Monday, February 28, 2011
Recovery
Friday, February 25, 2011
Susitna 3, Chapter 3
As we worked our way back into the Dismal Swamp, we saw a man on foot dragging a sled back toward the Susitna River. We speculated that he was either going to McGrath or training to go to McGrath on the Iditarod Trail. "I used to think the foot people didn't have it that much harder than the bikers in these types of races," I told Beat. "That's why I thought the Susitna would make a good first hundred miler for me. But I was wrong. I was really, really wrong. This is so much harder than it is on a bike."

Beat fell behind for a little while, and I felt sick of my iPod, so I turned it off and decided to count the steps between the scraggly trees that occasionally popped out of the barren swamp. I counted 214 steps, then 683, and then I realized that I was only counting to about 80 or so and after that starting over, and then eventually making numbers up. In the meantime, I noticed that my sled and poles were talking to me. The fish-scale-covered skis on the bottom of the sled made a low, groaning noise like a distant voice on a crossed phone line ... "Hellloooo, hellllooo." Meanwhile, the poles dug into the squeaky snow and made higher pitched noises that sounded very much like Danni's voice. A couple of times, I actually looked back and expected to see Danni right behind me. After the third time, when she wasn't there, I decided to turn the iPod back on.
As the sun disappeared behind the mountain, the deep and bitter cold began to return. A lighter but noticeable headwind swept along the swamp, and the windchill again needled into my layers. At this point I had put all of my headgear and mittens back on, and I was again wearing nearly everything I had brought with me. I tried to march faster. Beat overtook me and we chatted briefly, but he too was becoming cold and shortly put more distance on me as we dropped onto Flathorn Lake. We could see the checkpoint when we first entered the lake, and I told him it wasn't more than a mile. The chill cut deeper and deeper as I trudged across the lake ice, my feet refused to move any faster, and still the checkpoint never became closer. I thought maybe I had re-entered the same Flathorn Lake twilight zone that pushed the distant trees ever farther away after I punched through to the water in 2009, but then I watched Beat disappear up the hill and realized Flathorn Lake Lodge was a place that still existed.
Flathorn Lake Lodge has always been my favorite checkpoint of any race I've ever participated in. Peggy and her friends and family cook up monster pots of jambalaya, cut oranges, bake brownies, stoke a roaring fire and generally just make you feel like you want to sign a lease and never leave. I sometimes tell people I subscribe to the "checkpoints are a pointless time suck" theory, but I don't really believe it. Checkpoints are the way I turn myself back into some semblance of a real person. They warm my body and fill my stomach, remind me there is still goodness in the cold, hard world, and are really the reason I do races like this. I could rush back out into the cold and shave a couple hours off my time, or I could sit back, relax, and soak in the entirety of the experience. I've always chosen the latter.
David and Andrea were just leaving, and for a beautiful half hour we had Flathorn to ourselves while Peggy doted on us and I stuffed my face with brownies, my appetite nearly recovered. Meanwhile, I remembered how cold I had been on the way in. I decided I needed to go for broke and wear everything. I changed out my liner socks for the first time in the race (this would prove a mistake. I had no blisters form until those last 15 miles.) I put on a pair of fleece socks over my vapor barrier. I changed into my last dry base layer. I stuffed the last of my handwarmers in my mittens. And before we left, I put on my down coat. That was all of it. "If this isn't enough, I'm SOL," I thought. It was not a happy realization.
We checked out of Flathorn just before 8 p.m. The lake was now enveloped in purple darkness. The air was as still as a graveyard, as frigid as the deepest grave, and I was immediately filled by an inexplicable, almost insurmountable dread. I recognized my dread as irrational but it was there just the same, coating my heart like ice, telling me that I was terribly, terribly afraid of the dark. Why so afraid of the dark? Was it because I had been awake for 39 hours already, and on the trail for 35? Was it because I was out of spare clothing and now going on faith that I would stay warm enough? Was it because I wasn't certain I could stay awake, or not even certain I could stay alive? Whatever the reason, I was fearful. We skittered over frozen overflow on the edge of Flathorn Lake, and I did my best to keep my dread in check.
