12 hours of fun

The 2009 Iditarod Trail Invitational did not exactly go well for me, but it was amazingly fun while it lasted. The fun and almost relaxed nature of those 57 miles into Yentna Station came as a surprise after the general gloom that hung over me all day Saturday. Thick flakes of snow fell on Southcentral Alaska for most of the afternoon, accumulating by the inch and promising to obliterate any sign of the trail out of Knik. My cold had flared up again, compounded by anxiety and, much to my annoyance about the timing, cramps. I was nauseated and on the verge of vomiting for most of the afternoon, chugging Alka Seltzer out of a water bottle and catching little cat naps as we drove around to pick up our last "Oh, I forgot this" items and watch our friend and her band play at a Fur Rondie gig. To make matters worse, Geoff had caught my cold and was plunged into the worst of it. As we crawled up the Glenn Highway in the fresh snow, passing at least 30 buried and upside-down vehicles that had careened off the road in the storm, Geoff said, "So this is what impending doom feels like."

I took a sleeping pill and passed out for nine solid hours. And then, just like the calm center of a swirling storm, Sunday morning arrived. I woke up to clear, beautiful skies and a renewed sense of peace. My strength had returned and my nauseated anxiety had converted to almost overwhelming excitement. I felt like a harnessed sled dog as I arrived at the race start in Knik, nipping excitedly at the cold air and shaking with the desire to run, run, run. We purposely arrived just minutes before the start to avoid that last-minute anxiety, but as I unloaded my bike and wheeled it to the starting line, I felt confident. "I can do this," I thought. "This is my year."

The minute Kathi yelled "Go," most of the cyclists were off their bikes and pushing across the fresh drifted snow over Knik Lake. Ten inches of fresh powder promised at best slow riding conditions, at worst an indefinite amount of pushing. But I started the race expecting it. I knew if I had to push my bike all the way to Skwentna, it would take me at least two days to get there. "But that's OK," I thought. "I have all the time in the world."

Luckily, enough snowmobiles and been through that the trail had set up nicely as soon as we left Knik Lake. It took a while to pass all of the runners and skiers that had gotten ahead of me. The last skier I passed was Pete Basinger, a veteran Iditarod cyclist who decided to try to mix it up this year by skiing all the way to Nome. "Hey, Pete, thanks for fixing my bike. It feels awesome," I said to him as I passed him. "Can I borrow it?" he replied with a laugh. (Skiing is much more physical work than biking this trail, even in marginal conditions, so I'm hugely impressed with what Pete is trying to do this year.)

I joined a pace line with several other cyclists - a few Europeans, Anchorage rookie Sean Grady on "skinny" wheels and Catherine Shenk, a rookie from Colorado. Catherine and I hit it off immediately. I was excited to ride with other women in the race, and Catherine was excited to be riding her bike in Alaska. "This place is unreal," she said as we traversed the rolling hills and crossed the Little Susitna River. "Isn't it?" I said. Catherine and I seemed to be comfortable riding a similar pace and I thought we might make good companions for the duration of the race.

The wind picked up and our pack broke up as we hit more open and drifted areas that required us to get off our bikes and push. I noticed I was a little bit faster of a "pusher" than the people I had been riding with, and also seemed to be able to ride more of the marginal sections of trail (maybe because I was willing to run my tire pressure lower than some of the rookies, but that's just a theory I have about it.) Anyway, I soon broke out in front of the pack, somewhere ahead of the main group but behind the dozen race leaders who took the legal shortcut. For a long time I just shadowed skier Cory Smith, who was cruising across the drifting snow like it was groomed trail. As we dropped onto the slough before Flathorn Lake, I landed in shin-deep drifted snow and had no choice but to push. Cory shot out ahead of me, and I was alone.

I don't have a great memory of those last miles before I fell into the water. After sunset, it was still light enough to travel without a headlight, but the light was flat enough that it was difficult to tell a steep berm from a little bump, a ski track from a trench. I remember I was looking out across the lake a lot and not always looking down at my path, because there wasn't much of a path to follow. The wind was blowing so hard that snow drifted in tracks as soon as they were made, and I could hardly see the tire marks and footprints of the people who had moved through just minutes before. But it was clear enough that I could see exactly where I needed to go, so I just pointed my bike and walked toward the horizon. It was there, trudging slowly and focusing only on the distant shoreline, that I dropped my bike and one leg into a thinly-frozen crack at a weak point where a stream came into the lake.

