Veterans Day 8K

About twice a year, I go for a run. That's enough for me.

On a fluke this morning, Geoff and I entered the Southeast Roadrunners Veterans Day 8K race. I never quite know what to expect at these organized events. But when we showed up at the starting line 10 minutes before the race began, I think I expected to find a little more than two race organizers and about 13 other racers huddled beneath a tiny blue booth.

At 10 a.m., the small group was off, pounding the snow-packed path beneath eye-stinging flurries of snow. I watched the runners disappear behind the first bend, and just like that, I was all alone.

So I continued through the icy forest, thoroughly enjoying my iPod mix and thinking that I probably could run faster than 7 mph - but why kill myself? At mile 2, Geoff passed me hot on the trail of some young guy, followed by the only other woman I saw in the race, a few more men, a couple of old guys and finally, a 9-year-old boy. Then I was alone again and knew I would be for the remainder of the race. I stopped at the 2.5-mile cone, tied my shoelaces that had been flopping around for a mile and a half, took a few deep breaths, and began to jog back.

In the end, I finished dead last with a time of 45:37. That's 2 minutes behind the 9-year-old boy and nearly 10 behind the other woman. Geoff of course finished first in about 31 minutes, and then he jogged back another mile to finish the race with me. I guess a could let a performance like this hurt my self esteem, but I'm just not a runner and feel I can't really complain about 9-minute miles (a pace which, if it weren't for the stress on joints, I feel I could continue pretty much indefinitely - much like riding 15 mph on the road.) This is how I like to do these things. I don't like to be willfully uncomfortable, even in a race, but I don't mind going comfortably forever. I still maintain that the reason I finished dead last was because the only people willing to show up for a race across snow and ice in a 30-degree snowstorm were probably focused runners, and crazy ones at that.

But enough of this hike/board/ski/run nonsense. Time to get back on the bike.

Improbable

Date: Nov. 7
Total mileage: 18.8
November mileage: 151.9
Temperature upon departure: 39

Geoff and I made plans with friends to go cross-country skiing in the afternoon, so of course I went for a bike ride in the morning so I could actually do something fun with my day.

Not that I hate cross-country skiing - entirely. It's just something that I have spent a year trying to learn, without the benefit of any gained skill. And it's hard to willfully to do something that involves spending half the day at varying levels of out-of-control, usually preceded by horror and followed by pain. But I go and I try to be a good sport, even when the little voices in my head remind me how much easier it would be to just ditch the useless sticks and walk.

We started out at EagleCrest, crossing a muskeg bog and weaving through the forest. I don't remember exactly how many times I fell (and for reasons I'll later explain, I thought a lot about it later in the evening.) But it was quite a lot. One of those times, my wallet fell out of my coat. I didn't realize it at the time.

We finished the route and decided to drive all the way across the valley to the frozen-over Mendenhall Lake. The snow-covered ice was fast and fun, and without any hills or logs or gravity to trip me up, I was loving it. As we approached the glacier, a dark animal crossed our path. We argued for a bit about whether it was a wild animal or a dog, but as it loped gracefully across the ice, we slowly began to realize that it was a lone black wolf.

If you squint really hard and use a large portion of the right side of your brain, you can make out the little black dot in the lower right side of this photo. That's the wolf, as captured by my crappy camera. He looked a lot closer in real life.

We glided all the way out to the glacier and back, returning to the trailhead well after dark. When we arrived at home it was 7:30 p.m. I had spent an hour and a half on my mountain bike and five hours on skis. And that's when I realized my wallet was gone.

I tore apart the house looking for it, hoping beyond hope that I had left it home all along. But as I began opening and closing the freezer and dishwasher, the dark reality had already set in - I had lost it, somewhere between my house and miles and miles of frozen wilderness.

So, sore and tired from a daylong adventure, Geoff and I headed back up to Eaglecrest with our headlamps and two bicycle headlights, retracing on foot each gliding step we made earlier that day. I stopped at all of the spots where I could see obvious body imprints, digging around for a while with no luck. The wind that tore through the treetops all day had finally died, and all we could hear was the squeak and crunch of our footsteps in the snow. Above our heads, the crystal sky opened up into millions of sparkling stars, more than I think I have ever seen since I moved to Alaska. "At least it's a nice night for a walk," Geoff said. I just growled.

We returned to the car and Geoff began to walk toward the second half of the figure-8. "It's not that way," I said. "I only took one fall on that entire stretch, and Holly was right on my heels at the time." I remembered that fall perfectly, and described it to him: Going down a hill, I hit a buried log and fell forward on my own skis. She said something about how I my body stance stayed the same even as I went down, like I didn't know it was happening. Geoff told me he knew the exact place I was describing, and it wasn't that far down the trail. I wanted to put up a fight. I was fatigued and hungry and ready to go home and cancel all of my credit cards. But I relented.

