Susitna 4, chapter 4

My first steps out of Luce's Lodge were excruciating. I had taken another 45-minute break, applied more Hydropel and dry pairs of liner and insulation socks, and allowed the vapor barrier to dry as I ate another grilled cheese sandwich. But the damage had been done. My soles were on fire, tingling and aching in a way that made each step feel like I was walking on hot coals. I gulped short, shallow breaths of the subzero air as I hobbled down the hill to my sled. Beat's one piece of advice for my consistently troubled feet cycled through my head: "Just remember, it always goes numb." But in those initial seconds out of the checkpoint, even walking required solemn concentration, the kind I imagine yogis employ when walking across hot coals.

After packing up my sled, I managed to work through the hobble and resume a somewhat reluctant but consistent rhythm. I caught and passed Jane, which surprised me because I thought I was really starting to slow down at that point in the race. The first hints of dawn crept across the sky, casting violet light on the steep river bluffs. My peripheral vision caught the profile of a downhill skier in full tuck on a nearby slope. I turned and watched as the skier rocked back and forth as though awaiting a signal at a starting gate. This rocking continued until it occurred to me that there was no way the skier could possibly be real, but when I squinted, I still only saw a skier. It took at least five more minutes of forward motion before the shape of a tree began to replace to colorful skin suit and helmet I could have sworn I witnessed.

As dawn grew brighter, I doubted Beat's assertions; my feet were not going numb. Out of sheer frustration, I quickened my stride and began running. And electric surge burst from my feet and injected a new kind of power into my legs. Running actually felt really good; all my tired walking muscles could finally rest as my running muscles kicked into gear. Again, I doubted I was actually moving any faster. My sled held me back and while my steps were more frequent, my stride was much shorter — a frantic sort of shuffle. But I convinced myself my speed had increased significantly. "If I can just run for a while, I'll make better time and I'll be off my feet sooner," I reasoned. I knew I'd need energy for running, so I reached into my pocket and cracked open the Sour Gummy Lifesavers, of which I only brought one bag specifically to serve as a treat. I plowed into the gummy candies with the same enthusiasm I'd felt for my food all day. In fact, I'd actually been rationing my supply since Luce's 1, just to ensure I showed up at Flathorn Lake 2 with at least 3,000 calories (and I started with over 8,000.) Plus, I ate two grilled cheese sandwiches and a cup of soup and a roll at the checkpoints. I was pretty proud about how well I'd been doing with my calorie intake.

Sour gummies. I love them, love them, but when I am running, I can not handle them. My stomach withers under the bombardment of citric acid and quickly shuts down. I can no longer even count how many times sour gummies have turned on me during an endurance effort, and yet like an abused but loyal pet, I keep going back. I had downed about half of the five-ounce bag when I began to feel nauseated. Dizziness set in and I took a five minute break to await expected vomiting that never actually came. No choice but to resume walking as my stomach struggled to recover, during the first miles of the race in which I failed to take in any calories. Nearly twelve miles, actually, or four full hours. For other runners in this race, four hours without calories was nothing. But I already felt like I was skirting the edge of energy drain even while I was snarfing deep-space rocket fuel. My sugar levels crashed and I sputtered. Dizziness resumed but my stomach still warned me that any effort to take in anything would be severely punished.

I crawled up the Wall of Death and stumbled into the Dismal Swamp with desperation gathering in beads of sweat on my bare forehead. It was not warm outside — still in the teens — but I felt like the air was hotter than California. I took off my jacket only to immediately catch the chill of the cold breeze wafting across the open swamp. It was so quickly frigid that I put my jacket back on, and soon felt too warm again. The Dismal Swamp appeared as a desert, barren and hot, and I felt like a lost hiker picking my way across an eternity of sand. It might as well have been an eternity; the oasis of boreal forest across the horizon never got any closer. My body no longer seemed capable of regulating temperature in anything but extremes, my blood was desperate for sugar and my stomach was nothing more than a cruel master, withholding relief.

As blissed out as I had been on the overnight trek from Alexander Lake, by late Sunday morning I turned a complete 180 into a spiral of grump. I tried to hide my mood from the wonderful volunteers at Flathorn Lake, and made a struggling effort to stuff down the usually delicious jambalaya that they served me. I resumed my checkpoint sock routine and winced at the condition of my feet. The doughy skin looked so fragile that any rubbing movement threatened to remove multiple layers. (I remain convinced that were it not for the magic of Hydropel, I would probably not have any skin on the bottoms of my feet right now.) I used the excuse of "drying my feet" to burn up nearly an hour at Flathorn even though I had resolved to stick to twenty minutes. It didn't matter much at this point. "Fifteen more miles, just fifteen more miles," I consoled myself. When it comes to mileage, I still think in bike terms, where fifteen miles doesn't sound so bad. I couldn't conceptualize the reality of five hours of agony, so I didn't. "Just fifteen more miles."

