In and out

Geoff had a big day planned today - a 25-mile trail run or something equally crazy. I was jealous. I think it's what I miss the most about the months when I did a lot of cycling - that supreme satisfaction of embarking on a long day. Some days, when everything is dialed in perfect, the miles only stoke the energy fire and I feel like I could move forward forever. Other days, I slip into a bonk coma and struggle and struggle and struggle, but when I stumble home and crash, I know I earned it.

So I wanted to do my own long day in my own long way ... something low-impact and scaled down and knee-friendly, but ~25 miles just the same.

I started at my gym with a brand new book, "Driving Mr. Albert" and a copy of the Backpacker gear issue, which is what I spent most of my time reading. I hadn't been on the elliptical machine more than a minute when the gym maintenance guy called out from across the room, something about wanted to check the wheel. I stopped pedaling and turned to face him as he bee-lined toward me, and the rowing machine that separated him from me, and he wasn't slowing down. Just as I opened my mouth to ask what was wrong, he slammed his shin into the rowing machine and tumbled forward. I saw for a fraction of a second his face, filled with pure shock and terror, and then he went down, slamming his head into the back of my machine.

I hopped off and stuttered, "Are ... you OK?" He was on his knees with his hands over his right eye, and I could see blood gushing from the spaces between his fingers. "Oh no ... you need to go to the hospital." I looked desperately over at the front counter, where a woman had seen the whole thing and was rushing over to help him. I held out my hand but he was already on his feet, grumbling "I'll be fine" and dancing around the front counter woman, who looked as though she might try to pry his hands away from his face. They walked together to the desk, where she gave him a gym towel, and then they disappeared down the stairs. And all the while I just stood there, a little slack-jawed, wondering "what now?" It says something about life ... that everything we do is, by default, a risk, and nowhere is truly safe ... the wilderness, the highways, my climate-controlled gym. And it also says something about me that I got right back on the same machine - the one that elicited such an extreme response to begin with - and pedaled away.

(I did inquire about the man when the front-counter woman returned. She said he wouldn't go to the hospital, but the cut on his forehead seemed to have stopped bleeding and he had one hell of a shiner.) Pedal-Run: 2 hours 20 minutes; 18.5 miles.

I came home, ate some lunch and then headed up the Dan Moller trail with my snowshoes on my back. The snowline is already much higher than it was just a week ago, although in the steady drizzle I think I saw new flakes falling just above treeline. Where the snowpack has melted, the skunk cabbage is blooming. Hiking in Juneau is much more treacherous in the summer ... mostly mud and snaking roots and slimy wooden planks that provide close to zero traction. I have to admit I was happy to reach elevation and see winter again ... soft, forgiving winter. Hike/Snowshoe: 2 hours, 45 minutes; 7.5 miles; 2,000 feet elevation gain.

Not really to the level of Geoff's long day. After all, I'm not the one who came home and ate five different dinners. But there's something there. Something I've been missing. Some kind of risk-taking that drives the satisfying life.

I guess it's the "holiday" weekend now. I say so because it's not my holiday weekend. Going back to work tomorrow. And even though everyone is pedaling and fishing and sipping margaritas on houseboats in Lake Powell, I just wanted to say to the six people out there who share my unfortunate schedule and are sitting in empty offices and blogging ... "Happy Memorial Day."

May snow and thorn ride

Date: May 24
Mileage: 12.3
May Mileage: 115
Temperature upon departure: 54

I did not have a destination or a mileage goal in mind today. Just wanted to do a ride - any ride, anywhere. These days, the details don't mean as much to me as the simple act of pedaling.

But because I'm still unsure about whether this act should continue, I decided to make the day's ride a good one and travel out the road to the Herbert Glacier trail. I spent a decent part of the morning prying my super-tight studded tires from the rims of my mountain bike. It was a Herculean effort that I had to recruit Geoff for; even he struggled with that carbide-tooth monster for a while; I was two steps away from grabbing a burly pair of scissors when he finally freed it. Then I cut my thumb while putting the summer tires back on. And for all that effort, and all that driving, I was less than a mile into the ride when the trail started to look like this:

This is not an elevation ride. It's a couple hundred feet above sea level, tops. But here the snow lingers, an unseasonal blanket of soft sugar and hollow drifts. I made an effort to ride it ... a futile effort at best. I'd frantically pedal a few yards, eventually dig myself into a deep hole, hop off and hike-a-bike for a while, repeat. I like to think of it as an interval workout. It took me another mile to realize that my heart rate wasn't high enough to justify all the pointless postholing.

