Still the best race ever, part two

I enjoy tracing the White Mountains 100 course on a map. The lollipop loop is flung like a lasso over a small region of topographic ripples between the wide drainages of the Yukon and Tanana Rivers, which in turn divide expansive valleys between the Alaska and Brooks mountain ranges, which feather across a much larger landmass — all of it nearly uninterrupted by the roads, cities, and railroads that crowd most maps. The course itself is a tiny circle in this geographic expanse, nothing at all, and it's a hundred miles. It's a visual reminder of just how big Alaska really is — that one can walk 50 miles away from the nearest road, and still only be at the edge of a vast wilderness.

 
It may just be the edge of the wilderness, but the boreal forest felt wholly wild and remote as we began the climb to Cache Mountain Divide. Not many people travel here — even 40 miles is considered a good day's distance on a snowmachine, and fewer folks venture beyond the two cabins this trail connects. Trail conditions soon became notably worse. Before the cabin, I was punching through the crust every four or five steps; out here, most steps sank to my ankles at least, which is a long way to go when you effectively run on your toes. Determined not to give up the 4 mph average I'd so fiercely maintained, I pushed harder. This was a laughably losing battle. Trying to increase speed seemed to increase my weight/force ratio just enough that I only sank deeper. We again danced around the holes in the trail, searching for pockets of crust that would hold our weight. The edge of the trail seemed best but risky — too far over, and deep snow swallowed our legs to the knees.

It was tedious work, but not unexpected — although we both became quiet for a while. I used silence to prevent myself from lapsing into defeated slog mode, and Beat likely kept quiet because he was in a fair amount of pain. Beat had all those hard miles on his legs, which were probably screaming not-so-subtly, "not this again." Eventually I decided I should break the tension by mocking some of the deep bicycle trenches left in the trail.

"I think they're all from the same biker," I said, analyzing the tire tracks with their well-rounded edge. "How could they not know it was time to let air out? If you're going to ride like that, why not just bring a road bike?" Still, whoever left these painful-looking tire tracks was still in front of us, so I was hardly in a position to criticize.

The steeper the trail became, the icier the surface, which was considerably better for walking. I could still float up the steepest grades, but the easier grades were a true slog, punched to Swiss cheese by all the bikers who also were reduced to walking. This is the main aspect of winter ultras that I always try to emphasize to newcomers — make note of the distances and elevation profiles, but then throw them out the window. Those statistics matter comparatively little next to trail conditions, which can't be predicted, and which can change by the hour (the faster bikers in the race likely made it over the pass before the slushy conditions set in, and also before other racers and volunteers on snowmachines churned up the "mashed potato" snow, leaving much softer conditions for those who came later.) Still, distance does matter. Regardless of what the trail is like, the mileage has to be covered.

The setting sun cast rich pink and gold hues on the surrounding peaks, framing this valley in a light I hadn't yet seen in four years of racing this course. "This time last year, I'd already rolled into the Wickersham Dome, devoured a brat and chili, spent an hour in the warming tent chatting with other bikers, and had driven halfway back to Fairbanks," I mused to Beat. I remembered rolling into the driveway before the sky was even fully dark, and walking rather breezily into the house for some leftover pizza and a full night of sleep. Then I smiled, because that was not where I wanted to be. This was where I wanted to be. This is what I came for.

An iridescent half moon cast the mountains in bright silver and violet as we climbed above tree line. I've seen the Cache Mountain Divide in full sunlight and in cloud, but darkness gave it new depth — a stark contrast rendered by moonlight and shadows. As the sun retreated, warmth followed, and temperatures rapidly dropped at least 20 degrees. At the Divide, Beat and I embraced and shared a "summit kiss." We joked about taking it farther — an ongoing inside joke dating back to 2011 when a friend offered us ten dollars to make out during the Susitna 100. Then we laughed and laughed, because the windchill was already fierce, and because damn, were we sore.

