My two homes

(Picture taken Sunday at Knik Glacier, Alaska, posted with

other great pictures on a MTB forum thread.)

(South Window Arch, Arches National Park, Utah)

Geoff and I have started planning a spring trip to Utah. In the back of my mind, I'm thinking, "Do I really want to go back to Utah this spring? Why not save the vacation time to do something really cool ... like bicycle camp my way to Inuvik?" Despite the appeal of visiting friends and family, sometimes thoughts of Utah dredge up a 'been there, done that' sentiment.

I still can't deny - despite my current location in Juneau and 'born and raised' familiarity with my state of origin - that I'm completely enamored with Utah. I've become more lost inside myself within the shadows of towering sandstone canyons than I have in my wilderness treks through trail-less Interior Alaska. I've been gripped with more primal fear in the rushing rapids of the Colorado River than I have standing in the path of a grizzly bear. I'm always quick to defend my home state when Alaskans ask me how many 'sister wives' I had back home, or when they tell me how much Salt Lake City "stinks." ("You mean like that smell wafting in right now from the salmon hatchery?" I say.) But when people ask me when I plan to leave the land of snow and ice to return to the land of salt and sand, I always reply with a confused stare. What? Leave Alaska?

Sometimes I wonder if I'm here by the sheer pull of similarity. Utah is home to the many of the most remote areas of the Lower 48. Alaska is just remote. Utah has the suffocating heat and desolation of the desert. Alaska has the paralyzing cold and desolation of the tundra. Girdwood is basically Park City with a hippy problem. Anchorage is basically Salt Lake City with a moose problem. Homer could double for Moab if you replaced mountain bike and ATV-riding with halibut fishing. Even where I live, Juneau - which often seems like no place I've ever seen before - could find a lot in common with the Beehive State residents who live to ski and ski to eat (someone here told me once that Alaskans eat the most ice cream per capita. I had to dispute that one loudly, too.)

But there's something about Alaska - something that draws me further away, even as I spend my nights dreaming about redrock. Something that keeps me up at night, scheming about all the places I have yet to see. It's big. It's wild. It's full of life (Isn't that right, Anchorage tourism board?)

And it's my home.

Better days

I spent less time wallowing in self pity and more time snowshoeing today. It worked out a lot better for me. The trail hadn't been broken since the big snowfall yesterday (about a foot at the trail head ... and seemingly exponentially more as it went higher.) I was buried to my shins in soft powder, swinging my hips dramatically to take the strain off my knees. The fluid motion felt vaguely familiar. I couldn't quite place it. It was like walking in quicksand, or running in a slow-motion dream. My arms skimmed snow drifts that topped out at shoulder level, sending clouds of ice crystals air-born. That's when I realized where I had felt this before. I was swimming.

....

I received a reply from the Fireweed 400 folks. They told me what I was expecting to hear ... No, you can't ride our race unsupported. But the assistant director, George Stransky, did take the time to write a thoughtful suggestion:

"Last year, a friend of mine entered the 200-miler (which we support with Aid Stations every 25 miles and discourage support vehicles and crew), then turned around and rode back to Sheep Mountain. He was not an official finisher of the 400 and did not qualify for RAAM or John Marino points, but he did ride the "400 miles" unsupported. He was just not part of the race. He did, however, get the T-shirt, recognition in the movie (see the interview with number 500), and the satisfaction of completing the distance. And, we were NOT responsible for him on his return journey from Valdez."

Sounds like a win-win situation. The thought of entering the shorter event crossed my mind. After 200 miles one way, I'd have to find some way back to the beginning. Why not just ride it? But as I considered it more, I thought ... why enter the race at all? If I'm not an official racer, why not just ride it at a more convenient time? Better yet, why not ride several hundred miles in a more convenient place? I've always wanted to ride the broken loop from Haines to Skagway. At 350 miles, it would be a good week-long tour. Or a crazy 36-hour sufferfest. I can't decide which would be more fun.