After that, huge amounts of adrenaline kicked in and I moved with strength, excitement and purpose the next 30 miles to the Yentna checkpoint. I explained my decision-making process in my last post, but my physical state after I dunked my leg was nothing short of strong and healthy. The going was still slow with lots of pushing, low-pressure pedaling over lightly packed powder, and jogging in an effort to keep my foot warm. It took me seven hours to cover that distance, including a short stop to help out a fellow racer who had lost his pump, but I never once felt cold or uncomfortable. I thought I was OK at the time because I never felt my foot becoming cold, let alone freezing. This was probably because my foot was instantly numbed in the initial submersion, but I assumed it was because I was doing well to keep my foot warm. It turns out I was wrong about that, but in many ways I don't necessarily regret my decision to try to get to the first checkpoint. As soon as dunked my leg, none of my options were great. If I had stopped immediately on the lake to take off my boot, I would have halted my progress right there and become entirely dependent on rescue. In the time it took another racer to find me and send someone back to help me, I may have struggled with hypothermia or something more serious than frostbitten toes. Another option that seems appropriate in hindsight would have been to walk backward down the trail toward one of the unoccupied cabins on the lake. Breaking into a cabin to attend to a life-threatening situation is certainly acceptable in the harsh Alaska backcountry, but the fact is, it's private property and difficult to assess whether a situation is really life-threatening. It's also a controversial and discouraged practice with ITI travelers, who are supposed to be geared up to be self-sufficient.

Either way, what's done is done, and I know it's silly to feel sorry for myself. I was lucky in my situation. I initially thought I stepped into overflow, but in further discussing it with others who remembered that exact spot and realizing that my foot never hit bottom, I know that what I fell into was the deep, dark lake. I am extremely lucky that only my right leg went in and not my whole body, or even worse, my whole body and my bike with all of my survival gear attached to it. Taking a swim in subzero temperatures with 20 mph winds becomes life-threatening within minutes, whether or not you can pull yourself out of the water.

This race is hard. It is truly, for almost everyone who participates, more of an adventure than a race, more about survival and strength than speed. As I write this, those competitors still in the race are held up just below Rainy Pass, waiting for trailbreakers to forge a trail in the deep snow as a major storm moves toward the Alaska Range. This is shaping out to be a hard, hard year for the Iditarod Trail Invitational, and it will be interesting to see in the next few days who - if anyone - makes it to McGrath. I wish the best for the racers still out there. They have my deepest respect. I wanted to thank everyone who commented on my last post with words of encouragement, especially to the man who is recovering from much more serious frostbite down in Salt Lake City. I'm going to take care of my toes the best I can, I'm going to heal and be fine, and I don't for a second regret giving this race another try. I don't want to ever become the kind of person who doesn't dare to fail and fail spectacularly. I don't ever want to be unwilling to approach the unknown. I don't ever want to live a life free of risk.

Frostbite

So, what happened? As with most misfortunes, a little bad luck and a little bad judgment in a place where there's absolutely no margin for error, and I now have an incapacitated right foot. I spent six hours in the emergency room at Mat-Su Valley Regional last night. Most of that was waiting, but some of the waiting was connected to the fact that have a fairly serious case of frostbite that the doctors felt needed some outside consulting. Blisters have spread across all five toes and I have some black tissue on my big toe that is supposedly concerning. I will most likely not require surgery (i.e. I get to keep all of my toes), but I am in for a long recovery, and, as with all cases of frostbite, my toes will for the rest of my life be more prone to cold injury.

So what happened? Well, as is usually the case with bad judgement, I was feeling awesome. The day started out beautiful. Trails were slow and soft but rideable. I had everything dialed in. I rode with a peloton of six other cyclists and felt like I wasn't even working. The wind picked up over the course of the afternoon and began to drift in the trails with the 6 inches of dry snow that fell the day before. By Flathorn Lake, at about mile 30, all of us were off and pushing, and the group started to spread out. Evening fell and the light became really flat. Because I was pushing, I was not paying much attention to the trail, instead looking out at the beautiful alpenglow on Mount Susitna and the ground blizzards tearing across the lake like sand in the desert. Suddenly, my front wheel dropped sharply into a trench just as I was stepping forward with my right foot. I fell backward onto my butt and my right leg plunged up to my upper thigh in frigid water. My leg dangled over unknown depths of the lake as I frantically clawed backward up the trench. The overturned bike had also punched through the thin ice with one handlebar, but I left it there until I was securely on solid ice. I laid on my stomach, reached down and pulled it up by the rear wheel. A right pogie and a mitten that was stuck inside were completely soaked and the outside of my bivy bag was superficially wet. I'm pretty sure I lost a half-eaten bag of MnMs to the frigid depths of Flathorn Lake. But, much more concerningly, I had taken on tons of water inside my gators, boots, and both socks.

