"The point of snow sports is hot chocolate"

Date: Dec. 25
Mileage: 30.4
Hours: 2:30
December mileage: 583.4
Temperature upon departure: 36
Precipitation: .31"

Geoff was on NPR today!

It has been really interesting to listen to the feedback Geoff and I have received since we decided to enter the Iditarod Trail Invitational. We've heard a fair amount of commentary, not only from friends and family, but also from strangers - radio personalities, marathon runners, people who blog in Ajax, Ontario. The general reaction is “They’re crazy. They’re going to hurt themselves out there.” And yet no one has stepped in and tried to stop us. Instead, we receive an abundance of encouragement and advice. I think nearly everyone who stumbles across our story has some understanding of how it feels to aspire to something so extreme, it all but promises both the depths of suffering and the apex of joy. If they had no comprehension of that feeling, they simply wouldn’t care.

One aspect of this race that is incomprehensible to nearly everyone is how Geoff and I fit in it together. I ride a bicycle and he runs. In the real world, these are very different activities that have very different techniques and ends. A cyclist, even a poor cyclist, is nearly always faster than a person on foot. But on the Iditarod Trail, our playing field is much more level. I have a hard time explaining this to people. Geoff, who is a much better athlete than I am, can hold a steady run/walk average of 4-6 mph almost indefinitely, and can do so even on poor trail conditions. I can swing wildly, from riding 10-15 mph on hardpacked snow to walking and pushing my bike at 2 mph through a number of much more common snow conditions, such as fresh powder, wind-blown drifts and sandy “flash-frozen” snow. In the end, if I hold a 4-6 mph moving average over the course of the race, I’ll be more than happy with it. Truth be told, I will be happy just to finish the race. And as long as I am relatively healthy and my bicycle is still basically in one piece, I’m willing to give myself as much time as it takes. Of course I know it’s a race and of course I want to be fast. But to put it in perspective, beyond just Geoff and myself: The women’s cycling course record for the 350-mile race is 5 days, 7 hours. By contrast, the course record for a man on foot is 4 days, 15 hours. If history has been any indicator, in all likelihood Geoff, on foot, will beat me, on a bicycle, to McGrath.

Still, my physical fitness is one of the few things I can control about this race, and I want to be as prepared as possible in this regard. I can’t believe it’s already nearly Thursday again, and with it, another plan for an endurance-building long ride. Tomorrow I plan to shoot for several continuous hours in the saddle rather than the stop-and-go conditions of trail riding. Pushing a few big gears will help me pinpoint some nagging pains that have been cropping up, and it will be fun to shoot for some bigger miles ... I mean, as big as they go when it is 25 degrees and snowing, and you are hunkered over a full-suspension mountain bike with studded tires. I am just hoping the temperature drops below freezing and the roads are not as sloppy as they've been, or I’ll never be able to ride it out.

Hints of Christmas

Date: Dec. 23 and 24
Mileage: 30.2 and 25.1
Hours: 2:30 and 1:40
December mileage: 553.0
Temperature upon departure: 39 and 34
Rainfall: .11"

This is the third year in a row that I haven't been home for the holidays. Instead, I work right through them ... Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, New Years Eve, New Years Day, all that time lingering among the ghost crew at the office while the people with priorities, the people with families, disappear into warm-looking homes. Geoff and I don't make a big deal out of Christmas (we don't even exchange gifts), and the rest of my Alaska family is comprised of two cats who only understand that this is a dark and foreboding time of year. Our good friends, who are Jewish, took pity on us and organized a potluck tonight. We will be joining a few other holiday orphans for a Christmas Eve dinner of mac 'n cheese, salad, and if I am lucky, some kind of fudge.

My lifestyle has evolved such that Christmas sneaks up very quietly, hiccups quickly, and flutters away. So it wasn't surprising when nothing felt very "Christmassy" when I headed out into the gray predawn or my morning ride. Even the decorative icicle lights, which my landlords last year left glowing until June, hung dark against the house. The weather has warmed up again, and has otherwise been very windy and fairly dry. It makes for less than exciting biking, definitely not the kind that feels like Christmas biking, and I had to push hard to log a few decent miles before I had to be at work.

