The ride after

Date: Dec. 8
Mileage: 37.6
December mileage: 199.8

To start, I wanted to send out a huge thank you to everyone who has donated to the LIVESTRONG Challenge. Together we've raised $2,205 so far, which is simply amazing! There's still one more day in the raffle for a chance to win a sweet Olympus Stylus camera (just like the one used to take all the pictures in this blog.) Five bucks is all it takes. $50 nets you 10 times the chance of winning. And everything goes to the fight against cancer, so everyone wins! (Except cancer.) Donate here!

That's the very good news. The rest of this post is kind of a downer. You can stop reading here if you want to. It's just that sometimes it's cathartic for me to write it all out. I mean, that's why I keep this blog.

So I took my bike to work today. I didn’t mean to. I didn’t want to. I already knew the roads were covered in 11 inches of slop and the bike paths weren’t plowed, because I had already gone for a 25-mile snow ride earlier in the day. During that ride, I took to the beach when the roads became too slippery and sloppy to navigate. The smooth sand felt nice but the streets were covered in goo, and to top it all off, the falling snow had switched over to hard, cold rain. I certainly didn’t want to go back out in the gunk. But when I couldn’t coax my car out of the slop-coated parking lot, I didn’t have a choice. I rushed around to gear up yet again and commence the ride/push to the office.

I had to jog with my bike through deep snow the last half mile on the bike path. I finally arrived at work late, soaked and coated in grit, sans any kind of brown-bag dinner (It was going to have to be old Power Bars again.) I thought I was having a bad day. Realtive to others, I really wasn't.

I was fresh from the restroom, still holding a wad of dripping clothing in my outstretched arms, when the message reached me. Mandatory meeting. Those two words, when said together, set heavy in the throat and only sink deeper, becoming thicker and more nauseating as the syllables resonate. A “mandatory” meeting is anything but. These days, in these times, everyone knows what gets said at mandatory meetings, and no one wants to hear it. I pulled my wet hair back into a ponytail and shuffled into the conference room.

In mandatory meetings, the hardest words are always blurted out first, followed by an eternity of condescending rationalizations. I often wonder why anyone bothers with the rationalizations. Nobody’s listening. Nobody. The hard words are out there. The white lights of shock have streaked through and blinded everybody with private, searing thoughts. As the rationalizations droned on, I fought the urge to get up and walk out of the room in anger, or solidarity, or frustration. I scanned the faces of my co-workers in a plea for levity. But there was no out-of-place humor in their expressions; only guilty relief. Some among the group had not been invited to the mandatory meeting. Those of us who had were grateful.

“This is reality,” I kept telling myself. “This is the real world.” I continued to grope for levity. It’s one thing to laugh at "Office Space" and “The Bobs” and corporate downsizing in your favorite movie from the late ‘90s. It’s quite another to watch your coworkers, people you know and like and respect, stiffly carrying armfuls of their personal belongings to the door.

“It should have been me,” I kept thinking. “Why not me?”

The hits keep coming and they’re not going to stop. I’m beginning to think it’s no longer a question of how long I’m going to try to hold on to the dream career I've wanted since I was a little girl — the life of a newspaperwoman. It’s becoming a question of how far into the North Pacific I want to ride the Titanic.

The air was steeped in silence when I left work, well after 11 p.m. Dim moonlight flickered through mottled breaks in the clouds, and the night looked bright, almost like dawn, as the light reflected off a blanket of new snow. Soft rain fell as I unlocked my bike and I breathed deeply, grateful for the solitude. I didn’t want to ride to work, but when the day was done, I couldn’t think of anything I wanted more than to ride home. The quiet allowed for meditation, the winter twilight for clarity. My legs felt warm and close, but my thoughts were muffled, as though they were coming to me from a unknown distance. I focused but couldn't hear them. The whir of studded tires and the splash of snow-dammed puddles were lost to an all-encompassing silence. I focused harder. I whispered rationalizations. Still I heard nothing. There was nothing to hear. Even when you have already given serious consideration to changing your life, the approach of the tipping point is deafening.

“This is reality,” I kept telling myself. “This is the real world.” The miles passed, and the snow just kept melting, and melting.

