegrated beneath your tires, only slightly less green now that they'd died. But as you climbed into the strengthening light, the leaves almost seemed yellow. Even orange.

You climbed until the frost rematerialized, holding the dead leaves hostage beneath white capsules of ice. You climbed until your breath felt hot against your face and the sweat trickling down your neck nearly froze en route. Then suddenly, almost without warning, you emerged from the fog into the blazing truth of morning ... a morning so clear the sky burned navy blue against the snow-capped peaks; the sun burned your retinas until you closed your eyes, and saw stars.

It made you think about they way October feels, the way October felt in all of those Octobers passed. Maybe you were sprinting down neighborhood streets with bags of candy, or standing in line for a concert, or cycling through an inferno of red maple trees in upstate New York. Maybe you were scrambling on granite outcroppings in the foothills with a kite in your hands, the way you did in junior high, with the cotton string wrapped around your wrist as you climbed. You let the kite go into the cold wind, watched it tumble and swirl over the abyss, watched it catch a breeze and dance in air so crisp and sweet you could taste the possibility, the promise of a new year, the promise of fall.

And you think it feels like that. Almost.