In and out

Geoff had a big day planned today - a 25-mile trail run or something equally crazy. I was jealous. I think it's what I miss the most about the months when I did a lot of cycling - that supreme satisfaction of embarking on a long day. Some days, when everything is dialed in perfect, the miles only stoke the energy fire and I feel like I could move forward forever. Other days, I slip into a bonk coma and struggle and struggle and struggle, but when I stumble home and crash, I know I earned it.

So I wanted to do my own long day in my own long way ... something low-impact and scaled down and knee-friendly, but ~25 miles just the same.

I started at my gym with a brand new book, "Driving Mr. Albert" and a copy of the Backpacker gear issue, which is what I spent most of my time reading. I hadn't been on the elliptical machine more than a minute when the gym maintenance guy called out from across the room, something about wanted to check the wheel. I stopped pedaling and turned to face him as he bee-lined toward me, and the rowing machine that separated him from me, and he wasn't slowing down. Just as I opened my mouth to ask what was wrong, he slammed his shin into the rowing machine and tumbled forward. I saw for a fraction of a second his face, filled with pure shock and terror, and then he went down, slamming his head into the back of my machine.

I hopped off and stuttered, "Are ... you OK?" He was on his knees with his hands over his right eye, and I could see blood gushing from the spaces between his fingers. "Oh no ... you need to go to the hospital." I looked desperately over at the front counter, where a woman had seen the whole thing and was rushing over to help him. I held out my hand but he was already on his feet, grumbling "I'll be fine" and dancing around the front counter woman, who looked as though she might try to pry his hands away from his face. They walked together to the desk, where she gave him a gym towel, and then they disappeared down the stairs. And all the while I just stood there, a little slack-jawed, wondering "what now?" It says something about life ... that everything we do is, by default, a risk, and nowhere is truly safe ... the wilderness, the highways, my climate-controlled gym. And it also says something about me that I got right back on the same machine - the one that elicited such an extreme response to begin with - and pedaled away.

(I did inquire about the man when the front-counter woman returned. She said he wouldn't go to the hospital, but the cut on his forehead seemed to have stopped bleeding and he had one hell of a shiner.) Pedal-Run: 2 hours 20 minutes; 18.5 miles.

I came home, ate some lunch and then headed up the Dan Moller trail with my snowshoes on my back. The snowline is already much higher than it was just a week ago, although in the steady drizzle I think I saw new flakes falling just above treeline. Where the snowpack has melted, the skunk cabbage is blooming. Hiking in Juneau is much more treacherous in the summer ... mostly mud and snaking roots and slimy wooden planks that provide close to zero traction. I have to admit I was happy to reach elevation and see winter again ... soft, forgiving winter. Hike/Snowshoe: 2 hours, 45 minutes; 7.5 miles; 2,000 feet elevation gain.

Not really to the level of Geoff's long day. After all, I'm not the one who came home and ate five different dinners. But there's something there. Something I've been missing. Some kind of risk-taking that drives the satisfying life.

I guess it's the "holiday" weekend now. I say so because it's not my holiday weekend. Going back to work tomorrow. And even though everyone is pedaling and fishing and sipping margaritas on houseboats in Lake Powell, I just wanted to say to the six people out there who share my unfortunate schedule and are sitting in empty offices and blogging ... "Happy Memorial Day."

May snow and thorn ride

Date: May 24
Mileage: 12.3
May Mileage: 115
Temperature upon departure: 54

I did not have a destination or a mileage goal in mind today. Just wanted to do a ride - any ride, anywhere. These days, the details don't mean as much to me as the simple act of pedaling.

But because I'm still unsure about whether this act should continue, I decided to make the day's ride a good one and travel out the road to the Herbert Glacier trail. I spent a decent part of the morning prying my super-tight studded tires from the rims of my mountain bike. It was a Herculean effort that I had to recruit Geoff for; even he struggled with that carbide-tooth monster for a while; I was two steps away from grabbing a burly pair of scissors when he finally freed it. Then I cut my thumb while putting the summer tires back on. And for all that effort, and all that driving, I was less than a mile into the ride when the trail started to look like this:

This is not an elevation ride. It's a couple hundred feet above sea level, tops. But here the snow lingers, an unseasonal blanket of soft sugar and hollow drifts. I made an effort to ride it ... a futile effort at best. I'd frantically pedal a few yards, eventually dig myself into a deep hole, hop off and hike-a-bike for a while, repeat. I like to think of it as an interval workout. It took me another mile to realize that my heart rate wasn't high enough to justify all the pointless postholing.

After I returned to the trailhead, I pedalled a half mile up the road to the Eagle Glacier trail. For some unknown reason, the trail - located at the same elevation - was almost completely snow-free. But what it lacked in slush, it made up for in sheer technical hardship.

