Possibilities

Date: July 6 and 7
Mileage: 22.0 and 8.7
July mileage: 79.3

I had nearly reached Gold Ridge when my watch hit 60:00:00, about three miles and 2,700 feet elevation since 0:00:00. Not bad for a walk. Could I take it to a run? I've never really been interested in running anywhere before, but for some reason I'm interested in running this Mount Roberts trail. I'm interested in running these mountains in general - to take it faster and farther than I've ever been able to before.

Faster and farther. With Geoff back in town and a few long-suffering racers still on the route, the Great Divide Race has been a heavy topic of discussion in recent days. When I am alone on my bike - and more often than that this month, on my feet - my thoughts often return to the question of whether or not I could ride the GDR. I feel motivated by the glimmer of excitement sparked by distant dreaming. But I end up kicking the scree or mashing my pedals when I arrive at the sheer absurdity of it all. All my past experience tells me I could not finish the GDR. All my past experience tells me it's impossible.

I was somewhere in the hills of Southern Ohio in fall 2003 when I just couldn't make the pedals turn anymore. My mind said go but my knees said no, and without another protest we were off the bike and walking, up the road, the finish line in upstate New York still unthinkably far away. Rather than becoming stronger every day, I was slowly breaking down, and I crossed those last three states on increasingly larger doses of pure willpower. And those weren't big miles back then. We were touring ... averaging 50 miles a day ... on pavement. The miles I've ridden since 2003 are exponential compared to the miles I put in before my cross-country tour. But still, the difficulties of that experience linger. They remind me that I am, at my core, just an ordinary person with ordinary abilities.

"It was really easy, until it wasn't," Geoff told me. "It was beautiful and enjoyable riding and great people, until my body gave up. And when my body gave up, my mind quickly followed."

I remember those hills in Ohio. More than all the mountains in the Rockies, they shattered me. Of all the things I learned from bicycle touring, I know emotionally there are wildly fluctuating days of good and bad. Mentally, the hardships get easier. But physically, the line seems to only trend downward.

And then there's faster and farther. I've watched Geoff scamper up Mount Roberts like a care-free mountain goat, fading into the clouds as I gasped and clawed my way up points far behind. He can coast up these trails effortlessly at a near-sprint; I get winded on a walk; and the GDR broke him. Where would that leave me? The ordinary person?

Faster and farther. If someone had pulled me aside on that road in Ohio in October 2003 and showed me a map of Alaska and the trails I would travel in the next five years, the rides I would not only attempt but finish, I would have never believed them. I was already on the bicycle ride of a lifetime, a lifetime, and it was harder than I ever imagined, and was more rewarding than I even anticipated, but Alaska would be another league entirely. Alaska would be impossible.

Still, it's fun to dream, even about things that may never, and maybe could never, happen. Because if there's anything I've learned from Alaska, I know where I take my ordinary abilities is entirely up to me. I get to set the limits. Faster and farther.

Geoff's back

Date: July 4 and 5
Mileage: 18.1 and 30.5
July mileage: 48.6

More than two months and a lifetime worth of mountain biking later, Geoff's in Juneau, and just like that, the routine has returned.

Geoff: "Did you eat any real food while I was gone?"
Jill: "I already told you, there are Pop Tarts on top of the fridge."

Geoff: "When did we get so many cats?"
Jill: "Those are the same cats."
Geoff: "Are you sure? I don't recognize that one."

Geoff: "Why is your Pugsley in the bedroom?"
Jill: "I was lonely."
Geoff: "That makes sense."

Geoff did return with a serious drill Sergeant hair cut and quads the size of small cars. He used to have more of a streamlined runner's body, but now he's put on some upper body weight, his upper legs are almost grotesquely overbuilt and his calves are much smaller than I remember. A visual reminder that mountain biking is in fact not a natural thing for a human to do. Still wish I could put on that kind of muscle. Maybe if I laid off the Pop Tarts.

Geoff also wrote up a good "race report" of photos and observations on his blog. Straight and to the point. He didn't blather on about it for seven days like I did after the Ultrasport.

