Bushed

Although I've been gradually but steadily getting slower as I get older, that doesn't mean I've forgotten what it feels like to be fast. And over the years, I've continued to learn about how my body, and presumably other peoples' bodies, react to influences such as training, diet, stress, and mental preparedness. One theory I've developed over the past decade, based on my own experiences and that of our UAA athletes, is that the most reliable predictor of racing performance during the weekend is the stress that the athlete experiences during the preceding week. Want to see some some poor skiing?  Watch college athletes race at the end of final exams week. Breaking up with your girlfriend or boyfriend on a Tuesday is going to make it pretty difficult to race fast on Saturday.

As for me, I have a job in which I travel quite a lot.  Some weeks I travel more than others.  I like traveling, I find it fun and relaxing, and it doesn't feel stressful to me. But nevertheless, I've noticed that if I travel a lot during the week for work, I'm sure to have a tragic Anchorage Cup race over the weekend, no matter how my fitness might be at the time.  On the other hand, if I stay home and sit behind my desk all week, typing on the computer, I can race pretty fast over the weekend even if I don't have very good racing fitness. 

This past week, the Seawolves had a hard week of training. There were several intense workouts, including an uphill running time trial and our annual sand dune sprint-interval workout which is never easy. But I missed out on all the fun. Despite my recent 50% pay raise as a UAA volunteer assistant coach, I still need to occasionally show up at my day job to try to make ends meet and pay for groceries and whatnot. So I spent the week sailing on boats and flying on various aircraft to some villages in southwest Alaska to try to earn a couple of dollars.

I started with an early-morning flight to Kodiak Island, where I walked across the airstrip and chartered a little plane and a pilot to fly me across Kodiak Island and Shelikof Strait for an appointment I had in a little village called Chignik Lagoon. After a two and a half hour flight, the pilot waited for me as I sprinted across the runway to spend fifteen minutes inspecting a home before sprinting back to the airstrip and jumping back in the plane for the two-hour return trip to Kodiak. (We had a headwind on the way there, in case you're questioning my flight time discrepancy.)

Flying down the coast of the Alaska Peninsula, toward Chignik. There's a lot of wild country waiting to be explored out here.

Here's the village of Chignik Lagoon. Population 83. You can fly there or take a boat there. But there are no roads to Chignik Lagoon.

The remote southwest coast of Kodiak Island.

 After returning to Kodiak for another day of work, I went out to the dock and boarded this ship: the Alaska State Ferry System's MV Tustumena.  The plan was to spend the next three days sailing down the southern coast of the Alaska Peninsula, getting off the ship for meetings in villages along the way, and charging back to the boat and re-boarding before the ship leaves the dock, usually less than an hour later. It can be kind of hectic and stressful sometimes, but it's a more reliable way to get to these places than flying. Because often the weather doesn't allow air travel. The Alaska Peninsula and Aleutian Islands are known for their big, and frequent storms. "Birthplace of the Winds", as this area is sometimes referred to.

But the weather's not always crummy. Sometimes "work" feels like a cruise ship vacation. This is Castle Cape, from the north.

Castle Cape. From the south.

Evening time along the coast.

Two days earlier, I'd been in Chignik Lagoon, arriving by air. The "Trusty Tusty" brought me back to Chignik Bay, only a few miles away from the Lagoon. Here's the entire town. Population 98. (I can say from experience that the mountain on the extreme left sometimes has fantastic backcountry snowboarding.)

Here's the Chignik Bay Ferry Terminal.

Chignik Bay. Another day in paradise.

For four days, my mobile office.

Veniaminof Volcano in the background. For many years, I've been wanting to do a springtime backcountry ski mountaineering trip from the beach to the crater of this volcano. But I haven't gotten around to doing it yet.

  

Sunrise at sea.

The school kids take the ferry to get from village to village for athletic events. Here's the Sand Point cross-country running team boarding the ferry at midnight to travel down the coast to King Cove for the region championships.

Cold Bay. Population 63. I don't want to criticize, and we had an offshore wind that was much stronger than this photo makes it look, but the crew botched the docking sequence. We were blown away from the dock and had to make a loop around for a second attempt. It's a big boat and a small dock, so it's not like you can just charge in there at warp speed. I'm sure it's not easy. This picture is taken at around the moment we gave up on the initial attempt and came around for our second try.

The Tustumena has an elevator with a turntable for loading vehicles. The elevator allows the ship to load cars from docks of all different heights. It's a pretty unique feature in the world of ferry boats.

False Pass. Population 39. It's a beautiful place. But it gets a lot of bad weather. 

King Cove. After an inspection. 6am. Back to the boat just in time before departure. And just before a torrential rain blew in on a howling wind.

Dutch Harbor. As a rule of thumb, if you can see the top of this mountain, your plane will be able to make the landing. We couldn't see the top of the mountain, but the plane made it in anyway.

I did this same exact trip a few months ago, and interviewed some people along the way for an Alaska Public Radio show, which can be found here:  Adam's Ferry Trip

Anyway, I made it back to Anchorage last night. I got about 35 minutes of exercise last week - a short run in the rain around the village of False Pass. And I'm far more exhausted now than if I'd stayed around Anchorage and did a week's worth of UAA Ski Team training, intervals and time trials and all.