Now, I don't need lectures. I know how serious this is. At this point, I had to make quick decisions. I was out in the middle of a frozen lake in a fierce headwind and ground blizzards with temperatures already dipping below zero. I decided at that point that my best option was to get out of the wind and get into my bag in an area where I could build a fire, and I knew of a nice sheltered area between Flathorn Lake and the Dismal Swamp, about a mile away. However, on foot, pushing a bike through soft snow, a mile is quite a distance. By the time I got to the sheltered spot, by boot was frozen on. I could not even unhook the Velcro on my gators, let alone undo the laces and zipper and pull my foot out of a completely waterproof boot. So I was faced with a boot stuck to my leg and water sloshing around inside. What I should have done at that point was build a fire, wrap my sleeping bag around my body and try to melt enough of the ice to free my foot. But that's hindsight. What I did do was get this idea inside my head that my foot was perfectly warm even with the water inside my boot. I thought with the vapor barrier sock and insulated boot, my body heat would warm the water and create an equilibrium that I could work with, at least until the next checkpoint. Especially since I was walking at that point, and with all of the drifting snow, there didn't seem to be any end in sight to walking. I managed to wet my boot last year and walk for several hours in similar temperatures with no problems. Thus, the bad judgment. I thought I was fine.

The next seven hours were great. The soft trails set up enough to ride again, and I was feeling so strong that I alternated riding and running every 10 minutes just to keep my foot warm. I continued to wiggle by toes and they continued to wiggle for me. The temperature dropped to 25 below zero on the Yentna River. The fierce headwind drove the windchill down to minus a lot, but I never felt the effects of the extreme temperature. To deal with my frozen pogie and mitten, I put my left mitten on my right hand and rode with only a fleece glove on my left hand. I procured a new bag of MnMs and ate, and rode, and ran, and felt great. I knew I had a long layover at Yentna waiting for me, but I still didn't believe my race was over.

I arrived at the checkpoint at about 2:30 a.m. I was in 13th place. I sat down in the doorway and went to work removing my boot. Even sitting next to a wood stove, it still took me 10 minutes just to work the gator free, then the laces, finally the zipper. When I tried to remove my foot, I realized that my sock was frozen inside my boot. And as I worked the sock down to simply try to remove my foot, I realized with no shortage of trepidation that my foot was frozen to my vapor barrier sock.

It took nearly a half hour to get my foot out of my boot. The tips of my toes were rigid and white, but I was not yet willing to admit to myself what I had done. I quickly slipped on my bootie, went in the next room to check in, ate a meal and settled down for a nap.

I felt no pain as I slept, for the first two hours. Geoff arrived at about 5 a.m. and I told him I was worried I had frostbite. We moved upstairs and it was about then that the thaw set in. For three hours, I laid on the floor on top of my sleeping bag in a hot room, writhing in agony. Hard to explain that pain. Like the "screaming barfies," drawn out for three solid hours. I drew blood from by palms by clenching my fists so tight. By the time I stood up again, I could hardly walk.

I hobbled down the stairs to let the checker know about my situation. I showed him my foot, which still didn't look that bad. The sun shown brightly outside. The thermometer had climbed to 12 below. It looked absolutely beautiful. I so, so wanted to go out there and ride. "It's up to you what you want to do," the checker told me. And I'm ashamed to admit that I, after going through what I had gone through with the thaw, and knowing perfectly well that I absolutely had frostbite, and still had a wet boot, socks, mitten and pogie, seriously considered continuing in the race. Tim Hewitt, a man who has walked to Nome three times and has set out this year to do it a fourth time, who has to be one of the toughest men on Earth, walked up to me and said, with sincere sadness in his eyes, "You can't go on."

And that was it. Geoff, who was upstairs wheezing and coughing and struggling with a cold that had turned into a more serious respiratory illness, mulled over continuing for several hours before deciding to scratch and fly out with me. It was a horrible morning. The lodge owners and other racers were very kind, but I was in a state of disbelief, mostly about my foot and how much the condition had deteriorated over the morning. But dropping out of the race weighed very heavily on my mind. And I had to question my own mental state, and just how tied up I'd become in this whole thing, when I was more disappointed about leaving the race than I was about the fact that I had just sustained a fairly serious injury.