I'm still trying to get my groove back with the cycling. My passion has dulled a little this week, kind of like the pain in my right heel - which, since it came on during my measly 24-hour race, I certainly can't complain to Geoff about. I'm still watching the weather and the snowline, dreaming of jagged ridges and alpine tundra, thinking I may still make good on my vow to try trail-running this summer. Mount Roberts Tram Run is in three weeks. Think I can race it? Well, if Geoff thinks he can defend his title in the dirt marathon that is the Crow Pass Crossing in two weeks, I can certainly give it a shot.

Jill + Juneau Ridge + July 3 = Tired

I am one of those people who always believes I've fully recovered from a hard effort long before I actually have. I don't know why. I guess slumming just doesn't suit me. I take my fatigue and perceive it as laziness. Then I rally until something simple takes me down hard, and the process begins again to a lesser degree until I finally am fully recovered. I know the 24 Hours of Light was no Iditarod, but it wasn't a Sunday stroll either. I wish I thought about that before I set out today on a 12-mile hike with lots (LOTS) of steep elevation gain.

(Yes, I totally took a self portrait at the peak with the giant cup of Diet Pepsi I had been suckling all the way up. I do loves me a tub o' caffeinated beverage.)

Hoofing up Mount Juneau felt pretty good. I wasn't moving very fast, but then again, I haven't done all that much hiking this season to be in great shape for it. And anyway, Mount Juneau is a mean one - gains about 3,000 feet in two miles. Half the time your nose is nearly touching the trail, your palms are embedded with sharp rocks and you forget what it's like to walk bipedal. So of course I was going to be tired at the top. That's no reason not to keep walking along the ridge.

A cold, hard crosswind needled through my meager layers as I made my way down the peak and across the first of many snowfields. After crossing the second knoll, I looked back and realized that the terrain I had tread just minutes before was nothing more than a snow bridge - a steeply overhanging one at that - along a cliff that plummeted hundreds of feet down. That discovery made me feel a little sick to my stomach, and I started making more effort to go around the snow on mud and rock. But often that was as good as Class 3-plus scrambling, and I started to feel the effort of the afternoon.

As I picked my way along the rock outcroppings, I hoisted myself onto a boulder just as a loud, piercing screech erupted right in front of me. I looked up as the bald eagle I had nearly stepped on spread its giant wings - a span as long as I am tall - and lifted into the breeze. Without even flapping its wings it swooped over my head and rode the wind's current on a graceful arc into the distance. One more screech cut short by the blasting wind, and it was gone.

Over the next knoll the rain started to come down, suddenly, with driving force. That and the howling wind left me feeling spooked out. I don't think thunderstorms even happen in Southeast Alaska, but I have spent enough time above treeline in Utah to be sufficiently scared of them. The ridge started to narrow, and I could see a point where I would have no choice but to cross a steeply slanted snowfield. I had hiked far enough that going forward on the ridge was shorter than turning around, but as I looked down into Granite Creek Basin, all I could see was snow, snow and more snow. It seemed I was facing a precarious crossing on a knife ridge followed by miles of trudging through slush. So I turned around.

Feeling my way back was when I really started to crash. I ate the Pop Tart I had carried with me, but it didn't help at all. What I really wanted to do was lie down and take a nap, but I was already partially soaked and stopping in the wind wasn't an option. My caffeinated beverage was long gone. I heard another screech and looked up to see my bald eagle circling the perch I kept so rudely interrupting. Watching it soar effortlessly over my snow-choked obstacle course filled me with a sense of peace, and even as I was wet and exhausted, I was happy to be there.

But the hike down was brutal, and by the time I made it back to the Perseverance Trail, I was weaving all over the wide, smooth path like a drunken bar hag. I couple of times I leaned against the side of the cliff just to "rest my eyes" for a bit. I really did feel like I was falling asleep, even as I plodded down the trail. I had to laugh at myself, how wasted I felt, because Juneau Ridge is really not that hard or epic of a hike. It's pretty mellow, actually. But I was completely cooked. I came home and had a good dinner and now I'm back on the caffeine, trying to rally to go catch the midnight fireworks, but I have to say, my bed is right over there, and it is (nearly) July 4, the biggest celebration in Juneau all year, but I'm just ... so ... tired.