First day of sick

I am officially annoyed. It's bad enough to get sick at the beginning of the week, when I can't take any time off from work, so I have to spend the day listening to others complain about my infectious nature while a vice grip slowly tightens around my chest and head. But yesterday, while rummaging around my medicine cabinet, I discovered the leftover antibiotics from last year's bout with bronchitis - dated March 23, 2005. Kinda eerie to think that my germs keep a schedule almost as reliable as Christmas.

And it's annoying because every year I manage to skirt through cold and flu season without so much as a sniffle, only to pick up some utterly derailing - and often undiagnosable - bout of gunk at the end of March. This seems to happen to a lot of people, who mostly blame the change of seasons as a culprit for the massive failure of otherwise iron-clad immune systems. I used to accept this theory as fact, but now I have my suspicions. Last year, I lived in Idaho, where late March means night temperatures still drop below freezing. Now I live in Alaska, where late March means I still have five feet of snow piled up in my front yard. It's hard to believe that any part of my physiology could be fooled into thinking the seasons are changing, let alone be affected enough by it to give up the good fight.

I may never know the cause of my illness. But I do know that I feel crappy, and that's just annoying.

The only bright spot today may be that - regardless of any actual semblence of spring I may be experiencing - the Vernal Equinox has passed. Which means (to my friends in the lower 48), that we have surpassed 12 hours of direct sun and are now gaining daylight at a much faster clip than you. You are now officially on the darker side of the planet. So ... cough cough ... there.

You learn something new

Date: March 19
Mileage: 8.0
March mileage: 200.5
Temperature upon departure: 26

At the end of the first of many long, empty straightaways that traverse the frozen bog to Caribou Lake, I accidentally swerved off the trail and spun around just in time to see Geoff throw his bike - quite literally - down on the snow and begin walking toward me. It was four miles and a little over an hour into our ride, and he had "had it." "This is ridiculous," he said. "I'm putting in five times the effort of walking to go walking speed."

He makes a good point. Plenty of new snow and warming temps made for soft, punchy riding - on the precipice of rideable, but in my opinion - not too fargone yet. Still, there could be no laboring under any delusion today that cycling was the most efficient form of travel for the conditions. As Geoff pointed out, there's walking. There's skiing. Heck, one of those low-riding "big wheel" tricycles would probably fare better. His point was inarguable. We turned around.

As we rode back, he noticed that his bike had sliced much deeper trenches in the trail than mine. It didn't seem possible. We both ride the practically the same model of bike (Gary Fisher Sugar.) We both have the exact same tire setup. We were both running our pressure at 20 psi. We even weigh close to the same (he has 10 pounds on me.) But I tried out his bike, and sure enough, it was like riding a hot knife across a stick of butter. Every pedal stroke was literally a hard mash to get out of a hole.

Given all things equal, we couldn't figure out the discrepancy. It wasn't until about a mile later that he said - "You know, you're riding really low."

See, I have a rear shock with a slow leak. I filled it up right before my Susitna race, but not since. It's leaked down to almost no pressure - slowly enough that I didn't notice. But now when I ride, the shock is bottomed out, which pushes the entire frame down so the majority of my weight hovers over the space between the pedals. Geoff, on the other hand, has a fully functioning rear shock, which leaves most of his weight is on his rear tire - hence the knifing. Who knew?

We let most of the air out of his shock, but by then had already made new plans to go on a snowshoe hike closer to home - which we did, though I think that took more wind out of me than the two hours of sweating-as-hard-as-I-could-just-to-break-5 mph riding. Maybe it's because that 8-mile ride was all I really had in me today.

Every time I go trail riding, I learn something new about the ways in which gear really does make or break a cyclist on snow.

Geoff said, "You know what's the worst thing about snow biking? No matter how much effort I put in, I still go the same pace. Pretty soon I'm killing myself just to keep going 4 mph."

Then he said, "That's probably why you like it so much."

Like these pictures?

Date: March 17
Mileage: 18.6
March mileage: 192.5
Temperature upon departure: 9 (morning temp)
On the iPod: "Sunshine Highway" ~ Dropkick Murphys

For some reason Blogger isn't letting me upload my photos, so I'm reposting an old November favorite. That's OK, because all the pictures I took during yesterday's commute are muddled by nasty grayness and funk that has settled in for the weekend (you know the type - flurries, 50 mph wind gusts, whiteouts of blowing snow). That - and staying out late on St. Patrick's Day - kept me lazy and grounded for most of today.

So I made a "First Winter in Alaska" screensaver. I never realized I how many pictures I have. It's obnoxious, really, considering my extremely amateurish photography equipment and the fact that nearly every snapshot was taken in the small radius of my hometown. But the screensaver was entertaining - especially when I added music. And more than anything on this blog, people seem to like my pictures (more a statement of where I live than any photographic skill of my own.) So I had this crazy idea.

I'd like to work toward upcoming ultrabike events, including (but not limited to) the possibilities of Fireweed 200, 24 hours of Kincaid, Soggy Bottom 100, the 2007 Susitna 100 and (the more outside chance of) a future Iditarod Invitational. Since I did the 2006 Susitna 100 on the wings of blogging friends, I'm taking another swing at it.

My new "Help Jill realize her ultrabiking dreams" proposal includes an offer of exclusive Alaska wildlife and winter imagery, captured in a rotating screensaver and a slideshow set to music. Both include more than 200 frosty images - some which have appeared on this blog, some which are new and unpublished - packaged in instantly downloadable .exe files that should work on any PC. I'll mail out a CD to anyone who might like to donate a few bucks (at least enough to cover postage) to my new crazy bike ventures ... just make sure to indicate the address you want it sent to.

As always, I ride miles for dollars, so there's always the promise of future cycling misadventures.

And if you're turned off by my shameless solicitation, just ignore this post. This photo/bike/frostbite blog will always be free.