Like spring, summer, fall

Date: Dec. 7
Mileage: 35.7
December mileage: 162.2

I've been in a bit of a weather funk again. Sometimes I just can't help it. Sometimes I feel like Juneau's been between seasons since, oh, March or so. Summer was always peeking just over the horizon but never really came. Since then, we've had a few quick gasps of winter, but the rain always returns. Always the rain. The 12-month season. It doesn't matter whether it's March, July, October or December, I struggle to slink out the door when it's 42 degrees and raining (and I have ridden in this exact weather in all of these months.)

And yet, for all the times I remember reluctantly gearing up and wheeling my bike out into the blah weather, I don't recall a single ride when I came home and thought "I wish that never happened." Sometimes I push hard and feel strong. Sometimes I learn something new about my gear. Sometimes I listen to good music. Sometimes I see something exciting or beautiful. And I always end up being glad I went.

Take today for example:

I don't know whether it was the warm weather or if there was some kind of salmon run, but False Outer Point had a huge gathering of marine mammals today. I saw a small pod of humpbacks (two or three, it was hard to tell) and several large groups of sea lions and harbor seals. I was working on some intervals, but ended up stopping for a while just to watch them. The humpbacks were too far away to see much beyond the occasional spout, but the sea lions and seals were especially entertaining. A few caught giant fish and lunged out of the water, violently whipping the fish around like a dog playing tug-of-war with a sock. Then they'd dive back in and disappear, probably enjoying the spoils of the meal they just shook to death.

Eventually I became a little bit chilled from watching the animal show and headed out to the Rainforest Trail to ride a few fast loops on the twisting, tight singletrack. (Ah, dirt.) The Rainforest Trail looks rainforesty even in December.

On the coast I came across the remains of a startlingly pink sea creature strewn over a piece of driftwood. Maybe a jellyfish? Then it was back for more sea lion entertainment and some hard intervals home in the rain.

Really, not so bad. Maybe, in the future, I'll remember today as a pleasant respite from the snow.

*****

Also, I'm working on organizing the info about my book (brief description, first chapter, ordering details and reviews) into its own blog site. It's still very much a work in progress, but you can find it here.

*****

Finally, don't forget to enter the raffle for an Olympus Stylus 1030 SW camera today, tomorrow or Wednesday! For every $5 you donate to the LIVESTRONG CHALLENGE through my donation page, you'll receive a raffle ticket from Fat Cyclist for a chance to win this great camera! (And I'm going to throw in a few books as consolation prizes.) Donate here!

Staying and going

Date: Dec. 5
Mileage: 42.2
December mileage: 126.5

It's been raining for two days now and there's been a dearth of photo opportunities, so I thought I'd take this opportunity to talk about Iditarod gear. This is probably the best picture I have of my setup from last year's race, taken by some race fans on Seven Mile Lake (seven miles from the start.) It's basically the same gear I plan to take next year, with some key differences. So here's what's staying and going:

Staying: That giant bivy bundle on the front, and all of the crap inside of it. A -40 degree sleeping bag was my lifeline when I was really struggling last year, and I don't plan to tempt fate by going any lighter with my sleeping gear.

Staying: The front rack, because there's no other way for my 16" Pugsley to support all of my sleeping crap.

Going: The Princeton Tech headlamp as a headlight. I haven't decided exactly what yet, but I plan to buy something a little stronger (and more lithium battery-efficient) this year.

Gone: My red blinkie. I lost it somewhere between the Susitna River and Luce's last year. For the one whole snowmobile I saw after dark in 2008, I think a fair amount of reflective tape is probably enough. (I would get off the trail anyway if I heard a snowmobile coming. Who knows what they've been drinking.)

Staying: My Outdoor Research insulated water bottle sleeve. I accidentally left my Nalgene bottle in Palmer last year, and had to pilfer a 32-ounce Gatorade bottle from my friend's truck at the race start. But the insulation sleeve worked pretty well. Even when temperatures were below zero, it seemed to take about 12 hours before my bottle would reach its hard-freezing point (the point where it was ringed in ice and difficult to access the water inside.) It would probably take longer if I more frequently replenished the liquid in the bottle, or used an actual Nalgene.

