Six years

Pack training on Black Mountain, descending into the Silicon Valley.

That's how old this blog becomes today. Six years — that's about, what, 72 in Internet years? Arcticglass has become that old woman you see taking her little dog on a morning walk around the neighborhood. She has a bit of a limp and usually wears way more warm clothing than she needs, but at least she's still getting out there. She's the one who still remembers what it was like when you actually had to know some code to post any graphics in your layout, and recalls the days when most of the Blogger templates looked like a mixture of creepy wallpaper and Powerpoint slides. And yet, she misses those good old days, the days before Facebook and Twitter, when the kids had longer attention spans. Back then, she could still impress people with photos taken with a 2.1 megapixel pocket camera and posted as 112x200-pixel graphics, and people would actually read the story behind the photos (yeah, Flickr annoys her, too.) All the kids these days want to read is 140 characters of nothing, or stock images plastered with some kind of vague inspirational quote that will get you unfriended my your more discerning friends. At least those more discerning people still read blogs. Well, at least she hopes they do. She suspects maybe no one reads blogs anymore. But even if she's just sitting alone in her rocking chair, ranting to herself, she doesn't mind. You can do that kind of thing when you're old.

Yes, Arcticglass came on the scene in the heyday of blogs, and has gleaned much enjoyment out of her many prodigious years. Her progeny includes 1,413 posts, 18,293 comments, and beloved photos — almost too many to count. She sometimes wonders what her twilight years will bring, but she's not ready to wind down yet. There's still much blogging to be done, and many adventures to be had, even though November 3, 2005, was a long, long time ago.

Happy sixth blogiversary, Arcticglass.

I spent the evening packing my gear for the 25 Hours of Frog Hollow. I won't be indulging in any of my past lighthearted smack talk because I am starting to feel timid and nervous about the race. Although I rode a snow bike in the White Mountains 100 in March, I haven't raced a mountain bike since last year's Frog Hollow, which I raced duo with Beat. Training for a 100-mile foot race followed by months of injury and travel effectively cut mountain biking out of my summer activities. Adding to my feelings of inadequacy and underpreparation is the current weather forecast for Hurricane, which is calling for temperatures as low as 23 degrees. Jumping from 80 degrees straight into a full day and night of that is probably going to be a decent shock to my system. I can only hope I have some lingering muscle memory to help me cope with a long, frosty night. I did pack a lot of warm gear. To my sister, Sara: I hope you don't mind if I wear a bike jersey and tights to your wedding. I simply don't have room in my duffle for anything else. (I kid, I kid.)

Why is it that every time I visit the desert, I bring a deep freeze with me? I don't even live in Alaska anymore. Ah, well. It's nearly time to stop whining and start riding. I can't wait! Wish me luck.