12 hours in photos, part 2

Date: Dec. 12
Mileage: 85.1
December mileage: 349.3

So I rode my bike for seven hours today. The time was actually on the long side, about 7.5 hours, but I felt great. So much better than I felt all day yesterday, when I was fresh. Riding back-to-back long days is something I plan to continue to do this winter whenever I can make the time for it, and the plan is that they're only going to get longer. But today's ride was helped by the fact that it was one of the most beautiful days, well, ever. A brilliantly sunny day followed by a full-moon night. One of those days where I was out for seven hours and hardly felt the effort, because I was so busy looking around and saying things out loud like, "Wow" and "Fer reals? Reals." I also stopped to take a few photos. Today just happened to be the latest installment of this other blog I contribute to, "12 Hours in Photos." The idea was that on Friday, Dec. 12, all of us would document 12 hours of our day, one photo for each hour. This was my day. It was a good one:

9 a.m. The view at breakfast. Yawn.

10 a.m. The trip to the post office is becoming a daily chore for me. I don't mind at all. :-)

11 a.m. Riding into the Mendenhall Valley on the Dredge Lake trails, mouth agape.

12 p.m., heading back toward the highway on some nondescript road. Mouth still agape.

1 p.m.: Life's good between Reeses Peanut Butter Cups.

2 p.m.: An interpretive photo of the Hard North Wind. It brought in a blast of frigid air from Canada, gusting right in my face. The temperature was probably about 25 degrees. The windchill couldn't have been warmer than 5.

3 p.m.: Alpenglow on the distant mountains.

4 p.m.: The last bit of daylight and a really bright planet over Auke Rec. I'm not sure which planet it was - a bright one.

5 p.m.: The self-portrait I took after my sad attempts to take a photo of the moon. I don't have a proper camera for night shots, so you'll just have to take my word that it was the most amazing full moon I have ever seen. The Hard North Wind was tearing clouds of snow off the mountains. As the moon rose, it illuminated the ridgelines with this soft, intense glow, almost as bright as daylight. I couldn't take my eyes off the moon, which was rough because I was back in the traffic of Juneau proper and it was rush hour.

6 p.m.: Having dinner with Geoff, our friend Christina and a couple of our parasitic cats.

7 p.m.: Trying to figure out what's going on in my friends' children's play. At this point, my head was nearly as fuzzy as this picture.

8 p.m.: For seven-hour rides in the freezer, there's no better recovery food than a huge spread of Christmas cookies.

Solid investment

Date: Dec. 11
Mileage: 64.4
December mileage: 264.2

I rode hard for five and a half hours today. Started in the late morning, finished after dark, got rained on, slushed on, fought a cold wind and finally some real snow. All in all, a good training ride. The plan is to ride at least seven hours tomorrow, also at a motivated pace.

I'm excited for tomorrow's longish ride, but wow, I feel pretty wiped out for having only put in five hours and change and a measly 64 miles. Every winter when I really start investing in these long rides, I always come away disappointed in my mileage. I can't help it. I worked really hard and rode mostly pavement and, huh, can't even average 12 mph? It was easy to maintain 17 with the mountain bike in the summer. But it's amazing - slap some aggressive studded tires on a bike, ride in the road shoulders where the surface is mostly covered in soft snow and slush, and fight the wind and slush shower just to keep your body temperature near normal, and suddenly cycling becomes a lot more work for less payoff. So I have to remind myself to stop looking at the raw numbers and focus on how I feel immediately afterward: Pleasantly tired, a little hazy, and completely content. Perfect.

And if I spend enough time out on a bike, even on a marginal day like today, I always see some intriguing things:

I was pushing my bike into the Dredge Lake area in a fruitless search for hard-packed trails when I came across two state troopers who had been lurking in the woods. One was wearing a bullet-proof vest and carrying a huge rifle. The other didn't have a weapon in his hand, and eyed me suspiciously. My immediate thought was that they were hunting a rogue bear. But then I remembered that state troopers don't hunt bears. Wildlife officers hunt bears. State troopers hunt people. I lingered several seconds, worried or maybe hopeful that some "Cops"-type perp was going to burst out of the forest shadows, clad only in socks and briefs, and lunge at me before the troopers tackled him. But that never happened. The troopers just slunk back into the woods and I was left wondering what they could have possibly been looking for. I even checked the police report and didn't see anything related, so I may never know.

The rest of the ride was pretty uneventful. I started to notice the sky clearing as I moved north, which always perks me up.

One of my favorite benefits of winter (and, oh yes, winter has many benefits) is the extended sunsets. For more than 10 miles I watched the sky cast varying shades of pink and orange light on the snow-covered trees, the sea water and the glistening, icy road. Gorgeous.

I raced the last few miles before twilight in an effort to reach an opening in the trees in time to witness the moment the blazing orange light of the sun finally slipped below the horizon. I just missed it, and I only made it as far as the obstructed view. Still, the sight of blue sky made me happy. I think it bodes well for tomorrow's seven hours.

Wow!

$2,975.00.

That's how much we've raised for the LIVESTRONG Challenge. In a week. If someone told me last Wednesday, the day that I signed up for Team Fatty, that my personal page would bring in nearly $3,000 in one week, I would have just laughed. But I guess that's the power of Fighting For Susan. I shouldn't be surprised. But I do feel inspired.

I look at the list of contributors and I see a few names that I recognize, so I know I did coax in a few of my friends and family. But many of you are strangers - friends of Fatty, generous cyclists, people who have been touched by cancer and want to strike back. I had always been the type who took a cynical view of fundraisers. "What could I really even do?" was my overwhelming sentiment. But I understand now that every little bit helps. I understand now that every little bit adds up very quickly. $3,000 is a lot of money. And if $3,000 can help even one person - offer them comfort, or ease their pain - then it's a fortune beyond any dollar amount.

My records show 105 people donated since Dec. 4. We're the top fundraisers in Seattle, right up there with my good friend Chris Wightman, who has raised $950 so far on his own without any help from a plug on fatcyclist.com or a giveaway of a sweet camera. It's going to be a fun reunion in Seattle. I can't wait to meet some of you and help drag Chris to the finish of his first century. :-)

As to the raffle, Elden is coordinating that so I expect to see the winners of the camera and books posted on his Web site Thursday or Friday. I am holding my own raffle on Friday for another book, and will continue to hold a weekly raffle for the contributors that week, so don't stop donating! I wanted to send a huge thank you to everyone who pitched in so far. I have a big training weekend planned, and a lot to think about regarding my non-bike life, but I know I'll be able to ride easier knowing there's still so much good in the world.

Thanks again.

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.