Slogging blogger

Date: March 22
Mileage: 15.4
March mileage: 215.9
Temperature upon departure: 33

It's light enough to ride now until 8 p.m. 8 p.m.! The sunlight has turned everything into a slushy, soggy mess. Since I usually ride in the evenings, I get the worst of it. Today I felt up to a short ride, but had a hard time coaxing myself outside because:
1. I still have a cough.
2. The trails were too soft.
3. The roads were a mess.
4. My new fenders haven't arrived in the mail yet.

But I still went out. Coasting downhill was a bit like being sandblasted with wet chunks of mud ("The goggles! They do nothing!"). Riding uphill I learned that snow is in fact not the slowest surface for two wheels. That distinction belongs to a dirt road that is still frozen up to the top inch or so, leaving only the thinnest layer of mud to soak up massive quantities of melted snow.

I think I'm going to try to ride more in the morning, when everything is still nicely iced up. That, or I'll incorporate a plastic garbage bag into my cycling attire. Yes, Tim was right. There is no spring joy for the cyclist in Alaska, save its choppy but inevitable march into summer.

But what of summer? I hear the annual daylight explosion inevitably sends sun-starved Alaskans into a manic pursuit of recreation that leaves them exhausted by fall. Just today, I was looking at the sunrise/sunset calendar and realizing that come June, I could work an eight-hour day, clock out at 5 p.m., ride a leisurely century, throw a halibut barbecue, bake a blueberry pie and still have enough daylight for a game of Baci Ball before bed. What good can come of that?

I'm not here right now

The sick is starting to loosen its grip, but it still has me grounded just as the weather took a turn for the warm (hit 40 degrees for the first time since ... December!). Three days off the saddle may be the longest I've gone without a ride since ... December. Sugar looks so dejected right now - tires deflated to 20 psi, the front wheel still detached after being carted home from Caribou Lake, and coated with the trail grime of the ages because I haven't mustered up enough respect to drag him out on top of my feet-deep snowpack with a garden hose. At least he's not wired to the life support of a magnetic trainer like Roadie is (which I haven't ridden any actual distance since ... December.)

Today was a day full of monotonous tasks and the inevitable zoning out that these tasks cause. Do you ever experience this? One minute I'll be copying and pasting articles into html, washing the dishes or - heaven forbid - driving. Then, suddenly I'll find myself slipping into a lucid daydream. These daydreams are always anchored in very real but rarely extraordinary moments buried deep in my memory - swimming across the glass waters of an Eastern Texas lake, or pedaling a rolling plateau beside the San Rafael Swell. These wisps of past moments float through so convincingly that I get entirely caught up in reliving - to the point where falling back into reality is more than a little disconcerting (and often followed by the realization that I just held the space key down for several column inches.)

Maybe this means I'm crazy. I don't know. I do know that it probably means data entry is not the job for me. But I must say, I really enjoy these boredom-inspired visits back to places long buried in the illusion of the past. Today I revisited this sunrise, the distant glow that stripped away an unending night, and it felt as warm and as welcoming this morning as it did when it was more than just a photograph, an involuntary firing of synapses and a distant sigh.

First day of sick

I am officially annoyed. It's bad enough to get sick at the beginning of the week, when I can't take any time off from work, so I have to spend the day listening to others complain about my infectious nature while a vice grip slowly tightens around my chest and head. But yesterday, while rummaging around my medicine cabinet, I discovered the leftover antibiotics from last year's bout with bronchitis - dated March 23, 2005. Kinda eerie to think that my germs keep a schedule almost as reliable as Christmas.

And it's annoying because every year I manage to skirt through cold and flu season without so much as a sniffle, only to pick up some utterly derailing - and often undiagnosable - bout of gunk at the end of March. This seems to happen to a lot of people, who mostly blame the change of seasons as a culprit for the massive failure of otherwise iron-clad immune systems. I used to accept this theory as fact, but now I have my suspicions. Last year, I lived in Idaho, where late March means night temperatures still drop below freezing. Now I live in Alaska, where late March means I still have five feet of snow piled up in my front yard. It's hard to believe that any part of my physiology could be fooled into thinking the seasons are changing, let alone be affected enough by it to give up the good fight.

I may never know the cause of my illness. But I do know that I feel crappy, and that's just annoying.

The only bright spot today may be that - regardless of any actual semblence of spring I may be experiencing - the Vernal Equinox has passed. Which means (to my friends in the lower 48), that we have surpassed 12 hours of direct sun and are now gaining daylight at a much faster clip than you. You are now officially on the darker side of the planet. So ... cough cough ... there.