I've got nothing to prove this time, just something to improve on

The past few days have been a whirlwind of last-minute prep, illness recovery, exploration and social interactions. It always feels like a reunion coming to Anchorage - a place where I have never lived. Of course, my visits to Anchorage area always become the anxiety-ridden punctuation marks to some big event. This year, I gave myself more time than ever for the sole purpose of decompression, which turned out to be a huge mistake. I caught a nasty, gasping cold the day before I left Juneau. The cold itself wasn't that bad, but I mean it when I say I haven't been sick once all winter. The timing seemed comical at best. My condition continued to worsen as I rode around the city searching for scarcely needed little items, usually somewhat lost and struggling to keep my Pugsley upright on icy, traffic-choked Anchorage streets. Because nearly the only things I ever do in Anchorage are run errands and eat bad food, my opinion of the place is a bit skewed. But right now I'm a little shocked I came so close to moving here. I still think Anchorage would be a pretty nice place if it wasn't for the big sprawling city smack dab in the middle of it all.

One thing Anchorage does have going for it is an amazing trail system. I spent the first couple days crashing in the loft of Eric Parsons' house, just a small yard away from the place where all the magic happens at Epic Designs (in a just-above-freezing "sweatshop" filled with gear.) Eric was amazingly nice in not only providing shelter but also fast-producing a sweet set of pogies and fixing little tears and straps in the gear I've been relentlessly trashing since last year (I also, for the first time, had to own up to the creator for my notoriously harsh treatment of all of my gear ... "What did you do to this poor bag?!?" Me: "I thought they held up really well." On a side note, I received the same reaction and made the same response to Pete Basinger, who was also super nice in coming into the bike shop late Wednesday evening to overhaul my Pugsley. "Jill's bike is always in worse shape than she even realizes," he told Geoff. Me: "I thought it was holding up pretty well this year.")

Anyway, Eric took me on a tour of the techy singletrack up at Hillside. Kind of crazy riding for a winter trail on a bike that climbs like a pig and corners like a bus with a flat tire. But it was tons of fun. Between one little endo on those trails, a big hard fall on an icy patch on Spenard, and the worst day of my cold, I was feeling pretty beat up Wednesday night. So much for decompression before the race.

My time in Anchorage has for the most part been fruitful, though. I owe a huge thanks to Pete and Greg at Speedway Cycles for all of their help this year. Speedway not only overhauled my bike; they also outfitted me with a new set of wheels. The transaction happened so quickly and casually that I didn't even quite catch what kind of rims they are - but they're lighter and wider than my Large Marge rims, and will hopefully allow me to navigate through slightly softer snow, which I've heard there may be a lot of this year. "Worst trail conditions in years," has been thrown around once or twice, an assessment based on spotty trail reports and weather speculation. The weather reports still call for relatively mild temperatures, but there's more snow mixed into the forecasts. New snow and light trail use could mean a lot of walking.

Or not. That's what's so great about this race. No one really knows. And I feel a surprising sense of peace about the whole thing. I've certainly accepted the needed "come what may" philosophy and embraced that my presence out there has much less to do with time and distance and much more to do with raw exploration ... both of the landscapes inside my mind and out. Of course I'm anxious and fearful of the unknown and the solitude and the possibility of running into the extreme fatigue I experienced last year or weather conditions much worse than any I experienced last year. But at the same time, I feel calm. I'm on the verge of taking my last brave step into the inevitable.

For now, I just want to thank my sponsors:

Epic Designs, the go-to place for winter and summer bikepacking gear.

Speedway Cycles, home of the Fatback and the snowbiking center of Alaska.

Olympus Cameras, which outfitted me with a brand new Olympus Stylus Tough 8000 just days ago. I'm going to practice with the new camera a few times and likely take it in the race, because it has better zoom, more megapixels and is purportedly even more bombproof than my old camera.

And finally, if you want to follow my progress in the race starting at 2 p.m. Sunday, check back at this blog for updates from my SPOT tracker. You can also view my SPOT tracker shared page, and be sure to check into the latest updates from the race.

