Doubt and Redoubt

Date: Jan. 15
Mileage: 15
January mileage: 242.3
Temperature upon departure: low teens

Today Geoff and I drove all the way out to the end of the Bay to look for backcountry trails. We haven't been out that way since winter hit, mostly because it's a 45-minute drive (hard to justify when there's so much to do so much closer), and also because the entire area is populated by Orthodox Russians. I see them shopping at Safeway on a regular basis, in their homemade dresses and lacy caps reminiscent of southern Utah polygamist wives. However, driving out to their side of town is a little unnerving. I figure if they're still so culturally segregated after 150 years of U.S. occupation, there's a good possibility that they don't take to kindly to a couple of Outsiders bombing down their roads in a 1989 Honda Civic with two bikes strapped to the roof. But I could be wrong.

Anyway, we did discover the holy grail of Homer's winter trails, a far-reaching network that wraps around Caribou Lake. The area is breathtaking - for its proximity to Homer (also known as the banana belt of the North), the windswept bog around Caribou Lake has all of the frozen desolation and sweeping remoteness of the state's Interior. Geoff stood under the twisting branches of a black spruce and said, "Wow. It almost feels like we're in Alaska."

The soft, punchy, paw-pocked trails really put cycling into perspective. Out on the frozen bog, all travelers move against the elements - but cyclists, I think, fight the most of all. Six miles an hour on that terrain will keep your heart rate above 150. A hard sprint might net you 12 mph - if you can keep your front wheel moving in a straight line long enough to hit it. A typical endurance runner would bury me at those speeds. It's tough, slow, unrelenting travel. Even Geoff, who ran 15 miles in two hours yesterday and biked 15 miles in two hours today, agrees with me. Even so, we had a great time. And those 15 miles didn't wear me out by any means ... it was an enjoyable rec ride. But still, while crawling along similar terrain to what I'll actually be facing in my race, the doubt did start to creep in ("did I really sign up for 100 miles of this?")

It didn't help today that my friend, Anna, asked me today if I'm going to start scaling back my training. What? Scale back? I feel like I just started. I have yet to do a 50 miler, though that's more because I actually like to do other things with my weekend than bike nonstop. Still, Anna knows what she's talking about. She biked the LOTOJA (210 mountainous road miles) in 12.5 hours last year. She did her longest training ride more than a month out from the race. After that, it was all about winding down, building strength, and eatin' like a carbo-craving fool (and here I am, thinking about going on a diet.)

So what to do? Well ... Stay on the bike. Go back to Caribou Lake and put in a full day. Crawl out from whatever ice rut threw me sideways, take a deep breath of the cold wind pounding across the frozen bog, and keep on pedaling. I think I have it in me. I had doubts about my first century, but even after not training and not sleeping and not even having a clue about the wonders of drafting, I still did OK. Sure, the Susitna 100 is completely different. But, in many ways, it's not. Just gotta have faith.

Limbo

Date: Jan. 14
Mileage: 38.5
January mileage: 227.3
Temperature upon departure: 13

Today, I was very scientific about my bicycle riding. My process:

1.) Check the most recent seismic data from Mt. Augustine.
2.) Check the prevailing wind and ash data from the NOAA.
3.) Determine, based on wind direction, wind speed and ash reports, the minimum number of minutes it might take a noxious ash cloud to reach town should the volcano erupt within the next five minutes.
4.) Subtract about 45 minutes from that time, to be on the safe side.
5.) Viola! Bicycle riding increments.

I got two of these in today, each about two hours and 20 miles apiece. My morning ride was hard and tiresome on the snowy trails. But, I gotta say, a fine layer of fresh ash that fell with yesterday's snow made for some amazing traction going downhill. I also enjoyed looping the upper trail and following my glaring white tire tracks through the gray snow. On my afternoon ride, I stuck to the ice-paved gravel roads and climbed up to Ohlson Mountain Road. I hoped to stay out longer, maybe even push for 50 miles. But a really nasty snowstorm started, and I wasn't that confident in my ash projections. Plus, it was just cold today.

As it stands (at 7:30 p.m.), Augustine only erupted once today, at 12:13 a.m. I took this picture just after sunrise this morning. It's another molten hot magma mountain on Alaska's ring of fire, Mt. Redoubt, currently on his best behavior. Those clouds hovering below Redoubt meant there was no chance of seeing Augustine again today, but clouds sure beat ash. Pray for calm!

Stolen moments

Date: Jan. 13
Mileage: 24.4
January mileage: 188.8
Temperature upon departure: 18

Friday the 13th. I woke up, ate some of that cold cereal that I tried so hard to vilify yesterday and deliberately did not turn on the radio. I piled on layers, hoisted my Camelpak and went for an extended commute to work with Geoff. We rode Skyline, the snowmobile trails, the reservoir. I dropped down East Hill sucking up the wind chill at 35 mph and pulled into work just as my boss was duct taping the front door shut.

My odometer read 12:08 p.m. "So much for not exercising outdoors, eh?" she said.

"I take it the volcano went off again," I said.

She looked at me like I was wearing one of those sandblaster masks that everyone's been hoarding as a hat. "It's gone off three times already," she said. "The first eruption happened before 5 a.m."

She told me there was an ash advisory for 1 p.m. and she was shutting down the office. She told me I could go inside if I wanted to, but she had Saran wrapped pretty much every piece of electronic equipment inside. She told me she was duct taping the door either way. She was pretty much telling me I had a free day off.

"I could probably make it home by 1 p.m.," I said, but she insisted on driving me. We took the long way so we could loop around the Cook Inlet overlook and see if we could catch of glimpse of Augustine's ongoing temper tantrum - but it was just too overcast. The rest of the afternoon I lazed around the house guilt-free as snow fell lightly outside. At least - I'm pretty sure it was snow.

The AVO reported that the wind shifted and the ash advisory was lifted, so Geoff and I ventured out into the ghost town that Homer became. There had been a bunch of events slated for tonight and most of them were canceled - except, for unknown reasons, an impromptu bluegrass jam by the Homer Old-Time Fiddlers at Captain's Coffee and a reading by Fairbanks author Marjorie Kowalski Cole The poor woman drove all the way from Anchorage through an ash storm to host the publicity event on a night when all area residents were warned to stay indoors at all costs. The turnout, for the circumstances, wasn't too bad. I enjoyed the reading because, from my brief interaction with her, I sensed that Marjorie is the kind of writer I would be if I were a novelist - unapologetically twisting actual events until they take on a life of their own (not, of course, that I do that as a journalist.) Her husband talked about their adventures looking for an air filter in the sparsely populated southern Kenai Peninsula, and she didn't seem to care at all that just 70 miles away a molten mountain was belching thousands of pounds of glass shards. She read exerpts from her book and then talked for several minutes about how strange it was that she was the only one staying at her hotel. As it stands, the volcano erupted one more time, the ash never came, and seismic activity continues. Here's crossing my fingers that Augustine decides to call it a decade and give up, and if not, here's hoping that the wind stays at my back.