As my studded tires clacked on the wet pavement and my quads began to burn, I thought about Dec. 24. Right about now, I thought, my entire immediate family is probably gathering at an overcrowded movie theater for a holiday matinee, probably a feel-good PG film, or maybe that Fred Claus debacle. If I were there with them, I would be able to wrap up the Marmot rain jacket I bought for my dad rather than hoping the U.S. Postal Service actually delivers it in time. "Next time we go hiking in the Grand Canyon," I'd say, "you won't get soaked." Then there would be dinner - probably a half dozen of those baby chickens my mom likes to call Cornish Game Hens, and ribbon jello, and sweet spinach salad. We would watch "A Christmas Story" and eat peanut butter balls until our eyes started rolling toward the back of our heads, and then we would move on to hot-fudge sundaes. There would be a suburban tour of Christmas lights in there somewhere, and new pajamas, and the quiet hustle of parents with three grown children and no grandchildren, perpetuating the ritual of Santa Claus.

As I tilt my head back and imagine Christmas Eve, I can hear the roar of a truck barrelling through the slush behind me. I'm way over in the shoulder but I pull over even further, and I can tell this guy's still right on top of me. I turn to him just the truck passes me. It's all but straddling the white line, and in the face-soaking spray of sludge coming off the wheels I hear the driver yell out his open passenger-side window, "Merry Christmas!"

Merry Christmas to you too, buddy.

Toward the light

Well, the winter solstice has come and gone. The days are growing longer now. For the first time in months, we have physical evidence that summer will in fact return again, someday. Alaskans always seem a bit more reflective this time of year. It may have to do with the calendar turning over yet another notch, or the stress-fueled holiday season nearing its climax, but I think a lot of this reflection has to do with the irresistible pull of darkness that draws us inward. I even uploaded the music mix I made specifically for the 2007 Susitna 100 to my iPod, filled with several songs I haven't listened to since. Music never fails to evoke vivid images, and today I found myself so swept up in a mindscape of spindly spruce and snowy expanses that I actually startled myself when I snapped back to the image of my reflection clutching a 15-pound barbell in the gym's mirror. These "race" memories are so valuable to me. I feel like no matter how I perceive my accomplishments of the past, or what I hope to achieve in the future, nothing can rob me of the beauty I've seen. And in my own contrived sense of cause and effect, the promise of beauty is the reason I spend time counting biceps curls in a stuffy gym.

I spent the past two days off the bike. On Friday, I took the day completely off, and today I put in two hours at the gym. I hadn't planned on a full rest day Friday, but I managed to jackhammer myself into a porous mush during my ride on Thursday. I woke up the next morning zapped of energy, sore in all sorts of new places, with a throbbing left knee. The pain in my "good" knee was the major reason for taking the day off, but I can't deny that I felt almost entirely spent. The jump from single-day to multiday endurance events is a big one, and I haven't completely spanned it even now, two months before the Ultrasport. But I feel confident that my slow build will pay off, hopefully just in time to burn the dim lamp for as many days as it takes. The rest day paid off, too, with a full recovery that had me feeling great today, almost excited to slog off to the gym to read decade-old magazines and pump some iron.

I thought I'd show my parents what they gave me for Christmas: An pair of "All Degree" Raichle mountaineering boots. I excavated these from the bargain basement of Sierra Trading Post and levied a coupon I had in my inbox to snag them for dimes on the dollar. I realize they may be overkill, but it was hard to let them float by when I was in the market for a new pair of boots anyway, and these happened to be the perfect size I was looking for (about two sizes too large). Now not only do I have a new pair of winter boots for not a whole lot more money than I had budgeted, but I won't have to buy a new pair of overboots, because I think my old, noninsulated ones will hold up fine with these monsters beneath them. All Degree! Thanks Mom and Dad!

I think after I finish riding the Iditarod I should learn how to climb big mountains. I nearly have the right gear to try mountaineering. All I'd need are crampons, and an ice ax, and a four-season tent, and rope, and beeners, and a harness, and a helmet, and one of those lightning rods that keep a person from falling in crevasses and ... hmm ... come to think of it, maybe I'll just stick with cycling.