Back to normal

Date: Aug. 7, 8 and 9
Mileage: 30.1, 35.7 and 15.2
August mileage: 171.3

Sorry I've been away from my blog for a bit. Not that anyone probably actually noticed - but three days is a long hiatus for me when I'm in town.

I've actually spent most of that time at my computer, typing like a crazy person. It started Thursday afternoon. As expected, the sun went away and the rain came back. I did a hard interval-type ride out to North Douglas (intervals meaning I go as hard as I absolutely can until I think I'm about to burst, and then I recover until I think I can go hard again.) I came home completely spent, actually had to take a nap, and then I woke up and drove Geoff to the airport (He was flying to Anchorage to run the Resurrection Pass 100) I had originally planned to come home and ride again, but that didn't sound appealing at all. And just as I sat down at the computer to kill some time blogging and whatnot, it occurred to me that I actually felt like starting on this writing project I have been thinking about since April, but had done nothing with it beyond free-handing a rough outline on the back of a flyer. "I'll just pound out a few paragraphs and see what happens," I thought.

Lots of paragraphs happened.

I'm actually pretty excited about. The motivation is swirling, and the result has been encouraging. This is the kind of thing I'd want to print out for my grandchildren someday, the kind of thing that says "This is what Grandma was about before she turned 30." And if I never get around to having kids, I'll show it to my grandnieces and nephews. It's been fun, too ... a reminder that I do have the drive within me to be every bit as passionate about writing as I am about cycling, which is good news for when I am grandma-age and will have probably used up the warranty on my knees. I only hope I can finish a good draft before the motivation turns on me again. That's why I have been away from blogging and only going outside for the most minimal rides, because it's raining anyway.

A good sunset did come out tonight though - a few rays of light peaking through the fog. My co-worker and I walked out to the back of the GCI building and just stood on the shoreline, watching the sky as half-rotten chum salmon wrestled and flopped in the shallow water. We were on deadline, which made the escape that much sweeter.

Geoff called from Anchorage to tell me he ran the Res Pass 100 in 17 hours and change - four hours faster than the previous course record. He insists he kept his promised conservative pace and ran it as a "training" run. "That's like 10-minute miles," he said. "If I went any slower I'd be walking."

I wanted to tell him that if I ever had to cover 100 miles on foot in one unbroken stretch, I'd be crawling. (When I did that course, or at least one very similar to it, in 2006, with my mountain bike, it took me 13 hours.) It made me even more hungry to attempt the Soggy Bottom 100 again later this month, but I've been very noncommittal with my cycling as of late. Oh well. Back to Microsoft Word.

More

Date: Aug. 6
Mileage: 8.5
August mileage: 90.3
Temperature: 67

Another beautiful day, another post where I inundate my blog with photos from Juneau's ceiling. Today I headed up Mount Roberts. I woke up earlier but didn't rush out the door the same way I did yesterday, so I ended up with the same amount of time to burn - about four and a half hours. And like yesterday, I pushed my time limit to its very brink.

I made better choices than I did yesterday - Claritin, sunglasses, no shirt (Just kidding. I did have a shirt. It just got so soaked in sweat that I took it off for the solitude walk along the ridge, but I put it back on before I descended back to tourist zone.) Despite my better choices, I felt like I was still in recovery from Tuesday. I hike up mountains because the space makes me feel awake and alive, but the actual activity makes for a tough workout ... two to three hours constantly pushing between 70 and 90 percent of my MHR, followed by two hours of high-impact downhill pounding. My joints hate me now, but they'll thank me later. I'm still convinced that all the hiking I did in summer 2007 strengthened my knees and set me up for an injury-free winter.

But while I'm getting such a great workout, I stop often to observe the geography, visualize a future adventure and, of course, take photos. I'm not sure why I'm so intent on photographing mountains. It seems an injustice to box in all that jaw-dropping space, but I do it just the same. This photo was taken from the top of Gastineau Peak, looking down Gold Ridge toward the Juneau Ridge, where I walked yesterday. To the far left you can see Mount Juneau; the middle right is about the distance I made Tuesday before I had to turn around. Directly behind is Cairn Peak, on Blackerby Ridge - a future goal for a day when I have more than four and a half hours to burn.

I took this photo to show off Juneau's August offerings to my skiing friends. Unfortunately, in my effort to box in all the sweeping space, I cut off one really friendly, fun-looking run a thousand feet down into the bowl. I would ride it myself if I had my snowboard, which I'll likely never carry up to Gold Ridge (I don't see how one four-minute run could possibly be worth it, but, then again, I'm not a rabid snow-rider like some of my skier friends.)