The snowmobile volunteers told us the last 15 miles were "flat," but of course they were not. After the initial climb out of the lake basin, the trail continued its slight uphill grade on a rolling obstacle course of snowmobile moguls. Snowmobile moguls are a slight annoyance on a bike, but they really are extra strenuous on foot dragging a sled, because you can never hit a stride. Your feet are climbing as the sled drops out behind you, then have to struggle down as the upward-swinging sled pulls against you. It's absolutely infuriating sometimes, to the point where you think about picking up the sled and just leaping from mogul to mogul, if only you could be so strong.
What the last 15 miles are is inconceivably straight. First the trail follows a seismic line and veers ever-so-slightly on a gas line. The cut in the spruce trees stretches beyond the horizon, into the eerie orange glow of Anchorage city lights. We'd see a headlight in the distance and watch it approach, and watch it approach, and watch it approach, until I convinced myself it was either a static light or a slow-moving cyclist, and finally, about five minutes later, a snowmobile would pass us. The seismic line has made many a Susitna 100 participant nearly lose their mind, but my mind was in a strange place — not a place to be annoyed by this unnaturally straight trail, but in a place to be both terrified and awestruck by the expansive night, the glimmering orange lights, the distant stars, and the deeply biting cold. I no longer had access to a thermometer and couldn't say how cold it was, but I do know the frost buildup on my clothing was thicker than it had been yet, and the air certainly felt colder than it had yet, wind or no wind. There are a lot of reasons why a body feels cold — and fatigue and lack of calories certainly contribute — but I convinced myself the night was approaching absolute zero, and I have to admit I was just a little bit scared.
Beat and I tried to carry on conversations along the seismic line. We talked about sled improvements, bike gear for the White Mountains, future adventures and just how many hours ago Steve probably finished. But my mind was so mushy I found it hard to concentrate, and more often than not I had to stop to pee as Beat walked on. Every half mile or so required a near-emergency sprint for the side of the trail. I would take a sip of my Camelbak and have to pee. I would pee and stand up and feel an urge to pee again. The urine itself wasn't an unusal color — still fairly yellow, but not dark — but on top of my fear of the cold, I also alarmed myself with thoughts that my kidneys were out of whack. After all, I've heard all sorts of horror stories about ultrarunners who run 100-milers and shut down vital organs in the process. I didn't feel particularly unhealthy beyond being just a bit cold, but then again the constant pants dropping wasn't helping with that problem either.
As we dropped into the Little Su River, the moon rose over the forest. Oblong and vaguely orange, it looked like a radioactive potato and added to the ominous, surreal tint of the night. Beat fell into his own battle with the sleep monster. I watched him stumble along the wide trail, and if I caught up to him I could see his dark bloodshot eyes behind his goggles. We reached a road crossing where volunteers in an idling truck told us we had four more miles to the end on that same soft roadside trail we had started the race on. In the bright sunlight of Saturday morning, we failed to notice that trail was significantly downhill. It was still soft and punchy, only now it was climbing. When I dared to look at my GPS, I realized I was no longer moving 2 mph, again. I tried to pick up the pace. I added up my songs. Twenty four songs. Only 24 songs.
Slog, slog, slog. Beat had had it with the Susitna 100 and surged ahead. I did my best to keep up, but another part of me hung back. Even in the midst of my hardest, most grueling physical challenges, I always have a point near the finish where I feel reluctant to wrap it up, to see it end. The songs ticked off and I worked through my feelings about it — "This is the worst pain ever. Worst. Pain. Ever. But, um, holy cow, I'm actually going to do it. I'm going to finish a 100-mile foot race! Who would have ever guessed?" Through my slight chill, burning tendons, throbbing feet, and almost crushing fatigue, I could only smile. Damn it, I was going to finish this thing.
Beat waited for me at the end of the roadside trail. We were only a quarter mile from the finish line. I was thrilled that he waited so we could finish together. "Icy kiss," I said, and bent in to press my frozen face mask against his. "That was by far the most frustrating finish to a race I have ever seen," he said. "It was all uphill." I couldn't be annoyed because we were finally done with it, but I was still shocked by how much my legs and feet burned and throbbed in those last few hundred yards. I wanted badly to run into the finish, to actually pick my legs up and run, but when push came to shove, and the tightly bundled, clapping volunteers were in sight, I couldn't do it. I just couldn't.