I might post a few more words tomorrow if I have time. It's coming fast.

Leaving warm and sunny Juneau

Date: Feb. 21, 23
Mileage: 25.5 and 19.7
February mileage: 601.7
Temperature: 34 and 36

I fly out Tuesday afternoon with Pugsley and two big bags of miscellaneous gear in tow. I'm going to spend the next several days in Anchorage and Palmer completing last minute prep, giving Pugsley a makeover, mad-rushing to buy gear I've forgotten and generally just getting my head out of the crush of things I have going on here in Juneau. I'm going to miss it here, though, because the weather has been so clear and seasonable and generally smile-inducing. I have been trying to get out for bike rides but haven't had a lot of time. I thought I was pacing myself well this year, but I'm still going to end up packing late into the night tonight.

Weather in Anchorage for the next week also looks pleasant - highs in the 20s and not a lot of snow on the forecast. Sunday's forecast in the Mat-Su Valley calls for partly sunny and highs in the 20s. Skwentna on Monday has a high of 30 and a low of 11. Puntilla Lake on Tuesday calls for snow showers, a high of 18 and low of 2. Nikolai and McGrath later in the week calls for intermittent snow showers, highs in the teens and lows near 0. All in all, a very encouraging forecast. Of course you can't put a lot of weight on long-range forecasts, but I can keep watching them and crossing my fingers than no -40s or 60-mph winds pop up.

I'm sure I'll post again before the race, which starts at 2 p.m. March 1, so I'll post up my SPOT shared page and race updates links then. I wanted to announce that Scott Morris, organizer of the Arizona Trail Race, mapping expert and all-around ultra-mountain-biking geek, has offered to track my progress on my blog this year. Those of your familiar with his coverage of Mike Curiak's 2008 self-supported tour know how thorough he can be. (Incidentally, Scott will be tracking Mike Curiak's ride again this year as well.) He'll probably stay busy with Mike's page, but I'm guessing Scott will provide at least some commentary about trail conditions, splits and other racer's positions along with really cool Topofusion-generated maps. So be sure to check in on this blog during the race.

Also, I won't be available to send out orders for signed copies of my book for at least two weeks. But you can still support me in this race by purchasing the book for yourself or your crazy outdoor-nut cousin using any one of the other Lulu or Amazon.com links in the sidebar of this blog. The eBook is only $8! Your support, as always, is appreciated.

Also, Ultra Rob is again holding a fundraiser for my race. For every item of cycling and outdoor gear purchased through his site from now through March 1, he will donate 20 percent of the commission to my Iditarod effort. If you have something in mind that you were thinking of getting, now is a good time. Check out the wide selection here.

Wish me luck! It's a total lie when people say just getting to the starting line is the hardest part, but it sure ain't easy.

Stoked

Date: Feb. 19-20
Mileage: 41.2 and 16.5
February mileage: 556.5
Temperature: 32 and 34

There is little I can do to improve my fitness ahead of March 1 at this point. So I set out this weekend to simply do "fun" rides, thereby hopefully shoring up happy memories that I can look back at wistfully when things get rough in the race, as they inevitably will. "Oh yeah," I will tell myself. "Snowbiking used to be fun."

It may be the mild taper or the fact that six months or three years (depending on how you look at it) of training focus is narrowing toward something specific, concrete and real ... but I both physically and mentally felt better and stronger than I have in a long time. Everything came together at the right time - the warmth, the sunlight, the speed, the snow. It felt like a big smile from the universe, directed right at me. I decided to believe that's a good omen.

Yesterday morning, Pugsley and I motored out to the Valley at 18, 19 even 20 mph. I thought there was some kind of crazy wind at my back, but it was just calm and warm and partly sunny, same as it has been for more than a week. (How can it even be February? This is solid April weather.) I hoped to hit up a few trails but assumed they'd be mush in the heat. Strangely enough, a cold air mass hovered right over the Valley. Temperatures fell to 25 or so. My front derailleur, covered in road slush, froze solid. But the Lake Creek snowmobile trail was hard-packed and recently groomed. I dropped my tire pressure, churned up to Spaulding Meadow and coasted back down on a feather ... snow almost too soft to ride, but not quite. It feels like riding on a cloud. It's probably the closest bicycles come to powder skiing.