After I returned to the trailhead, I pedalled a half mile up the road to the Eagle Glacier trail. For some unknown reason, the trail - located at the same elevation - was almost completely snow-free. But what it lacked in slush, it made up for in sheer technical hardship.

It was a lot of fun at first - bouncing over root after rock after root, skirting the narrow corridor along the river and willing myself not to fall in. I never made it more than 1,000 yards without having to stop and hoist the bike over deadfall trees. It wasn't the most difficult trail I've ridden. But when I started making mistakes, I really made mistakes. The root piles seemed ever higher and slipperier. I wished for the studded tires, but what I really needed was sheer leg stregnth to power over all the slimy obstacles. I'd clear my front tire only to lose traction in the back, skipping sideways and overcorrecting until I nearly fell over. Then, eventually, I did fall over - right into a huge patch of spiny devil's club shoots. The rush of stinging pain was everything I needed to remind me that I was here and this was now. There was nothing beyond the immediacy of dozens of tiny, mildly poisonous thorns piercing my skin.

By the time the claws of death subsided to a dull throbbing, I was back on the road (with a few dozen thorns still lodged in my skin; it took me a decent part of the afternoon to pick them out, and I still haven't gotten all of them.) I continued pedaling up the pavement because I had come all that way and wanted to justify the ride somehow. It was shortly thereafter that I realized my knee was sore - really sore. I think in all of the snow swerving, root hopping and thorn preoccupation, I hadn't noticed it before.

It makes me think that technical mountain biking isn't really the best form of recovery riding - and could be worse than just putting in long miles. Who knows? The day's ride was a bit of a failure all around, but at the same time, I still prefer the adventure to the void.

Now it's seven

Eero asked me to share "seven little-known facts" the other day. I think I did this meme a few months ago when the number was still five. But I haven't tried seven yet, and I didn't go for a ride today, and I do owe her for lending me a bivy to use in the Susitna 100, so I thought I'd oblige. Seven "little-known" facts about Jill:

1. Somewhere deep in the recesses of childhood memory, I know how to play four different instruments: the accordion, the string bass, the harmonica and the piano. That may sound decidedly nerdy, but put them all together and I could form a mean one-woman zydeco band.

2. I have an irrational but paralyzing fear of moving water - whitewater rapids, ocean swells and the like. I can trace this fear back to a lot of incidents, but the first was when my parents took me to a Sesame Street theme park near Dallas, Texas, when I was 3 years old. One of the "attractions" was little more than a narrow, dark tube that children crawled through while jets of water blasted from all sides. I still have vivid dreams of a shadowed line of big kids' faces and large hands yanking me forward as I thrashed against the deluge, screaming and screaming and screaming.

3. I also am afraid of dogs. I am more afraid of dogs than I am of bears. This is because I know bears for the most part want to leave me alone. Dogs, on the other hand, have lunged at me, mowed me down, and a couple of times even bit me - hard enough to cause permanent scarring. I do not like dogs. But I'm sure your dog is great.

4. I am a big advocate of not attaching oneself to things. "Need Less" is, in fact, my zen goal in life. I really like the idea of living independently, minimizing my footprint (I am a second-hand queen) and keeping my lifestyle options open - even if it means leaving everything I own behind (I try to include my bikes in this sentiment, but I have predictably become attached to them.) The upside is that I have more money to spend on the intangible and fleeting things I really love, like food and travel. The drawback is that I own the world's ugliest couch, a Salvation Army TV that only picks up two channels, and a bed I hate so much that I only sleep in it about 30 percent of the time. But hey - I could walk onto the Alaska State Ferry tomorrow and never look back.

5. I finished my first "century" ride, the 2004 Salt Lake Century, in 5 hours, 25 minutes. However, after two years of riding with an odometer, I have concluded beyond much doubt that I must have inadvertently skipped part of the course. It's highly unlikely that I actually rode 100 miles that fast. But I guess I'll never really know.

