This and that

I try to avoid bullet-point blog updates, but right now life is tugging from several directions. I have been making progress on writing projects, just as my 2011 tax forms have started to trickle in from the publishing world at large. The numbers are more encouraging than discouraging, and I'm trying to leverage that into motivation to increase my production, send out more queries, and try not to derail my progress with thoughts such as, "I could really benefit from spending the whole day reading articles about eBook formatting" or, "I wrote this bullet point blog post today, and that was almost like being productive." No ... no it wasn't.

• Publishing. Both of my books have been enjoying decent sales for the past few weeks. It has been interesting following the trends in online book sales. It seems bike bloggers now regularly land spots in the list of Amazon's top twenty best sellers in cycling.  There are still many bike books I have yet to read (my Kindle is choked with unread books right now), but one I have been browsing with much amusement is Elden "Fatty" Nelson's "Comedian Mastermind." It helped that I received a paperback copy (does anyone else suffer from Kindle guilt? It's like looking at a stack of overdue library books every day.) Elden even personalized the book with the inscription, "For Jill, who routinely does what I never would even consider. Ride on!" I wasn't sure if this was a compliment or a veiled insult, but the "Ride On" sweetened the sting enough to continue reading.

I have been a regular reader of Fat Cyclist's blog since 2005. He lives about ten miles from the town where I grew up, and I rode with him several times during the spring of 2009, while I was staying in Utah and training for Tour Divide. So I feel like I know the guy; of course, many of the thousands of Fat Cyclist readers probably feel the same way I do. Fatty comes across as personable and friendly, the kind of guy you would like to ride with on a Saturday afternoon. He's also a prolific writer who can be poignant and funny at the same time. "Comedian Mastermind" covers the best of his blog from 2005-2007, printed with introductions and footnotes so you feel, as the back-cover-blurb describes, like Fatty is "standing behind you, reading over your shoulder, and telling you what he was thinking while he wrote and why he wrote it, all while eating a sizable sandwich." It actually does read like a personalized collection — as though Elden compiled this book specifically for me, the girl who regularly does things he never would, so I can laugh along with his self-inflicted misery, two-wheeled triumphs, and keen observations about cycling's often absurd culture.

Of course I'm going to like the book, as a long-time fan. I also tried to look at it as an objective reader, someone who's never heard of Fat Cyclist's blog. Although there's a peppering of inside jokes, thanks to Fatty's informal writing style, you don't have to be a regular reader to get it. For the non-fan, it's a compilation of humorous cycling essays and epic ride stories. For the Fat Cyclist fan, it's a nicely organized digest that's enjoyable to revisit. And if you're like me and enjoy uploading light and short reads on your Kindle for easy consumption at airports and other places of wait, this is a great book for that. Recommended read. (On sale here.)

• Readers. Thanks to the recent post-holiday increase in book sales, I have been hearing from more readers recently. I received an e-mail from a man who is headed to UTMB this August, who told me that he was enjoying the book to the extent that "as a non-bike-rider, the (Tour Divide) is now on my very long term bucket list." Other readers have told me the book inspired them to ride more or plan a bikepacking trip. Next week I will likely join some kind of live chat to answer questions for the Women's Adventure Magazine book club, which is currently discussing "Be Brave, Be Strong." I wanted to say thank you to those who reached out to me (although I suspect many of them are not readers of my blog.) It's definitely motivated me to keep writing.

• Training. I think my taper is going well. I am actually tapering, which means I have noticeably reduced the amount of time I spend exercising each day. This has also proved to be problematic, because if I'm "only" going to run for an hour, I want to make it count. Not because I believe "making it count" will help me next week, but because running hard feels so good and if I only do it for an hour, it won't even hurt. Issues arise because I never did any speed work in training, so running hard inevitably leads to much soreness the following day. This is hardly confidence-inspiring for my hundred-mile snow slog in just over a week. But I try not to think too hard about what six-mile aches implicate for something seventeen times as long.

• UTMB. The Ultra Trail du Mont Blanc sent out a news release full of interesting statistics. It appears 10,000 people put in for the lottery for the 2012 race. The 2,000 entrants represent 75 nationalities. It didn't specifically say what percentage of participants are from the United States, but it seems only 8 percent of entrants are women. This surprised me; I expected to see something closer to 20 or even 30 percent. This low number makes me want to finish this race even more, and I do plan to work for it this summer. I envision lots of long, steep hikes in the mountains. Yes, it's a tough life, but someone has to do it. We are the eight percent.