Going: That ridiculous Camelbak bladder. I wrapped it with bubble insulation and duct tape, and I looked like I was riding off to fight floating slime monsters with the Ghostbusters. For all the effort and ridiculousness, and for all of the times I stuffed it beneath my inner layers and diligently blew all the water out of the hose, it was always frozen. My plan this year is to take an MSR bladder that has a spout for pouring instead of a hose, and keep it in a smaller pack inside of my coat.

Going (with reluctance): The Gortex coat. I say that with reluctance because it has such amazing wind-blocking properties, demonstrated wonderfully on Mount Roberts earlier this week. But it doesn't breathe well and I think I'd be better off with a form-fitting soft shell coat and a down coat to go over that when it's frigid.

Going: The rain pants. On the Kuskokwim River between Nikolai and McGrath last year, I pulled down my pants to pee and found a solid half inch of frost built up between my polar fleece longjohns and my outer pant layer. This year I bought some Arc'teryx soft shell pants that I think will breathe much better.

Going (probably): The $24.99 snowmobile handlebar mitts. I'd really like to leverage some of my book earnings into some real custom bike pogies this year, but only if the artist has time to make them.

Gone: The "wind-resistant" fleece gloves and mittens that I used, both lost in post-race activities. Which is a shame, because I really liked them. I'm going to have to find a way to replace them with something very similar.

Staying: The frame bag and seat post bag. All of my bags are early models from Epic Designs. They've been ravaged by a couple of completely unrelated wars (the Iditarod Trail Invitational and the Great Divide Race) and not only held up impressively, but also proved their continued usefulness.

Going: A lot of the stuff I had in those bags. This year, I'm going to really work to streamline my food and extra clothing so I'm not carrying so much stuff I either won't eat or don't need (food is actually pretty heavy, as it turns out, and it's kinda dumb to carry a dozen assorted bars and a pound of nuts 350 miles across Alaska if you're never going to eat them.) I'm going to stick with chemical warmers because I love them, but I'm going to take less and ration more effectively (now that I understand what temperatures are perfectly comfortable without warmers on the hands and feet.)

Staying: The fuel bottle and stove. I didn't use them last year, but I certainly would have at least tried to melt snow if I had a little more practice starting the stove in the wind before the race. Water is good.

Staying: The boots. I was going to get rid of them and completely change my foot setup, and go with something lighter. But after thinking it through, I've decided to keep these boots and buy some NEOS overboots that will fit over them. The reason I want to keep them is because I've done quite a bit of walking in them, and they're really comfortable. Plus, they're completely insulated, to the point of nearly being a vapor barrier. They're basically bunny boots, but comfortable. When I dropped my bike and dipped my leg in Pass Creek last year, one boot got completely soaked. I think the only reason my foot never became cold is because the insulation allowed the water inside the boot to warm up to body temperature. Even though I spent 17 hours in Rohn last year, the boot never actually dried (probably because it's so insulated.) I just tossed the insole and kept going. (Wow, I think this is the first time I admitted that I actually continued the last half of the race with a wet boot.) Anyhow, I'm pretty comfortable with these boots. I just want a system that's waterproof to about knee level. (Also, they're Euro men's size 8. I think that's like a U.S. size 9.5, when my normal shoe size is about a men's 7. So by the time I find an overboot that will fit over them, they'll be as wide as snowshoes.)

Going: Gaters. Won't need them if I have overboots.

Staying: Pugsley. Although sometimes I dream at night about titanium Fatbacks and 100 mm rims, I only have love (and funds) for Pugsley. Over the winter, he will be getting another complete overhaul, however: New tires, new hubs, new bottom bracket, probably new seat post, new chain, cables, cassette, blah, blah, blah. Also, I should probably apply touch-up paint to the rusty spots. :-)

Geoff's year-end race

Geoff just called me to let me know he finished fifth in the North Face Endurance Challenge 50-mile ultramarathon in San Fransisco! He was happy with the result, but not necessarily with his race. He was leading the race until mile 24, when his quads started to "give out" and he was really hurting. He had a similar problem in the Miwok 100K, and he thinks the main culprit is the "hardness" of California trails. He's used to training in Juneau, which is full of muddy, mulchy, mossy trails. Great for training the legs for technical running - but not so great for training muscles to get used to the impact of California dirt.

