Commuted

Date: March 9
Mileage: 23.4
March mileage: 79.2
Temperature upon departure: 17
On the iPod: "Mormon Rap" by early-90s BYU students

One of my resolutions for spring is to bicycle commute more often. Some people have asked me why I didn't commute more during the winter - after all, I wasted a lot of energy driving to and from work and then riding 10 to 40 miles afterward. Three words - I was scared.

Many people live in cities and have the luxury of choosing from a number of side roads to spin down on their way to town. I have but two choices, and they both involve:

* Dropping from my house, at 1,200 feet elevation, to near-sea level in 2.5 miles on
* a narrow, winding road with blind corners and steep drop-offs, riding alongside
* heavy rush-hour traffic, because everyone who lives on the Ridge has to take the same road out which
* just happens to relatively poorly maintained in the winter, meaning months on end of either glare ice/packed snow; soft, punchy sand/snow mix; or outright slush - all of which make general handling, control and braking distance less than ideal, especially on grades ranging from 7 to 11 percent.

Of course, I head down these roads all the time to go on joy rides. But winter commuting on East or West Hill means that I'd have to make both the cheek-rattling drop and the labored climb in the dark, on roads where street lights don't exist, with rush hour traffic whipping around every corner. Honestly, I'm all for going car-free. But that just seems suicidal, really.

Of course, now that it's light between 8 a.m. and 7 p.m., and now that there's a glimmer of hope that the roads will one day be dry again, I really don't have any more excuses. So my plan is to up my bicycle-to-car commuting ratio as the spring goes on, hopefully increasing to nearly every day by summertime.

But, as far as going entirely car free, you tell me ... how much would a gallon of milk be worth to you if getting it meant 10 round-trip miles with a 1,200-foot climb every time you ran out of something? On second thought, I bet I'd lose a lot of weight that way. Not because of the extra riding, but because I'd probably give up milk.

Go pedal power.

It does exist

The Kenai Peninsula is hosting the Arctic Winter Games right now, and Homer just happens to be the home of curling. After spending the 2002 and 2006 Olympics scratching my head at this sport from a safe distance, I went to Ice Rink today to check out a few rounds. Geoff and I watched the undefeated Alaska girls take their first loss in a close game against Alberta (Alberta? Alberta isn't an Arctic territory!). We cheered the boys from Nunavut (after all, how often do you meet someone from Nunavut?). But we spent most of our time in a penalty box loudly discussing our theories on how the game was played, how ridiculous the scoreboards were, and what we thought was covering the bottoms the the players' shoes. (All the while, the Northwest Territories boosters looked at us like we had just shuffled in from Mars.) All in good fun. After two hours of concentration, I think I may have a vague idea about what curling is. Understanding the rules, the scoring or the object of the game - well, that would be a stretch.

Curling chewed up all the daylight hours, so I put my iPod to good use on the trainer this evening. I only had an hour before it became just insanely late, so I put in an effort worthy of my Spin days ... cranked up the resistance, wheezed until my lungs hurt, sweat out about a half gallon of fluid (today, mostly Diet Coke). No apologies. But I plan to get outside on my bike tomorrow. Maybe I'll even do the terrifying commute to work. After all, it's light in the morning now. Given that I spent the last three months turning myself into a hardcore, cold-weather, fear-no-hills cyclist, I have no more excuses.

Looking for heroes

Here's yet another Alaska thing I haven't become accustomed to yet: The compounding daylight. At a rate of five more minutes every day, it doesn't take long to stack up. Today I came home from work much later than I had planned. It was 5:30 p.m. and overcast, and I just assumed it would be dark in another half hour. Not really feeling motivated to attempt a night ride, I crawled on the trainer and started cranking out minutes, thinking I'd probably just stop as soon as it got dark. But then 6:00 came. Then 6:30. I was feeling good and decided to go long, and before I knew it, 7:15 came with usable daylight still lingering outside. Who knew?

The Iditarod dogsled race is going strong. It's immensely popular up here, so it gets a lot of ink. Consequently, I've found myself following the mushers' progress, grazing through statistics and reading about people in a sport I never thought I'd be interested in. But, when I think about it, these long-distance mushers embody a lot of the characteristics I admire most in people.

You know what they say - you can pick your friends, and you can pick your nose, but you can't always pick your heroes. Because when it comes down to it, you're going to look up to the people who have mastered qualities you'd like to see in yourself, who have skills or status that to you is just a distant potential. But that's just it - potential. Those who want to be fast look up to Lance Armstrong. Those who want to be immensely successful look up to Bill Gates.

Me - I'd like to be strong. And not necessarily strong in the raw, athletic sense that defines those who stand at the top of their game, because that's just not me. My envied strength lies more in mental toughness, and the hard, mind-over-body decisions that people make when they want something badly enough. I think that's why I've become drawn to ultra-events, and why I usually find myself rooting for people who may not necessarily be the leaders - and who may never be the leaders. It's in these people that I see pieces of myself.

I'm not a natural athlete. I'm actually somewhat of a klutz, "built to spill" as they say, and my athletic gifts lie somewhere on the talent level of Madonna's acting skills. I'm so pale-skinned I'm practically allergic to the sun; I'm also painfully allergic to grass pollen and mosquitos - basically, I'm allergic to going outside when it's nice out. When I was born, I'm fairly certain my genes had me all mapped out to be a librarian or a book editor, but I developed an unflagging sense of adventure that I just can't shake. That single quality has taken my weak, uncoordinated body to places I never imagined I'd see, given me skills I never dreamed I'd have, and yet still I want more. Still I want to be stronger, tougher, more able to master a body that was never designed to conquer mountains or cross continents. And so I ride, and admire those who do the same.