Looking back, I know what I should have done. Taken my boot off immediately, crawled into my partially wet bivy on the lake ice, and awaited help which was very close behind, in the form of other racers. I've mulled over all my options and I realize there was, with the gear I had with me, no way I could have saved my race. Falling into the pressure crack, because I wasn't paying attention to where I was walking, was my fatal mistake. But I absolutely could have avoided frostbite, and now have to question whether the misguided hope that I could save my race led me to drive on when it was clearly not the smart move.

This race has no margin for error. I love it still but I'm extremely disappointed right now, with concern about my upcoming recovery, and a fair amount of self-loathing for the decisions I made. It will take some time, some time when I'm on crutches and unable to ride my bike, but I'll work through this. As always, it's another life experience. I can't say I haven't learned a lot.

I want to say thanks to Scott for tracking me during my short time on the trail, to Sean Grady for his offer to help, to everyone who helped gear me up for the race and everyone who supported me. I'm sorry I let you guys down.

Done

Unfortunately, this year's journey on the Iditarod Trail has come to an end for both Jill and Geoff. From the race update:

There have been some scratches in Yentna... Geoff Roes also had knee issues. Jill Homer stepped into some overflow last night and as some frostbite on her toes. As far as I know it is minor, but not continuing on is a good decision to prevent further damage to the toes. Three of them flew out to Willow and Geoff and Jill are staying with friends in Palmer.

I know something of the disappointment of dropping out early in events like this, having done it myself. It's a tough place to be in, to say the least. But it's also the nature of these events -- everything needs to go right, otherwise it's better to live to race another day rather than push on and risk your health. It sounds like both of them made wise decisions. I'm sure they will indeed be back to race again another day.

Thanks for following along with these posts. I'll continue to host the SPOT leaderboard / map (http://topofusion.com/spot.php) with Billy's progress. Starting tomorrow it will also show Mike Curiak's SPOT position. Mike is attempting to cycle the 1100 miles to Nome, 100% self supported and without even so much as stepping inside a building the entire time. I'll be following him by SPOT and posting updates, starting tomorrow, at: lacemine29.blogspot.com.

For now I wish Jill and Geoff speedy recoveries. Thanks for inspiring us all.

-Scott Morris of topofusion.com

Walkin'

That's the speed plot of Jill's ride so far. It definitely indicates some bike pushing and slow conditions. It appears things got slow right around Flathorn Lake. The Race Update indicates there is drifting snow in open areas (like an open lake!) on top of the freshly fallen stuff.

She rolled into the first checkpoint, Yentna Station, at about 2:40am according to the SPOT (the leaderboard has not been updated with an official time). By contrast, last year she made Yentna by 9pm -- about six hours slower! I'm sure she's taking it all in stride, and remember that last year trail conditions in the first portion of the race were just about ideal, so slower is expected.

I haven't yet seen indication that Jill, Geoff or Billy have progressed beyond Yentna yet. I'll keep watching.

30 down, 300+ to go

Jill at the start -- Photo courtesy Evan Hone

The sun is down on day one and Jill is some 30 miles into the race. So far so good -- temps are in the teens and the trails appear to be rideable. Her average speed so far has been above 6mph, which means riding. I had read on another racer's blog that there was 6-7" of new snow in Anchorage recently, so I was wondering if even the first few miles might be slow. I'm sure we will learn more about conditions as racers begin filtering into the first checkpoint, Yentna Station, sometime tonight.

I've been working on a better SPOT monitoring page. Something that shows both Jill's current position and the route with checkpoints. Here's what I have so far:

http://topofusion.com/spot.php

Hopefully I will be able refine it in the near future. Right now the checkpoints show up as the same symbol as Jill's current position. You'll have to click around to see which one she is (as of right now, of course, she's between the start and the first checkpoint, so it's pretty easy).

Also, I can add any other racer carrying a SPOT to that page. If you know of any other ITI folks with a SPOT shared page, please post a comment. I know Geoff posted a link to his, but it's not working. If anyone knows of a different share page for Geoff, drop me an email at smorris AT topofusion.com or post a comment.

Special thanks to Kevin Montgomery of Tour Divide for his help setting up the page, and the use of some of his code.

For now, Jill will soon merge onto the Yentna River, which the Iditarod trail follows for many miles. It can be a bit of a monotonous stretch, especially in the dark.

Jill on the move

The first few SPOT points have started trickling in, indicating the start of the 2009 Iditarod Trail Invitational for Jill!

In the above map you can see the Knik Bar where the race starts, and that she is rolling out over the frozen lake.

Unfortunately it seems Geoff's SPOT page is having some issues. I'm not sure what's up, but I'll try to see if I can get some points out of it.

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.