Good faith effort

Date: Nov. 2
Mileage: 54.2
November mileage: 67.4
Temperature upon departure: 39
Rainfall: .64"

I got a flat tire about six miles from home today. No huge surprise there - Juneau roads are after all approximately 19.76 percent glass. I've had so many flats, in fact, that I started carrying this huge but supposedly efficient bike pump that I never bother to carry, because it weighs approximately 19.76 pounds. Problem is, I never actually tested this pump, nor had I tried to use it. Today was the test run, and I failed miserably.

After about 20 minutes of fidgeting and taking the thing apart, when my fingers became sufficiently numb, I decided that even if this was a working pump, I was not going to figure out how to use it. Across the street were a gas station and the Western Auto Marine store. But I had no Schrader conversion piece for my Presta valves. And no money. Not a cent. I had somehow managed to leave the house with 19.76 articles of spare clothing and no cash.

I clopped in my bikes shoes over to the store, a treacherous journey with those silly LOOK bindings sliding all over the wet pavement, on the off chance that a store called Western Auto Marine sold bike pumps, and that some sympathetic employee might agree to barter my MP3 player for a $15 floor pump. They did sell pumps. Well .. the did sell "a" pump. It looked like it had been sitting there since 1976, seemed to be made of cast iron, and only fit Schrader valves. I felt so lost. There I was, standing in the middle of a store in the middle of town, completely stranded.

I didn't have the courage to ask anyone for so much as a quarter to make a phone call, because I found my situation to be sufficiently humiliating. I could hardly walk even a few steps in my bike shoes, so I grabbed a couple of real estate guides and stuffed them in the bottom of my neoprene booties. Then I put on my extra pair of socks, wedged my feet in, and resigned myself to a six-mile walk home in my sock feet.

Luckily, I live in a small city in Alaska. I hadn't even walked a full block when a crab fisherman named James stopped his truck and asked me if I needed a ride. He took me all the way home. Even though I had wasted more than an hour in the ordeal, I still had enough daylight to (mostly) salvage the ride.

Sufficiently humbled, I grabbed my old pump, an extra spare tube for good measure, and stuffed my pockets full of cash and a credit card (even though I had already decided to ride on North Douglas Island, which has no stores.)

The one blessing of that whole disaster is that it pushed my ride all the way back to sunset. I rode past the glacier beneath the heavily filtered waning light of the afternoon, cast in electric blue hues and framed in gray. I made a U-turn at the dead end and rode up to Eaglecrest, which was absolutely inundated by a downpour of sleet and snow that hadn't quite reached the point of accumulation yet. I felt like I had landed in the midst of an Arctic blast, with sleet so heavy that it actually stung my skin through my coat and stabbed my eyes. I turned around, descended through the rush of Arctic wind and rain that can only be described as cold shock, and returned to the relative calm of sea level. A yawn of blue sky had opened up over the channel, and streams of light from setting sun peeked through just long enough to cast a small rainbow beside the glacier. A fitting end to a strange afternoon.

Warming up to the gym

Date: Nov. 1
Mileage: 13.2
November mileage: 13.2
Temperature upon departure: 42
Rainfall: .58"

I had some time to burn this morning before I had to pick Geoff up from the airport, so I headed up the Perseverance Trail again. The snow was mostly gone, which was not surprising. Driving rain today, and wind, charging north at a steady 25 mph. More of the same tomorrow.

As I'm working on forming a plan for my winter training schedule, I feel like I have to make concessions for the paradox of this common weather: Juneau is just warm enough to be unbearably cold. When the temperature drops below freezing, and precipitation turns to snow, it's much easier to stay warm. When I was a completely uninformed winter cycling novice, I used to pedal around Homer in single-digit temperatures wearing fleece pajama bottoms and three pairs of cotton socks. Totally happy. Now I have a tough time staying warm when the temperature dips below 40, knowing that as long as it stays above 30, I probably never will have a chance to feel warm.

Having tested every piece of gear I own, I know I can stay comfortable while soaking wet in 35-degree weather for about two hours, maybe three if the wind is light. When it comes time to make longer, slower training rides - and I've already blown off a couple - I'm at a bit of a loss. I can't afford expensive new gear that might actually keep me dry (and I have too many doubts to take the gamble). I've actually been scanning the classified ads for used wetsuits. My jokes about riding a bicycle in a single piece of neoprene have crossed over into serious consideration. Then there's my other idea - carrying a complete change of clothes in a dry bag. Or at least some extra layers that I can bulk up with when the barriers start breaking down.