But deep down, I know the reason I enter races is to cement motivation for the long preparation. It would be too easy to drop out of a self-styled quadruple century. I have little doubt that I'd never do it, even if I set a date and bought a couple of ferry tickets. There's something about an actual race that brings heavy shame on the heads of the do-not-shows. Better to finish dead last than to not show up at all. Maybe it's those T-shirts they send you. ("Oh, you like this Fireweed 400 shirt? Isn't it cool? Well, no, I didn't race it, exactly. No, I was sitting on my couch, eating Oreos and watching the Food Network. But I entered it. And look, I got this RAAM mug, too! Can you believe they were five for $16.95 at Big Lots?") Who would dare wear a shirt from an event you paid for but never attended? You might as well just slap on a scarlet "L" for "Lazy."

Either way, I'm surprised I'm still considering it so seriously. I need my knee to heal up fast, and get back on my bike soon, before I enter anything crazy. The last thing I need is another T-shirt.

Still can't ride

Date: March 2
Mileage: 1.1
March mileage: 1.1
Temperature upon departure: 11

I tried. I tried.

The bike box was covered in several inches of snow by the time I finally dragged it into the house and sliced it open. I went to work restoring Snaux bike from a duct-tape-covered mass of aluminum and cables to something that might move forward again. But I had to make sure.

Juneau was in the midst of a "blizzard warning," but it seemed pretty tame ... about nine inches of new snow and only light powder falling at the time. Most of the streets weren't yet plowed, so I couldn't just coast and spin easy for a while. I had to set right into the crank, and the knee pain came instantly. I winced through it for a about a half mile, thinking that my knee was probably just stiff and needed to loosen up. But it just became worse. Eventually, my leg started involuntarily jumping off the pedals. If I had pedal cages, I probably would have just let it dangle there. But I needed the leg's dead weight just to keep the crank turning, and the angle of the up-stroke of was too much. I got off the bike and pushed it home.

As I was carrying my bike down the stairs, it somehow slipped out of my hands, bounced a few times and dropped into the yard. I'm not really sure what happened then. I lost it, a little bit. I plopped down beside it and had my own private temper tantrum, right there in the snow, swiping up clouds of cheek-stinging powder and everything. After that humiliating little pity party subsided, I propped up the bike and got out my camera to document the meltdown. I'm not sure why I did that, either. I'm still really embarrassed about it. Why am I writing about it? But it seems important to remember the low points. And today was definitely a low point.

I can't say why I became so consumed with frustration. I'm not exactly suffering, and there are people out there - like Lynda, who broke her collarbone in a mountain bike race on Feb. 17 - who obviously have it so much worse. But I guess that, as with any injury, there is always a lingering thought that "this knee is never going to work again." It's easy to push the thought in the back of my mind when I have an inexplicable little injury with no known origin and no real reason to exist. I can even tell myself that it's all in my head. But when that thought of permanent disability comes raring back ... no amount of denial can hold it off. And there I am, sitting in the snow, clenching my mittens so tight that my fingers hurt and thinking, "It's not supposed to happen like this. Not here. Not now."

I know. So much melodrama. I'm usually even-tempered, but every once in a while I revert back to the maturity of a 16-year-old. It's a good emotional release. I'll be OK. I promise. I even went a short snowshoe hike after that. With all of the new, deep snow, I really worked my calves without putting much pressure on my knee.

I have an appointment at a sports medicine clinic on Tuesday. I look forward to finding out that it really is nothing, that it's all in my head, and that I'm just acting like a toddler.

I want to ride the Fireweed

No bike and no new race updates make Jill crazy.

Here I am, watching some amazing weather blow by - sideways snow, zero visibility, wind gusts to 65 mph, single-digit temperatures, wind chills down to -25 - and I'm thinking "What luck to be stuck indoors with a bum knee."

And I'm seriously thinking that in a sarcastic tone. Because it could otherwise be an oh-so-rare opportunity to really test my mettle.

Instead, I'm surfing the interweb for some sort of summertime dream ... something to burn for now that Susitna's a distant memory. And what I've found - that for some unknown reason has captured my imagination more than anything else - is the Fireweed 400.