We walked a half mile down the trail as I continued to describe all the other things that managed to stay in my pockets: $1.95 in change, $4 in one-dollar bills, 2 fun-size Kit Kats, 1 granola bar, an unused wad of toilet paper, and my giant archaic digital camera. I was still trying to convince myself that I never had the wallet on me, and started to launch into another florid description of my fall when he shined his light right down on the now-exposed log - and next to it, a little black rectangle with the tell-tale rubber band wrapped around the back. My wallet ... a little frozen, a little snowpacked, but still wrapped around each and every one of its valuable contents.

A wolf sighting and a the proverbial needle-in-a-haystack, wallet-in-the-wilderness ... in the same day. What are the chances?

Powder suck

Well, I made good on my promise and went snowboarding today. Actually, I take that back. I went hikeboarding today - meaning I hiked my board up a mountain, and then I hiked it back down.

Nearly two years off a board has washed my memory of the fact that I am really not very good at it. Especially when the condition of the snow is 18" of wet powder atop a base of rocks, squatty spruce bushes, and the spiny, skeletal remains of Devil's Club shoots. It's really too bad, because the day started out so well.

We started at the base of a closed-down Eaglecrest Ski Resort, with temperatures in the low 30s and huge snowflakes falling from a partly cloudy sky. We found a well-packed trail and marched up to the top of the mountain in less than an hour. Staring down at 1,400 feet of vertical, I was giddy - "I could do two more of these today," I thought. And the view from the top was great.

Unfortunately, the drop from the top was sheer and we are but novices coming off a long hiatus. It was not the time to launch into a black diamond run. So we hiked around the face and started at a spot that rollercoastered slowly downward, with several hills that involved a progressive repetition of: inching forward on my back edge; carving a single turn; shooting at an uncomfortable speed down a straight line; digging my board into one of the aforementioned spruce branches; finding my momentary thrill as I shot into the air; before tumbling face-first into two feet of loose snow that had roughly the same density as liquid lead. After the flailing, digging, swearing aftermath finally set me free from my snowman cocoon, I'd hike up the next hill and start anew.

This process basically continued for 1,400 vertical feet - except for when we reached lower elevations, the bushes actually stuck out of the snow, and I was struck through my pants more than once by painful Devil's Club spines. When I finally reached the bottom, it was nearly two hours later, closing in on sunset, and I was exhausted. Geoff fared a little better - but not much. At the base, he immediately threw his board back on the car and spent the few minutes of remaining daylight cross-country skiing.

I think it was a smart move on my part to take up snowbiking last year. All the other gear-assisted winter sports are just not my friends. Oh, I'll keep snowboarding. Just point me to the groomers.

Into the gray

Standing outside my office, 3:30 p.m. yesterday...

Standing outside my office, 2:30 p.m. today ...

9" of new snow means ...

Not going snowboarding Thursday would be a crime.

I voted for Pedro

Date: Nov. 7
Total mileage: 19.7
November mileage: 133.1
Temperature upon departure: 22

Wow. I'm fried.

I'm also too hopped up on Diet Pepsi to quite quit the computer yet, so here I am, still - after 11 straight hours of this - watching these election returns trickle by, and blogging.

Newspaper journalists and politicians are alike in that they live for three things - natural disasters, wars and election day. I too got caught up in the ballot-day frenzy, participating in loud whoops and rounds of applause in front of the TV, gnawing on practically petrified pieces of Domino's pizza, updating CNN.com every five minutes, and scrambling in the final, stressful hours of the morning to lay out all of the late-arriving stories. It was a roller coaster of an evening, and I leave it feeling a little despondent.

I expected this. All of the candidates I would have voted for lost - soundly. My vote - had it existed - wouldn't have even mattered. U.S. House Democrats trounced the incumbent Republicans - soundly. It could signal changes in the direction of the war and the economy and the environment.

Or, it could not.

I set out on my mountain bike before work today, relearning how to negotiate snow-packed roads. People moved dream-like through a nearly deserted downtown, with entire streets full of tourist shops locked away from the icicles. I caught a soft pile of sandy snow with my front wheel and side-swiped a guard rail. I had to laugh at the way simple things can so easily become hard.

I crossed the bridge into the dark shadow of Douglas Island, its towering mountains locking away direct sunlight until spring. As I rolled over the bridge's summit, I noticed a strange figure circling an intersection roundabout - otherwordly at first, but as I got closer, I saw glasses, a frizzy wig, and a wheel - a single wheel - spinning through the crunchy snow. I squinted at his sign and prepared to shoot him my best icy stare as I went by what I was certain read "Vote for Palin."

But when I finally met him face to face around that ice-slicked circle, I saw what he was actually advocating.

"Vote for Pedro."

And I realized what he was actually saying was, "Smile. It's all just a silly game anyway. And, regardless of your feelings about chimichangas, all of your wildest dreams can come true."

And I couldn't help it. I smiled.

Just vote

Tuesday is general election day.

Don't forget to vote.

I won't be, because I am a L.O.S.E.R. After raving about how much I hate all the bureaucracy that goes into registering to vote, I promised myself I'd do it. Then I put it off, and put it off. Then, finally, I went into the DMV. I waited over an hour to apply for my driver's license, and when I asked for a voter registration form, they informed me that I had missed the 30-day cutoff.