Snow proved to be my undoing about 200 feet shy of Mount Roberts, when I could not find a way around this snow field, and I just wasn't willing to kick up it. The snow was soft enough, but one slip would have sent me on the fast (and deadly) track down to the bowl. So I didn't make that peak today. As it turned out, I was really pushing my schedule as it was. I didn't even have time to stop into the tram terminal for a Pepsi before I had to fast-track down through the rain forest and back to my bike.

All in all, another good day. I only GPS'ed the walking today. I think it shorted me a couple miles of distance (it doesn't seem to register forward movement too well at slow speed on steep pitches). But, anyway, today I have 8.46 miles, a total ascent of 4,019 feet and a maximum elevation of 3,664 feet. I feel cooked! Both by the trail, and by the sun. It's a wonderful feeling.

And then summer came out

Date: Aug. 5
Mileage: 12.2
August mileage: 81.8
Temperature: 64

It's hard to explain the stream of emotions that trickled through my mind as I awoke this morning and squinted out the window. Disbelief, disillusion, dumbfoundedness, and finally, delirious elation. There wans't a cloud in the sky. Not one. Even the little poofy strings of water vapor along the ridgeline were fizzling in the sun. I had slept in until 8:36 a.m. and I didn't know if I could forgive myself for wasting so much dazzling daylight. I slammed down some breakfast, slathered on the SPF 50, and raced out the door, determined to soak in all of the rays the Juneau Powers That Be were willing to send my way.

I raced my mountain bike to the base of Mount Juneau, and in my typical way-too-excited-about-a-nice-day style, I burned a lot of matches getting there. I have to admit I was pretty fried just six miles in, but I had so much ground to cover and so little time to do it, I couldn't hold back. I locked my bike and launched into the climb. I had power-hiked for about 20 minutes when I was suddenly overcome by a freak allergy attack. I started sneezing violently and couldn't stop, and I dropped to my knees in the dirt as tears gushed out of my eyes, which I couldn't open. All of the July rain must have held back the pollen of whatever I am allergic to out here, and so weeks worth of allergies mauled me all at once. I was a sputtering, sneezing mess for about five minutes, and when that finally subsided, I felt strangely depleted. Like I was sick. But I decided that the worst was over, and I was not going to let it get the best of me.

Mount Juneau is a mean, mean, nose-to-the-dirt kind of hike, and I was dripping sweat and guzzling water like it was summer, actually summer. And even in my hot, sneezy discomfort, squinting because I forgot my sunglasses and panting in the warm air (70 degrees? Could it actually be 70 degrees?), I was happy. I'll admit that I felt just this side of awful, but I was happy.

I took a quick glance at my watch on the peak and decided I had 40 more minutes to skirt the ridgeline before I had to dart back as quickly as I could move my legs just to make it to work in time, and this was already accounting for a planned sailor shower and no lunch. I began to jog as a cool wind brushed my face, and all I wanted to do was stay high forever, and why couldn't it be Thursday, and why were there clouds already crawling in from the north?

I caught a large group of hikers who couldn't stop raving about the sightlines ("I bet you can see a hundred miles from up here!" one woman gushed, even though the horizon was already looking pretty hazy.) I admitted that I was minutes away from turning around, and they tried to coax me into following them across the ridgeline and down Granite Creek Basin. "I can't. I'll be late for work," I said. "Oh, what time do you work?" the group's leader asked me. "Two," I said. He looked at his watch. "Um, it's noon now." The other hikers just looked bemused, like I was delusional to think I would be sitting in an office desk a mere two hours later. The Juneau Ridge, set apart by snow and tundra, feels like its days away from the world below, even as concrete and traffic hug the mountain.

I made some effort to walk/slide down the trail, but I twisted my knee once to the point and searing pain, and that scared me back to my usual downhill method of inching sideways slowly, which always takes longer than the climb. When I finally reached a strip of level ground I shuffled through my GPS screens. I should take a GPS on more of my hikes. It was fun to look at the stats. As for today's numbers, the mountain biking really dilutes the total - I gained about 800 feet in the first six miles of biking and 4,000 feet in the next 3-4 miles of walking. It also inflates the average speed. But overall, it's a good gauge for future efforts. GPS stats:
Total mileage: 18.74 (12.2 cycling, 6.54 walking).
Total elevation gain: 4,833 feet
Top elevation: 3,576 feet
Average speed: 4.21 mph
Average moving speed: 4.75 mph

I'm always happy to round the corner and see my bike, because it means the downhill pounding is over and it's time to coast home. That die-hard rear fender finally broke; I taped it up with packaging tape for now, but it still wags a bit, like a puppy dog tail, which makes it seem like it's happy to see me. It's hard to explain the aftermath of a morning like this, so brutal and yet so refreshing. My eyes are still watering and my knees are still throbbing, but there's a few new freckles on my forehead and a smile on my face. A good day. Like money in the bank ... and I think I'm OK for at least another week of clouds.