Not pretty

Date: July 9
Mileage: 38.2
July mileage: 244.2
Temperature upon departure: 51

The day started out so well. Drizzling rain tapered off early. I rode a light tailwind out to the valley and managed some strong intervals on the Glacier spur road. Mileage increased rapidly, and just as I was thinking “this whole summer cycling thing is way too easy,” the brunt of the storm blew in.

It was the kind of storm that earns its own regional designation. I think in Juneau they’re called "Taku Blasts" or something equally ominous. But no matter where you are, these storms always feel the same to a cyclist - headwinds that suck the air out of your lungs, sideways rain that could pierce a helmet, and an unexpected drop in temperature. I fought the storm like an outnumbered conquistador all the way home, knowing defeat was imminent because I was going to have to maintain my early pace just to make it to work on time.

Do you ever look at yourself in the mirror after a ride like this? I try not to, but it’s like trying to look away when you pass a particularly disgusting lump of road kill. The bloodshot eyes caught my attention first - swollen and framed by dark shadows. My entire face was checkered with blotchy red patches and spatters of mud; wet hair clung to my forehead and dangled in snarled strands over my neck. To top it all off, I had a stream of snot oozing down my upper lip. I didn’t even notice it before because my entire face was numb, like my hands, but I still know attractive when I see it.

I always wonder how much of this image lingers even after I’m showered and blow-dried and sitting at my desk in my khaki pants and turtleneck. Can my co-workers tell how I’ve spent my morning? Is it obvious to anyone that just an hour earlier, my face looked like a half-rotten salmon laboring for breath in the shallow end of a creek? I may never know.

Baby fireweed

Date: July 8
Mileage: 25.1
July mileage: 206.0
Temperature upon departure: 54

The Fireweed 400 wrapped up this weekend. Geoff crinkled his face as I read him the results. "Who would want to ride on a road for 400 miles?" he asked. I would! I'm pretty bummed I couldn't get healthy in time to train and plan for this ride. I thought in passing a week ago about buying a plane ticket just so I could go out there and try to survive it, but I shed the thought pretty quickly. Luckily. But still I wonder ... how would it feel to be completely wrecked right now? Even if I ended up sprawled on the finish line, drooling and moaning, it would still feel so great to go full-bore into something and not worry about long-term consequences. Of course I would, though. That's why I'm not there.

As it is, I'm still trying to limit my recreational riding to four days a week, tops. It helps me avoid repetitive-motion flare-ups, and also build strength through other activities. I'd like to get out more often on my mountain bike, but the trails are starting to become icky. The rainy season approaches. And as fun as they are, I'm going to have to limit Sugar's BikeSwim outings if I want him to last another season. But the touring bike just keeps on plugging and plugging away, even as rust creeps across the bolts and bearings. It would have performed brilliantly in the Fireweed 400.

As for the rest of my "season," I'm shooting for a full-12-hour ride by the end of July, the 350-mile Canada loop in mid-August, and then more hiking to prepare for the Grand Canyon in September. None of that is racing, so I guess it's not very interesting. But it gives me enough goals to keep the edge on while I think about taking up Ultrasport training in October. Scary.

Return to cripple valley

I did a great hike today with friends on the Dan Moller trail. As we ambled up the long and narrow strip of wooden planks, the seasons changed with each mile. The full bloom of summer faded into the stunted grass of late spring, which regressed into the skunk cabbage and mud of early spring. By the time we reached the cabin, we were clawing through petrified snow drifts. Somewhere beyond there, winter still lingers. But no matter where I am on the Dan Moller trail, winter is all I see.

The Dan Moller trail is one of those places that represents an abrupt hiccup in my life. For some reason, the remnants of emotions and memories from most of my personal upheavals come to rest on very specific places. There's a park in Salt Lake City that I couldn't bear to walk through for years after one of my first boyfriends broke up with me. My early frustrations with Juneau always come flooding back when I pass Mendenhall Lake campsite No. 5. And now, I can't walk up the Dan Moller trail without thinking about all the painful steps I took through the packed snow earlier this year.