Shoot.

That doesn't mean I can't do endorsements though, for those Alaska voters who were coherent enough to register in the state they live in.

If I could vote for governor, I'd vote for this guy: Andrew Halcro.
Sure, he doesn't have a prayer of actually winning this race. And it's easy for me as a non-voter to say I'd quote/unquote "throw away" my vote on him. But he's a former Republican state representative who got little liberal old me to root for him, so I can't be the only one. Plus, I have this hang-up about wanting to "throw away" votes on the delusional hope that important leadership positions will be filled by people who are smarter than I am. Tony Knowles might be. But Sarah Palin? Eeeeeeee.

If I could vote for Congressperson, I'd vote for Diane Benson. I've only ever lived in states with embarrassing loyalty to out-of-touch career politicians (please, Orrin Hatch anyone?) But Don Young? 17 terms? Please, please, please stop the madness. But speaking of throwing away votes - Geoff tells me he's going to cast one for Juneauite Bill Ratigan, who is running under a party called "Impeach Now." This irks me to no end.

As far as national races, it's almost hard for me to say what I'm rooting for. I'd like to see the Democrats take control of Congress, but at the same time, that would mean hang-ups and squabbling and vetos and little-to-no action from the Legislative/Executive branch for two whole years. Actually, on second thought, that would be wonderful. Go Dems!

But no matter how you feel about the whole thing, you might as well take five minutes Tuesday to show up the L.O.S.E.R.S. like me, the ones glancing wistfully as we pass bustling polling places, and cast a vote. I'll be the one awake until the wee hours of Wednesday morning waiting to see the results (I have to - it's my job), knowing full well that I had no say in them.

Sad.

Cold on the road

Date: Nov. 5
Total mileage: 29.0
November mileage: 113.4
Temperature upon departure: 21

I took roadie out this morning for a spin across Juneau. It was a great morning for a cross-town ride, with the sun beating down on streets so dry that the salt streaks crackled, and so deserted that I heard little else. People for the most part seemed huddled in their houses, with the exception of a massive gathering of ice skaters on the (barely) frozen Twin Lakes. As they swirled and scuffed the blinding glare of the transparent surface, I realized I could look right through the ice and see lake grass swaying beneath them. Those skaters are truly brave pioneers of the early winter, I thought. And we're all in this together.

I realized that today was the first time - ever - that I have taken out my road bike in below-freezing temperatures. That in itself is a daunting endeavor, because even the smallest streaks of black ice can take those skinny tires down without even flinching. But today was just cold and dry enough to ensure crunchy roads, and I was feeling fast.

I tried a different sort of cold-weather cycling ensemble today because I hate to do laundry like to experiment. Although I own all the good gear, I'm becoming more convinced that you don't actually need to spend money on a bunch of new gear to survive - and even enjoy - winter cycling. Here's what I wore today:

- 1 pair fleece pajama bottoms that I stole borrowed from my sister
- 1 ratty old polyester T-shirt
- 2 fleece jackets, one that was purchased at The Gap and another that was a Grand Canyon souvenir
- 1 pair ski mittens, no liners
- Balaclava, purchased from Nashbar for $5.99
- 2 pairs cotton (gasp) socks
- 1 pair winter hiking boots (full disclosure: these boots are rated to -20, although I think that rating only applies if the wearer is actually walking)

That lack of exterior shells made for really good moisture circulation, and even though I was working fairly hard, I didn't retain much sweat. The double polar-fleece layer provides a decent windblock even at speeds of 20 mph and temperatures in the low 20s. Feet are always the hardest part of the body to keep warm on a bike, but lacking good insulated shoes, wool and/or neoprene socks can provide plenty of warmth. And if that fails, you can get off your bike and walk until your feet warm up.

So here's my challenge to you: If you think you might be interested in cycle commuting during the winter but don't want to drop your entire PFD check on a bunch of new clothing, try experimenting with the stuff you have. Most people who live in a cold climate own cold-weather gear; it's just a matter of figuring out what works best for you.

Sweat a lot? Better layer up. Anticipating a wet snowstorm? Break out that old ski bib that's been in your closet since 1987. Own anything made of wool? Great. Use it. Socks especially. Avoid cotten, but recognize that as long as you're not soaking your shirt through and through with sweat or precipitation, it has the same power to keep you warm as the latest polypropylene blend (Still, avoid it, though, because you can and will sweat. Wet cotten is like wearing an icicle suit.) Look at the labels on the clothes that you no longer wear, the ones that have been abandoned to closet rot. Those nylon dress pants wick moisture away like you wouldn't believe. Polyester makes a great base layer. Maybe your dad has an old leisure suit stashed in the basement that you could substitute for your usual NYU sweats. Over it all - coat, gloves, hat. Everyone owns those things.

There's a lot of positive things to be said about having a $700 Gortex coat and N.E.O.S., but it's my unpopular opinion that as long as you own winter clothing, you can be a winter cyclist.

Just be creative.