I'm not sure what exactly motivated those first steps along Flathorn Lake and back into the forest toward Point McKenzie. I was really reluctant to make them. I grumbled that the popular ultrarunner mentality of finishing all races at all costs is really sort of dumb, and what's so great about a hundred miles anyway? I wasn't injured, so I wasn't about to ask for a ride on a snowmachine, but if there had been an exit road at any point, I was completely certain I was willing to bail, right there, less than fifteen miles from the finish. Would I actually have bailed? Probably not, but these are the things I grumble to myself when grumbling is all I have.

I didn't realize that my foot pain was actually a bit of a blessing in disguise. As Beat promised, after a while it did go numb, only to be replaced by extreme sleepiness. The final leg of the course traversed a gas line that cut into the forest at a slight uphill slope in a perfectly straight line. The only reason I couldn't see the finish from twelve miles away was because the Earth is a sphere. What I could see were the Talkeetna Mountains, rendered flat beneath an overcast sky. The clouds ensured there was no change in the light all day long, so 10 a.m. looked like 1 p.m. looked like 4 p.m. There was no indication that time was passing, or that I was actually moving. Sleep took over as I walked.

I did everything I could to keep myself awake. I turned off my iPod and sang, out loud, the lamest and most annoying songs I could think of. I slapped myself on the face and pinched my arm the way I do when I'm driving sleepy. I became terribly excited when I had to pee. I held it in as long as possible because that kept me awake, and relished in pulling to the side of the trail and doing my business because it was a chore, something different. I stopped a few times to purposelessly organize my sled. I weaved back and forth across the hundred-foot-wide gasline trail. I resumed eating Sour Gummy Lifesavers. Oh yes, I did do that.

I put my head down and let time go by. Sometimes in racing, like in life, that's all you can do. It's not all Northern Lights and bliss, but somehow it's the tough challenges that make it all worth it. This is not about suffering so much as it is about overcoming suffering, which everyone must do in life, and it's empowering to understand the ways in which we can overcome it. Still, I felt fully defeated when, just two miles from the finish, I noticed a yellow light approach from behind and watched Jane run past. She was running. I mean, she was really running. Whether she was running to beat me or simply end her own agony faster I did not know, but I did not really care. Every time I had attempted to run in the past ten miles (because that, too, broke up the boredom) I nearly vomited. I was not ready or willing to participate in a two-mile sprint. Not only that, but the whole idea seemed so preposterous and egotistical after 35 hours of slogging that I couldn' t even entertain it. A man passed shortly after and implied a question as to whether or not I was going to chase Jane for second place. "She deserves it," I said. I felt so miserable. It's petty, but I resented being passed. This no longer bothers me at all, but my fragile mood at the time took it hard, and that did cast a sour pall over my finish.

Jane did put in an awesome final sprint, finishing a full twelve minutes in front of me. Actually, two more guys passed me in those final minutes, the last of whom jogged by less than fifty meters from the finish. I joked that we should finish together for a tie, and he still blasted ahead. I walked (didn't even attempt the finish line shuffle) across the line at 8:42, for a finishing time of 35 hours and 42 minutes. I had actually achieved my best-case scenario goal of a sub-36-hour run. I collapsed into a bed at the rented cabin and fitfully but gratefully snoozed for several hours as I awaited Danni's finish. She came in after 41 hours (40:59 according to her watch.) We were both so overtired that Danni passed out mid-sentence and I nearly broke into tears when I became lost and drove in a few circles while trying to find our hotel in Wasilla. The satisfaction of finishing (and acknowledgement of my grotesquely swollen feet and heat blisters) wouldn't come until later.

But the satisfaction was there, growing ever deeper as the pain subsided. That's what lingers in hundreds of happy memories, the meaning behind the madness.

Susitna 4, chapter 3

The first person I saw out of Luce's Lodge was a runner. I could see his white headlight bobbing up and down from a long distance up the river, and smiled at the realization that he was actually running. This made sense, as he was more than twenty miles in front of me. I did some quick math and realized he was on a sub-24-hour pace, moving with forceful speed — or at least as much speed as this soft trail would yield. In all the years of the Susitna 100, 24 hours has only been broken by a few people. When we finally crossed paths more than five minutes later, I realized he was my friend, David Johnston. I raised my poles and waved my pogies around. "Yay, Dave!"

Dave stopped running. "Is that you Jill?"

"Yeah."

"You're doing awesome!" he exclaimed.