I found it all so exhilarating that I took off like a runner down the pass, only to punch through the crust up to my shins, again and again, until I finally wrenched my right knee badly. Electric pain shot through my leg and I continued walking briskly, which is what I do when I'm panicked that I've hurt myself in a remote area, which is something I've been known too do. But the pain eventually diminished, and the joint was still bending okay. "No more running on the punchy snow. Don't let me run on the punchy snow," I said to Beat. But then ultra-amnesia took over, and exhilaration returned, and I returned to running. After turning my knee again and yelping in pain, I heard Beat yelling, "Don't run! You said you weren't going to run!"

We passed Cynthia, a runner from Nome who was having stomach issues and said she was considering scratching at a medical tent a few miles down from the pass. We encouraged her as much as we could, then continued descending toward the Ice Lakes — a narrow valley that collects runoff, causing a 1.5-mile-long section of overflow that can be anything from packed snow to glare ice to knee-deep water. This year, there was more snow on the Ice Lakes than I'd ever seen, and I thought we'd be granted an easy, anxiety-free crossing. When we reached the sections of glare ice, however, we encountered a paper-thin surface layer that had the terrifying tendency to shatter as we walked across it. Occasionally a fracture would compound across a ten-foot diameter of ice, which caused me to yelp, every time. Luckily the water underneath the ice layer was only a half inch deep or less, but occasionally I stepped in slushy puddles up to my ankles. There was one more advantage of brand-new shows: the waterproof outers were actually still waterproof. 

In their need to urgently return from the Iditarod Trail, both Beat and Steve left their sleds in Koyukuk. For the White Mountains 100, Beat borrowed a sled from Dave Johnston, the current record holder of the 350-mile race to McGrath, who used this sled on another four-day blitz of the course this year. "Irma" the sled didn't have a runner, which didn't always agree with Beat's single-pole system. On steep descents or ice, the sled was all over the place, swinging ahead of Beat or dragging him sideways. Occasionally I heard Beat scolding Irma for misbehaving. We joked that she just wasn't used to moving so slowly. 

After Cache Mountain Divide, the trail descends through a narrow gorge formed by Fossil Creek, running beside sheer limestone cliffs. It's a stunning canyon, and the moonlight made it all the more surreal — like film noir, a cinematic rendering of something mysterious and slightly sinister. The Ice Lakes had been a cold sink, the breeze left us chilled, and the temperature continued to plummet. At my comfortable pace I could easily stay warm, but slowing down or stopping quickly left my fingers and toes tingling. I had a few more extra layers in my backpack — my puffy coat, mitten shells, and a balaclava. But since those were all I had, the prospect of putting them on made me nervous. Fully layered meant I had no buffer, and would be at the mercy of just how cold it could get here — which, based on recent experiences, was minus a lot. 

I told Beat as much — that it was too cold for me to slow down. I think this annoyed him, because he could still see my puffy jacket tied to the outside of my pack. He again needed to make water and a meal, and I assured him we could take another long break at the cabin. But he said his fun meter had run quite low, and he'd be happier if he could take the rest of the course at a slower pace. He wanted to let me go ahead. More motivated by the creeping cold than anything else, I agreed. 

We reached the Windy Gap cabin, mile 62, at 1:30 a.m. I was surprised to see at least five bicycles parked outside the cabin, among a few sleds. The small interior was crowded with racers, and stiflingly hot — which is usually how the indoors feel when one's body is in the process of adjusting to subzero temperatures. The meatball soup served here has historically been my favorite food of the whole race, but my electrolytes were off and this year it tasted strange to me, a bit like pencil shavings. The crowds made me feel antsy. I also felt guilty about Beat and all the chores he needed to complete when I was having difficulty concentrating on the smallest tasks. 

