Light torture

I stumbled into radiology at 7:15 this morning. I know that doesn't sound all that early, but with my work schedule and habits, 7:15 a.m. to me is like 5:15 a.m. to most people. They directed me to strip down and then steered me still crusty-eyed and wobbly-legged into a strange, silent room - large and empty with the exception of a single MRI imaging tube. I've heard that these tests are to be feared, but only by the claustrophobic, so I wasn't feeling too anxious. I laid on my back and the radiologist asked me if I wanted to listen to the radio. I just stared up at her, trying to coax my sleep-addled brain to turn on. Radio? What's that? I nodded weakly. "What station?" Station? What's a station? I mumbled something about NPR. She nodded and wrapped my leg, then left me alone in the room while the platform slid ominously into that alien tube.

I had been instructed NOT TO MOVE, and to NOT TAKE DEEP BREATHS, and my concentration on that made me not only twitch involuntarily, but breathe at a rate I usually reserve for sprinting up hills. I tried to slow my breathing but NOT TAKE DEEP BREATHS, and I thought about the beach, swimming, cycling ... but for some reason my thoughts kept returning to sitting on a plane. Twitch.

The radio switched on to mumbling static, and then the radiologist said something about 15 seconds and URRRRRRRRRRMMMMMMMM ... loud buzzing jolted me out of my airline fantasy and into a state that I'd have to describe as light panic. It sounds like an extreme reaction to a very minor thing, and it was. But I couldn't shake the thought that the loud buzzing was the sound of an alien machine shooting waves of magnetic resonance or radiation or whatever they use, directly into my body. The radio only made it worse. When the machine wasn't buzzing, static voices rattled off the morning's news. URRRRRRMMMMMMMMM ... sccct scct "170 sccct died today in bombings around Baghdad" .... URRRRRRRRMMMMM URRRMMMMMM ... "Tech killer Cho Seung-Hui said in a video sccct sccct ... URRRRRRMMMMMMM."

The minutes ticked on. My muscles were so tense that I felt like I was going to roll right off the platform. Thinking about breathing wasn't helping, so I did something I haven't done since I white-knuckled the passenger's seat of a turboprop plane making its way up to 15,000 feet to outrun a big storm in southern Montana ... I started chanting the Lord's Prayer. You know "Our farther, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name." It's not even my religious background, but for some reason, it relaxes me. Yeah. I'm a nut.

But that's my MRI story. I've never dealt that well with anything medical. My sister's a registered nurse and I'm the type that gets lightheaded at the sight of blood. I'm also a bit of a technophobe. Combining the two is about guaranteed to send me into a mild psychotic episode. Especially when I'm directing all of my focus into NOT MOVING.

After my appointment, with the sun out and 50-degree clear weather, I thought I deserved to spend a better part of the afternoon relaxing on the beach and barbecuing Not Dogs with Geoff. Now I'm back to sane. Mostly.

Really warm

(This is the Douglas Island bridge. I realized that of all the pictures I post here, very few of them are actually of Juneau as a city. So I'm adding this to my "urban" series.)

It hit 50 degrees today. It may not be the first time we've climbed out of the 40-degree range this year, but it definitely seemed to be the most sustained and noticeable duration of warm weather yet. My neighbors were out in droves - laughing, jogging, riding their bikes. I was having a generally bad day. Early doctor's visit. Left my jacket there, with my camera inside the pocket. May or may not get that back. Reality-check call to my health insurance company. Bad run on a treadmill. Tight deadlines at work. Had to run a bunch of errands with my car. Every time I climbed inside, the sticky heat of the interior stoked my grump. The most beautiful day of the year, and I was stewing in my own bad mood. Well, that and a cloud of stagnant moisture that is finally evaporating after a winter of ice buildup. I opened the window because I thought the cool, salty breeze and sunlight would make me feel better. But it doesn't really work that way, does it? Bad moods definitely want to go and hang for a while in the dark.

Not that it was that bad. Everyone has bad days. Everyone. All the time. They're good for the soul, in the long term. I think some of my mood today stemmed from a doctor-scheduled appointment to get an MRI tomorrow. This can only be a bad thing, and here's why: If they find nothing, then I'm no better off than I am now, except for I'll never know what's wrong with me. I could just be a massive hypochondriac. And how do you recover from that? But if they find something, then that will confirm another fear of mine - well, two fears - fear of surgery and fear of the implication of wasting two whole months and then losing an entire summer. How will I forgive my lazy self? And if their findings are inconclusive, which is the most likely scenario, then not only have I wasted two whole months, and who knows how many hundreds of dollars, but I'll likely have to go on believing I'm a hypochondriac until I can plunk down a few thou for a specialist in Seattle. Wow. Getting old is fun.