6. I suspected a botched finishing time by the end of my second century attempt, the 2004 Ride for Life. Not because it was decidedly slower, but because I discovered how poor my route-finding skills really were. I showed up 45 minutes late and took off down the road, quickly becoming confused by the hordes of runners I was passing. Thirteen miles later, I was back where I started. Only then did I realize that I had inadvertently followed the course of a half-marathon that was happening that same day. Then 90 minutes late, I still did the ride, because I was "sponsored" back then and somewhat obligated (Thanks, Cycling Utah!)

7. I was born in Denver, Colorado, moved away when I was 9 months old, and have never actually been back (drove by on I-25 once, at night, without stopping.) It's kind of strange to have no mental picture of the place where I was born.

So there you go ... seven things. The idea is to pass this on, but I don't really feel comfortable telling others what they should write on their blogs. So I'll leave it up to you, because it's always fun to hear from others. Tell me a little-known fact about yourself.

Tracking?

Date: May 22
Mileage: 21.6
May Mileage: 102.7
Temperature upon departure: 57

Some time on the road today gave me a chance to watch my legs do their pedal thing. It was not pretty.

My left leg holds straight and strong over the pedal, but my right knee pulls rather dramatically to the left. How far left? It’s centimeters away from crashing into the top tube, that’s how far left. Continued effort to straighten my leg felt tight and unnatural - like I was purposely trying to pedal bowlegged. But my natural inclination is to pedal like I’m overcome by an urge to pee. Ugly, ineffective and definitely detrimental.

An effect of knee injury ... or the cause? Probably both. There seems to be some knee-cap tracking that is causing the joint to collapse toward the inside. There also is the issue of my wimpy quad muscles that are probably disproportionately wimpy to one another.

Either way, the damage has been done. My concern is what I can do about it. I realize quad strengthening is the best road, but I’m not sure what the best exercises are. Wall sits are OK. Squats make me wish I were poking myself with a sharp pencils instead. Any suggestions?

Also, does anyone know of a brace or maybe a taping technique that might correct such a thing? I have been doing some Internet research, but almost all of it leads me in the direction of changing one's running habits. Tracking is common in cycling, but there doesn’t seem to be much readily available information about how to fix it on a bike.

Probably time to call my physical therapist again. I am definitely not thrilled about all of the medical bills that have been rolling in lately. I think if I knew three months ago what I know now, I would cash in all those copays and sell my bikes and take one of those Alaska cruises.

On second thought ... scrap that. Better to go to Antarctica.

Cheater

Date: May 21
Mileage: 7.5
May Mileage: 81.1
Temperature upon departure: 56

I was not going to ride today. It was an odd (off) day, so it didn’t fit into my Baby Steps Back To Recreational Overuse® cycling plan. But then I woke up a little on the early side of the day and, as directed by my plan®, went straight to the gym. Going to gym is like eating a pound of broccoli - healthy, but tasteless and unsatisfying. When I returned home, I still had more than two hours before I had to be at work. And I thought, hey, I've been good all week. I deserve some desert.

The short road goes to Sandy Beach. And low tide meant the coastline was a sparkling sheen of high-resistance goodness. I really don’t know what it is about cycling on snow or sand that turns me on so much. Maybe it’s the random swerving; the spastic spinning; the all-out effort just to hit 5 mph. But I think what's really most appealing about snow or sand is the smooth, borderless surfaces that stretch out to seemingly limitless possibilities. I mashed across a creek flowing high enough that the current almost knocked me over; but on the other side, I caught a glimpse of a line of sand that continued uninterrupted for miles down the coast. I think I could follow its narrow path and find the outer tip of Douglas Island, a place where no roads or trails go. Someday, I’d like to try.

Today was not the day, though. At first, I didn't feel guilty for riding 'when I wasn't supposed to.' It was a rather arbitrary deviation from what is admittedly a rather arbitrary plan. But then again, I'd been off Aleve for four entire days and I felt compelled to pop a couple of blue pills this evening. I still can't help but wonder how much of this is all in my head.

On a completely unrelated side note, if anyone has dropped by looking for little tidbits of good ol' Alaskana, the Anchorage Daily News has an interesting collection of homemade short films by Alaskans about Alaska. Some friends of mine are trying to win a plasma TV or some other equally obnoxious prize. I think you have to fill out a form to vote, but if you did take two minutes to do so, and did feel compelled to vote for them, and they did in fact win an obnoxiously large TV, you would make their day - and vicariously, my day. I recommend viewing and voting for "Chugach Energy Drink" and "The Latest in Bear Behavior Research" (Grizzly charge! Scary! Oooo!) Either way, it's yet another way to avoid actual work. Click here.

