30

Today's my birthday.
It's just a number, they say
As time trickles down

On a rainy Monday

It rained 1.5 inches today. I went for a two-hour run on the Lemon Creek Trail (can you believe that raging whitewater is a "creek?" In Utah, major rivers have lower flows than that.) Anyway, everything about the run felt strangely exhilarating - the slimy surface of the trail, the salt water streaming down my face, the clattering of raindrops as they bounced through tree-branch filters, the thick mist blowing sideways in 25 mph wind gusts, the icy plunges into knee and thigh-deep side streams and puddles. I hate this kind of weather, but I was loving that run.

My Achilles tendons are really starting to feel better. The stretching pain only manifests itself when I take big strides, or pedal hard. I think I am ready to start riding regularly again, and am considering it - you know, training - unless we get another long block of sunlight (in which case I'll be traipsing through the mountains for all Juneau's long, wet, quickly approaching rainy season is worth, and I don't care how much it hurts or how little sleep I get.)

I know I am still not that far removed from the Divide, but I like the routine of training to: keep me motivated in difficult times; to keep me occupied in difficult times; and to spur excitement for the future. Not that I ever train with that much direction, but I do have a few hopes/dreams/goals that will require some structure:

1. Late September long weekend bike tour. (Golden Circle or TBD Alaska tour)
2. February 2010 Susitna 100. (With a goal of going light and riding fast.)
3. August 2010 TransRockies! (Oh yes, it could really happen. A friend and I have been "talking.")

Note that the last two are more athletic-driven goals, as opposed to the adventure/survival goals of my recent ultraendurance races. Both events will require the kind of focus I've never really invested before, which is why I'm excited to set them as goals. I'm excited to try something different. Although adventure is still very, very much what motivates me in cycling, I think it will be fun to seek out my athletic limits. As long as I continue to have fun and find new motivation, I think I only stand to benefit from a little bit of structure. I have enlisted a friend to help "coach" me. But the day any coach tells me to leave my camera at home is the day I stop training.

And until then, I will run in the rain, because running in the rain is surprisingly fun.

Seeking shelter

Gray weekend. Steady rain, lazy to the last minute, and then, Sunday morning, just as three days of wind and rain strengthened to a howling peak, I went for a ride. Booties and a fleece hat in August, and after the precipitation soaked through, water streamed down my cheeks and into my mouth. It tasted familiar. Like salt and melon-cucumber shampoo, with hints of peat moss and rotting salmon. The taste of early fall.

Low tide. Chum salmon flopped around in a few inches of water at the mouth of Fish Creek, their bodies bleached and flaking, their mouths gaped and gulping at the soaked air. The rest of their lives could probably be measured in minutes, but by nature's cruel design they had already been dead for a while, struggling mere feet from the ocean they were born to escape. I wondered what their offspring would find when they returned here. Would they see the same dead end?

Heavy fog. Fishing boats flickered in and out of the clouds like ghosts in a postmortem search for kings. Rain pattered on the hidden surface of the ocean. A foghorn blew from sources unknown. The little boats circled the quiet chaos, where sky and water melted together in a gray mass, without even a faint line to draw the horizon. The ships could have been flying, but the kings were buried deep.

Rainforest Trail. I disappeared beneath the canopy where raindrops echoed but didn't fall. Spindly spruce trees dressed in moss towered over an explosion of devil's club, fully developed and blazing with red berries, the kind that develop just before the yellow wither of fall. The front wheel dipped down a narrow strip of gravel. I took in gulps of gravity as my body reflexively pendulated through a maze of sharp turns. The forest spit me full-speed onto the beach, with the bike clattering over a carpet of broken shells, and ghost boats skimming the fog, and still-alive salmon leaping toward the sky. Before I could even slow down, the trail turned back into the dark and sheltered woods, and a steep, winding climb, where gulps of gravity turned into gasps of air.

Within minutes, I was back to where I started, the crest of a mile-long loop. So I did the only thing I could do to stay out of the rain - I continued straight and circled, again and again.