"I'm doing awesome? Holy cow, you're doing awesome," I said, feeling embarrassed that Dave was actually stopping to talk to me. "You should go, you're in first place!"

Dave waved his arm. "Aw, I don't care. I just can't wait to get back to Luce's. I have a beer waiting for me there."

"Sounds, um, relaxing," I laughed. "Hey, thanks for stopping to chat. I enjoy passing everyone like this on this course."

"My favorite part is seeing everyone," he said with his characteristic grin. "The rest just hurts bad with many mental sacrifices."

I laughed again and waved as he continued running. I admit I enjoy being involved in sports that are still small and quirky enough that even the race leaders still stop to chat and guzzle beers. Not that there's no competition in the Susitna 100. Dave still had Joe Grant hot on his trail, and would have to continue to make mental sacrifices all the way to his 24:11 finish.

Boosted by more friendly faces, I made good time to Alexander Lake, the turnaround point and mile 53 of the race. The bottoms of my feet had been simultaneously aching and burning, so I pulled off my socks to do another foot check. The skin looked like it belonged to a dead person — ghastly white and wrinkled deep into my foot. There was a patch of gray on both heels. Trench foot. I couldn't decide how to proceed. I had only one more pair of dry liner socks that I was going to save for my second Luce's stop. If I removed my insulation socks, my feet were going to slide around in the size ten shoes and probably blister badly in the process. And if I removed my vapor barrier, I was going to expose my soaking wet feet to the cold — now 13 degrees and rapidly dropping beneath the clearing sky. I slathered on more Hydropel and ate my soup slowly in hopes my liner socks would dry some.

I checked out of Alexander Lake at 1:38 a.m., about ten minutes after another woman foot racer, Jane. I still wanted to travel by myself, but I felt better about being in the proximity of another person, now that there were fewer people to encounter on the inbound trip. As much as I relish in my chances for solitude, I still value the presence of other people — which is one of the reasons I enjoy racing. And because the Susitna 100 was a race, I admit I realized that Jane and I were in second and third position at that point, and I didn't have to concede second just yet.

Jane's red blinking light provided a navigation point as I traced the trail back across a series of frozen swamps. At the first long straightaway, I turned off my headlamp and caught my first glimpse of the aurora borealis. As my eyes adjusted, the soft white blur sharpened into a masterpiece of light, tinged with streaks of green and magenta. I shed a few tears at the overwhelming beauty before I became lost in it. Time seemed to stop, and Earth stood still as the lights pulled me inward. I was mesmerized, listening to the distant echo of my own footsteps as my mind freely danced with the sky.

The Northern Lights are so much more dynamic than their depictions in photos and films. Columns and shapes pulsed and expanded like rapid brush strokes, painting multi-dimensional images that instantaneously blended into new brush strokes. The transition was so seamless that it almost appeared static, until suddenly the circle I had been watching became an arch, and then a elliptical stream stretched across the star-speckled sky. I believed I could see the universe expanding in front of me, as though a thousand light years were passing in the space of a thousand footsteps. I had never experienced Northern Lights with such encompassing depth, and it occurred to me that the fact my body was so exhausted helped open my mind to the surreal intensity of it all. There was also the simple fact that the whole reason I was out here at all, fifty miles from the nearest road at 2 a.m., was because I had crazy hobbies like the Susitna 100. I smiled at the sheer providence of finding myself in the right place at the right time, which often seems to be the place I find myself whenever I leave the confines of my comfort zone.

In an seeming instant, I was back at Luce's Lodge. I had walked most of twelve miles with my headlamp off and neck craned toward the sky, only occasionally switching on the yellow light to gain my bearings, or trace out the trail once I lost Jane's blinking red beacon after stopping too long to take photos. It was a truly special experience that I can scarcely piece together now, and any descriptions I write appear rather weak. But I'm beyond thankful I was there to witness it — slow enough to be there, fit enough to be there, crazy enough to be there.

Released from my aurora trance, I returned to a world where my feet hurt and the rest of me was becoming increasingly tired. I crossed paths with Danni about two miles after I left Alexander Lake, and figured there was a chance she might catch me, but I should probably count on spending the rest of the race alone. I also noticed my wet toes were beginning to feel pangs of cold. I checked my thermometer and saw the temperature had dropped to five below. A thin fog had settled over the river, masking the remnants of the aurora. It was 6 a.m., and I still had 35 more miles in front of me.