So no, I'm not real excited to get an MRI. I can't make myself believe that anything that can come out of it will be good news. Why get it at all? Because life never changes through inaction.

Climb mix

So the other day, Fat Cyclist challenged his readers to come up with a list of seven perfect songs to listen to while grinding the pedals up a killer hill. I didn't give such a list much thought until today, while turning the elliptical pedals at the gym and listening to the new Modest Mouse album ... yeah, again. So there I was, cycling through my boring routine and staring off into space when I noticed my field of vision begin to narrow. I snapped out of la-la land and realized that not only was my heart racing, but I was turning some crazy RPMs on the digital display. I didn't even make a conscious choice to go so hard. What made me do it? "Florida."

Exercise music is completely personal, of course, based on cadence preferences and general taste, among other things. But in my opinion, "Florida" is the most perfect hill-climbing song ever recorded. It has everything I need in a climbing song - a catchy beat punctuated by bursts of energy, an ethereal enough melody to mimic complacency whilst pushing through the pain tunnel, and lyrics that won't challenge you to think too hard while you're in there.

This got me to thinking about taking up Fatty's challenge to make a hill-climbing playlist. So these are my seven songs. They are not my seven all-time songs, really, just the ones I'd put on my iPod right now, today. This list would probably be different tomorrow. I'm not sure how well these links will work. Not all of the songs had handy YouTube videos, including "Florida."

A lot of you have probably already posted your own seven-song list at Fatty's place. But feel free to send it my way. My iPod is dying for some diversity.

"Florida" by Modest Mouse - "I stood on my heart supports thinkin', 'Oh my God, I'll probably have to carry this whole load.'"

"Fire It Up" by Modest Mouse - "When we finally turn it over; Make a beeline towards the border; Have a drink, you've had enough."

"The Bleeding Heart Show" by The New Pornographers - "Watch 'em run, although it's the minimum, heroic."

"Wolf Like Me" by TV on the Radio - "We could jet in a stolen car; but I bet we wouldn't get too far; before the transformation takes; and bloodlust tanks; and crave gets slaked."

"What Never Dies" by Sense Field - "Some don't want to see you win; Some don't want to see you fly; Some don't want to see you live; They just want to see you."

"Looking at the World From the Bottom of a Well" by Mike Doughty - "Oh all the days; That I have run; I sought to lose that cloud that’s blacking out the sun; My train will come; Some one day soon; And when it comes I’ll ride it bound from night to noon."

"Miami 2017" by Billy Joel - Hey ... don't judge me.

Gear displacement

I've been on a bike-gear acquiring tear lately. It's hard to say why. Logically, I know I'm only compensating for my current cycling inabilities. And psychologically, it hurts to watch this stuff linger unused in its original packaging. But emotionally, it feels so good to receive shiny little bike pieces in the mail and dream of a parallel universe where they're getting all that shine scuffed off on mud-soaked trails (or roads).

My recent purchases include a seatpost clamp, several water bottles, tire levers, tire pump, bike shoes and clipless pedals. This is my first clipless system ever. I have come out strongly against such a system in the past. I do not like the idea of being attached to my bike. But, then again, I do not like the idea of being detached from my bike, either. Clipless may aid an eventual transition back to cycling. And they may help better align my pedal stroke. So I placed an order for Look pedals and some skinny, ugly roadie shoes. When they came in the mail, I was so excited that I wore them around the house for an hour.

Also arrived recently in the mail were a couple of pairs of Ergon grips. Mr. Ergon himself sent them to me. Honestly, I was more excited about the idea of Jeff Kerkove offering to send me something than I was about the gear itself, but they do seem pretty cool. My hands regularly lose circulation and go "dead" when I ride for long stretches of time, so I'm excited to try them out. Someday.

