The time it takes to heal

Traveling at godspeed
over the hills and trails
I have refused my call
pushin' my lazy cells
into the blue flame
I want to crash here right now
the hourglass spills its sand
if only to punish you

for listenin' too long
to one song

“Sing Me Spanish Techno,” The New Pornographers

So I did a couple of things today that bummed me out. The first was visiting my physical therapist in the morning, still crusty-eyed from another rough night of sleep and carrying the shame of relapse. Instead of getting the stern lecture I deserved, I got some wince-inducing stretches that didn’t even touch my knees. For some reason, the PT has started to direct almost all of her focus on my IT band, which I don’t even understand. All I do know is I now have a new burning sensation - in my upper leg - and no real source of hope. And, if nothing else, a physical therapist should offer hope, don’t you think?

So after that I hobbled over to the gym and renewed my membership. I had a membership when I first moved to Juneau, back when I was a real baby about all the rain. But once I adapted to the whims of seafaring life, I downgraded my membership to punch passes and then barely used them. Life was good then. I got out a lot, and I fell way behind on my celebrity gossip. But now that I’ve sworn off cycling, my options are limited. It’s really best to keep my swimming down to two days a week ... at least until I chop off “that rattrap,” which is what Geoff calls my hair now. And I do need to do more weight training in order to build strength where atrophy reigns. So it’s back to hamster wheels and People magazine for me.

In the meantime, I continue to search for reasons. Back when life was good and I had no idea which body part Britney Spears shaved that week, Geoff and I actually had a couple of discussions about my one-note bicycle training. It think it was after we came home from some short cross-country ski outing. I started complaining about the various areas where I was more sore than I should be (in my ongoing effort to prove that skiing isn’t actually fun). “Well no wonder,” Geoff said. “It’s not like you ever use your feet.”

And it’s true. When I wasn’t bicycling, which was really rare, I was skiing, running on the elliptical machine or lifting weights. In fact, after snow first covered the mountains and I stopped hiking, I didn't participate in a single full-impact activity. I had been shielded from gravity since October. No wonder my knee buckled under the first sign of stress.

Now that I’m several months wiser, I’d swear my allegiance to cross training in a millisecond if I thought it could help. I realize, though, that I don’t really have a choice.

FanGirl

So, as it turns out, venturing out for a mild 18-mile bike ride is overdoing it in my case. The effect is not unlike rewinding several weeks. I knew I had gone wrong when I woke up to sharp pains Saturday night and realized I couldn't bend my leg. Now my co-workers are commenting on my limping again. I'm aware that I've hit rock bottom .. well ... at least several times during the past eight weeks. But this has to be it. The very bottom. I am officially turning my back on cycling until I get this thing under control. The decision makes me feel at once relieved and devastated.

As my own prospects of a summer season becoming increasingly dim, I find myself drawn in to the exploits of the endurance mountain biking counterculture. I've never really been able to count myself as a sports fan - in fact, the prospect of sitting through an entire game of any sport is about as appealing to me as watching laundry dry. But ever since the Iditarod Invitational, any tidbit I can find about gonzo races and the grimy athletes who compete in them is like candy to me. The more spartan and obscure, the better. Not doing any cycling of my own only fuels my fanaticism. Gwadzilla recently made an interesting observation about the state of specatorship. When a person says they "like" baseball or "like" music, it usually means they like others' baseball feats, others' music. Now, when I say I "like" cycling, I'm often thinking about events in the coming weeks that I'm not even connected to, but yet I look forward to them with a strange kind of zeal:

Arizona Trail 300, April 13: This race is still a pretty small affair, and I don't know much about it. But of all the mountain bike races out there, I'm most interested in ones that follow a multi-day, self-supported format.

Trans Iowa, April 28-29: I get a big kick out the fact that what seems to be the most popular event in grassroots distance mountain-bike racing happens to cross the state of Iowa. Now I've only glanced Iowa - barely - on the Interstate, so I'm in no position to judge. But ... Iowa? That anomaly alone makes this race very intriguing.

Kokopelli Trail Race, May 19: As far as I understand it, this race one of Mike Curiak's inventions. He's since passed the torch to others, which is just as well in these no-fee, no-support, no-podium events. This is one of the shortest of the gonzo events. At "only" 142 miles, it seems like it would be a good introduction into self-supported endurance racing.

