Competitive drive in neutral

Date: June 6
Mileage: 76.2
June mileage: 235.4
Temperature: 53

I had planned to "peak" for my 24 Hours of Light training this weekend, so it seemed prudent to do a longish ride today. I actually got some good riding in yesterday, so it didn't have to be epic. I just needed to chug out at least 10 hours for the weekend. Herbert Glacier and back sounded grand. Done and done. But what I really wanted to do was a car shuttle out to the Montana Creek side of the Windfall Lakes trail so I could bike out to Herbert Glacier and then walk to connect the two. I hear the hike is on questionable trail and about 11 miles one way - really need a weekend day to do something like that. Since my parents come to town next weekend I'll likely not get another chance this month, and then after that the mountains will be free and clear of snow and hiking the flats won't be as appealing. Oh well. Five hours on the bike won out.

I've had a good month of bike training, but in all likelihood, I'm done now. Don't get me wrong. I'll still ride my bike, excessively, but my other interests are starting to creep in now. My friends are starting to talk about sea kayaking. There are still so many trails in the area I've never seen because they're unbikeable, and I've been feeling an urge to spend more time on my feet. And beyond exercise, there just needs to be more time for barbecuing, for wandering the beach at sunset, for fishing and reading and going to plays. It's summer. The off season.

It's funny, more and more I'm realizing that I really am backward like that. I love to focus, focus, focus in the winter, and work hard with a set schedule and difficult goals in mind. Maybe it's to stave off the darkness and cold. Maybe it's to feel driven and strong when the rest of the world slips into lethargy. I don't know. I do know that summer comes and whatever shreds of competitive drive I even have start to unravel, and I begin to slack. When I started the summer I wanted the 24 Hours of Light to an "A" event, to be important. I really did. But my heart's just not in it. I guess I can't expect to be on all the time.

It's too bad, because I really believe that 24-hour racing could be my format if I ever devoted the kind of focus I put into winter cycling - which I'm not all that good at but love just the same. But 24-hour racing rewards all of my strengths - sleep deprivation, mental determination and keeping my butt in a saddle for a long period of time. And 24-hour racing is kind to many of my weaknesses - route finding, speed and technical savvy (anyone can ride a root-choked minefield given a dozen tries). Put me in an average field and I'll slowly chip away at it with my sheer turtle staying power. People who are good at sleep deprivation and sitting in a saddle all day and fast will destroy me, of course. That's why I'll never be a pro. But put me in a 24-hour race that I've really prepared for and I won't sleep, I won't crash hard and I likely will shine. Not that I know this for a fact. I've only ever ridden in one 24-hour race that I took seriously at all. That was two years ago, long before I had a clue what I was doing, when I was still a rank beginner on a mountain bike, and was sick half the time from really poor eating choices. But I stayed awake, and mostly stayed on the move, and ended up placing fifth overall, in a field of about 20 men and one other woman who was way behind me.

I had big hopes for the 24 Hours of Light, but they've been fading with the increasing sunlight and melting snow. I'm still going to go to the race and go hard, but I don't see the next three weeks advancing me much further toward that goal than I've already come. That's OK. It's summer and there's so much life to experience. The super-focused, intense biking can wait, and likely will wait, for first raindrops of autumn to fall again.

But, speaking of competition, I registered for my first race of the season. A couple of months ago, I crossed the Gastineau Channel with my bicycle and thought I was all adventurous for doing so. Turns out there are people who venture out that way every year, in a race, and they don't even use bicycles! So tomorrow I am headed out there to join the Southeast Road Runners for the Spring Tide Scramble, more popularly known as the "Mud Run." I have been warned to bring shoes I never plan to wear again. The race goes through knee-deep water and the forecast is calling for wind and rain with a high temperature of 48. I'm pretty sure I haven't run any significant distance since Nov. 11, 2006. So the plan is to go out and undo a month of hard cycling training in one reckless run across the Channel. Great fun! Here's a Google map of the course:

Wish me luck!