It feels strange, because I didn't think this trail ... this experience ... would haunt me. It probably shouldn't. But it does. There was a time in March and April when I hobbled up the Dan Moller trail two or three days a week, just to get out, because I went so stir crazy sitting inside. Now, I look over my shoulder to a faintly familiar valley shrouded in heavy clouds, and I think about how far I've come. I think about how far I have left to go. I think about how everything's changed. I think about how the landscape looks the same. I think about never having to go back to last winter. I think about the ways it still blocks my path. I tromp through yet another snowfield, and I think about never completely escaping.

As I was leaving work this evening, I caught a rare glimpse of the sunset. People were stopped on the bridge, just standing there, watching it. What makes sunset so stunning some evenings, so mundane others? Maybe it's because an experience can never be defined by its place in time and space. Experience doesn't have to be attached to anything. Experience just ... is.

Thinking about heat

Date: July 6
Mileage: 89.2
July mileage: 91.7
Temperature upon departure: 57

Before leaving for my ride this morning, I put all of my handlebar bag gear in a little pile ... Nutrigrain Bar, Clif Bar, camera, extra wool socks and mittens. "Mittens," Geoff said. "It's July! You don't need mittens."

I pointed out that it was raining from the large bucket outside. "Once I get wet," I said, "my hands and feet are going to be cold. I don't care if its nearly 60."

As I set out into the downpour, I did have to pedal hard early on to generate heat. As I was doing this, I thought about Utah. Geoff told me that the state hit its all-time high yesterday, in St. George, with a 117-degree scorcher. It took me back to a ride I did in July 2002, when Salt Lake hit what was at that time its all-time high, 107. I decided to pedal to my parents' house in Sandy, which was less than 20 miles from my college commune. I set out with what I though was a reasonable amount of water - 64 ounces - and took my normal route along the pavement of 700 East. With visible heat waves wafting off the blacktop, it only took five miles before the soles of my shoes felt like they were resting on hot coals. By seven miles, my legs felt like they were twirling around a rotisserie. By 12 miles, I had sucked down every ounce of the water I was carrying. By 15 miles, I felt like I was about to pass out. By 17 miles, I was fairly sure I had cooked the protein in my brain beyond recovery. I was probably near heat stroke by mile 20. But the feeling was closer to a very toasty grave. I think about that ride sometimes when I am especially cold or soggy. I'm convinced that there are few situations worse than riding a bicycle in Salt Lake City in July. Give me below-0 temperatures any day.

Still, it is funny to go for a July ride and worry about hypothermia. Last summer, when the temperatures warmed up a bit and I let my guard down, I had a few seriously shivery rides. So I am much more cautious this year. It turned out to be all for naught. The sun came out at mile 20, and I found I couldn't stuff enough of my extra layers into my handlebar bag. I actually had my rain pants wrapped around my waist at one point.

I cycled out to the end of the road. It was much harder than the same ride three weeks ago. A front moved in and bumped up the south wind to 15 mph - a headwind I had to fight the entire 45 miles home that was definitely not there as a tailwind for most of the 45 miles out. Also, I think my recovery renaissance has ended. Now that I'm convinced my bad knee can handle these rides, the rest of my body feels comfortable rebelling again. Plus I (ironically) ran out of water. I left with a 24-ounce bottle thinking I would be able to refill it somewhere along the road, but beyond mile 17, there was nothing - no spigots, no stores, no parked trucks with five-gallon jugs in the back. Geoff tells me I should just drink out of one of the hundreds of waterfalls that line the road, but I am not brave enough to do that. At least, not when it's 60 degrees out and I have only 30 miles to ride before a known source of treated water.

Beyond that, though, I had a great ride. I was thrilled to pedal far enough north to hit some sunshine. Although ... I really hate wearing my bike shoes on longer rides. I think if I had any early-warning sharp pains in my knee I'd never notice, because I'm too heavily focused on my throbbing toes. In the future, for 5-hour+ rides, I'll probably just switch over my clipless pedals to the platforms. Good ol' platforms. Then I'd actually be able to do some hiking.

It is beautiful out the road, regardless of weather or other misadventures. I definitely need to toss the clipless pedals, buy another water bottle cage, and spend as much time out there as I can.

My favorite island, with some cool cloud formations in the background. Seriously, how will I ever be able to endure a non-Alaska summer again?