Grand Loop Race, June 1: Another multi-day race. This one sounds intense. Not only is it 360 miles with about 48,000 feet of climbing, but racers attempt it in the stifling heat of the desert in June. It bills itself as one of the last, true, pure wilderness events, and I buy that assessment. Dave Harris is considering attacking this route solo, sometime in May, away from the already-small crowds and oh-so-subtle hype of the race itself. I like this kind of thinking, because it reaffirms my belief that the largest and most daunting events transcend competition into something else entirely.

Great Divide Race, June 15: This has to be the grand-daddy of all North American mountain bike races, although with more experience, I might be inclined to argue that the Ultrasport 1,100-mile race to Nome is even harder. Either way, GDR is the real deal. The amazing part is, there are 17 racers who are actually planning on attempting it. Some familiar names on the roster, too. The smart money's probably on Pete Basinger to be the first to Mexico, although Jay Petervay, Carl Hutchings and others I haven't even heard of will definitely put the hammer down. This should be a race to remember. I'm personally really looking forward to watching Dave Nice tackle the trail on a fixie of all things. These people are crazy! That's what makes these events so fun to watch.

There's probably a whole slew of other races that are still outside my radar, but if I stay off my own bike much longer, I'm sure I'll find them soon enough.

One heavy February

Date: April 7
Mileage: 18.1
April Mileage: 25.3
Temperature upon departure: 41

I'm thinking I won't really ride today. I have residual regret from a relatively unsuccessful ride two days prior; my road bike is out of tune and rickety from a winter of neglect. I had become convinced lowering my seat would ease stress and pain, but my seatpost clamp is rusted shut. I wrench and wrench until the bolt is stripped. Now I'm locked in place. I can go as I am or give up as I should. But I already dressed up - layers of leggings, rain pants, fleece, neoprene socks, mittens and PVC shell, because bodily warmth is a hard thing to extract from the little ring. One mile won't hurt. Maybe five.

Roadie and I cut a tenuous line through a sold inch of road grit and gravel. I've only ridden a handful of times in two months, and somewhere in there I lost my desensitization to traffic. The cars come loud and close; I wobble and shake even on the shoulder. I think about how training wheels might help; my weak and reluctant legs don't even seem to want to balance the bike upright. And there's that odd feeling. That disconnected feeling. That precursor to burning and stiffness that makes me want to toss any bicycle within view - stationary or otherwise - directly into the sea. My odometer registers 1.7 miles, and I'm fearful it came too soon.

But I resolve to strike my knee from my thoughts, because there’s a difference between pain and fear, and I don’t want to be directed by fear. Not thinking about my knee is easy, though, because my whole body feels so strange ... distant. My quads ache and my hands and feet tingle against the constant pressure. I shake my wet mittens until drops of water fling out, but digit circulation is gone for good. Motions that used to feel natural are now foreign and difficult; and I’m discouraged by the realization that my out-of-shape regression is complete.

I squint against the rain and wonder how this once-familiar route has changed in two months. Winter still lingers in the blackened snow along the shoulder, and fall remains on strands of rotten moss that drip from spruce branches. Summer drifts in through strings of sunlight beyond the clouds, and it makes me think that maybe nothing has changed since February, or November, or August even. Juneau moves so gradually through its seasons that they’re nearly indistinguishable; but there's something encouraging in notion that I haven’t been left behind.

As I feel less out of place, comfort creeps in. I spin these circles not against my better judgement, but toward it. As my muscles relax, the chill of 41 degrees and raining begins to sink in. There is no refuge from the cold at 12 mph, so I amp it up. It feels better to pedal hard, as though I could push bad blood out of my system. There's ease in movement that I didn't remember, comfort in speed that I didn't expect. So the miles spin by more quickly, less fearfully, as they did back in February, and November, and August. There is always time for regret and second guessing; but there's timelessness in the notion of letting go and moving forward.

I reach the boat ramp at mile 9 and look across the water for the first time in two months, shrouded in clouds as it always is, landscape unchanged behind a translucent sheet of gray. There is travel I take for granted and there is travel that I cherish. And this, on a wet April day along my routine training route, may be one of my favorite rides yet.