Not the 200. The 400. Who knows why? Here is a race for people who own aerobars ... who don't have a tire philosophy based on "the fatter the better" ... for people who appreciate the virtues of pavement and not so much the virtues of peanut butter sandwiches and iodine and filter-top water bottles that you can dip right into a stream.

Maybe I'm just enthralled by the distance. It's a decent month when I break 400 miles (haven't this month, that's for sure.) And I'm enthralled by how much cycling I'd have to do to get ready for such an intense event. Last summer, I spent some time getting better acquainted with sustained mountain biking technique. This year, it would be fun to become more acquainted with rhythm and flow, with cadence, with speed ... to some degree. But I'm not going to drag my flat-barred Ibex touring bike out there with any speed demons on my shoulder. I just want to finish the *$#@ thing. Last year, only one woman completed the 400 solo. Her time was incredible, but if a similar number of entrants finish this year's race, I'll always be able to gun for second. No matter how distant ... second is second.

There's a big hurtle (as I see it) in the 400 with the requirement of a support vehicle. Now, I understand the need for safety above all, of the danger of riding at night on the highway, etc. But there are ways to always ride safely, even at night ... including riding lit up like a Christmas tree and pulling off the road if a car's approaching and there's no shoulder (We're talking rural Alaska. I bet three cars go by in the middle of the night, tops.) And - on top of the fact that I'll never be able to convince not one but two Anchorage-based friends to putter behind me at 13 mph in the soft twilight of the earliest hours of July 6th (and possibly 7th) - I'd just really like to ride it self-supported. The idea is so much more appealing than the one where grumpy friends hand me Clif Bars from a car window and I finish the race one hour faster. I've already e-mailed the race organizers with the self-support question, and expect to be summarily shot down soon enough.

Anyway, I was hoping someone out there could clue me in to some other endurance cycling events happening this summer in Alaska or the Yukon. I need to get Fireweed out of my head.

No bike and no new race updates make Jill crazy.

March 31, 2009 toe update

I have buried this post in the archives to protect the squeamish.

March 2: At the Mat-Su Valley hospital, about 18 hours after I first discovered I had frozen the tips of all five of the toes on my right foot. (Despite appearances, the left foot is normal.)

March 12: This is an "after" picture. My doctor has the "before" picture, taken before she removed black-purple blisters on three of my toes; and the tips, which aren't really shown here, were still gray.

March 26: This is the first day I could truly put all my weight on my toes and walk normally without pain. The general feeling now, four weeks after the injury, is still one of tingling numbness and intermittent streaks of a burning pain. I still have to bandage it daily and still don't wear a shoe on that foot, to keep the circulation moving. As far as the level of numbness now, however, I have definitely had more severe numbness in my hands after long bike rides in the past. To the touch, I can feel most everything, even on the still-calloused tips. And, much to my doctor's annoyance, I haven't yet lost a single toenail yet.

Feeling stronger, but more uncertain

Today is Day 10 off the bike, and I have to admit, it’s killing me ... slowly. Every day, I develop a little more range of motion in my knee. And every day, I take that range a little too far. In the morning, I’m on top of the world and bounding up hills. And in the evening, I’m sore, stiff and frustrated, and rifling through the yellow pages to find sports medicine doctors. But I never call them when the morning comes. This evening, however, I’m announcing my intentions on my blog. Hopefully, it will hold me accountable for at least giving a doctor a call.

Today, I stretched my knee and coaxed it just beyond a 90-degree angle. I started out 10 days ago with a rigid 180-degree leg. After a day, I could bend it to 170 degrees, 160 degrees, and so on. It’s a strange way to heal, and it always makes me feel a day away from invincible when I get up in the morning. Now that I’m about a day away from being physically able to turn pedals again, I figure I should at least seek out some professional advice that I can ignore.