Good day exploring

Date: June 5
Mileage: 53.7
June mileage: 159.2
Temperature: 51

I read an interesting article today about a study that tracked 100,000 undisclosed cell-phone users in an undisclosed location outside the U.S. Besides the obvious ethical dilemmas involved with nonconsensual tracking, the scientists in this study noted that nearly 75 percent of the people being tracked never ventured further than a 20-mile radius from their home in six months. Half the people stayed in a circle little more than six miles wide. I know this is "outside the U.S.," far away from American car culture supposedly, but I wonder how many Americans mirror this lifestyle. How many Americans rarely see the spaces more than 20 miles from where they live?

It's interesting to me because this is my biggest issue with the place where I live. I have a somewhat-smaller-than-20-mile radius to explore, and beyond that, I can't go anywhere that I can't reach with my own two feet (or arms, if I had the courage to paddle out of here) or rather expensive mass transit. There are no roads or trails to lead me out of this place. I'm trapped, and sometimes I feel that way. As much as I love day-to-day life in Juneau, this aspect of living here is difficult for me. Travel was always such a huge part of my life when I lived in the lower States. Nearly every weekend, I set out across a piece of my own radius, back then probably 300 miles wide and sometimes more. It's definitely good that I drive *much* less now, but I still miss those new spaces and adventures. Especially now that I realize bike travel can easily extend into the hundreds of miles, a car wouldn't even be required.

I set out today in a light drizzling rain with my large pack and bike lock, because I had a bunch of errands to run. I picked up a few things and stopped for a lingering lunch, where I read about all those people who aren't trapped where they live and still never venture more than a few miles from home. I hadn't intended to do any recreational bike riding today, but when I stepped outside after lunch, the sun had broken through the clouds and I was conveniently located in the Valley, where all the best trails are. So I set out for a little trail riding that turned into a lot of trail riding, with a big pack, books and a few groceries on my back. It's been so unseasonably dry that the trails were almost dusty, such a rarity here, and I was able to bomb over a several lines of singletrack that are normally too muddy to bother with. The lower Montana Creek trail led to the upper Montana Creek trail, where the dry track allowed me to climb beyond the old road and onto entirely new trail (Windfall Lake?). I followed it for a while, even though it was way beyond my skill set - shin-high roots, collapsed bridges, plenty of cliffhangers and hike-a-bikes that were barely walkable (you know, the kind where you have to hoist the entire bike on your shoulders and hope you don't slip because you are going to tip backward off a cliff with a only a steel bicycle to break your fall.) But it was new trail, and I was really excited about that fact, and when the riding was good it was amazing - sometimes a whole 100 yards at a time.

So after that adventure I had to check out the Lake Creek trail - which is a great winter riding trail but I suspected was nothing in the summer. I was right. The Juneau Snowmobile Club did a great job of laying gravel over the first mile, and after that it just disappeared, completely, into a muddy bog. I slopped over several yards of the swamp to see if more solid trail reappeared in the woods, but in the process was attacked by about 1,000 mosquitoes. I nearly forgot to grab my bike as I sprinted back to the gravel and high-tailed it out of there. But for that short stretch it was fun to see old winter haunts in full bloom.

After that I was in a pleasant mood and hit up my favorite trails, Dredge Lake, West Glacier, etc. I ended up with a fairly long day - hard to say how long after my shopping and the lunch stop, but probably at least five hours of riding. You know it's a good day when you arrive at home, the sun is shining, and your commuter pack is splattered in mud. It helps me feel better about my small space, because within are so many spaces I have yet to discover.

Late edit: Interesting NYT article about the Juneau Road. (Thanks, Fred) For the record, I'm an agnostic about this road. It is an expensive project and environmentally dubious and still goes to "nowhere," as far as state connections go (Skagway is about 800 miles from Anchorage.) I'd probably be more firmly against it on days that I'm not so wistful to leave town.

More green-up

Date: June 4
Mileage: 18.7
May mileage: 105.5
Temperature: 46

This is a fun time of year. The rain seems to have much less bite, and all of the benefits of being inundated with 90 inches of annual precipitation finally start to shine through. I like the greenness.

It also makes for more interesting exploring. Even well-trodden paths like the Perseverance Trail look different every time. Especially amusing right now is the presence of full leaf cover in areas where the ground is still 90 percent covered in snow. Birds are chirping, leaves are rustling in the warm, drizzling rain, and the slush is still knee deep. In a place where winter slithers in over a span of months, summer is surprisingly impatient.

I saw my first bear of the season today, a little blacky on the other side of the creek. Summer is here.