38 and raining

Date: Nov. 26
Mileage: 31.2
Hours: 2:30
November mileage: 662.3
Temperature upon departure: 38
Rainfall: .38"

Today was Groundhog Day, again. It's hard not to think about Bill Murray's bewildered face as the morning opens up to another gray slate, with snowfall at the same spot on the mountain and rain hitting the same spot on the porch as I look toward my routine: to bike, to eat, to work, to sleep, then to wake, again, to the gray. The weather has changed little in the past couple of weeks, and when I say little, I mean I'd be surprised if the temperature has varied more than 10 degrees. There's a bit of sun here, a blast of wind there, 30 degrees here, 40 there, but for the most part, it's just 38 and raining. Day and night. If it wasn't for my habit of crawling to a different corner of Juneau on my bicycle most every morning, I fear these days would be devoured by eerie sameness.

At least my rides are going really well. I have my 38-and-raining gear system to a science and the cold precipitation no longer makes me even remotely uncomfortable. I guess I can't complain about conditions in which I'm comfortable. But even beyond the variety I so deeply miss, I crave a ride that will challenge me ... force me to think ... force me to make mistakes, and learn to correct them. Give me 20 and snowing. Give me 0 and windy. Give me 95 and sunny. But please, make it different.

This weekend I hope to seek out a more challenging ride, but I haven't decided yet what to do. I don't want to launch into too long of a single ride, or two long back-to-back rides, because that may be too much of an increase to the weekly mileage for my knee to handle. I'd like to go for a campout, but unfortunately I don't have great gear for 38 and raining. It's going to have to get a bit colder before my bivy can handle the precipitation. Otherwise, I forecast a late-night onset of 38-and-soaked-through-and-through.

And to answer anybody's question who has read this far, yes, I am a bit concerned about my lack of extreme-cold experiences. Last year, during the Susitna 100, I made a few mistakes that no one who regularly rides in temperatures near 0 would ever make. Juneau just has mild winters, and access to extremes is limited, and it's easy to become complacent about conditions that never change, and forget that in most parts of the world, weather can and usually does change, sometimes very quickly. But what can I do about it? Juneau is where I live. To quote the wise sage Donny Rumsfeld, "You go to war with the army you have, not the army you might want ..."

Went for a run

Date: Nov. 25
Mileage: 16.2
Hours: 2:30
November mileage: 631.1
Temperature upon departure: 40
Rainfall: .03"

I rode all the way up the steep face of downtown Juneau just to confirm that my favorite trail near town is in fact closed. A sign at the trailhead informed me that it would remain that way until after Christmas. Apparently, the CBJ (an acronym which, when spoken out loud, can only be a disdainful reference to the City and Borough of Juneau) decided that the Perseverance Trail isn't enough of a highway already, and they're blasting out big chunks of mountain until the New Year. Truly disappointing.

So instead I wheeled over to Salmon Creek with this crazy idea to run up to the reservoir. I haven't done any free running, at all, since knee problems bogged me down in February. I haven't even hiked since the foot fiasco in late September. But I'd like to get back into both for the fitness benefits, and two slow, uphill miles seemed like a good start.

Salmon Creek is a lightly technical trail with steady but steep elevation gain. These are the kind of trails where Geoff does most of his running, and I think I may understand why. I became so absorbed in dodging wet roots, leaping over mudholes and sprinting up veritable cliffs that I completely forgot that running is tedious and not very much fun at all. And in a matter of minutes (maybe 20?) I was at the top, lungs searing and face soaked in sweat because I am just not used to high intensity. But it feels good to get back out there in the world where bikes can't tread, to pound my bones a little, to overtax my heart a little, to feel shaken and alive.

I walked back down the trail, lined in brilliantly green moss and fresh shoots of some kind of leafy groundcover. I took this photo about 150-200 feet below snowline, which is nearly 1,000 feet above where the snowline was two weeks ago, when this area was likely covered in at least six inches of powder. This is one thing I really like about living in this soggy part of the state. Even during the early winter, spring is always just around the corner. All it takes is one warm week, even if the threat of a dozen frozen weeks lie in the near future. New life just keeps on trying.

Creating motivation

Date: Nov. 24
Mileage: 25.1
Hours: 1:45
November mileage: 614.9
Temperature upon departure: 39
Rainfall: .19"

I've been feeling really strong lately, and I figure I should continue to chip away at base miles as long as the blurry line between buildup and overtraining hasn't been breached. I've decided that all of the training I do for the next four months is going to be entirely dedicated to three things: conditioning my body to stay hunched over (or beside) a bicycle for a long, long time; practicing different camping, repair and survival situations; and keeping my bad knee healthy. Speed won't serve me at all after several days on the trail, and I'm not even going to flirt with it. A rookie like me will benefit most from longevity, patience and confidence - as much as I can trick myself into mustering.

That said, there are definitely going to be numerous days, like today, where I am going to have a hard time dredging up motivation to ride. Surprisingly, the threat of a slow, cold, bonked-out death isn't really doing it for me. So some days I have to contrive little rewards. Today, my reward was "I'm going to listen to Korn."

Yeah. I know. Korn was one of the more self-indulgent bands I circulated on my sticky CD player in the 90s. I didn't pretend that they made good music, or that I even really liked them. But, just as a band can manufacture music, a band can apparently also manufacture anger. And when I needed a funnel for my flailing teenage angst, Korn was there for me.

The appeal of no-strings-attached anger could be why nu-metal didn't die the death it deserved in the late-90s, as was the fate of the Big Band revival and California ska. Korn persevered, and today I downloaded their latest (released in 2007?!) untitled album. I set out on my bike for a sluggish warm-up, as per usual, worked my way out to the solitude of North Douglas, and kicked on the iPod early, losing the raspy rhythm of my flem-coated breaths to a barrage of bad noise.

Irritability was instantaneous, they way it was the one time I saw Korn in concert, in an overcrowded hockey arena with hypnotic strobe lights the stench of sweat and stale water and my friend Adam in his black eyeliner trying to look his gothiest. That was the basic setting, but the only specific I can remember is that everything was so, so loud as I followed Adam through a violent sea of fists and flailing steel-toed boots and I was getting bruised, everywhere, but I didn't care. We were mad and we were going to get to the front and we were going to plow through the fortress of churning bodies if it killed us all.

Why seek out directionless anger? I didn't know then and I don't really know now. But here I was in the year 2007, a full-grown woman on a bicycle, with Korn pulsating through my little white earbuds. I felt my lips tighten, felt my eyes narrow, felt my legs pound into the pedals, felt the wind and rain tear at my face, felt my heart rate explode. And then I felt hate ... hate for the November rain, hate for the gravel-strewn road, hate for the puddles and the invisible craters, hate for the cars and the taxis and the gravel trucks coated in new snow, hate for my bicycle and its tires with the pressure too low and its stupid mud-streaked fenders and cheap headlight and odometer that ticks up in steady increments while I hate and hate and hate.

And just like that, I found myself transferring this rush of new energy to crazy speed that I rarely see. I ccould hear my raspy breaths again even over the battering noise; I was all but gasping for air. And I realized that I didn't actually feel hate. I felt great.

We all need to vent sometimes.