"It was like running on pavement," he told me. "Between mile 30 and 40 I felt horrible. I was contemplating dropping out for a while. I didn't want to thrash my body any further just to do OK in the race. But as soon as I decided to keep going for sure, I felt much better after that."

Geoff told me he finished the 50-mile run in 7:12 - which for someone of his discipline (he's really a 100-miler, and doesn't think "short" races are his strong point), and for a course with that kind of elevation change, is pretty fast! He said he was really happy with his uphill strength, and felt that until he started to fade after mile 30, he seemed to be the strongest climber.

He told me Matt Carpenter won the race in 6:49. Ulli Steidl finished second in 6:53. "This dude from Japan" finished third in 7:01, and Kyle Skaggs finished fourth in 7:02. Geoff was a little bummed about not finishing "in the money" (this race had a $10,000 prize for first place.) But the big purse and North Face's recruiting efforts brought in the strongest ultrarunning field in any race all year. "Speedgoat" Karl Meltzer finished 20th, also an amazing result this soon after his assault on the Appalachian Trail record. Geoff left for San Fransisco thinking he'd be lucky to make it into the teens, so I think after he's had his big burger and a nice long sleep, he'll feel pretty proud about his race. I sure do.

EDIT: Geoff's an even faster blogger than I am. His race report is here.

Close to home

First of all, I just wanted to express a heartfelt thank you to everyone who donated to LIVESTRONG today. I set up my personal page at 11:30 p.m. last night, and by 8 a.m. (while I was still snoozing in bed), I received an e-mail from the Lance Armstrong Foundation congratulating me for meeting my fundraising goal (I didn't even know I had a fundraising goal, but as it turns out my goal was set to the default number, which is $250.) Now, together we've raised $450, in less than 24 hours! I look at the names you included, the people you donated in memory of, and they have really touched my heart. I feel inspired by your outpouring of generosity, and plan to work harder for this cause in the coming months. I feel like I have a lot on my plate right now (Really. A lot. So much that I don't even think about the Iditarod race every minute of every day like I did last year.) But this is important. Really important. I'm glad to be a part of it.

The donation page didn't provide e-mail information for each contributor like I thought I would. So if you're Kevin Casey, Andrew Good, Jeanne McCabe, Lauren Dunn or Richard Bischoff, could contact me at jillhomer66@hotmail.com with your mailing address so I can send you a book? Congratulations! You were the first five to donate. (Richard, I know I should have your contact info, but I am terrible at keeping records. Do you mind shooting me it again?) Thanks to everyone. I will continue to hold a "raffle," once a week on Fridays, for a book to a random person who contributed that week (any amount.) You can donate here.

Anyway, all of this generosity was a wonderful surprise to wake up to this morning, as was this ...

(I took off my coat to set my camera on to take a self portrait, which is why I'm not wearing a coat. Although it was about 36 degrees outside, which, when marching up a mountain, feels downright tropical.)

We received nearly a foot of new snow overnight, which sadly degenerated to sleet/rain (i.e. snain) shortly after I woke up this morning. A tree had fallen on power lines and knocked out electricity to most of the city, and the power had been out for more than an hour when I stumbled out of my dark bedroom to find my bleary-eyed roommate, Shannon, sitting on the couch and staring out the window. He mumbled something about wandering all over Douglas looking for coffee and finding none. Both Shannon and I are pathetically dependent on morning caffeine, so I just sat down near him and petted the cats as we listened to the deep nothingness that is an electricity-free neighborhood buried in snow.

Eventually the electricity fired back up and Shannon turned the radio and coffee maker on, and I went outside to check the condition of the snow. The falling snain was quickly turning it into a substance more similar to wet cement than frozen water, and with more than a foot of it covering everything, I knew I didn't stand a chance of getting out for a bike ride today (I put up with a lot of slop, but even I have my limits.) It goes without saying that the conditions are too treacherous for riding my bike, they're certainly too treacherous for driving my car. It seemed I was stuck at home for the afternoon. So I did what anyone stuck at home would do ... I strapped on my snowshoes and went for a walk through the neighborhood ...

