My year in miles

Date: Dec. 29
Mileage: 14.4
Hours: 1:30
December mileage: 710.3
Temperature upon departure: 28
Precipitation: 4"

When I break down my 2007 miles by month, I realize I've had a fairly inconsistent year:

January: 893.4
February: 361.1
March: 14.4
April: 25.3
May: 168.9
June: 598.2
July: 874.6
August: 1,009.1
September: 475.6
October: 648.1
November: 793
December: 710.3

What surprised me is the total: 6,572 miles. That's still about 1,000 more than last year, despite a three-month period between mid-February and mid-May in which I essentially did not ride a bicycle. Looking back on my year of riding, I'd say the "most challenging" month was January. The "most fun" month was August. The "most eye-opening" month was February.

Cycling hasn't been the same since February. I'm beginning to understand that it never will be be the same. When my right knee locked up on me in February, I began to realize how precariously close I am, all the time, to not being able to do this thing I love. The threat rolls beside me like a shadow, much more well-defined than vague fears like death and disaster. The shadow reflects my weaknesses and muddles my strength. My strength is my willpower. My weaknesses are my knees.

I set out on a short ride today and cut it shorter. Several inches of new snow made for some hard pushing, but that didn't justify my inclination to pull my left knee off the pedal at rapidly increasing intervals. I realized at mile 7 that I wasn't in great shape, and wasn't going to improve, so I turned around and soft-pedaled home by sliding as far back on my saddle as I could sit and pushing the edge of the pedal with my heel so I was practically recumbent on my bike. When the surface wasn't too slippery, I stood. I felt despondent, for a little while. But after I got my head together, I realized that this is not the end all. I have eight weeks until Feb. 24, and this is only a minor onset of what feels a lot like (and probably is) chondromalacia. Not nearly as advanced as my right-knee symptoms earlier this year. I can be proactive about it and still stay on track. First, I plan to stay off the bike for several days. I'll revisit my old swimming haunts, go hiking, and the gym is always good. Today bought a bunch of different over-the-counter arthritis medications and supplements, and I'm going to try them all. (Glucosamine, yum). If I don't feel substantial improvements after a week, I'll get my doctor involved. I'd rather avoid that route for now, because a new year means a new deductible.

2007 has been a year of dedicated cycling accentuated with cross-training, IT band stretches, low-weight-high-rep lifting, attention to pedal stroke and regular icing. I tried to do this injury free. I tried the prevention route. I tried my best. So this is where I wrap up my biking year. Not with a bang, but a whimper.

Ten hours in photos

Date: Dec. 27
Mileage: 111.5
Hours: 10:00
December mileage: 694.9
Temperature upon departure: 38
Precipitation: 0"

I had a good ride today - first of the winter to break double-digit hours and triple-digit miles. I felt really strong except for two small things. But more on that later. Now, for my weekly photo essay:

8:30 a.m.: My only big wildlife sighting of the day: phosphorescent deer.

9:30 a.m.: North Douglas. I was again disappointed by the lack of sunrise.

10:30 a.m.: Looking toward West Juneau. After two hours of riding, my house is in that shot somewhere.

11:30 a.m.: Obligatory glacier shot.

12:30 p.m.: Auke Rec.

1:30 p.m.: Basking in the 30 minutes of sunlight that reached me today. I could see sunlight on the mountain tops for most of this "mostly cloudy" day, but the sun was always too low on the horizon for any light to touch the ground.

2:30 p.m.: A dirty-looking sunset way out toward the end of the road. This "increasing daylight" thing is happening way to slowly.

3:30 p.m.: The Glacier Highway was entirely covered in packed snow with patches of glare ice. Three times my back tire slipped out from under me and kicked several inches to the side. Luckily, it was my rear wheel, so I was able to regain control of the bike without falling. I was really hoping these studded tires would make it through the season, but it's becoming more obvious that they're not up to the job.

4:30 p.m.: The obligatory self portrait.

5:30 p.m.: It's still pretty nice outside.

6:30 p.m.: Celebrating my first triple-digit ride since August with the last obtainable sips of my Nuun slushy.

A few quick thoughts about the ride: I am definitely having some pain in my left knee. It was never too sharp today and didn't seem to stiffen up much afterward, but it caused enough concern that I opted out of pushing "big gears" pretty early; and for most of the ride, I kept my left foot out of the pedal cage so I could push the back of the platform using my heel. (The ability to move my foot around on the pedal for comfort was always a huge bonus of platforms when I was rehabilitating my right knee, and one of the reasons I will probably never be a total convert to clipless.) It is strange to have my "bad" knee suddenly feel like the strong one. I'm going to have to monitor this left knee pretty closely in the coming weeks to make sure it doesn't find its way down the bad knee's path.

Also, this is a little embarrassing, but I frost-nipped the sides of both pinky toes. It was really, really, really minor. But for as mild as the temperatures were (20s), definitely embarrassing. The mistake I made was wearing a thin neoprene sock - which I use fairly often during wet weather in the summer - as a "liner" layer. This sock is really tight, and even though my toes weren't constricted in the shoe, they were fairly constricted within that neoprene sock, which doesn't stretch much. I noticed around hour eight that my toes felt tingly. But since my feet didn't feel cold at all, nor had I ever noticed any feeling of cold, I figured I could ride out the last two hours. Sure enough, when I got home, I had white patches on the surface of two pretty swollen pinkies. They came back to having feeling again over the course of the evening. None of my other toes were affected at all. But a valuable lesson to learn - the onset of frostbite doesn't always feel "cold." The sensation to watch for and take seriously is the tingling. Circulation is key.

Anyway, beyond those two things, I'm pretty happy with how training is progressing. I feel much less thrashed after this ride than last weeks, despite the extra hour and 40-something extra miles. I just have to watch my knee. And hide those socks!

"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.