We limped across the finish line at 2:16 a.m. Monday morning, for a finishing time of 41 hours and 16 minutes. It was by far the longest "single day" effort I had ever engaged in, and unquestionably the most difficult. And yet, as I threw my arm around Beat and we stumbled into the cabin without exchanging more than a few small words, I knew we had done so much more than cross 100 miles of Alaska together. We had crossed a threshold, proved we could stand together against 100 miles of pain and fear, fatigue and danger, awe and life-or-death intensity. And if we could do that together, we could do anything together. And that, to me, felt like our victory.
Thursday, February 24, 2011
Susitna 3, Chapter 2
It was just after midnight when we stepped back out into the deep cold, but as Danni predicted, the wind had died down. I briefly glanced at the thermometer on the river and saw the needle hovering near minus 20. I didn't need to look any closer. "It will probably take us five hours to get to Alexander Lake," Beat said, and I agreed. We started trudging up the Yentna River.
The trailed veered back into the woods, climbing the river bluff and emerging into yet more rolling swamps. The glittering sky became more muted, an indication that it was starting to cloud up. Having moved several dozens of miles inland, the robust birch and hemlock we passed when we started the race were gone. The forest had deteriorated into stands of scraggly black spruce that twisted in gothic shapes over frozen swamps — the kind of scenery that dominates Alaska's Interior. It was strange to think that it was possible to cross entire climate zones on foot, and the time it was taking made it seem more like an expedition than a 100-mile race. "This is one way to get your money's worth out of the Su100. Walk it," I thought to myself. "I feel bad for those biker guys who have to sleep in their own beds tonight. They're completely missing out." It was a lie, of course, but it felt good to think it.
We passed Danni about seven or eight miles from the checkpoint. "How are you feeling?" I asked her. "I feel cold," was all she said. I lingered for a second, expected to start exchanging our usual playful banter, but then realized the expectation was ridiculous. We weren't out for a fun hike in Glacier National Park. We had just walked 50 miles through the middle of nowhere Alaska and it was minus 20 out. It was a time for solitude and silence. Even Beat and I didn't say much in the 12 miles to Alexander Lake, except to remark about the soft trail, its difficult footing, and how slow-going it was. We were only five miles from the checkpoint when we encountered the first skiers — a mere 10 miles in front of us. Their proximity to a couple of mid-to-back-pack runners spoke to just how bad the trail really was. From the inside of my ice-crusted face mask, I could hear my raspy breaths becoming louder and more frequent. I was working so hard. I was tired. And yet I was moving so slowly. It just wasn't fair.
About 30 minutes later, Danni stumbled in. She was shivering and looked extremely tired. "I need a nap," she said, then spread out her sleeping bag and crawled under the checker's table. The checker expressed irritation but Danni was already zonked out. I felt bad for the checker, being stuck in this stifling place all night long. I wasn't about to stay much longer. I figured most of the people there were dropping out of the race, probably in various states of moaning pain, and it was not a happy place to be. David and Andrea escaped and we left at 5:15.
That sense of purpose soon faded into overwhelming exhaustion. I started stumbling often, and more than once drifted all the way off the trail into the deep snow, where I had to use my poles to push myself out. I had taken two caffeine pills at Alexander Lake, but they seemed to be doing nothing. "I'm falling asleep on my feet," I said to Beat the next time I caught up with him. "Seriously, I don't think I'm going to get through this thing without a nap."
"You'll be fine," Beat said. "Just wait for the sunrise. You'll see."
"No, seriously, I am too tired," I said. "I can't even keep my eyes open."
"You're not going to fall asleep," he said. "Just keep moving. When the sun comes up, you'll feel better."
I was glad to leave the gothic swamps and drop back onto the wide Yentna River. In my four times traveling on that river, I hadn't once been there during daylight hours. I was excited to see it from this new point of view. We stopped at Luce's again, now 65 miles into the race. It felt like success, but there was still a long, long way to go. Beat encouraged more eating so I ordered a grilled cheese sandwich and more coffee. We congratulated a cyclist, Anna, who managed to revive herself from the dead at Alexander Lake and continue down the trail. "I admire that kind of fortitude more than I admire speed," I told her. Perhaps this is because I can relate to fortitude, but still — it takes some serious grit to not give up after you've convinced yourself you have to give up.