When I have "ultra brain," which is a common thing to have a hundred kilometers into a hard run, I don't cope well around crowds. Aid stations can be a bewildering experience, and I try to form strategies to get myself in and out without interacting too much with other people. It's not that I don't appreciate volunteers (I do, very much), but their helpful gestures can quickly become confusing and overwhelming, and I start spiraling into an inertia trap. At Windy Gap, after eating the stomach-unsettling soup and collecting more water, I continued chatting with the bikers. I also tried to catch up with John, a volunteer who is a friend of mine, and absent-mindedly ate six or seven birthday cake-flavored Oreos. I swiftly regretted this. Sweat was pouring down my back, and I thought before I did too much more damage to myself, I should get out of there.

Outside, blades of green and white Aurora shot across the sky above the canyon, like a geyser of light erupting out of the limestone cliffs. In photographs and films, the Northern Lights are pretty, but in real life they're mesmerizing. For several minutes I stood next to the cabin, watching liquid light flow over the cliffs. Carole Holley had just arrived, and we stood in silence together until I starting shivering; I still wasn't dressed warmly enough to stand still. Beat was out on the porch melting water, and I gave him a kiss goodbye. I think he was slightly relived to see me go.

For the next few hours I hiked with purpose, forcing my throbbing legs into a jog when I became cold, and craning my neck to gaze through the corridor of spruce trees and moonlit cliffs to the sky overhead. Finally I put on my puffy coat, which improved my comfort level dramatically — funny, that — and relaxed. After Windy Gap cabin, the trail became better packed, but was consistently punched out with moose tracks — holes that are six to eight inches in diameter and often a foot deep. One misplaced step can easily break an ankle or leg. Just like rocks on a trail, they require constant vigilance to avoid, but I made the unwise decision to jog backward to give my quads a break and get a better look at the Technicolor sky to the north. Inevitably, I dropped my heel in a moose track and ended up on my back, putting an end to this silly practice. I continued jogging and dancing around moose tracks in an effort to reach Caribou Bluff — an open area with a wooden trail sign that I could use as a tripod to capture an image of the amazing light show for my memory files. Despite my best efforts, Caribou Bluff is still more than ten miles from Windy Gap. By the time I reached the valley, the Northern Lights were gone, and it was nearing dawn. 

As daylight emerged, I climbed out of the Fossil Creek drainage and dropped into Beaver Creek, hopscotching with four of the struggling bikers. When I passed two on a shorter climb, one proposed I push his bike up the hill while he carried my trekking poles, reasoning that both were made out of carbon so the effort was a wash. I laughed. 

"If you give me your bike, you know I'm going to keep riding it all the way to the finish," I replied. "Walking this whole thing isn't as easy as you think it is." I know, because I used to think exactly that about unladen runners with their little packs or sleds — they have it so easy. The grass is always greener. 

I was generally feeling good, but mornings are always tough for me during these day-plus efforts. I'm naturally a night person and usually thrive during the dark hours, but I'm the opposite of most runners in that sunrise brings a psychological crash, not a boost. Red light appears on the horizon and my body says, "Oh wait, we did miss a night of sleep. Damn, I'm tired." Even as I could see the slope trending downward toward Beaver Creek, the trail felt steeply uphill. Batting frost from my eyelashes and sneaking fruit snacks through my iced-over face mask seemed to take all the energy I had left to give. 

I reached Borealis cabin, mile 81, in full sunlight just before 8 a.m. It still felt frosty outside, and I was beginning to wonder if my internal thermometer was off kilter. Inside, the first thing the volunteers asked me was whether I was staying warm enough. "It's minus five here right now," one volunteer said. "Probably minus ten or more down on the creeks overnight."

"Huh," I said, shaking my head at the fifty-plus-degree temperature swing from the previous day. "I'm fine, just surprised it got that cold."

My energy levels were already perking up, and I decided to aim for the most efficient stop possible. I asked for a bowl of ramen and ate it as I reorganized my pack, filled up my water bladder, dried my hat and face mask, re-lubed my feet, and put on fresh liner and fleece socks that I'd been saving in case I stepped in overflow. With the heat of day coming and the threat of frostbite diminished, I felt justified in changing my socks, and couldn't contain little moans of ecstasy as I pulled them on my feet. Few sensations match the satisfaction of soft, dry socks on sore and pickled feet.