No fish

Today I spent seven hours in a boat with a fishing line dangling in the water, but I only caught one fish. People in Alaska would call it a "baby halibut." People in Utah would call it a "big, ugly fish." We threw him back. Then, even with a cyclical catalog of boppin' 60s hits blasting over the satellite radio, the ocean gods never smiled on us again.

My co-worker Brian was nice enough to invite me on his day out on the boat. He spends his summers stocking and restocking the freezers of his entire extended family, and he was flabbergasted at the idea of no fish, no fish at all. I always bought into the idea that just by showing up in Alaska and making some attempt to tie a herring to a line and then place it in the water, you were all but guaranteed to catch a fish. If that is true, it must be more of a Homer thing, because I've never had any luck in Juneau. And as the afternoon wore on and my dream of gorging myself with halibut meat for dinner quickly faded to thoughts of yet another freezer-burned veggie burger, I tried to console myself with other perks. Eagle Glacier looming over the rain-pocked harbor. The sun nearly breaking through ribbons of clouds. Humpback whales spouting in the distance. But I couldn't shake the thought that I was the bad luck, and that Geoff was going to be so disappointed when I came home empty-handed. Also, I was thirsty and hungry, I was sharing a small boat with a male co-worker, and I had no hope of a bathroom for seven full hours. The day was all about biological abstinence and false hope. And Steppenwolf.

At least Brian let me drive the boat as we headed in, at least until we hit four-foot swells. Then, just as I was joking about being the only person with the ability to capsize a boat that size in four-foot swells, he nervously offered to take back the captain's chair.

It's all in a day's work. But in the end, I'm probably better off sticking to the bike. And veggie burgers. And no more Steppenwolf.

Everyone loves a parade

Date: July 4
Mileage: 30.1
July mileage: 91.7
Temperature upon departure: 61

As the parade moved south, I pedalled north. A congestion of cars spilled out across the bridge and oozed ever so slowly beside me. Blanket and umbrella-wielding pedestrians poured over the pavement for festivities being held more than two miles away. I could still smell bonfire in my hair and I was having a hard time blinking the steady drizzle from my sleep-crusted eyes ... but I pitied them more. No one likes to be lost in a crowd.

I rode out here, north Douglas Island, into the eerily quiet afternoon. It seems Juneau is never silent in the summer, but July 4 must be the all-consuming holiday in this town. Traffic disappeared, people vanished, and even the bridge across Fish Creek - which is now choked with king salmon - was devoid of anglers tromping along the street in their waders. It was empty ... winterlike ... lonely. After I turned to head south again, I couldn't resist the pull.

The line of cars had given up moving by the time I reached the bridge. I slipped through the narrow opening between equally impenetrable walls of stopped vehicles and stroller-pushing parade-goers. I felt like I was chasing a distant exit from a tunnel that was closing in. But there were bagpipes playing softly in the distance, and growing piles of candy and confetti on the pavement, and I knew I was nearly there. I came to a flatbed truck filled with women singing traditional Tlingit songs, slipped around its side and joined the heart of the parade. Bags of Pop Rocks whizzed past my ears as dozens of children darted into the street ... in front of me, beside me, behind me. I swerved and wobbled and craned my neck in hopes of finding an opening to the sidewalk, but I was trapped. Faces lined the streets seven deep. My only hope was to make it to the next intersection, so I tucked in and hoped that the woman throwing Pop Rocks would show me a little mercy.

She did. I finally found a spot to turn, and used side streets to get ahead of the parade. I coasted back to Main Street just in time to see the Shriners, hamming up their roles as the people in miniature cars and hats. Behind them were the Rough Riders, trail-tough children glowering from a truck as their parents popped wheelies on cute little four-wheeled vehicles behind them. One boy in shades leaned against the cab and shot me a look of Supreme Coolness - the kind of look that crossed the face of every boy on every float on every Main Street in America today. All around me was the overwhelming aroma of charcoal and kettle corn, the smoky sweet smell that wafted over every park in every neighborhood in every state today. I took a deep breath, and realized that I was exactly where I wanted to be.

After midnight

Date: July 3
Mileage: 23.4
July mileage: 61.6
Temperature upon departure: 70

In Juneau, the July 4 fireworks are dark-permitting, not weather-permitting.

So we get our kicks real early.

Happy New Year ... er ... Independence Day, everyone.