I quickly grew tired of the Iron Dog circus, and wanted nothing more but to get off that frantic river. Shortly after I made a choice to increase my effort as much as I could physically stand, I started to feel quite ill. I felt flashes of extreme heat followed by almost instantaneous deep chills, until I had to stop and lean against my poles, breathing hard and waiting for the vomit that would not come. Amid my nausea is when I also first started to notice just how much pain my feet and legs were in. My IT band burned and my feet throbbed with every step. I blinked against the hard sun but there was nothing but sickness, and pain, and more sickness. Beat tried to talk me through it; he offered ginger candies and encouraged me to eat, but I knew eating was an unthinkable proposition, like pouring hot acid on a fire. Sometimes I felt so overheated that it was all I could do not to rip all of my layers off, but the chill would come so quickly that I refrained. "My feet are killing me. My legs are killing me. My body's shutting down." I breathed heavily in and out, in and out, but the only relief was my brief stops to lean against my poles.
Snowmobiles raced by. I started to secretly fantasize about one of them smacking me head-on and putting me quickly out of my misery. I was beyond the ability to put words together into a coherent sentence. So when Beat looked at his phone GPS and warned me that we might have to pick up the pace in order to make the cutoff, I just grunted, "Can't."
"We're not even doing 2 mph right now," he said. "If you can just try for 2.5 ..."
"This is just ... way ... more hurty than I thought," I said.
"I know," he said. "It hurts. But it won't always hurt this bad. Just keep moving."
"I can't do this for 30 more miles," I said. "I just can't."
"What are you going to do?" he asked. "You can't just sit down on the trail and wait."
"I know that," I said, still breathing heavily. "I know that. But Flathorn Lake. I just have to make it to Flathorn Lake."
"You're not going to quit at Flathorn Lake," he said. "It's only 15 miles from the finish. If you don't finish, we'll have to find some 50 milers for you to do so you can qualify for Tahoe Rim." (a 100-mile trail run in June that I already signed up for.)
"Oh, there's not going to be any more 100-mile runs," I said. "I hope I don't finish Susitna cause I don't want to qualify for Tahoe."
"No more 100-mile runs?" Beat said, sounding genuinely disappointed.
"No," I said, not even hiding the irritation in my voice. "Please, please. I can't think about that. I can't think about the cut-off. It just stresses me out. It makes me feel worse. Please can I just drag along for a bit and try not to think about how awful I feel?"
Beat seemed dejected that I was being so unfairly grumpy with him, but nodded and walked on ahead. I fished out my iPod shuffle. Instead of listening the music, though, I could only think of it in terms of time. "One song is about five minutes; that's 12 songs an hour. At 2 mph that's 12 songs for two miles. Twelve miles to Flathorn means 72 songs. I can listen to 70 or so songs. Maybe add 10 more songs for the short ones, and because I'm moving slower than 2 mph." Then I started to count the songs. I made it to three songs, and lost count.
As I trudged toward the looming mass of Mount Susitna, my iPod switched over to a song from the "Ride the Divide" soundtrack. I downloaded this soundtrack, along with several other new albums, just days before the race so I'd have a fresh Susitna playlist. I downloaded the "Ride the Divide" music because I had seen the movie several times, and was hoping the music would fill my head with images from "Ride the Divide," which in turn would remind me of my better days during the 2009 Tour Divide. This particular song didn't ignite any recognition from the movie, but it did wrestle my attention away from my own self-absorbed suffer-fest. "July" by Amy Petty started to fill my soul with something that almost felt like hope.
I listened to the whole song, removed my mittens, fished around in my pocket until I found the shuffle, hit the back button, and listened again. The lyrics rang with a more lasting kind of truth, as though I was suddenly able to see myself in the aftermath, beyond the suffering and pain:
Do you remember when all we had to do was get up to go to school on time?
Do you remember what it meant to refuse, said she wouldn’t let you play outside?
Now we’re so caught up in this great big. big world and so quickly the seasons change the wind;
Now before I lose myself in the blur, I go back where I begin.