It was a lot of fun at first - bouncing over root after rock after root, skirting the narrow corridor along the river and willing myself not to fall in. I never made it more than 1,000 yards without having to stop and hoist the bike over deadfall trees. It wasn't the most difficult trail I've ridden. But when I started making mistakes, I really made mistakes. The root piles seemed ever higher and slipperier. I wished for the studded tires, but what I really needed was sheer leg stregnth to power over all the slimy obstacles. I'd clear my front tire only to lose traction in the back, skipping sideways and overcorrecting until I nearly fell over. Then, eventually, I did fall over - right into a huge patch of spiny devil's club shoots. The rush of stinging pain was everything I needed to remind me that I was here and this was now. There was nothing beyond the immediacy of dozens of tiny, mildly poisonous thorns piercing my skin.

By the time the claws of death subsided to a dull throbbing, I was back on the road (with a few dozen thorns still lodged in my skin; it took me a decent part of the afternoon to pick them out, and I still haven't gotten all of them.) I continued pedaling up the pavement because I had come all that way and wanted to justify the ride somehow. It was shortly thereafter that I realized my knee was sore - really sore. I think in all of the snow swerving, root hopping and thorn preoccupation, I hadn't noticed it before.

It makes me think that technical mountain biking isn't really the best form of recovery riding - and could be worse than just putting in long miles. Who knows? The day's ride was a bit of a failure all around, but at the same time, I still prefer the adventure to the void.

Now it's seven

Eero asked me to share "seven little-known facts" the other day. I think I did this meme a few months ago when the number was still five. But I haven't tried seven yet, and I didn't go for a ride today, and I do owe her for lending me a bivy to use in the Susitna 100, so I thought I'd oblige. Seven "little-known" facts about Jill:

1. Somewhere deep in the recesses of childhood memory, I know how to play four different instruments: the accordion, the string bass, the harmonica and the piano. That may sound decidedly nerdy, but put them all together and I could form a mean one-woman zydeco band.

2. I have an irrational but paralyzing fear of moving water - whitewater rapids, ocean swells and the like. I can trace this fear back to a lot of incidents, but the first was when my parents took me to a Sesame Street theme park near Dallas, Texas, when I was 3 years old. One of the "attractions" was little more than a narrow, dark tube that children crawled through while jets of water blasted from all sides. I still have vivid dreams of a shadowed line of big kids' faces and large hands yanking me forward as I thrashed against the deluge, screaming and screaming and screaming.

3. I also am afraid of dogs. I am more afraid of dogs than I am of bears. This is because I know bears for the most part want to leave me alone. Dogs, on the other hand, have lunged at me, mowed me down, and a couple of times even bit me - hard enough to cause permanent scarring. I do not like dogs. But I'm sure your dog is great.

4. I am a big advocate of not attaching oneself to things. "Need Less" is, in fact, my zen goal in life. I really like the idea of living independently, minimizing my footprint (I am a second-hand queen) and keeping my lifestyle options open - even if it means leaving everything I own behind (I try to include my bikes in this sentiment, but I have predictably become attached to them.) The upside is that I have more money to spend on the intangible and fleeting things I really love, like food and travel. The drawback is that I own the world's ugliest couch, a Salvation Army TV that only picks up two channels, and a bed I hate so much that I only sleep in it about 30 percent of the time. But hey - I could walk onto the Alaska State Ferry tomorrow and never look back.

5. I finished my first "century" ride, the 2004 Salt Lake Century, in 5 hours, 25 minutes. However, after two years of riding with an odometer, I have concluded beyond much doubt that I must have inadvertently skipped part of the course. It's highly unlikely that I actually rode 100 miles that fast. But I guess I'll never really know.

6. I suspected a botched finishing time by the end of my second century attempt, the 2004 Ride for Life. Not because it was decidedly slower, but because I discovered how poor my route-finding skills really were. I showed up 45 minutes late and took off down the road, quickly becoming confused by the hordes of runners I was passing. Thirteen miles later, I was back where I started. Only then did I realize that I had inadvertently followed the course of a half-marathon that was happening that same day. Then 90 minutes late, I still did the ride, because I was "sponsored" back then and somewhat obligated (Thanks, Cycling Utah!)

7. I was born in Denver, Colorado, moved away when I was 9 months old, and have never actually been back (drove by on I-25 once, at night, without stopping.) It's kind of strange to have no mental picture of the place where I was born.

So there you go ... seven things. The idea is to pass this on, but I don't really feel comfortable telling others what they should write on their blogs. So I'll leave it up to you, because it's always fun to hear from others. Tell me a little-known fact about yourself.