Leaving Borealis, I dropped onto Beaver Creek and continued about a quarter mile before I thought, "My face feels cold. Why is my face so cold?" When I realized I left my fuzzy blue neckwarmer at the cabin, I decided to go back for it — Beat sewed this for me earlier in the year, and it's become a favorite piece of gear. After leaving again at 8:30 a.m., I started doing math based on several past winter trips to this cabin. "Usually it takes six and a half hours to hike out of Borealis. That's on fresh legs, but with a sled and overnight gear. Six and a half hours would be 3 p.m. — 31 hours. I wonder if I ran the downhills, whether I could slice that time down to five and a half hours? A 30-hour finish would be rad."

Although my hundred-mile experience is still limited, I consider these winter hundred-milers at least as physically taxing if not more so than a mountain hundred-miler like the Bear 100. The variable snow surfaces and cold adds to the physical strain, and higher level of self-support and considerable remoteness doesn't allow runners to stumble along zombie-like — mental alertness is mandatory. From a race strategy standpoint, I'd managed the White Mountains 100 about as well as I possibly could up to that mile. A strong finish to a sub-30-hour PR would be a sweet reward.

Just as soon as I thought this, everything started to hurt. My hamstrings burned, my quads were weak, and the bottoms of my feet felt like someone was slapping them with a board full of nails. My shoulders, forearms and hands were still wrecked from Shaktoolik; I felt shooting pains from shouldering my pack, and found it difficult to maintain a grip on my trekking poles, dropping them frequently.

As the sun climbed higher in the sky, the air temperature made another dramatic swing toward something unbearably warm. Many runners who have exceeded 24 hours in an effort will likely understand the concept of "second-day heat." The afterburners are running on high, muscles are excreting an enormous amount of heat, and core temperature becomes more difficult to regulate. Even before the temperature climbed above freezing, I was stripping off layers and quickly as I'd applied them during the frigid night. Down to my base layer and still overheating, I started to daydream about taking off my shirt and pants, and running in only a bra and underwear. "I'd probably run faster, like a sled dog," I mused. "I wonder if anyone would care?"

Photo by Corrine Leistikow

I stopped at the trail shelter, mile 90, desperate for salty snacks and Gatorade. I told the volunteers about my goal of breaking 30 hours, and they just nodded politely, no doubt wondering what my deal was when they'd watched the fast bikers go through a day earlier. A half mile later I ran into Tony Covarrubias, who was out for a "short" 20-mile training run while waiting for his wife to finish the race. He jogged with me for a couple of miles, and I apologized whenever I slowed to a walk. "I always fall apart at the end of these 100-milers," I said. "I do want to break 30 hours, and I can technically run. But I still don't have this ultrarunner thing down. I don't like when my legs hurt and I don't like when my feet hurt. I don't believe Beat when he tells me it will go numb."

Tony, who has finished 500-mile events, agreed. "It never goes numb."

Tony left me behind on the climb up the Wickersham Wall, a steep 800-foot gain that comes rather brutally and abruptly at mile 93. This year, the climb was a relief for me because it meant I didn't have to force my legs into running strides. Halfway up the Wall, I met my friend Corrine, who had ridden out the trail on her snow bike to cheer.

Photo by Corrine Leistikow

This photo illustrates well the final six miles of the White Mountains 100. I wasn't posing at all; I was deep in the pain cave, walking with this stance when I wasn't forcing a lumbering, tender-footed jog. Corrine again caught up to me at the top of the Wickersham Wall and proclaimed, "six more miles!" I looked at my GPS and groaned. "It's 12:27, just 90 minutes, it can't be done." Four miles an hour doesn't sound so difficult, but that was my average pace at the beginning of the race. The six miles to the finish along the rolling ridgeline included many steep climbs, and making up for walking uphill was going to require *at least* a 5 mph downhill pace, which hurt so much. Math was killing me.