Tears filled my eyes, which quickly became streams, and before I even realized it, I was bawling. I was glad Beat was a ways ahead, because I was in the midst of a full-on emotional breakdown, blubbering, sobbing and generally just spewing out a lot of built-up pain and frustration. I wiped away the tears and snot and let more stream out. I reflected back to the 2006 Susitna 100 and my emotional breakdown in the Dismal Swamp, when it was raining and I was wet and cold and pushing my bike through the slush of that wide-open nothingness. There was a point when I sat down on the trail and gave up. And then I got up and kept going. I never forgot that moment, and can never forget that moment. It was the first time in my life I realized I could be that strong. And here I was, back on the Susitna River, back where I began.
The black despair that had dominated my heart suddenly faded into something almost joyful. The pain was still there, but it was nothing I couldn't manage. "Beat's been through so much worse, and got through it," I told myself. "I've been through so much worse, and I got through it." I lifted my chin, plunged my poles into the squeaky snow, and attempted to march the best I could. The afternoon sun blazed overhead, already sinking lower on the horizon. I crawled up the icy Wall of Death and found Beat at the top. He had laid out his sleeping pad and gathered up some chocolate for a snack. He expected me to arrive broken, and was ready to make a peace offering.
"Thank you so much," I said as I briefly sat on the mat. "But really, I'm so much better now. I was just at a low point. I just had to get through it. I'm sorry I was so grumpy with you."
He wrapped his arms around me. "It's all right," he said. "It happens. I know how it is."
Tears filled my eyes again. I was still an exhausted, over-emotional wreck, but at least now my overexagerated emotions were veering toward the positive. I was again overcome with love and gratitude. "Thanks so much for waiting for me," I said. "You know you didn't have to."
"Of course," Beat said. "I wouldn't leave you."
P.S. Beat has started posting his write-up from the race. You can read the first part here.
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
Susitna 3, Chapter 1



Panic gurgled up from my gut. The fierce wind tore all around me. There was no way to get to tree cover without wading through deep, unbroken snow. I brushed my rigid hands futilely against my zipper and knew that battle was lost. I gathered up my down coat and stuffed my hands inside the pockets, holding the mass close to my chest. "Don't panic," I whispered to myself, which is always the first thing I think of when my breaths start to become short and fear washes over me like a black tsunami. I thought of my bivy bundle. I could pop that open and crawl inside on the open river, then hold my hands between my legs until they warmed up. Amid this rampant swirl of thoughts, I remembered Beat was still there.
I turned back to him. "I froze my fingers. I can't zip up my coat. I really can't." The squeak in my voice startled me.
"Ok," he said. "Just give me a second. He zipped up his own coat and pulled on his liner gloves. It occurred to me that despite his lack of cold weather experience, he was doing the smart thing by taking care of himself first so we didn't both end up in crisis. A warm sensation of love and gratitude washed over me, and the panic tears I had been fighting filled my eyes. Beat walked over to me, helped me pull off my Gortex shell and then pulled my down coat over my arms, zipped it up, and helped me put the shell back on. As he finished packing his sled, I used my hand stumps to wrestle my mittens back on. Already I could feel warmth building in my core. I jumped up and down and swung my arms until my hands began to burn and my painfully tingling fingers began to move upon prompting again. I breathed out. Crisis over.
The lights of Luce's were a half mile away when Beat finally caught up to me. He was breathing heavily and had a white look of distress in his face, like he was about to pass out. "What's wrong?" I asked. "Are you OK?"
"No," he said. "I am really sick. I almost threw up back there. I think I am deep in bonkville."
He nodded and trudged beside me. "I'm sorry I left," I said, trying to mitigate my guilt. "I was just so cold I didn't want to stop. I had no idea you were struggling."
"You left me," Beat said in a somewhat playful tone, but he looked despondent, and I believed he was disappointed that I ran ahead. I'm learning this is an important aspect of partnership, both in outdoor adventure and in regular life — never assume, and never leave the other person behind.

Beat's eyes were bloodshot and his face was ghostly white. He said he was experiencing a major bonk. And he would know, because he's been through more than his fair share of ultras. "I'll be able to get back out there. It's just going to be a while," he said. I knew I would need to dress significantly warmer to go back outside, but I was certain I had enough gear with me to fight the wind. Under the reported conditions, the windchill would have been somewhere in the range of 40 below. Definitely too cold for a single layer of windtights I was wearing when I left Flathorn Lake. No wonder I was chilled.
