Now what?

I went out for an easy 2.5-mile run today ... finally a cool down after two days laboring in a sleep-deprived haze. My knees are still a little sore. My legs are still covered in bruises from some of my tougher falls Saturday. I even still have remnants of blisters from the long trudge, but I the run definitely perked me up - helped me feel strong again. I think I'll be recovered from the Susitna 100 in no time. And now the sun stays up past 6 p.m. Twilight hangs on the horizon until 7. It may have been 25 degrees out as I jogged over the ice-slicked roads, but I felt like a season turned over. Winter ended for me out on that lonely trail. Sure, the wind and snow and subzero temps will probably haunt this place into April - but that doesn't seem to matter much. I threw myself into the bowels of subarctic winter so I'd no longer have to fear the cold. Now there's nowhere to go but Spring.

So now what do with myself? The cycling can only get better, really, because how can you do worse that ice biking? (unless Geoff's "stream cycling" ever crosses into the mainstream.) The roads today were as dry as I've ever seen them; the trails blissfully hardened by the thaw/refreeze. There's riding in me still, and I've started a quest that I'm not ready to stop. But where do I go from here? The Soggy Bottom 100? The Fireweed 200? The possibilities seem endless.

No. This isn't over.