Since my walking ability has been upgraded to almost “normal,” I decided today was the day to do an “up” walk. I laced up my Montrail Susitna running shoes - which I was elated to find on super clearance more than a month ago and still haven’t used - and started pounding up the Dan Moller trail. The trail basically starts just outside my front door by following a snowy path up two unplowed streets, then diverges on a steep singletrack that connects with the snowmobile trail. Since I’ve only ever ridden the Don Moller on my bike, I’ve only ever seen the snowmobile trail. And I realized that today, more than six months after moving in next door, I was hiking up a trail I had never used before, wearing winter running shoes that I had never even before bothered to wrestle out of the closet. And I thought ... wow ... I really do ride my bike too much.

It felt good to get out for a real hike. But it doesn’t help my physical health to be so excited about the Iditarod Invitational. Today’s developments were equally inspiring. The peloton of three cyclists pulled out of Nikolai just before 8 a.m., and rolled together across the finish line at 3:20 p.m. for a three-way second-place tie that trailed Pete by nearly 20 hours. Further back on the trail, the weather took a hideous turn for the worst. -30 degree temperatures coupled with 45 mph winds created wind chills on the pass that were off the charts. After starting the traverse to Rohn, most of the remaining cyclists at that point were turned around with varying stages of frostnip. Several scratched. Another guy I’m rooting for, Brij, opted to wait out the storm. He’s currently at the Puntilla checkpoint, and I’m crossing my fingers that he’ll finish the race.

Either way, I was feeling inspired to bound up the hill in my brand new sneakers, iPod thumping and sunlight blazing off the white snow. The temperature read 11 degrees when I left, and I thought about how beautiful and warm it was here; how enjoyable it would be to go home, ice my knee and eat a Boca burger for lunch; and how much I envied those still healthy and strong, and still turning their cranks out on the frozen Iditarod trail.

350 saga

It's cliche to say, but this really is the kind of thing you can't make up.

Nearly everyone, even the race officials, expected Pete to be into the last checkpoint of the race by midnight last night, and across the finish line before 2 p.m. today - probably well ahead of the three-day mark. When this morning came and went with no sign of the lead cyclist, speculation started to fly. Did he oversleep? Did he burn out? Did the chasers catch him?

When Pete finally rolled into Nikolai at 10 a.m., the truth started to emerge. The trail across the Farewell Burn was not hard and fast ground. It was a minefield of invisible tussocks and ice chunks buried in new snow. Pete fell over "at least 100 times." But he kept riding. And as he trudged over those 90 miles, temperatures dipped beneath 30 below. He wore every piece of clothing he had, and he still felt cold. Sometime in the early morning, he finally reached Buffalo Camp - a wall tent with a wood stove inside, stocked with firewood. He laid out his sleeping bag and crawled into a short nap on the frigid floor, declining to start a fire because "someone might need the wood more than he did."

He left mile 300 at 1:45 p.m., with only six hours remaining before the course record passed him by. Even the current course record holder didn't ride the last 50 miles that fast - and no one knew what the trail was really like. People had speculated it would be hard and fast ... but people have a way of being wrong about these things.

On the homefront, suspense was building. Would he do it? Could he do it? And the best question, the one that floated into the forefront with thoughts of him grinding out frozen miles somewhere west of the edge of nowhere ... did he even care?

8 p.m. came and went with no news. That was it. Gone was gone. Spectators reacted with deafening silence. Then came the blip on the computer screen - just a small blurb, red text on a black screen - "1 Peter Basinger 2/27 7:40pm. A new course record is set!"

With 20 minutes to spare ... almost the same amount of time he lost on Mike Curiak during the course-record-setting 2004 Great Divide Race.

No one knows what he said. No one knows what he saw. No one knows what really happened out on that trail, all alone in the subarctic night, with dozens of miles separating him from anything. That's the beauty of the Iditarod Invitational. There is no crowd waiting to congratulate you at the end, no podium, no trophy. There's no prize money and no sponsors lining up to greet you. There's only you, and an amazing saga that only you know about, an adventure only you experience. And I think that you always know that, and nothing can take that away - even a course record.