At this point, we were only 41 miles into the race. Not even halfway; not even all that close to halfway. As I sat mulling this prospect, Danni bounded in looking cheerful. "How was the river?" I asked her. "Did you get cold?"
"Not too cold," she said. "But that wind was going to be a deal-breaker for me. I decided I was going to quit if it kept up, but I think the wind is dying down now."
"Hopefully," I said. "Beat and I are going to spend a little more time here. He needs to eat something and I wouldn't mind drying out some stuff." Other racers sat down next to us to chat. The bikers told us the Alexander Lake trail was bad — soft and slow — and the crosswind was brutal. Several were bedding down to take naps. One 60-something-year-old runner came in wearing jeans and talking up a storm about the HURT 100, as though Hawaii somehow had relevance to the task at hand. I was ready to return with Beat to the solitude of the trail, but knew we were both going to have to get healthy first if we stood a chance outside. I munched on my spaghetti and contemplated 60 more miles of this.
Susitna 3, the video
2011 Susitna 100 from Jill Homer on Vimeo.
I'm still too knackered to write up my race report, but I did throw together a quick film of some of the video and images I shot during the race. The music is "July" by Amy Petty. The song was included on the "Ride the Divide" movie soundtrack, which I recently downloaded as part of my playlist for the Susitna 100 to help motivate me by inserting Tour Divide images in my head during some of the more monotonous parts of the race. This song just happened to pop up on my iPod shuffle during my real low point on the afternoon of day two, on the Yentna River. As my friend Danni says, "waterworks ensued," and afterward I started to feel quite a bit better. I think it's a fitting soundtrack for this video. Enjoy!Monday, February 21, 2011
Slog-arific

It was an interesting year for the Susitna 100. The weather was clear and cold, with colorful skies and incredible views during the day, and overnight temperatures dipping as low as 19 below with a 20 mph headwind. The trail was well packed, awesome for cycling, but the new snow made for tough footing. The fine powder was still very sandy where our little feet punched through. It was very taxing to maintain a 2.5 walk pace, much like trying to run 100 miles in crusty sand. The snow was also very cold, which makes it very sharp — meaning no glide for our sleds. There was a lot of resistance all around.
What else can I say about it? My feet hurt a lot. So do my legs. No injuries, but the usage pain alone led to a minor mental breakdown around mile 70, when I realized I was going to have to endure the pain I was in for at least 13 more hours. Beat and I decided to stick together from the beginning and it was really great to have him around for my low points, even when I got really grumpy and at one point snapped at him that I hoped I didn't finish the Susitna 100 so I wouldn't qualify for any other dumb 100-mile foot events. He also helped me zip up my coat when my fingers froze and refused to work amid a desperate layer-adding effort in the intense windchill on the Yentna River. Did I mention it was really cold? That also made the run that much harder. Yeah, it's hard to eat and drink when your whole face is crusted in ice.
I'll write up the race report at a later date. It really was one of the more intense experiences of my life — did I also mention we were out in the cold without sleep for two nights, not just one. We certainly did a checkpoint comfort tour with the five indoor stops on course, so we did have chances to warm up and reconnect with the real world. But by the second sunset, with all that leg and foot pain coursing through my nerves, my thoughts ventured into new head spaces I'd never before found. Which is the reason why I seek out this sort of stuff — long, difficult slogs that are way over my pay grade. I need to occasionally be reminded that I am weak and small and the world is huge and incredible and mean, and even the world is just weak and small in the grand scheme of the universe. I fall in love the world from this perspective. It's consistently awe-inspiring, even when it's reduced to the tiny beam of my headlamp.
And it was so much fun to share it with Beat, with my new friends Steve and Danni, and with many of the Alaska cyclists I've met over the years. It was incredible to return to Alaska. It helps me realize how much I really miss it, but also that it's still here. I took lots of pictures, and even a bit of video. Check back again!
Friday, February 18, 2011
Su, Su scared









My SPOT tracking page
Danni's SPOT tracking page
Steve's SPOT tracking page
Monday, February 14, 2011
Date with Pugsley
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