"It can't be done," I whined to Corrine, only to watch her ride a half mile ahead, wait for me to pass, and continue cheering me on — "Five more miles! I think you got it!"

I passed another spectating friend on a bike, Jay Cable, who commented that he was surprised to see me running hard down the hill. "I think Dmitry is about 20 minutes ahead," he said.

"I'm not trying to catch Dmitry, I'm trying to break 30 hours," I gasped, and then silently kicked myself, because why do I keep telling people about this 30-hour thing?"

I was two miles from the finish at 1:32 p.m., with still over a mile to climb on the final hill. Corrine was still stopping every half mile to cheer me on, and I no longer had the energy to respond with defeated phrases, instead just breathing out a long "Ugggh." She waited one last time at the one-mile-to-go sign, where I stopped briefly for one last GPS check. 1:44 p.m. "I guess I gotta go for it."

Photo by Corrine Leistikow

So I picked up my hurty feet and numb legs and ran fast, as fast as I could, until I could feel the wind in my face, finally whisking the fire away from my overheated skin. It felt like flying — extremely painful flying. I felt as though I'd never run faster, although GPS stats betray the reality of a 10:18-minute-mile. It was enough. I arrived at the parking lot at 1:54 p.m. Official finish of the 2015 White Mountains 100: 29 hours and 54 minutes.

The first thing I did was soak my bare feet in the snow, until they went numb, and then I crawled onto a cot inside the race trailer. I hoped to catch some shut-eye before Beat arrived, but my legs continued to feel like someone was slapping them with board full of nails. "This is the worst pain ever," I winced. "I'm not going to be able to sleep for a week." Then I lapsed into unconsciousness anyway.

Beat arrived sooner than I expected, an hour and a half later, having achieved his own, unofficial, self-supported finish on the course in 31 and a half hours. Poor Beat was in a lot of pain, and said he regretted this from mile five onward. When asked why he didn't turn around, Beat first blamed me, my bad ideas, and my unrelenting forward motion. Then he shrugged. "Pride."

After what Beat accomplished on the Iditarod Trail, battling deep snow, unbroken trail, and temperatures down to 46 below for ten days to reach the Yukon River, the White Mountains 100 was comparatively a short and pleasant stroll. He didn't have anything to prove by completing the course again — there wasn't even a jacket in it for him. But he did it anyway, which speaks to his dedication (and stubbornness.)

I'm stoked about how my race went, and of course already thinking about all the ways it could have gone even better if I'd properly trained and didn't wear myself down on my coast bike tour (which was considerably more strenuous than running the White Mountains 100.) But really, any trip into the White Mountains is a wonderful privilege. I remain in awe of the experiences I've had here. Every return is like visiting an old friend — someone I only see sporadically, but when we're together everything looks and feels as though no time has passed, and we've never been apart. I may live 3,000 miles away, but I can hardly imagine my life without the White Mountains, the stunning skies of these northern latitudes, and the wonderful people in Fairbanks who really make all the difference.

I'll be back again, undoubtedly. 

Still the best race ever, part one

I call the White Mountains 100 my favorite race, but the emotional attachment runs deeper than that. My introduction to this race came in early 2010, when I was going through an extensive personal crisis involving my career, relationships, location, and lifestyle. I was 30 years old, and everything that I thought I was had been flipped on its head. I spent most of the winter months holed away in the single room I was renting in Juneau, cuddling with my cat, eating peanut butter out of a jar, and writing "Be Brave, Be Strong." I wasn't riding my bike all that much, except to commute to work. The one activity I truly enjoyed at the time was hiking in the mountains. I was pretty sure I was going to give up endurance racing altogether. 

