Trapped

Date: Dec. 16
Mileage: 31.1
Hours: 2:45
December mileage: 406.9
Temperature upon departure: 35
Precipitation: .03"

I did quite a bit of Internet research tonight regarding my travel/training options for this winter, and I've drawn the conclusion that I am officially trapped in Juneau until Feb. 21, 2008. People who advocate building a road that connects Juneau with the real world said the state ferry system was useless, but I didn't know they meant it. I even agreed to work Christmas and New Years just to cash in on a four-day weekend in early January, only to discover I might find one boat to Skagway during that period, but I wouldn't be able to return until sometime in 2010.

I briefly considered a flight to Fairbanks, but for what it would cost, I'd probably be better off buying some wool base layers and a pair of waterproof pants that don't have duct-tape patches across the backside. It's a bit frustrating because I had this whole "cold-weather" cycling trip planned since I started training in October, and now I know it's not going to happen. I probably should have researched it earlier, but I just assumed there would be a boat for me when I needed one. (It appears the Marine Highway all but shuts down during the winter.)

Geoff has insinuated before that he can feel Juneau's isolation closing in on him like a cold fist. Sometimes I feel it, too.

But I had a good ride today. Conditions were really icy, but I rode as hard as I felt my lungs could manage in the cold wind. I was able to keep my speed mostly above 15 mph, except on short stretches of bike paths that were covered in several inches of clumpy debris from plowed roads; I also brought my average speed down quite a bit once I attempted trail riding at the glacier, where I did a lot of 2.5 mph walking. It felt good to put in a sustained hard effort. I died a little toward the end, after not drinking enough because my water bottle had become completely coated in disgusting gray goo, and not eating enough because I hadn't brought anything with me to eat. But when I pulled up to the house with my lungs still searing and my legs pumping hot lead, I could almost taste the success of a hard ride well executed, and I knew it was going to be a good day.

A little bit SAD

Date: Dec. 14 and 15
Mileage: 33.4 and 31
Hours: 3:00 and 3:00
December mileage: 375.8
Temperature upon departure: 36 and 35
Precipitation: .54"

I think just about every Alaskan - at least once during the winter - experiences a mild case of Seasonal Affective Disorder. SAD is a depressive condition cause not by cold, but by lack of sunlight. Here in Juneau, we have a more daylight than points north of here, but it is arguable we see even less sunlight. As solstice nears, with the low sun barely scraping above the peaks of Admiralty Island and a thick, thick cloud cover refusing to budge, Juneau appears to be locked in perpetual twilight - like the Arctic Circle, but without the long sunsets.

Darkness takes its toll. I love winter and spend a fair amount of time outside, so SAD has never hit me that hard. But when it does, I know exactly what's happening. I sense it in the morning, when I wake up with an enduring junk fatigue - not the satisfying fatigue that one feels when returning from a long ride, but the empty fatigue one feels after sleeping too long and spending the whole day on the couch. This kind of fatigue is self-perpetuating, I and know this, so I try to force myself to shimmy into all of my bike gear and head out on the long ride I have planned. I hoped for five hours on Friday. I made it nearly three, slogging the entire time, before I had one of those "%$&! this" moments and turned promptly for home, where I proceeded to consume every carbohydrate-laden snack in the house (even chips. I never eat chips.) The evening was filled with false starts and at night my cat decided to start screaming like a murderous banshee (cat screams are very humanlike ... terrifying.) I jolted out of a deep sleep and spent the next several hours in bleary-eyed weariness, staring out the window, waiting for some semblance of light, any light, to appear in the sky.

I had been simmering in moodiness for two hours when Geoff woke up. He blamed my bad mood on training and told me I should take a day off. But I knew sitting around the house watching snow fall and stuffing my face with chips and spoonfuls of jam would only stoke the grump, so I grudgingly suited up and headed out into the ice storm.

The road was covered in new, heavy snow, which made the pedaling slow-going and strenuous. It helped take my mind off carbohydrates and screaming cats, and focus more on my breathing, and the sharp way my quads burned, and the soft drumming of low-volume music on my headphones. I didn't even think that much time had passed when I approached Geoff, who was 10 miles into his weekly long run, looking sopping wet and completely ragged. "That's how I must look, too," I thought.

