Slightly stuck

My first day as one person working two jobs did not go entirely badly. In fact ... it wasn't a whole lot different, if only because Monday is such a long slog even when I'm just one employee. So I can't really fit in much else. Augustine Volcano has spit out enough ash that advisories have now been issued for most of southcentral Alaska. However, we haven't seen any evidence of ashfall in Homer yet. I came home and put in 90 minutes on the bike trainer. I was feeling pretty good about the minor successes of the day, so I cooked up some shrimp tacos and waited for Geoff to get back from his run. And waited. And waited.

He finally came in at about 8:45, coated in frost and grinning. He had held off running all day as he waited for the ash to come. Finally, at about 5 p.m., he got sick of waiting and took off for what he planned to be his longest training run before the Little Su 50K ... while it was 8 degrees outside ... and with the continuing threat of ash fall. And he ran 27 miles. Twenty seven miles! The first thing he asked was whether or not I went biking outside today. "To bad," he said. "You probably could have had 500 miles in January."

Holy cow! Is it already Jan. 30? I am a wimp. I didn't even realize it.

Frozen bikers

Date: Jan. 29
Mileage: 22.3
January mileage: 460.7
Temperature upon departure: -10

Today's ride was sponsored by Shawn in Arizona. Shawn's site has some great pictures of desert places that I miss, especially when the temperature is -10.

Today I did a quick highway ride in the morning, rolling alongside the Matanuska River 11 miles from Palmer and back. But I finally succeeded in impressing my friend Craig with my biking prowess when I told him I rode by "The Butte" (which is about eight miles from his house.) "You rode all the way out there?" he said. He was amazed.

I had to finish up early because I had a lot to do today, but we did make it out to Goose Lake in Anchorage to catch the last few laps of the Frigid Bits race. I met Tim at the end of his 10-mile race, as well as a few of Anchorage's hardcore winter cycling enthusiasts. It was funny to meet so many people that knew "of" me, because of this blog.

But Frigid Bits looked like a fun race - about eight cyclists on the course when we arrived, all spread out across a small lake, tearing around hairpin turns and huffing and puffing through their neoprene masks as they went by. It was especially fun to watch this guy (photo), who raced 15 miles of lake ice on a track bike. He was cruising, too. Look how fast he's going! I couldn't even get the guy in focus, he was going so fast (OK, OK, so that's actually an effect of my camera handling skills and not his speed.) Still, he's cool. The only way I could ever dream of being cooler than him is to show up to the next Frigid Bits race on the yellow banana-seat huffy I rode as a 6-year-old. I wonder if I could get my mom to pull that out from storage.

This seems like the kind of race that could be huge in Alaska in a few years. They definitly have a good start. I actually used to work for the guy who started the whole Lotoja concept (he went to school at Utah State University, liked to play in Jackson, Wyo., and wanted to see if he could bicycle between the two in one day.) So I know it dosen't take much to build a real world-class event if you have to right mix of unique concept, dedicated organizers and a core group of rabid participants. So keep up the good work, guys.

I did, I did, I did ...

Date: Jan. 28
Mileage: 20
January mileage: 438.4
Temperature upon departure: -7

... The Iditarod trail. Is. Slow.

Of course, everything about today was exactly what I would expect of such an excursion. Temps were cold, but not unreasonably so. The trail was soft, but all-in-all better than I expected. Mt. Augustine decided today was the fourth of July, but all the ash headed south. Yes, today was a good day. An encouraging day. And yet, I feel the cold grip of this daunting task tightening around me. It could be my neoprene gear. But, no. I think it's the Susitna 100. It's going to be hard.

Well, duh. But sometimes it's hard to grasp the reality of things until you're down in the suck. Geoff and I went out today for a half-day ride (Geoff, who's training to run the Little Su 50K, has no interest in 10-hour bike rides.) We drove up Point Mackenzie Road so we could start immediately on the Iditarod. We planned to go as far as two hours took us and head back. What we got was 20 miles. We made a lot of stops that were more indicative of the recreational nature of this particular ride. Still, 20 miles, five hours. One hundred miles, well ... the math ain't hard.

But I don't feel disheartened. My warm gear performed beautifully for temperatures that didn't even consider climbing above zero. The particular section we did was a rollercoaster of short and steep rolling hills, flat frozen bogs and snowmobile moguls - a lot of fun. The pace was laid back enough that the effort didn't even demand that much energy (though the one time I tried to gnaw down a deeply frozen Power Bar while pedaling was pretty funny. Well, funny ... not pretty. Without becoming too graphic, I'll just say that it involved a lot of saliva, a chocolate goatee and a little bit of blood). Anyway, I have been planning this entire time for a race that would take about 24 hours. It's just, now, I'm starting to realize how long that actually is.

Heading back, Geoff and I both took spectacular crashes on separate downhills. Geoff almost pulled out of his, but didn't eject in time and hurt both his legs, not seriously. I lost control of my front wheel mid-hill and overcorrected. The bike slammed me down on my right shoulder before I even knew I was going down, then rolled right over me. It seemed bad, but the only thing that broke was the bracket on Geoff's large seat post bag. Luckily, I just won a new one from Fat Cyclist. It's funny how life works out like that.

I hope to fit in another four-hour ride tomorrow. I probably won't have a chance make it all the way out to Iditarod again, but I'm glad I was able to at least try it once. If I'll goes well, I'll be able to catch the Frigid Bits action in Anchorage. Now there are some real ice bikers. Should be fun.