I think I'm goin crazy

Date: July 3 and 4
Mileage: 14.4 and 32.6
July mileage: 103.7
Temperature upon departure: 62

This is a picture of me in 2003 - frou-frou pajama pants tucked into my socks, a ski jacket complete with dangling ski tags wrapped around my waist, struggling to keep my Trek 6500 vertical on smooth doubletrack (look - my eyes are closed and I'm about to go off the trail!). Sigh.

I still use that same stupid helmet, but in many other ways, I have made huge leaps and bounds in the sport of mountain biking in the past three years. I've never had much confidence in my technical skills, nor have I had any reason to have much confidence in my technical skills - but I really surprised myself with my maneuverability around the 24 hours of Kincaid loop. Today, before the fourth of July festivities began, I set out to test myself on the Homestead Trail singletrack. Four miles of roots, switchbacks, milkweed canyons so tall and narrow that I couldn't see the trail at all, grass that brushed my forehead, narrow planks over swamp, and enough blind curves to keep my butt cheeks nice and puckered during the entire hour I spent exploring out there. But I came out of the forest feeling full of Independence.

I also spent the better part of the morning reading up on the Great Divide Race, having just discovered that fellow blogger Cellarrat not only participated in this year's race, but also was the racer who had his bicycle tragically stolen mid-race. He's always had encouraging things to say about the silly stuff I do Up in Alaska, and connecting his name and face to the event has made it all the more real for me.

That's a bad thing.

Because, of course, I had to go and dig up a "before" picture. That might as well be a picture of me straddling a Huffy with training wheels or lugging around 100 extra pounds. Because I understand its context, it just screams to me, "look how far you've come."

And then I begin to wonder what I could do in three more years,
And then you'll be 30.

Given the time to train, research, purchase, prepare,
Why don't you get a haircut and get a real job?

Given more endurance events that will allow me to understand my limits,
And who didn't sign up for the Fireweed 200 because they thought it would be too far to drive?

And with every chainring stab and bloody knee, whittle away at my fragility
Doesn't matter; you're still a 'fraidy cat.

That maybe,
Not a chance

Just maybe,
Remember, you're the kid who never climbed the rope in gym.

I could ride the Great Divide.
Geez, you do one 24-hour race, and suddenly you think you're Trish Stevenson.

It's such a long shot.

But these dreams have a way of setting themselves in motion.

In your head

Date: July 2
Mileage: 50.4
July mileage: 66.7
Temperature upon departure: 55
A reporter asked Geoff an interesting question the other day that I had never thought much about before - when you're out running or biking solo for four or eight or 24 hours, what do you think about? A lot of people would like to believe that the act of engaging in intense physical activity will lead them to life affirmations or ponderings on the human condition. But really, as Geoff answered, it's no different that driving or sitting alone in a coffee shop. What does a person think about when forced to spend four hours by themselves? Mostly, the random and the mundane.

People who know me know that I like to mark random and mundane anniversaries, and sometimes I spend the solo time on my bike dreaming them up. Today I did a three-hour ride that was intermittently chilled with headwinds and sweaty while tailwinds held the air stagnant as I climbed a couple of long hills. But I also realized today that July 2, 2006, marks nine years since the incident that remains my closest brush with death by outdoor adventure.

I coaxed my boyfriend at the time to hike with me up the Pfeiferhorn, an Alps-like pinnacle that towers above the Salt Lake valley. He was, for the most part, terrified of mountaineering in general but wasn't about to let his 17-year-old girlfriend out-man him, so he followed me tentatively as we traversed a knife ridge and scrambled up the scree-lined face of a mountain so steep that from a half-mile away it looks like a sheer cliff. Everything was going textbook well, and he was pretty buzzed by the time we began to work our way down. I thought for sure that I had him converted.

We were crab-walking down a boulder outcropping when he made a joke about skiing on the snowfield that plunges down the length of the bowl - about 1,000 feet elevation - into Lower Red Pine Lake. Not understanding that he was entirely kidding, I said "That's a great idea!" Why labor down a mountain when you don't have to? So, equipped with only an old book bag and a plastic zip-lock baggie that had formerly held my lunch, I stepped out onto the snowfield and motioned for Eric to come join me. He stood almost frozen in place as I turned to make what may be the stupidest single motion I have ever made - I placed that zippy neatly on the crusted snow and sat down.

The fraction of a second that my butt had contact with that plastic zippy was the closest I came to any semblance of control. Within another fraction of a second, my body was careening, zippy-free, in a downward spiral toward the lake. The boulder outcropping where Eric stood was mere feet from my path; he swore for months afterward that he saw my head hit a rock. But all I felt was the burn of ice shards against my bare skin. All I saw was a whirpool of blue sky. And all I could think about was a trick I had learned the previous winter - that if I wanted to stop my snowboard, all I had to do was turn sideways. Problem is, I had no idea which direction sideways was.

After several of those eternal seconds, by some miracle clearning all of the thousands of boulders scattered over the snowfield, I planted my feet in a large depression and managed to make them stick. My body still swung around until I was lying sideways, facing up the mountain, squinting at the tiny stick figure of Eric waving from a rock many hundreds of feet above my current position. It took him a full 15 minutes to get down to me, and by that time I had crawled back to the boulder outcropping, stood up, and erupted into fits of laughter. I never saw my book bag - or the zippy - again. I also never convinced Eric to go "peak bagging" with me again. And I have never since, even with an ice ax, tried glissading. Good life lessons - those are the random things I think about while I'm grinding at the pedals.