Then, today I was struck with - in several separate instances - urgent desires to go out and buy a new seat, a new bike rack, and a short-sleeve jersey. I don't currently own even one short sleeve jersey. I need one, I reasoned, for my trip to Utah. Ha! That trip's in just over two weeks. What are the chances I'm even going to be bipedally mobile by then, let alone be up for a long enough ride to necessitate sweat-wicking technology? I'm better off spending my spare cash this week on a hair cut and a 40-ounce bottle of SPF 45, which is something I really will need for a week in Utah (but don't think merchants actually stock in Juneau.)

Even though Geoff's birthday was the other day and I didn't have any other ideas for a present, I have purposely been avoiding the local bike shop. I'm concerned I'll walk out with the latest carbon-fiber bank-account-drainer. I'm lucky that I live in a small enough town that I couldn't find a Pugsley if I wanted to. But why must eBay have such a convenient payment system? And why is Nashbar having so many great spring sales? Wait a minute ... free shipping? Must ... close ... Web ... browser. Now.

Breakup

Signs of spring everywhere lately. Not new growth, per say; not sun, either. Just melt and light. Melt releases a world long smothered by winter. Streams flow free again. The tips of small willow trees peak out from the mushy snowpack. I go snowshoeing on an old, familiar trail and it becomes new again.

Early in my walk, I found a green plastic Easter egg. It had a fun-sized Hershey bar inside. It was all alone in the snow, in an odd enough place that it must have been dropped, not hidden. This is where I found it, near a half-frozen waterfall. And I was in a strange enough mood that I carried it with me on my hike and made it the subject of photographs.

My outdoor activities as of late, as sparse as they've been, have been fairly uninspiring. I'm reading nonfiction books about long-distance bicycle touring again, which, if my past habits are any indication, is a fairly clear sign that I'm slipping into a rut. I've been envious of Geoff and his training. I try not to let that sentiment show when he describes his latest adventures to me, but sometimes I find myself tempted to turn the conversation back to baseball.

At least I still have snowshoeing, but likely only a couple more weeks worth. Rain showers strip the snowpack away like acid. April is the beginning of the dry season in Juneau, but that's definitely relative. Dry season here would be monsoon season in Utah. At least we're not having snowstorm tornadoes like the rest of the country.

I also have Folk Fest to drain me of all of my energy, and a 3 a.m. night does that well. Last night at the Alaska Hotel, I ran into a friend from Anchorage plays fiddle in an old-timey band. Her real life is filled with legislative lobbying and bar exams and "good, old-fashioned Asian discipline." But fiddling is her passion. "Folk Fest changed my life!" she screamed with startling intensity that could have been the Alaskan Smoked Porter speaking, but I think any self-restraint would have only stripped away the truth. I envied her too, because she had lifelong love where I only had a flirtatious night out.

Today, while burning my way through 90 cardio minutes at the gym with a Runner's World magazine, I read twice an article about marathoner John Kelley. In his story arc, it seems he never experienced a life half lived. He just started out strong and kept going. He's still going.

"The things we do should consume us," Kelley told the reporter. "If they don't, our lives won't have any meaning."

Folk Fest

Yet another setback on the road to recovery. Maybe. The truth is, I've been functioning in this semi-injured state long enough that I don't really remember what normal is supposed to feel like. But I do try to be careful. These days, with summer approaching ever faster, I try to be so, so careful.

Today I had some grocery shopping and other mind-numbing errands to do. Before that, I decided to go for a walk on the beach. You know, slow walk on a flat gravel beach, skimming the surf and picking up seashells like toddlers and little old ladies can do. But the tide was coming up and on my way back, I had to climb up into the rocks to get through. I tentatively chose every step, taking advantage of every handhold and generally following the mantra of three-point contact. However, I was probably just shy of that number when I set my foot down on a slanted boulder and lost contact immediately. I plummeted down the slimy surface in a blinding flash of white pain. It felt like my knee had finally ripped clean from my leg like it's been hinting at all this time. I lay crumpled on the rocks for several seconds, unsure of how to make my next move. If I got up to walk and learned I couldn't, I knew I'd be devastated. And not only that, I'd be stranded alone on a beach with the tide coming up and not a soul knew I was out there. But if I got up and learned I could still walk, I'd have a short hike and a long afternoon full of shame and regret ahead of me. Of all the fun things I could have done to unravel any progress I've made, a toddler walk on the beach would be about my last choice.