Later, I veered off the road to the Mendenhall Wetlands, a long mudflat at low tide, thinly blanketed in snow. This kind of terrain is difficult at best, impossible at worst, and I locked into the single-minded pursuit of staying upright amid shallow channels of water, snow-covered clumps of grass, sudden steep banks and pockets of sand so deep it felt as though someone had lassoed my back wheel and was trying to pull me backwards. The landscape was so barren and yet so intricately detailed. My goggles had long since become uselessly wet, and I squinted against the sharp snowflakes, focusing on abstract shapes through my blinking tunnel vision until I lost all concept of where the ground ended and my bike began. Then, suddenly, like a white explosion, a flock of seagulls erupted from the snow right in front of me. I jumped off my bike, completely startled, and paused a moment to let my heart rate slow as the birds swirled and tumbled and settled again on the snow.

And I realized that I felt better.

Riding with sea lions

Date: Dec. 13
Mileage: 55.8
Hours: 5:00
December mileage: 311.4
Temperature upon departure: 38
Rainfall: .45"

My goal for this Thursday and Friday is two back-to-back "medium" rides. Because today was supposed to have the marginally "nicer" weather (more rain than sleet, and less wind), I decided to go out for the harder one today. My hope was to log a lot of elevation by riding up to Eaglecrest and back, again and again, for five hours. That probably sounds pretty boring, but believe me, when the weather is like this, boring is almost a good thing.

After my experience with the Eaglecrest climb on Tuesday, I heavily overdressed for the ride. I figured a little sweat was meaningless in the grand scheme of the layer-soaking slush shower I was facing. It actually worked, but I sure was uncomfortable during the first climb, gazing wistfully at the snow-packed slopes and daydreaming about splashing my overheated face with cold powder. But for the ride down, my clothing was nearly perfect - much better than Tuesday. Unfortunately, the road surface was much, much worse. Everything was either former packed snow that had been rain-glazed into a wet slick of glare ice, or it was gravel-sprinkled slush. From any distance, it was hard to tell which was which. But tires do completely different things in slush than they do on ice, so the threat of losing control of my bike loomed constantly. I had to ride my brakes for five miles, until my hands went completely numb, often moving slower than I had been during the climb and clenching my butt cheeks the entire time. When I finally made it to the bottom, for some reason known only to my slave-driving subconscious, I turned around to do it again.

So I actually made the climb three times. It was a good example of just how short the selective short-term memory of a cyclist can be. All the climbs were a lot of fun, but the descents were treacherous and slow. By the third one, my layers were no longer protecting me from the windchill, so I scrapped the all-day Eaglecrest idea and headed north.

North Douglas was nearly deserted as I pedaled hard across the ice, trying to build up the heat I had lost. Sea birds peppered the calm surface of the channel, and I turned off my iPod so I could hear the surf lapping on the shore. In the distance, I could see dark triangle shapes bobbing in and out of the water. At first I thought they were birds, but they were too big, and then I thought dolphins. But as I moved closer I could see sleek brown bodies rolling through the water like waves. Sea lions. And there must have been a dozen, maybe more, swimming no more than 50 yards from the shore.

As I rolled up beside them, one by one they turned their heads toward me, their ghost eyes hovering just above the surface. More triangle-shaped profiles popped out of the water and disappeared just as quickly, and as I coasted along the ice they rolled with me, locking gazes with mine, making water-blowing noises and diving again. Then, suddenly, a small sea lion toward the front of the line knifed half-way out of the water, its sharp nose pointed in the air like a circus seal, and I could actually see its flippers flapping back and forth. I burst out giggling like a little girl. They were playing with me.

"Hey sea lions," I called out. "Catch this!" And with that, I launched into the pedals and rocketed down the ice. I glanced over my shoulder and could still see the group bobbing in and out of the water, still moving forward but completely uninterested in chasing me. I continued pedaling to the end of the road. But when I approached them again on the return ride, the games commenced.

I actually doubled back on the road three or four times, just so I could ride by the sea lions and call out to them and laugh as they turned to me with their hollow, skull-like stares. It was probably completely inappropriate, a harassment of wildlife, but they didn't seem to mind. You know, sea lions actually make pretty good riding partners.