On the boardwalk

Date: July 1
Mileage: 16.3
July mileage: 16.3
Temperature upon departure: 58

Wow. Until today, if someone had asked me if there were any good mountain biking trails in Homer, I would have scrunched up my nose and told them sure - but if they had anything longer than a three-mile ride in mind, they'd have to wait until January.

When I heard rumors that my ice-biking Mecca - a vast network of snowmobile trails weaving through the muskeg around Caribou Lake - had a rideable summer trail, I was very skeptical. But today Geoff and I decided to drive out there and see for ourselves.

During the winter, the Caribou Lake Trail rolls over ridges on punchy, snow-covered double track and traverses the bogs on fast, smooth ice roads. To my pleasant surprise, in the summer it does pretty much the exact same thing - if you replace snow with rutted dirt and the ice roads with hundreds of rough-cut 2x4s.

Fast and fun - and so completely rideable that you can go all the way to the lake and back without so much as getting your feet wet (unless you're like me, and try to shortcut across a bog only to sink up to your rear derailleur in sludge.) The mosquitoes will keep you moving - but everything else about this trail is like that California Adventure Park at Disney Land - all of the pleasure; none of the effort (OK ... Maybe a little effort).

I'm not even sure who put a trail this sophisticated out at an absolute end-of-the-road, middle-of-nowhere destination. My best guess is local land owners, who use ATVs to transport supplies into their remote cabins. But I think local bike enthusiasts helped. Either way, it rocks. Now, when I meet a person that tells me they're coming down here to catch a halibut or fish for king salmon in a slough, or do whatever people come to Homer to do, I'm going to insist they bring a bicycle. "This trail is pretty much the best thing about Homer," I'll say. And, depending on the day, I might even mean it.

Guilty until proven innocent

There is something seriously wrong with the Tour de France. Really. To dash the hopes of thousands by kicking out your top players mere hours before the event. Barry Bonds is under intense doping scrutiny, and they still let him play. Why? Because he's interesting at it. That's the American way.

I'm not saying I'm an advocate of illegal substance abuse; but what happened to burden of proof? I think casual fans such as myself should toss their cable boxes out the window in protest. Then they should tune into another crazy long bike race where substance abuse is still limited to caffeine, and perhaps the occasional something that a Ninilchik resident would grow in their attic.
The Great Divide Race has been plugging along for just over a week now. Eight racers started the 2,500-mile epic across the Continental Divide trail. I believe five are still in, laboring toward the Mexican border. All the updates are posted on a very thorough blogspot blog. Beats OLN anyday, if you ask me.

A baiku attempt

Date: June 29
Mileage: 17.1
June mileage: 664.4
Temperature upon departure: 57

Got back on the bike
Saddle sores still scabbed over
Summer never waits

Recovery

I've been feeling like a slug for the past couple of days, a little unsure about the point when my body goes from "recovery" to "atrophy while eating Tostitos on the couch." I hit the gym today because I thought it would be good for my energy level to get my heart rate up without stressing my impact injuries. Can't say it helped, but at the same time - it didn't seem to hurt. And that led me to another question - if 72 hours after a 24-hour race, I feel well enough to run for an hour, maybe I didn't push myself hard enough during the race itself. But how do you make that decision? Where does "pushing hard" turn to "massive meltdown in the middle of the woods?"

I am still dealing with Kincaid fallout. I'm beginning to wonder if I'll ever get the feeling back in my three middle fingers on my right hand - they're disconcertingly locked in that "asleep" phase that usually precludes the tingly feeling that leads back to normal circulation. I also regained that constant, sharp pain in my left shoulder, proving that it's not a camelbak injury, but rather a consequence of hanging over handlebars for 24 hours. As for my fingers - I blame the roots.

At the same time, I do feel pretty good for just putting my body through the 16 circles of hell. It has me asking those "what if" questions, and I'm already formulating a plan for "next time:"

1. Race more competitively. Now that I know I can ride it out, I feel like it wouldn't take an unreasonable amount of effort to ride faster.
2. Take less chatty breaks. This goes with being more competitive. On Saturday and Sunday, I wasted a lot of time stopped at my camp, nibbling on sandwiches and chatting with Geoff. This added to the enjoyment of the race for sure, but did nothing for recovery and generally slowed down my progress.
3. Experiment with liquid nutrition. Peanut Butter Sandwiches, while delicious, just don't ride well over the long haul, I've learned. I probably don't need to elaborate.
4. Start keeping closer track of my progress. If I had decided to make a push beginning at 5 a.m. rather than 9 a.m., I could have easily completed 17 laps instead of 16. As it was, I came up only 10 minutes short.

I already feel excited. It's amazing how quickly we forget the pain in the aftermath of one fleeting moment of triumph ... how I wasn't able to eat - and hardly drink - for the last 40 miles of the race as I struggled with sensations that my body was about to turn inside out ... how my forearms vibrated with intense pain as I flew over roots and rocks, unwilling to slow down and waste perfectly good gravity ... how after 18 hours in the same pair of sweaty shorts, I ended up with the equivalent of a diaper rash ... but that didn't matter anyway because I already had a saddle sore on the verge of bleeding.

And yet, every time I rolled through that checkpoint, I'd get this self-fulfilling surge of energy -adrenaline and dopamine, a dangerous cocktail that turns even the most unlikely candidates into endurance junkies. It reminds me of a quote I heard by Alaska endurance racer Bill Merchant that applies to his epic Iditarod Invitational race, but works well in this context, too:

"We go into the Alaska backcountry to see if we have any cracks in ourselves. We go back a year later to see if we've done anything about them."