Sustina 4, chapter 2

The week before the Susitna 100, Danni participated in a ski mountaineering race in British Columbia. When I commented on the intensity required in a race like that, Danni said, "It is a different challenge than just putting your head down and letting time go by." I considered her accurate summary of the Su100 as I shuffled through a thick layer of wind-swept powder across the Dismal Swamp. It wasn't all that long ago in human history that marching was a harsh necessity of war, or an outright punishment. What is it about modern life that has turned long marches into a hobby, even a pleasurable one? One might postulate that our first-world lives are simply too convenient and easy, while our biological makeup still thrives on physical labor and struggle. Since I consider myself more of an artist than an athlete, I suspect a desire to peel away the agglomeration of our modern lives in order to obtain a better view of our basic selves. I am never more basic than when I am alone in the wilderness, walking.

In the irony of basic human nature, the tougher the situation I find myself in, the more emotionally fragile I become. By mile 27, I had been on the move for nearly eight hours. My hip muscles were already sore from the effort of pulling the sled. The arches of my feet ached and I often had to clench my toes to stretch the tendons. The day's cold had been mild but the sun was beginning to set, and I could feel wisps of chilled air across my skin. Danni and I left Flathorn Lake together but our comfortable paces were a little bit different, and I found myself ahead. My first strike of loneliness hit as I wended through a narrow strip of forest beyond the swamp and reached the bank of the Susitna River. Race officials had placed a sign marking the "Wall of Death," a short but icy and steep headwall that often catches bikers and skiers unaware. For the marchers, it's just a hundred feet of trail in a hundred miles, almost not worth noting, but I paused at the top all the same.

I was hit with a vivid memory of the minutes after my emotional meltdown in the 2011 Sustina 100. I crawled to the top of the Wall of Death and found Beat at the top with his sleeping pad laid out on the snow, and a spread of chocolate and other snacks on top. It was his peace offering after I had reamed him out for lecturing me about time cutoffs when I was feeling sick and demanded he leave me alone. One year later, the memory met me with a smile, and I wanted so much for Beat to be here with me so we could have our junk food picnic on top of the Wall of Death. Tears started to fall into my open grin, and I consoled myself with all of the mushy nonsense that the tough exterior of my non-basic self would usually squash. But no one was here to see me gush, so I gushed, relishing in the empowering acknowledgement of strong love.

I dropped onto the Susitna River and started jogging, a snowshoe-laden shuffle that I doubted was any faster than my walking speed. But in that moment I was so filled with joy that I had to find some way to express it. I don't sing and I was much too anchored by snowshoes and a sled to dance, so I ran. The horizon greeted me with a fortress of mountains, drenched in the pink light of sunset. It was so simply beautiful that I started bawling all over again. Mountains! Snow! Alaska! My basic self needs little to be happy.

I munched on deep-space rocket fuel and squinted at figures coming toward me from the distance. The lead bikers. I had been expecting them. The current out-and-back course of the Susitna 100 allows me to see nearly every other person in the race as they pass. As I was achieving mile thirty, the lead bikers were nearing mile eighty. They'd be done within three hours, before it was even late. I knew I had more than 24 hours in front of me, and laughed at the thought of what they must think of me and the other foot racers.

I had an idea because I've been a cyclist in this race before. Even with my "skinny tire" mountain bike, I'd never been beaten by foot racer, even the course record holder (my ex-boyfriend, Geoff, who ran the Su100 in 2007 as his first 100-mile ultra in 21:43, a time I can not fathom.) Back then, I thought the foot racers were kind of quirky, to say the least. The former lollipop course meant I never even saw them. They were the ghosts of the Sustina 100, haunting the quiet hours long after most everyone else had finished and gone to bed.

But perspectives shift, and now, five years later, I enjoyed being a ghost on the trail. The new out-and-back course makes it much less lonely. Once I turned onto the Yentna River, I could see a parade of white lights moving toward me, sparse but consistent all the way to Luce's Lodge. I reached the 41-mile checkpoint twelve hours and fifteen minutes after the start, at 9:15 p.m. As far as I could remember, that was at least an hour before the time I checked in to Luce's Lodge last year. I was already moving faster. Still, I vowed to keep my promise of minimal checkpoint time. I wanted to be at Luce's for a half hour at the most. I ordered a quick grilled cheese sandwich and ripped off my gators and multi-layered sock system for a liner sock change. Although I hadn't felt much pain while walking on the river, my feet looked like they were in bad shape. Some of my toenails were flaking, and I had several small blisters on my toes. The skin on my soles was white and deeply wrinkled, a symptom of being soaked in sweat for twelve hours. I had wondered if the outside temperature was too warm for my vapor barrier system, but I was so concerned about fending of frostbite that I figured, "feet can't be too warm." Apparently, they can. But at this point, my shoes were soaked from the snow, my insulation socks were soaked, and I had no choice but to stick with the vapor barrier or risk the combination of wet and cold.

"Ah, how much worse can it get?" I thought. I still had 59 miles to go.