It's a struggle

Date: Feb. 26
Mileage: 13.2
February mileage: 414.9
Temperature upon departure: 22

One thing that makes winter cycling so exciting and yet so frustrating at the same time is its total lack of predictability. Sure, you can gage weather conditions, new snow, temperature, etc. But you're never going to know what a trail will be - or become - until you're right on top of it. You could go out for a 13-mile ride that you'd successfully pounded out in less than an hour in the recent past, and watch it take you more than two.

Geoff and I went out for what was going to be our easy, pre-ski ride and spent over two hours navigating conditions that dangled on the precipice between rideable and not. Even the roads, which yesterday received about four inches of snow (not enough to plow on a weekend), were zig-zagging, fish-tailing affairs. On the trails we met soft, deep and sometimes all-together untrammeled snow (had I had my snowboard with me, I probably would have giggled with joy.) I enjoyed the challenge of trying to pedal through stuff that very recently I would have deemed unrideable, but there are only so many times you can bury your front tire in a drift and slam your crotch into the handlebar stem before you start asking yourself - why? (I'm sure if I were a member of the opposite gender, that question would have been asked much sooner.)

There was some poetic justice to today's ride, as we swerved down the final steep hill to the reservoir. Geoff, who is by leaps and bounds more athletic than I am, said "You know, I have a lot more appreciation for what you did last weekend." And I know, deep down, that winter cycling isn't the classic struggle of man against man or even man against self. No, it's the much more modern, much more sinister battle of man against machine, in a place where the very tool you chose to save you can become your worst enemy.

That said, the Iditarod Invitational racers are clearing checkpoints pretty quickly. As of early this afternoon, four bikers had already passed the 130-mile point. That's 24 hours for the leaders. Now they're really moving into the Alaska Range, above treeline and onto the sweeping tundra so remote the race organizers call it "The Black Hole." As of 3 p.m., Rocky Reifenstuhl was one of two in front. His brother, Steve, is marching the 350-mile distance on foot. He did the race last year, and here's what he said about the experience:

"The edge with which I am dancing is where the mind can make the body perform beyond what is believed to be possible. It is spiritual, it is dreamlike, it penetrates to my core and when I come back from it, I know I was there, and it beckons for months afterward ... At the finish line in McGrath, the physical and the emotional unite in a crescendo of emotion, pain, elation. The "other" becomes a memory. This unique reality has been reached by the passage of miles, time, physical exertion, psychological strain and sleep deprivation. It is so close to me, yet a world away."

Practice makes patience

It snowed most of the morning. Geoff and I went for a two-and-a-half hour cross-country skiing excursion. The sheer time on the skis helped me build confidence and some speed. It also left my hip flexors so sore that even walking now is more of a shuffle. I'm also feeling it in my much-neglected arm muscles and my Susitna "camelbak injury," a knot in my left shoulder that seems to just be getting worse. There is something to be said about cross training, and my lack thereof.

The 2006 Winter Olympic Games are almost over, and the pictures in the newspaper make me nostalgic for the balmy February nights of 2002, tearing through the crowded streets of Salt Lake City with a massive Canadian flag, just to stir things up a bit.

I came of age in the shadow of Olympic anticipation - learned to drive on streets under massive construction, lost my favorite wrong-side-of-the-tracks concert venue to a beautifying "Gateway" project, watched my alma mater squeeze out students to make way for an athletes-only Olympic village. Everything seemed to be closed down or off limits or reserved for the Olympic elite. By the time 2002 finally came around, I was about as close to anti-Olympics as they come. I thought the entire thing was an elaborate publicity sham. I thought that Salt Lake City was delusional to think it could host such an sweeping international event with any success. And I was pretty sure I was just going to hole up in some place far away and wait for them to be over.

But then they came. And I was living four blocks from downtown Salt Lake City, watching the sterile city streets transform into something colorful, loud and wholly alive. There were people everywhere - dressed in elaborate costumes, gyrating to ghettoblasters, guzzling from suddenly-legal open containers and lining up by the thousands for the free medals ceremony rock concerts. Athletes showed up at all the hot clubs. Latvians and Croatians and Slovakians were dancing in the streets. People waved flags from their balconies. How could you not get caught up in that?

One particularly memorable night, we set out with a video camera and all of the sense of a horde of 6-year-olds set loose in Disneyland. The rest of the night generated a series of caught-on-tape outtakes that at the time came so naturally, and now seem so surreal: an interview with Barney the Dinosaur, absurd arguments with anti-Mormon activists, "short-track street skating" in downhill ski boots; crashing a street rave; and taking on Canadian identities to join a group of real Canuks in full-gusto cheering.

It's kind of funny that those street parties became my Olympic experience. The only actual event I saw was the Men's Super G. Tickets were so expensive - and by the time I realized that I was in fact completely in love with the Olympics, they were over. Sometimes I wonder if I'll have to explain to my grandchildren someday about the time I was sitting right on top of the Olympics and missed them, but I don't think so. I think I saw the Olympics for what they really are - one big, surreal party. And everyone's invited.

Tough to quit

Date: Feb. 24
Mileage: 29.9
February mileage: 401.7
Temperature upon departure: 18

Today Geoff and I went to lunch at our favorite semi-organic greasy spoon, Cosmic Kitchen (there are two types of restaurants in this town - the swank places that welcome Xtratuf-wearing locals with open arms, and the carrot-juice-brewing hippie places that also serve beef and cheese burritos the size of your head.) After months of hugging the horizon, the noontime sun ventured toward midsky, bathing the whole restaurant in white light. We took our plates into the glare of a south-facing window just as a family settled in next to us - only on the other side of the window, where snow-covered picnic tables lined the balcony. There they sat for nearly an hour - sipping coffee, munching on corn chips, soaking in sunlight - with steam pouring from their burgers and breath in the subfreezing air.

That's when I decided it would be a great day for a bike ride. I left work a little later than hoped, but I still thought it would be good to go out for an hour, absorb some vitamin D through that narrow slit in my balaclava, and come back with time to spare before Foreign Film night.

But one aspect of the Susitna 100 that I didn't anticipate letting go was this whole training thing. Giving up the multihour, four-times-a-week bicycle rides I've become so accustomed to almost feels like losing a job. I fear that suddenly I'll find myself sprawled on my coach, pouring through classifieds for used bicycle parts and struck with that hollow feeling that my life is slowly sinking into uselessness ... meaningless ... joblessness. Sure - I could get some other hobby. Find a new passion. Maybe even get a life. Sure - and while I'm at it, I could apply for new jobs. It's not as easy as it sounds.

That said, my one hour ride turned to three, as simple as cranking those pedals and wishing I had decided to bring my Camelbak with me, especially as I was laboring up the 1200-foot-vertical, 3-mile climb the locals call East Hill (I don't typically bring water on short rides, because bottles freeze in about a millisecond and the Camelbak seems like overkill.) The whole time, I had this freeing feeling that I was riding for fun again - spinning down the snow-dusted bike path on the Spit, bouncing through the surprisingly technical ice boulderfield created by snowplows along East End Road. I was riding like I wasn't trying to put in miles, so the miles just came.

Before I knew it, the sun was slipping below the horizon. It was so far west that I could only see streaks of orange light reaching above treeline - a long way from its position in the south that I've become so accustomed to. And I knew what it felt like to be that family eating their lunch on the balcony on a 20-degree day in February. Despite all appearances, it felt good ... a rare and much appreciated afternoon in the sun.