The Mount Jumbo trail is a trail I can literally walk out my front door and be moving up the mountain within three minutes. Sometimes I take full advantage of the proximity of this steep, lung-busting, heart-rate-working, beautiful forest route and use it frequently; and sometimes I neglect it for weeks at a time. But for all of the dozens of times I have walked on the Mount Jumbo trail, today I found it in the most enchanting state I have ever seen it in. The thick snow covered every branch of trees 60 feet high, and buried the mountainside in fluffy, forgiving pillows of powder. The snain turned back to light falling snow above 1,000 feet, and the air was so calm, so completely calm, that not even that tallest branches on the tallest trees swayed. As I walked, I heard only the muffled crunch of my footsteps. If I stopped, I heard nothing at all. Even though I was supposed to be working my heart rate and busting my lungs, I found myself stopping often and gazing up at the treetops, mesmerized by the white silence.

What can I say? My neighborhood is a pretty place.

Joining Team Fatty

Date: Dec. 3
Mileage: 38.5
December mileage: 84.3

As many of you out there in the world of blogs already know, Elden aka "Fat Cyclist" aka "Fatty" has organized a massive fundraising effort for the LIVESTRONG Challenge. In honor of his wife, Susan, and countless others who are fighting a battle with cancer, he is aiming to raise upwards of $1 million for cancer research and support. I spent a few days thinking about how I could get involved. I didn't think I was going to sign up for an event because I wasn't crazy about the date of the Seattle event, and the others were just so far away.

But then I got an e-mail from my friend in Utah, Chris, who announced he not only committed to raising $5,000(!), but also intends to ride the century in Seattle(!!). Chris is not your typical cyclist. I'm not even sure he'd call himself a cyclist. He's a therapist who sometimes works upwards of 70-80 hours a week. He loves to hike and camp but rarely has time for either, and admits that right now he's "in the worst shape of my life." Chris and I traveled through Alaska, along with Geoff and another friend, Jen, in 2003. Just a few days into the trip, Chris learned his mom had been diagnosed with breast cancer. He was nearly on his way back to Utah before his mom strongly encouraged him to continue with the dream trip he had been planning for months. I watched him wrestle with his guilt and grief, and try to comfort his mom from afar. He had a head of long, wavy hair and he shaved it all off in solidarity with her. His mom won her battle with breast cancer. Many do not. When I found out Chris was getting involved with Team Fatty, I felt inspired.

I signed up for the event that I'm still not sure I'll be able to attend. I'd love to go, not only to ride with Chris, but to finally once and for all meet Elden (I know. It's crazy. He lives less than 10 miles from the place where I grew up, but we've never met.) So right now, I'm in for 100 miles in Seattle. That was the easy part. Now the hard part - raising funds. Luckily for me, Elden contacted me with a wonderful idea.

He is holding a series of raffles to help inspire people to donate a few bucks. Next Tuesday and Wednesday, he'll be raffling an Olympus Stylus 1030 SW digital camera. You may recognize this camera because I rave about it all the time. It's my camera, only newer, and less abused, and with even more special features. It's shockproof to 6.6 feet, waterproof to 33 feet, crushproof to 220 pounds of pressure and freezeproof down to 14 degrees (I've used it while it was 25 below and can attest that it continues to work well below 14 degrees.) And you can have a chance to win this camera by visiting www.fatcyclist.com next Tuesday and Wednesday and contributing to the LIVESTRONG Challenge. If you win the camera, you to can take mountain bike ride shots like this:

(OK, you'll have to come to Juneau to take a mountain bike shot exactly like this.)

I'm going to throw in a few books for the raffle as well. But, in an effort to coax a few people to donate early, I'd like to offer signed copies of my book to the first five people who donate $25 or more to the LIVESTRONG Challenge through my personal page. I'm "AlaskaJill" on the Seattle team. (Click here to donate.) Every cent will go to this amazing cause, so it's a good way to get the book if you've been thinking you might like to read it.