After the white streaks stopped shooting across my field of vision and my knee-jerk panic reaction subsided, I accepted the reality that I was OK. I stood up and oozed my way off the rocks at a literal rate of about 100 yards an hour. When I made it back to the safety of smooth gravel, my gait and speed returned fairly quickly back to normal. It seems that all I really did was bend my knee too far when I fell forward, and that pain I felt was just the "10" version of the normal pain I feel in other knee-bending tasks, such as pedaling a bicycle. No new damage, right? Just a little warning from the tender tissue. That's my story. I'm sticking to it.

Well. It seems I've gone off rambling about my knee again. I really intended this post to be about Folk Fest, which is an annual old-timey-and-other-acoustic-music event created to fill out a week of that dull time between winter skiing and summer fishing. Folk Fest is huge here in Juneau. I really had no idea. Half the town packs the city auditorium so tight that there's no room to dance, which is probably a good thing in my case, and countless musicians spill out in the streets, the bars, the motels - anywhere - to start their own renegade sets. We went tonight to see the headliner, the Carolina Chocolate Drops, because we heard they were the real deal. And they were. Alaskans really love their old-timey music, which always struck me as amusing because of our distance - both culturally and geographically - to rural Appalachia. But I am starting to understand the draw. This music will grab you and fling you around in leg-kicking frenzy and spit you out in an idealized world where nothing happened after 1929. I'm not going to pretend I know anything about the culture of old-timey. But I do know that it's a fun escape when it comes through town.

Also, since I'm on the subject of rambling, I wanted to say hello to all of the new people from all over the world who dropped by Thursday (thanks to Blogger for the link love.) More than 5,000. Wow. You may have even read a few posts and are probably wondering why someone would devote an entire blog to a knee injury. But there could be worse blog themes, don't you think? I mean, what's the deal with those people who pretend to have an informative regional blog and then just spend the whole time talking about their hobbies? Pathetic, really, when you think about it.

Hooked

Do you ever wonder how seemingly normal, otherwise-well-rounded people find their way into endurance sports? Of course there will always be genetic anomalies out there who can burn endless miles without even trying. But where does the rest of the field come from? How does a person look at something like a 24-hour bicycle race - the stomach-turning loops, the joint-throttling repetition, the creeping night fatigue and the 20-hours-per-week training it takes to get there - how do they look at something like that and say, “hey, that might be something I’d be good at”? Or even scarier - “hey, that might be fun.”

I’ve ask myself this question before. I feel like I can trace it all back to a single moonlit morning, when my friends Monika, Curt and I decided we wanted to see what the top of Mount Timpanogos looked like at sunrise.

The Timpanogos trail is in itself a fairly mellow hike. At 18 miles, it’s long but mellow. Of course there’s a fair amount of elevation gain, but since Boy Scouts and BYU students make up the bulk the trail’s regulars, it can’t exactly be listed under Xtreme. But throw in three recent college grads, a long night of partying, a sleepless 2 a.m. launch time, two frozen water bottles, six Jolly Ranchers and a single can of Red Bull, and you suddenly have something that skirts the gaping chasm of “Epic.”

I remember struggling up the ridge line at mile 7, about 5 a.m., when our silent suffering started to slip into audible abuse. After several long minutes of groans and grumbles and my comments about the brilliance of freezing water for a hike in the 35-degree chill of a September morning at 10,000 feet, we all just stopped. Cut to silence. And looked at each other. I could see in my friends’ eyes the dead-end fatigue I felt in myself. It was suggested that we turn around. I glanced up trail. The ridge was no more than a half mile away - and beyond that I imagined the wind-blasted ridge line, the strenuous scramble to the peak, and the inevitable sunrise over the Heber Valley.

And so I said, "Well, the hard part's over now. It's all mental from here." Somehow, I talked myself into believing that. And Monika and Curt, as though too tired to argue, nodded. So we marched.

At the peak, Monika - the only one smart enough to bring any sort of breakfast - shared her strange little soft cheese wedges with us before she and Curt passed out on their own respective rock ledges. I sat beside a weather tower and watched wisps of pink clouds burn away as the Wasatch Range stretched deeper into the morning. In the new clarity of daylight, I had a bewildering view of what seemed to be thousands of peaks. I wanted to climb them all. And even stranger, I thought as desperately lapped at wet ice through the narrow neck of my water bottle, is that I wanted to start that second, from that peak. I wanted to walk to the next peak, and then the next. As exhausted as I knew I was, I craved some sort of journey into the eternity I could suddenly see.

I think that's when I knew.

What's your story?