Breaking the silence

Date: Nov. 3 and 4
Mileage: 35.1 and 62.0
November mileage: 156.9

Sunlight poured in through the window as the dentist hovered over me with a miniature sandblaster. He wore a sticker that read "I ensured freedom by voting today." It was still only 9 a.m. As he ground away 15-year-old retainer glue, the whine of the drill competed with the yammering of high-volume news radio for nobody's attention.

"Wow, it's a nice day today," my dentist said.

"Hmmm mmmm," I gurgled.

Outside, people on the corner waved campaign signs. The streets were full of noise, honking and traffic, yelling and whistling. "Can I really handle a full day of this?" I wondered. I parked at a nearby mall and pulled my bike off the roof rack. I suited up in clothing that would assure me warmth - something that's been eluding me on bike rides lately - two fleece jackets, long johns, rain pants, balaclava, neoprene booties. I pulled into traffic and rode north.

Beyond the businesses and polling places, beyond the houses and the campaign signs, the street became starkly quiet. Despite the nice weather, no one seemed to be venturing out the road - minds and hearts elsewhere, I guess. I relished in the solitude, in a place where rushing streams and soft wind drown out the constant yammering. But without the noise, I began to wonder why I had been so annoyed.

Political passion has eluded me for years. I registered to vote soon after I turned 18, and happily voted for Sandy City Council members in the 1997 election. I came back in '98 for my first statewide ballot. I campaigned fiercely for future Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson in '99, going so far as to wave a sign on a street corner. I joined a number of environmental activism groups, volunteered for university voter drives, and went with Nader in 2000. But shortly after I graduated from college, something snapped. My passion faded. I began to view voting as a statistical exercise in futility. I began to hear campaigns as meaningless rhetoric. I began to see major-party candidates as small variations of the same ideas. I became a political agnostic. I haven't voted in an election, any election, since 2002.

There was comfort in my apathy, safety in doing nothing. I never tried to defend my status as a non-voter, but I never did anything about it, either. I started to feel guilty in 2006, but failed to register before the deadline. I watched the results diligently and concluded my vote would have made no difference. I did not rush off to register after the election. I still hadn't registered by the 2008 primary. I did not register to vote until the first week of October, on the last day before the deadline, because I knew, despite my agnosticism, refusing to vote would only secure my place in purgatory.

The beautiful day kept me out on my bike until it was time to go to work. I did not have time to stop by my polling place first. I sat at my desk and tuned back in to the yammering, because that's what I'm paid to pay attention to. Bursts of excitement punctuated the air at the office, with all eyes on the election. By 6 p.m. Alaska time, major news networks were already starting to call the race. National reaction poured in. I browsed the Associated Press wire, looking for photos to include with the stories. The faces, the tears, the words captured my spirit in a way I haven't felt for eight years. Especially powerful was this photo, with Christine King Farris, sister of Martin Luther King Jr., and her granddaughter in Atlanta:

I took my break shortly before polls closed, went to the Douglas Public Library, and voted.

Happy birthday blog

Date: Nov. 2
Mileage: 29.7
November mileage: 59.8

It was a strange feeling, dropping away from the base of the ski resort and into a thick fog. Spooky ghost trees and skeletal branches masked the one thing I was really afraid of - ice. I hugged the shoulder in case I needed to bail into the gravel as wheels spun almost silently over wet pavement. Visibility closed in and the ghost trees disappeared, until all I had was a white line, drawing a vague path over the obscured road, buried and surrounded by a great gray kind of nothingness. A layer of frost collected on my black fleece hoodie and tights until I was little more than a shade of gray myself. With the unseen pull of gravity I flew through the cloud, cold tears on my cheeks, frosty mittens clasped on the handlebars, smiling at the invisible world. It was a strange feeling, being lost in a fog and filled with a sensation that can only be described as clarity.

.....

So Monday is my third "bloggiversary." That's right. I've been blogging at this site for three full years. It's funny to think back to my reason for starting this site - as a way to convince my friends and family back home that my new life in Alaska was great and they should join me. Three years and 843 posts later, I still haven't convinced anyone I know to move to Alaska, but I have discovered a wide world of cyclists, Alaskans, adventurers, thinkers and dreamers, and I feel like I'm part of a virtual community. I was going to have a reader appreciation day to celebrate. But I'm not quite ready yet, so I think I'll postpone it until after the election. Everyone's probably so over-saturated in election stuff right now that they're not even reading blogs, so it's just as well.

Harder than it seemed

Date: Oct. 31 and Nov. 1
Mileage: 72.4 and 30.1
October mileage: 587
November mileage: 30.1
October rainfall: 16.42"
October snowfall: 9.1"

I left the house on Friday telling Geoff I'd be gone about three hours, hoping to stretch that to six hours and 100 miles, and figuring I'd end up somewhere in the middle. The truth is I was feeling a bit battered from Thursday. After four hours of stomping around in heavy snow, I was sore in all sorts of new places, fatigued and somewhat windblown (or maybe just sunburned.) I also had a painful red ring (frostnip?) on my skin around both legs just below my calves where ice and snow had built up in my boots (yeah, I wasn't wearing gaters ... just boots and a thin pair of polypro tights.)

So I was not feeling 100 percent up to a long ride, but I was OK with that. I can ride all of the centuries I want, but my best training is still going to come from the spontaneous outdoor excursions where I don't quite dress right and don't bring the right gear and spend four hours hiking six miles and have random things happen like getting a boot stuck in the snow. There's still so much to learn. There's always so much to learn. The problem-solving, the hard lessons and discovering my strengths and weaknesses are my favorite aspects of winter training. Centuries are kinda ... boring.

Not to say I even came close to accomplishing one yesterday. I went out a little hard with an east wind sweeping at my side, just a touch underdressed for 39 degrees and scattered rain, and by mile 38, I'd had enough. I ate two Power Bars to try to coax my energy back, but it wouldn't come. I turned around. Several miles down the road, I took an extended break at Eagle Beach, laying on a picnic table and listening to the wind-driven surf lap the rocks. When I was too cold to rest any more, I reluctantly peeled myself off the table and took the short way home.

It was a hard day. Some days are like that. The only real downside to it all was that it killed any motivation I had for Halloween. Some holidays are like that. I woke up this morning resolved to do a pretty mellow ride today - active recovery of sorts. Surprisingly, I felt really good, and ended up pushing hard toward the end of the ride just for fun.

If I had a coach or any real training plan, I would probably have a better grasp on good days and bad. But for now, I really think it's better for a person like me to go with the flow; listen to my body; build up my strength with snowshoes, not weights; build up my endurance in hours, not miles; and sometimes get my boot stuck in the snow.