Also, I wanted thank those who recently bought signed copies of my book through my new Paypal page. The Thanksgiving holiday put my printing back a few days, but I am expecting my order on Thursday or Friday, and will send out books shortly after. I ship priority, so you should have them by the following Wednesday or Thursday. I want to apologize for the short delay, but I have things rolling now and my turnover times should be much shorter from now on. (I can process Christmas orders until Dec. 15. After that, there are no guarentees.)

There's a couple of new reviews of the book. One from Mike Jacobsen. (a cyclist in Washington), and a "non-biker review" from my sister, Lisa (not biased at all.)

I also got a few nice e-mails from readers, including this one from Heidi Olson: "I've really enjoyed reading your book - your descriptions of each day on the trail made me feel like I was right there. I had to grab for a warm blanket several times and I'm sure that I consumed more peanut butter cups then you did through the entire book."

And from Karen Ness: "I really enjoyed the way you flashed back to previous years leading up to move to Alaska, alternating chapters with your Iditarod travels. That was a great way to tell the story. It broadens your base and allows the reader to learn more about where you came from and how you got to where you were on the trail. The way you expanded your story helps for anyone who has followed along on your blog. It is a new story even to old readers."

So what are you waiting for? Go donate! (And then come back Tuesday and donate again for a shot at an awesome camera.)

Brutal wind

Date: Dec. 2
Mileage: 9.4
December mileage: 45.8

I could see a stream of snow pouring off Mount Roberts as I rode down the North Douglas Highway.

"Windy up there," I thought. "But that's a good thing. Good practice."

Most days, conditions are relatively mild in Juneau. So I'm always looking for unique opportunities — little tastes of the extreme. I parked my bike at the Roberts trailhead, readjusted the snowshoes on my pack and began hiking up the dirt. The trail was coated in flaky ice and a dusting of snow, but it was dry for the most part. Simple. I strapped on the snowshoes near the closed-down tram terminal and continued the hike over hard-packed snow. The breeze was starting to pick up and I checked my thermometer. 17 or 18 degrees. Perfect.

Just above treeline, the wind gained considerable force. The first big gust hit hard and I gasped as I pulled my Gortex hood over my balaclava. My knee-jerk reaction to a chill like that is always "Holy cow, I'm going to die." But as the wind continued to stream around my coat, I realized that I hadn't flash-frozen. I actually felt warm. And I remembered that, just as I hadn't in all the cold winds I lived through before, I probably wasn't going to die.

"This is awesome," I thought. "This is just like the Kuskokwim River valley."

Low on the ridge, sustained winds were easily 50 mph. The snowpack had been scoured. What was left was as solid as ice. The crampons on my snowshoes hardly left an imprint, but the footing was good. I leaned hard into the wind and continued up.

As I gained elevation, the really hard gusts began to hit. Some hurricane-force jet stream seemed to be moving along the saddle, and I was in its periphery. I wish that I had some kind of wind measuring instrument with me, because my guesses probably seem inflated. But I swear, some of those gusts were moving 70, 80 mph. Enough to stop me in my tracks, crouch down, and wait until they subsided. A small strip of exposed skin - my cheeks and nose - began to burn in the cold blasts, which made sense, because the wind chill was probably about -20.

Still I stood up, and thought, "Good. Feeling warm. Feeling good. Have to get used to this sometime. Might as well be now."

I knew there was no way I was going to climb to the ridge, but I let myself believe I was at least somewhat protected by the saddle and didn't think the wind would get much worse. I climbed over what I had already decided would be my last little knoll when I was hit by a blast so strong that I instantly dropped to my knees and instinctively grabbed for some nearby rocks. Hard to describe that gust. I've never felt wind so strong, ever, in my life. I'm sure of this. I became convinced I was going to blow off the mountain, even though I wasn't actually moving at all. But I death-gripped those rocks and buried my face in my coat as the wind poured around me. It just kept blowing and blowing and blowing. I started to fear that it wasn't a gust, but an actual sustained wind that I was going to have to fight. But it eventually calmed down a bit. I stood up, turned around, and with the wind at my back, moved very quickly down the mountain.

No real danger, ever, but it was an educational little taste of extreme weather. Baby steps up the big mountain.