Moving on up

Date: May 20
Mileage: 14.4
May Mileage: 75.6
Temperature upon departure: 58

I going to start keeping track of my cycling mileage again. Why would I bother? Well, after three months of flailing defiance, mistake after mistake after mistake interrupted by short periods of indifference, I think I may finally be poised for a comeback.

My recent numbers tell most of the story themselves:
December, 476.1 miles
January, 893.4 miles
February, 361.1 miles
March, 14 miles
April, 25.3 miles
May, 75.6 miles

Somewhere in there, I went very, very wrong. Maybe now I have finally learned my lesson about the perils of overuse, and the virtues of steady increments. But probably not.

I managed to whittle myself back to the bottom; now there's nowhere to go but up. Because I'm facing the slow climb as an alternative to the depths of inactivity, I feel like I have nothing to lose. And so I amble.

I tried out my clipless pedals for the first time today. I was a ball of nervous energy; suddenly thrown back into traffic with a loose rear hub and a sagging chain and a touring bike I definitely did not like being attached to. Even worse than the cars were the tourists, who treat downtown Juneau like it’s Main Street Disneyland; every move they make is unpredictable, and every pedestrian law goes out the window. Today Geoff yelled out, "Hey, did you know that this is a road, not a sidewalk?" But it's true. Maneuvering around tourists takes more skillz than singletrack, and I am not known for my roadie skillz.

Geoff and I rode out to Thane. He lectured me on the decrepitness of my road bike and my unwillingness to master the clipless, but we had a good ride. At the turnaround, he took off for a run on the coastal trail and I ambled some more, covering about three more miles on foot (For which I had to bring an extra pair of shoes. How annoying is that?). Someday I will appreciate clipless pedals. And someday I will be able to ride more than I would ever want to. Someday.

But for now, I wanted to say congrats to all who rode the Kokopelli Trail this weekend. I've been thinking about you and your 142-mile desert epic as I chart my next planned ride. Tuesday, 18 miles. We all have our thresholds, and my goal is to not find mine anytime soon.

I pretend I'm a tourist

I figured out a way to hike up a mountain without actually having to walk back down. The Mount Roberts trail wends through the rainforst, switchbacks up a steep slope and, in the last half mile, disappears beneath neck-high layer of crusty snow. Then, right at treeline, and just when you think you can climb no further lest you risk being swept away in an avalanche, you reach the Mount Roberts Tramway. You can purchase some useless trinkets, gawk at caged bald eagle with a bullet hole through its beak, buy a $5 cup of coffee and coast effortlessly back to sea level via the Mount Roberts Tram.

I arrived at the platform just in time to catch the 5:45. A rush of tourists, nearly every single one clutching a red bag from the $5 T-shirt shop, wedged me in next to the driver. He rattled off the safety spiel and we shot downward.

“How are you liking Juneau?" the driver asked me.

I paused for a second, considering the part of a tourist. “It’s pretty cool,” I said. I couldn’t think of what to add to that, so I said, “I saw your bald eagle.”

“Pretty sad, huh?” he said. “But it’s OK. Eagles are like rats here. They’re more of a pest than anything.”

“Sad about that one, though,” I said.

“So have you checked out the glacier yet?” he asked me. I realized he must be feeding me the standard tourist questions. It’s probably part of his job, part of a quota he has charted somewhere on his employee mission statement.

“Yeah ... you guys should wash that thing once in a while,” I said and flashed him my most earnest smile. He didn’t even flinch.

“At least you got a nice day today,” he said. “Usually I have to explain to people why it’s raining all the time.”

“Oh really? You have an explanation for that?”

Again, he didn’t even flinch. I considered my next dumb tourist question, but before I could say anything, someone from the back of the tram shouted, “Look! A bear!” I turned my head to look out the window. Sure enough, a yearling black bear was ambling up the hillside no more than 100 feet above town.

“We’ve spotted him a couple of times,” the tram driver said, more loudly so everyone could hear him. “His mom’s around here somewhere. She’s a much bigger bear.”

As my fellow tourists murmured and cooed, I said to the driver, “Wow. That’s really cool that you can see bears from here.”

“There are bears everywhere,” he said. “We see them all the time. They’re like dogs here.”

“Really,” I said as the tram lurched to a stop. “I would have never guessed.”