• Awesome women. I wanted to congratulate Eszter Horanyi for scorching the course in 2012 Arrowhead 135, setting a new women's bike record at 18 hours and 18 minutes. I've only met Eszter briefly, at last November's 25 Hours of Frog Hollow, but I do read her blog and regard her as a kindred spirit of sorts — possibly what I would be like, if I was fast.

• The Susitna 100. I can't wait for February 18, which has now officially reached the ten-day weather forecast. Right now, the weather looks good, but I am feeling optimistic regardless of what the weather does. Even if it's 35 degrees and raining, I will put on my Juneau Super Suit and snowshoes and slog this thing out. I am genuinely excited about it. My friend Danni and I have been discussing food and strategy. I will probably make a Su100 gear post in the next week.

• Bulleted blog posts. I'll try to avoid them in the future, I promise.

In between adventures

I am, at my core, a lazy person. I often tell people that the reason I aim for big expedition-style races is to establish an iron-clad excuse to pursue hours of adventure training. But sometimes I realize that the opposite is also true — I "train" so I can justify big adventures. Remove the adventure factor — either adventure as training, or training for adventure — and I start to display disconcerting impassivity for the hobbies I claim as passions.

I'm beginning to realize that adventure might just be my only motivation for exercise. Physical fitness? Small improvements in my mediocre athletic abilities? Better overall health? Looking good in a pair of jeans? Boring. Okay, I'm only joking about the boring part, and lying if I try to pretend that I don't care about these things at all. The truth is, adventure only motivates me on that superficial psychological level; biologically, I'm so addicted to endorphins that I'd happily run up and down the same flight of stairs at an airport before I gave up more than a couple days of exercise. But the promise of adventure is what drives me up and down those stairs. Without it, the more boring aspects of exercise likely would have crushed my spirit long ago, and I would have succumbed to my lazy side.

I have been looking for reasons why I've been in a bit of a funk this weekend. I think part of it sparked when Beat and I talked about a trip to Yosemite that couldn't happen for various reasons. I was fine with it because I'm already set for another trip to Alaska in two weeks, and I have all of these exciting adventures planned — endurance sled dragging, visiting friends and climbing mountains, watching Beat start the ITI, snow biking. Why feel disappointed about a little trip to Yosemite? I've been spoiled by jet-setting adventures for months now, and yet, and yet ...

Beat wanted to go mountain biking on Saturday. I wasn't sure why, and didn't admit it to him because I had no good reasons, but I didn't really feel like riding. Angelo the miracle worker massage therapist had realigned my wonky knee on Friday. Where the joint felt weak and rubbery on Thursday, it felt stronger and better tuned after the massage. The thought of being "fixed" filled me with optimism, and I had a great ride later that afternoon on my singlespeed — cranking hard up 2,700 feet to Black Mountain and feeling great on what should be a knee-crushing bike. But when the weekend came around, laziness crept back in. With just two weeks until the Susitna 100, there's not a lot I can do now to physically improve my chances in that race. So fitness training is in a period of limbo. At the same time, it was a beautiful clear day, and so warm that Beat's friend Liehann asked if we had any sunscreen. What was wrong with me that I couldn't get more excited about four-plus hours of care-free mountain biking? Beat suggested that I ride the Fatback. "That's right!" I said. "It's about time I start training for the White Mountains 100." Motivation found.

Our home trails are pleasant and enjoyable, but admittedly not the adventure they used to be. I did experience small shots of adventure when the rear Endomorph tire nearly washed out on the loose rocks of a few hairpin turns. But those particular rushes of adrenaline don't count as the good kind of adventure given it's so close Su100, and also not really enough scary fun to justify pedaling that beast of a bike on a ride with close to 4,000 feet of climbing. Still, I did enjoy myself once I got my lazy butt out the door, even if the ride did involve four hours of chasing two boys who were constantly locked in an unspoken race with each other.

Even though the mountain bike ride was awesome, Sunday only renewed my battle of motivation with an afternoon trail run. Beautiful sunny day, narrow trails, wending through the woods and emerging on a rolling ridge. Boring. Okay, I really am just joking about that. I am a lucky person; I just need to remind my lazy side of this fact from time to time.

I could learn a thing or two from my cat, who spends all of her time in a small apartment. And still, she can get herself worked up in the most enviable frenzies from a rustling of leaves on the porch, a noise in the hall, or nothing at all. Sometimes I think it would be nice not to have to travel to farther corners of the world, seeking increasingly more challenging endeavors, just to renew that rush of excitement. But if I could somehow feel that way just hanging around my house, I would miss out on so much life.  