It's an interesting conundrum that I didn't run into much last winter, partially because I lucked out with the weather, and partially because I didn't do many daylong rides. I have more aspirations for longer rides this winter. After stalling last weekend, I was hoping to start the series tomorrow with a simple, four-hour ride. Right now, I can all too easily picture myself blowing it off again, but hopefully I'll make a good-faith effort. Maybe I'll give that dry-bag thing a try.

Sorry to blog yet another weather rant. It truly is, as my co-worker describes it, homicide-inspiring. Geoff came back from Utah today, and I don't think I'll be able to talk him into staying in Alaska if this weather lasts much longer than another week. On the plus side, I am really pleased with the progress I have been making at the gym. I slog through this stuff twice a week, thrice on good weeks, in the back of my mind skeptical that it's working at all. But today I made a bunch of additions to my lower-body weights, with encouraging results. My leg extensions have been by far the most promising. My physical therapist last spring recommended I do these lifts to improve my VMO quad and other knee-supporting muscles. Throughout the summer, I couldn't even lift my legs from a sitting position, once, with no weights, and not feel pain. In late September, I resolved just to wince through the uncomfortable knee crackling and start with a set of 3-5 reps, at 5 pounds. In six weeks, I'm up to three sets of 12 reps with 20 pounds, and no pain. That probably still sounds pretty lightweight, but this is an area of my body that, at least according to my doctor, had atrophied down to nothing as recently as late April. So as far as I'm concerned, I am now Superwoman. Bring on the rain!

Help me ride the Iditarod

Hi. My name is Jill, and I am planning to ride my bicycle in the 2008 Iditarod Trail Invitational. This event is a 350-mile winter wilderness race that follows the historic Iditarod trail from Knik to McGrath, Alaska. In order to get there, racers must pack all of their survival gear on bicycles specially built to ride on snow. Once out there, we must be self-sufficient for anything the Alaska winter can throw at us: wind, snow, flash blizzards, temperatures ranging from 40 above to 40 below, moose encounters, ice overflow, loneliness, isolation ... the list goes on.

I entered this event not only for the challenge, but also for the opportunity to ride my bicycle through 350 miles of some of the most beautiful terrain I can imagine. I am not a career cyclist. I do not have pro deals or corporate sponsorships. I am just a regular person with a passion for cycling - one might say a passion for extreme cycling.

I am self-funding this race on my small-town journalists' salary. It has really cut into the luxuries, but it is worth every penny to me. However, I have received tokens of help from people all around the world. I am always grateful to like-minded souls who generously give not only their monetary support, but also their emotional support. It feels great to be a regular passionate, cyclist sponsored by regular, passionate people.

If you would like to help sponsor my race, you can click on the gold button below to make a donation through the Paypal link. Or you can contact me by e-mail at jillhomer66@hotmail.com. I send to every sponsor a CD filled with scenic Alaska photography that I have taken - some that has appeared on this blog, and some that has not. The compilation now covers more than two years of Alaska living and offers hundreds of photos, open for any use - commercial or personal. I also include a link to blogs or other Web sites in my sidebar under the heading "this blog brought to you by." If you have any questions or recommendations, please e-mail me. And thanks again for reading.

Pugsley's first taste of snow

Date: Oct. 31
Mileage: 13.2
October mileage: 648.1
Temperature upon departure: 37
Rainfall: .98"
October rainfall: 15.65"

This morning, I dressed to go to the gym. Lower-body weight-lifting day. Ug. I thought I should be grateful for the diversion because the weather outside looked monstrous, as usual. But as I walked outside I noticed, stripped ever so lightly below the low-lying clouds, hints of powder white. That meant the snowline was low! Low enough to cover the Perseverance Trail! I had to go to it, to see it, to remember that there is life beyond relentless rain. But I didn't have much time. I ran inside and threw on a fleece hoodie, my helmet, some neoprene booties over my gym shoes, and my snowboarding gloves. With a cotton gym outfit as a base layer, I knew I wouldn't last long out there. But I didn't need long. I needed fast. And I needed snow.