Today was even more strangely perfect. It was 34 degrees when I left the house, not a good snowbiking temperature. Low-lying clouds hugged the mountains and I rode toward the Dan Moller Trail because I only had three or so hours to spare, and the Dan Moller Trail is the most fun trail close to home. I approached the trail expecting what I should have expected - mush, slush and fog. What I found was a perfectly flat, very recently groomed snowmobile trail. Nobody had used it since it had last been groomed, and I mean nobody. There were a single set of footprints that turned around about a half mile up, and after that, it was a smooth, flat, well-packed trail ... everything ideal for uphill snowbiking.

I took my rear tire pressure down to about 4 or 5 psi and left the front around 8 ... because I seem to get better grip for climbing when the front tire is little more solid. I set to the riding, 4 or 5 mph, which is flying up this trail. It takes all the effort I have to give ... running a heart rate of 165+, gasping for air, stripped down to my base layer and still gushing sweat. In marginal conditions - soft snow or steep climbs - riding a bike a 5 mph can easily take four times more effort than walking a bike at 2.5 mph, which is why bike pushing is so regularly employed in most endurance snow bike races. Only the strongest of the strongmen can afford to expend that much extra effort without an equal speed payoff. But on a day like today, when I'm only planning to ride for three hours and rest as much as I want later, I can burn as hot and high as I feel like burning. I was red-zoning at 5 mph, and feeling awesome.

As I climbed higher, the fog began to clear. The trail pitched steeper, and I started the push. I assumed that any second, a snowmobile was going to come up and chew up my perfectly smooth, perfectly predictable trail, making for a fish-tailing rough ride down. Last Friday, at the exact same time of day, I saw at least two dozen snowmobiles blast up this trail. I told myself I should turn around right then and enjoy what downhill I could, but the sunlight beckoned me higher. The edges of the hard effort were starting to cut through. My GPS ticked off feet of elevation like seconds on a clock, but I didn't slow down. I felt like I had to beat the rolling fog, had to beat the approaching snowmobiles.

But neither came. The sky became clearer. I crested the ridge. It was Pugsley's first ascent. I congratulated him. I took a drink of ice-free water and walked along the ridge, watching wisps of intensely illuminated clouds swirl along the mountainside.

The contrast of dark and light was intriguing ... hard to capture with a camera. But, then again, it's different up there, heart still pounding and hair still dripping from the hard climb. You squint against an expanse of snow and see every shadow and color with a pulsating intensity. Cameras never capture that.

After that, there was nowhere to go but down. I kicked off the ridge and shot down the steep face of the Douglas Ski Bowl, digging in deep with my rear wheel but hardly losing speed. I dropped into the bowl and mashed the pedals to churn up a 100-foot knoll, the last hard climb. I slowed but didn't put my feet down as I took a lingering look over the canyon, draped in clouds but clearing, and launched into the final descent. The trail, unbelievably, almost in a Twilight Zone way, was still perfectly groomed. Not a single snowmobile had been up there in at least three hours, and possibly all day. For the first time ever, I was able to ride this trail without a single mogul or snowmobile ski track or soft spot or chewed-up edge. The risk was gone so I released the brakes and let gravity reign. I glanced down at my GPS, registering a max speed of 25, 27, 29 mph. On snow! With a rear tire at 4 psi!

I arrived at the bottom of the trail less than 20 minutes after I left the ridge, five miles and 2,300 feet of elevation behind me. I pulled into the empty parking lot practically drenched in ecstasy, almost in disbelief at what just happened, just like being 19 years old and carving my way to the bottom of a black diamond run on a snowboard for the first time. After I did it once it was never quite the same, but today was just like that. Remind me to send a donation to the groomer with the Juneau Snowmobile Club.

I used to have a next-door neighbor who, whenever I told him about something cool that happened, would say, "You're stoked."

Exactly. Stoked, fired up, and ready to leave scorch marks on the snow.