The world at large

Date: May 2
Mileage: 19.2
May mileage: 113.5
Temperature: 41

Geoff called me from California today with some great news - he had a tough race at the Miwok 100K, couldn't sleep at all the night before, was battered by the "super hardpacked" trail, faded during the last 20 miles of the race ... and landed third place.

I thought I heard him wrong. "Thirtieth?" No. He said third. As in third place! In a field of 250 ultrarunners, completely stacked with many of the top names in the sport. Basically, Geoff had what he views as a bad race - well, maybe not bad, but not exactly at the top of his game - and still came out ahead of at least a few superstars. Scott Jurek I think came in just behind Geoff. I haven't been able to track down the results online yet, but it's pretty impressive.

Geoff's placement automatically qualifies him for Western States, which I understand to be the elite A race in this game. Unfortunately, the race falls one week after the first day of the Great Divide Race, so Geoff isn't even thinking about registering. He has his heart set on this GDR thing. Meanwhile, I'm trying to think of how I can talk him out of his dream bike tour. Don't get me wrong, I'd love to see him tackle the GDR ... but I think he can do that any year. He has this opportunity now to steamroll into the national ultrarunning scene (and yes, in my biased view, he could steamroll into it.) And he's just letting the opportunity pass by. But, he never listens to me anyway, so ... eh.

Today I had lunch with a woman who tracked me down through my blog. Kate is a Minnesotan, in town for a few weeks as an Americorps volunteer, landed on my blog while she was researching the area and wanted to meet me. I felt really weird about an Internet stranger date, but we had a great lunch. We don't even have that much in common - she's not really all that into hiking and camping, although she's being subjected to it in a rather brutal fashion here in cold and rainy Southeast Alaska. But we talked and laughed and connected for a few hours before I had to be at work. She would be a fun friend if she had any permanent plans for Juneau - which she doesn't. But the experience of that brief connection made me realize that the Internet reaches deeper into my life than I even know.

I say this because I have been feeling heartbroken about Elden (aka Fat Cyclist) Nelson's recent news about his wife's surprising turn for the worse in her battle with cancer. I've never met Elden or his wife, but he has been very supportive of me in my comparatively trivial cycling challenges, and this news has hit me hard. Like many in Elden's legions of fans, I'm unsure how to react. How do you tell a man you've never met and a woman who doesn't even know you exist that you care about them and are thinking about them? The gesture is simple, but the emotions behind it are harder to qualify. I've never been the strong link in my interpersonal relationships, but I do know real love and support can connect across places as vast and vague as the Internet. So I guess the best thing to do is reach out.

Six hours of May Day

Date: May 1
Mileage: 94.3
May mileage: 94.3
Temperature: 43

Today was an amazing day. The first time I've felt strong on a bike in more than a month.

I've been fighting off a slump since late March. I haven't blathered about it too much on my bike blog, because, frankly, it had me a little bit worried. I wasn't injured or sick. I had just lost all of my edge. Everything that made me feel good and strong at the end of a day rather than trashed had faded. I was worried the edge was gone for good. It all started the day I rode an unintentional but effortless century on March 20. I felt so great that I set out the next day with Geoff and rode a 50-miler on the Pugsley. That was the day I blew up. Limped home from that ride, confused about why I felt so terrible. I didn't feel even close to 100 percent a week later, and about week after that I took a forced break from the bike, several days at least. But each day away, I just felt tired and irritated. When I started biking again, I was as bad as ever. I kept up my mileage because of habit, hope, and because it was a way to spend time with Geoff when he was amping up his own bike training. Luckily I wasn't training for anything because most of those rides I was just striving to survive them, rarely pushing very hard, although I was giving all I had to give.

Why the big slump? I never knew for sure. It definitely wasn't that century, although that may have been the proverbial straw. Geoff thinks it was a belated reaction to the Ultrasport and all of the preparation that led up to it, of which I never gave myself much recovery time, mentally or physically. It seemed unlikely to me that I was experiencing a physical blowup that long after the fact. I thought it was entirely mental. But that didn't explain why I was so grumpy when I took my self-imposed bike break, or why, even on the days I was excited about a ride and determined to push a certain limit, I couldn't coax my body to go anywhere near it.