Pugsley and I set out in light, sprinkling rain, but the lack of fenders had me soaked in about 55 seconds. We burned quickly through the late-morning traffic and up the canyon road, hitting the deserted trail in a splash of puddles and scattered leaves, the snowline now mere feet above us. And then, within minutes, it was below us.

I can't call it Puglsey's first snow ride because an inch of warm slush that melts on contact doesn't quite fit the description. But snow was there, coating the canyon like a thin confection glaze, oozing from the treetops and infusing the air with a sweet, metallic taste. I was filled with anticipation I could hardly mitigate. And like a kid who knows the free reign of her Halloween candy is all too temporary, I just had to go for broke.

I launched into a pedalling frenzy, fueled by a sugar snow rush and propelled by the never-say-die burliness of my monster bike. Despite the slush and ice, I was climbing the canyon better than I ever had, clearing a lot of rocky stretches that I usually don't. It's a strange working relationship that I have with Pugsley - it weighs as much as a downhill bike, and doesn't have the suspension that I'm used to, but the big wheels make me feel like I can do no wrong. They instill a confidence that suspension never could. And we burned, really burned. I was sweating bullets and feeling bulletproof.

I stopped at the top of the canyon to take a picture and finally put on the rain shell I had stuffed in my hoodie pocket. I realized there had been a light breeze at my back the whole way up, and it stabbed through my fleece-and-cotton ensemble as though the clothes were made of water, which, for all practical properties of absorption, they were. I knew I could make it home in 20 minutes at a good clip, which is a short period of time regardless of how poorly dressed one is. But I knew it was going to hurt. And I knew how it was going to hurt. And in the novelty of the tiny, sharp flakes of wet snow swirling around me, I took a sick sort of satisfaction in that knowledge.

The descent was short, wet, muddy, and felt like I was on the verge of being sliced to pieces by a chainsaw made of ice. It was everything I needed. For the first morning in a while, I did not miss the sun.

Happy Halloween, everyone!

Choices

Sometimes I wonder about the fundamentals of life. There is food, water, air, shelter; these things are absolute. Then there is human contact, required by all but a few. After that, in deciding what I, as a human, "need," there is a lot of gray area. I have my job, my source of income, which my lifestyle demands I make an effort to keep. But my lifestyle goes way beyond food, water, air and shelter. I have my family, who provides love and support when I need it. But at the same time, I don't feel a strong drive to start a family of my own. What I have left are the optional things I "do:" socializing, reading, writing, studying, and of course, somewhere near the top is the cycling. These things consume enormous amounts of time and I wonder to what end. Certainly they are the choices I've made, but how much do they reflect my needs?

Of course the complexities of human emotions obscure any simple explanation about our needs. If everything a human needed was food, water, air, shelter and human companionship, we would all conduct our lives very differently, and would probably not have evolved into the intelligent but befuddled creatures we are. Some philosophers have hypothesized the humans are motivated by a need for meaning; those who fail to find satisfactory meaning are driven to further extremes. There is a lot of room for religion in this theory. But it also includes the drive of the explorer, who in modern times has few places to go but within.

A couple of autobiographies I have been reading both draw interesting conclusions about the need for exploration in their prologues. As both men prepare to launch into their own amazing tales of misery and triumph, they make simple statements that in essence express a belief that they are not crazy, and they are not brave. They simply did what they had to do. It's not unlike the Buddhist monk who, when asked why he made a walking journey of 3,000 miles by dropping to his knees, hands and face with every step, simply looked away in silence, completely serene.

In "Minus 148," Art Davidson's enthralling account of the first winter ascent of Denali, Davidson writes: "During that summer expedition, Shiro and I caught only a few glimpses of what the McKinley winter would be like, but they were enough to infect us with what many explorers have described as a fever to go back to a region or landscape that has a grip on you. Not really understanding why they go, men have returned to the sea or to deserts, to jungles or to frozen wastes in the Arctic, knowing they will be miserable and frequently in danger."