Single, newly sexy

The Susitna 100 is just over two weeks away now: Cue the phantom pains. On Wednesday afternoon, I was carrying two big boxes of Beat's Iditarod drop-bag supplies when the weight of the top box shifted, I lunged to catch it, and slammed my pinkie toe into the couch leg, hard. I dropped to the ground, moaned, punched the couch, swore a bit. I convinced myself I broke my toe. It felt like I broke my toe. Before the white shock of pain even began to subside, my mind started racing: "&$@! Now I'll have to DNS Susitna. I wonder if I can ride my bike instead? But what if I have to get off and push? Maybe I can get one of those walking casts. But how will I keep my toes warm in a walking cast? %$@! frostbite foot. $&@! stupid clumsy couch box toe ow ow ow."

My pinkie toe wasn't broken. It did take a long time for the pain to mellow to an acceptable dull ache. I had been planning to go for a run after my errands, and even waited an extra hour until I didn't have the time to wait any longer. I popped a couple Advil and set out on my not-broken-but-still-achy toe for a 6.5-mile trail run. My toe was fine for the run, but as soon as I started downhill, my knee started to act up. It was the same problem I was having during my 50K race on Saturday — some kind of connective tissue that runs along my leg behind the outer edge of my right knee incurs a mild electric shock type of pain when my right leg hits the ground. It's not a bad pain but it's disconcerting. Even after I slow my stride substantially, the knee still feels weak, almost rubbery, as though there's less support for the joint. I call it wonky knee. I'm not terribly worried about it because there's essentially no downhill running in Sustina. Also, there's still plenty of time to recover in the next two weeks, and I can certainly lay off running until then. But the wonky knee was just concerning enough that I scheduled an appointment with Beat's massage therapist in hopes that he can set me straight. (The guy is very good.) Ah, pre-race phantom pains and panic.

On a more positive note, Beat's makeover of the Karate Monkey is complete. He's gone all-out since he figured out the singlespeed 29'er was his favorite bike in our stable. Just today, a new set of wheels arrived from Mike Curiak, the wheelmaster in Grand Junction, Colo. Beat also received new tires, a new chainring, a 21-tooth cog and bright blue chain. Before this, he installed a brand new Reba XX fork, RaceFace stem, blue handlebars, Chris King headset, Ergon grips, and a set of Formula K24 brakes that I received as a birthday gift a couple years ago before I owned a bike "nice" enough for such brakes. Now the only original part on this bike is the crank, and of course the frame. I think it's fair to say this is no longer my Tour Divide bike. In fact, it's not even really my bike anymore.

She does look good with her light new wheels. Beat is blessed (cursed?) with a deeper understanding of how things work, and thus has a strong appreciation for quality products and equal distaste for poorly made products. Since meeting him, I've been introduced to a whole new level of gear understanding. Personally, I've always been resistant to gear-mindedness. I have no issues with gear appreciation, even obsession; I can understand why people get excited about these things. It's just that the bike itself doesn't capture my imagination on the same level as the simple act of riding a bike. When my own bikes were plagued with mechanicals, I would invariably complain to my friends that "I don't even like bikes. I just love to ride them."

People who know me, know that I'll basically ride anything. My main (only?) criteria in a bike is that it works, and continues to work no matter how much I abuse and neglect it. I was proud of my generic, heavy, $79 wheel set that I bought used on eBay and rode untold thousands of miles all over the western half of the continent. But at the same time, being introduced to the finer details of quality has helped me see the world of gear in a new light. "Wow, this hub purrs like a kitten." The new wheel set is light and beautiful, and from everything I've heard, capable and strong. I'll never reach Beat's level of appreciation, but at least now I can say (and actually mean it) that, yeah, quality gear is awesome. It means that not only can I enjoy riding my bikes, but I can ride better and feel more comfortable in the process. Although I do feel more guilty about the neglect part ...

The Karate Monkey still holds on to remnants of her old life, the scars of the hard roads she won before all the bling. I'm kinda proud of the rust spots, too, which is why I don't buff them out. (Also, I am lazy and neglectful of my bikes.) With all this great new stuff, it will be hard to resist taking her out tomorrow afternoon for a ride. Yes, a long hill climb on a singlespeed. That is probably exactly what my wonky knee needs.