In the past two weeks I had become more accustomed to the somewhat weakened version of myself. I got more excited about bike commuting and other bike-related goals that weren't necessarily competitive. But I did want to do this 24-hour race at the end of June. I wanted to do it as well as I could. So I planned this eight-week loose training regimen that was to begin Monday. I wheedled my way out of the first two days, and today was to be my first weekly long ride (I like to start at six hours, work my way incrementally to 10 or 11, and then pull back.)

The trails are still slush-covered. It was going to have to be a road ride. But I don't currently have a working road bike (well, I guess I have a three-speed. But none of them are speeds I like.) Anyway, I took the Karate Monkey. I figured it would be slow, but six hours is six hours. I headed north with a light east wind at my side. I noticed that, like yesterday morning, I felt pretty strong out of the gate. I didn't think it would last long. The day wasn't particularly enthralling - mostly overcast and drab. But, surprisingly, it was one of those days in which I felt better and better as I went. I didn't stop much so I didn't take many pictures. I just rode at my comfortable pace, and hit the end of the road before the three-hour mark had passed, took my short snack break (had to hurry because the recently thawed fall mosquitoes were out in full force), and turned around.

It would have totally come in under six hours - I probably could have even done a spur to make it a century - except for the wind turned south and kicked up a harsh 20 mph headwind for the last 10 miles home. I think I ended at about 6:05. About a 15.5 mph overall average, including two short breaks. I know it's not impressive for pavement, but for me, riding the big bike and its fat knobby tires, after a monthlong slump ... I'll take it.

Maybe I'm back? I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

Night detour

Date: April 30
Mileage: 44.5
April mileage: 789.6
Temperature: 41

Twilight hadn't yet faded to black when I left work this evening. Long day, and I neglected to make dinner again. My heart was still racing from a carb-bender meal of generic multigrain crackers and Kudos bars. I pulled my headlamp over my helmet and cinched up my big backpack full of office gear, and unlocked my mountain bike from a staircase railing. I had promised myself I would fix my road bike and thus do nothing to convert the mountain bike to a commuter. But as I looked around to illuminate all of my surroundings, I began to realize how much more comforting it was not to have my only source of light fixed on the road.

Condensed breath swirled in my headlamp like fog. Above I could still see outlines of clouds. No stars or moon, but no rain either. My work week was over; my mind was deep fried and badly in need of an oil change. My stomach gurgled and the idea of a protein snack and a late night of zoning out sounded appealing, but for some strange reason, I was in no rush to get home. Without even thinking much about it, I banked left off the bike path and veered onto the Salmon Creek Trail.

My headlamp illuminated wet gravel, but the trail pitches so steep so quickly that for a little while all I could see were swirling red dots. By the time the trail leveled out enough to let me steady my handlebars and catch my breath, it was covered in snow. The night chill had laid a nice crust, and I was able to ride on top without much effort. I continued that way until the foot path narrowed and I could no longer hold my line. When I stopped, the silence was complete.

Craggy silhouettes of spruce trees blocked out the sky and I looked over my shoulder, south. For the first time in all of my busy day, I wondered what Geoff was doing at that moment. I imagined he was somewhere in northern California, curled up in a tent. The same tent we packed in the trunk when we drove the length and width of the Lower 48 in my car. The same tent I hauled across the country on the back of my touring bike. I sold that bike a long time ago, and used the money to buy a bike rack for my car. Now my car just sits, going nowhere. Sometimes it seems like nothing remains.

As I rode back toward town, I thought I saw a shadow dart across the trail. A deer or more likely nothing, it startled me enough to slam on the brakes and jump off the bike. I probed the woods with my headlamp but saw nothing. I could hear Salmon Creek now, gurgling downhill, but I could not see it, either. As I walked toward the woods for a better view of the phantom shadow, my foot broke through the crust and my shoe filled with cold water. I yelped and fell backward. The water moved on effortlessly beneath the snow, the only sound to fill a lonely night. I sat for a minute, and let it soak in.