Gary Paulsen closes his prologue in "Winterdance," his account of the Iditarod Sled Dog Race, by concluding, "I thought any sane man who was in his forties and had a good career going would quit now, would leave the dogs, end it now and go back to the world and sanity. I knew what scared me wasn't the canyon and wasn't the hook hanging by one prong, but the knowledge, the absolute fundamental knowledge that I could not stop, would not stop, would never be able to stop running dogs of my own free will."

It makes one wonder where the line between need and choice truly begins and ends.

In the spirit of giving in

Date: Oct. 29
Mileage: 25.1
October mileage: 634.9
Temperature upon departure: 39
Rainfall: .51"

I had decided to finish out the rest of my week's workouts at the gym; give myself a mental vacation, where I could just lift weights and read books and not worry about my disintegrating rain jacket or the wind cutting through my neoprene gloves. Then I thought, why should I let the weather beat me? I only have a few days left in this training block anyway.

Today: Intervals. Two miles on, two miles off. They're part of my month of "speed" training. Sometimes I think I really do feel stronger, and sometimes I think I'm fooling myself no matter what I do. But since I'm only playing this game against myself, I have to decide whether I win or lose. Sticking to a plan is only fleetingly satisfying, but movement through the landscape always feels like a win.

In the driving rain I look directly at the ground. The scattered leaves on the pavement blur into color bars. The debris - bits of shattered ceramic, an old boot, a quarter I never stop to pick up and neither does anyone else - give me an idea about where I am. I watch my odometer tick away, but wind gusts make it hard to measure my progress by speed alone. So I usually turn up my iPod. If I care too much about the song that's playing, I'm not pedaling hard enough.

I was doing well enough today that I didn't even notice when the shuffle switched over to a song I downloaded a while back, for nostalgia's sake, and promptly forgot I did so - an old song by Buck O'Nine, pop ska music circa mid-90s. Sometime within those two miles of wheezing and streaming and seeing nothing but abstract leaf patterns, I started to huff along with the rhythm ...

"All the water, all the water in my head (Oi! Oi! Oi!); All the water, all the water in my head (Oi! Oi! Oi!)"

Fragments of memories flooded in ... brick walls and red sneakers, cold lips and snow. They meant nothing in the moment, but they carried a vicarious feeling of distant warmth. It was a strange mosaic, beauty without meaning. As I slowed down for my recovery, I started to piece the images together.

And then I remembered ... Basement of Club DV8, Salt Lake City, November or maybe December 1996. Two friends and I went to see an all-ages show headlined by Buck 'O Nine. After the concert, the boy we were with, chivalrous as he was, offered to run and get the car from the many, many blocks it was parked away as we waited outside the building. Being teenage girls, we had worn no winter clothing of any kind. I was probably wearing thrift store cords and a baby T-shirt, or something equally ridiculous. All I remember are the red shoes. And the dry snow swirling around us. My feet were so cold that they burned.

I was dancing around to stave off the numbness when the club's front door swung open, and members of the band filed out. Last was the trumpet player, a tall, chiseled man with black dreadlocks. He was the "cute" one.

"'Sup girls, show's over," he said to us. We smiled. Probably giggled. A little awestruck to be caught in this unlikely position. "Damn," he continued. "You mountain locals are crazy. Don't even wear coats in the winter. If it ever got this cold in San Diego, half the city would probably die." We giggled again. I rifled around in my pocket until I found my ticket stub. "Um," I said, trying to muster my best "I'm-not-really-this-lame" tone. "Could you sign this?" He smiled and nudged someone who was carrying equipment out of the building to ask for a pen.

He handed the stub back to me and I promptly stuck it back in my pocket without looking at it. Our friend pulled up in his beater car and we crawled inside, teeth chattering, feet burning, squealing and slightly starstruck. "What's that guy's name anyway?" my girlfriend asked me. I pulled the ticket out of my pocket. In tiny cursive in the corner, the trumpet player had written, "You're hot. Anthony."

I remember clearly now the flush of blood to my head. I thought I'd never forget the way I felt so cold and warm at the same time. But eventually I did forget, essentially, until today...

I laughed at the randomness of the memory, the way time sometimes seems to slosh back and forth without continuity, like the tide. Or intervals. With my two-mile recovery nearly finished, I tried to zero back in for the sprint, but it was hard to focus. They're always funny, these games my mind plays to get through the hard times, to get through the hard rides, to get through the day.