Then I received a call from Ed Plumb, a Fairbanks skier who I met at Yentna Station the previous year, while I was coping with frostbite and scratching from 2009 Iditarod Trial Invitational. He told me about this new race he was developing in the White Mountains north of Fairbanks — a 100-mile loop with a ski, bike and foot division. Everyone who signed up so far was from either Fairbanks or Anchorage, and he thought he should diversify with someone from elsewhere in the state. I was reluctant, but how could I say no to Ed? I mailed my race entry about a month before the event, and made feeble efforts to train through my funk. During this single month of White Mountains anticipation, I also found the courage to sever ties to some emotional anchors, leave my job, and make arrangements to move to Anchorage with few plans but renewed determination to make my own way. When I arrived at the Wickersham Dome to strong winds and a temperature of 13 below in March 2010, it marked the threshold to a major life transition. 

2010 was a daunting year for this new race — extreme cold (down to 25 below), high winds, lots of glare ice and wet overflow. I finished as the third female and eighth biker in 22 hours and 38 minutes, completely enamoured with the journey. Since then, I've made what many might consider ridiculous efforts to return every year, even as my life continued through unplanned transitions and tangents. In 2011, while I was living in Montana and dating Beat long-distance, I coaxed him to join the craziness — and look where that went. In 2012 I flew up to Fairbanks from California for a long weekend. In 2013 I did not make it through the lottery, and missed out on what many call the toughest year for this race (although I'd still wager 2010 against that.) In 2014 I arrived three weeks after finishing the 350-mile race to McGrath on foot, fairly undertrained for a snow bike century, and floated almost effortlessly through a magical, perfect race. This was by far my fastest finish — 11 hours and 34 minutes — although it was the only year I wasn't third female biker (I was fourth.) 

I joked that I'd never be able to top the magic of 2014, and that I should probably just retire from the White Mountains 100. In actuality, what I really wanted to do was try the race on foot. As a 100-mile ultramarathon, this is not an easy one. There are no drop bags, and checkpoints only every 20 miles or so, with a limited amount of food, so one has to be mostly self-supported. Temperatures can range from 25 below to 50 above, and in late March both are plausible. There's 8,000 feet of climbing, which may sound low for a 100-miler, but running on snow — even packed snow — creates resistance that makes most grades feel like steep climbing. Punchy conditions can slow you to a crawl, and feet don't float as well as fat bike tires or skis. Obstacles and technical challenges include off-camber glare ice, thin ice, wet and slushy overflow, ankle-breaking moose holes, and knee-twisting punchy snow, to name a few. The women's record belonged to the reigning queen of Alaska ultras, Laura McDonough, at 24 hours and 50 minutes, also set in the near-perfect conditions of 2014. Beat's fastest time on the course was 33 hours and 45 minutes. My 100-mile PR (2012 Bear 100) was 33 hours and 28 minutes. I made a goal of 36 hours. 

Beat and Shawn McTaggart, both two-time finishers to Nome on foot. Shawn was going to ski
the WM100 this year but changed her mind at the last minute.

The White Mountains 100 course is an aesthetic loop through a remote mountain range in Interior Alaska, but the top appeal of this race is the community — race directors who also race, volunteers who chop wood and melt snow, and fiercely dedicated participants. Although it isn't simple to quit (requiring a $200 extraction fee and a frigid snowmachine ride), it's telling that this very difficult race has less than a 10 percent DNF rate every year. And the field is universally such a great group of people. Five years ago I knew almost no one in Fairbanks, and now I almost feel like a local (and have had other Fairbanksians tell me this as well, an ultimate compliment.) If Beat and I could move here without financial repercussions, we probably would tomorrow.

My friend Jenn from Whitehorse, with her husband Ben. Jenn was racing her first winter 100-miler.

Sunday morning may have been the warmest start yet for the White Mountains 100, with temperatures just below freezing and almost no wind. This did not bode well for daytime slushiness, but wasn't altogether unwelcome. Since I had no bike to set up and really nothing to do but take off my puffy coat and put on my backpack, I wandered around the parking lot greeting friends and others.

Photo by Lucy Bettis

I still managed one pre-race equipment failure, as I'd put on my vintage gaiters backward. In this photo, Beat is helping me fix them. Beat was well-prepared for the unsupported effort with more than 10,000 calories of food, an MSR Reactor stove, fuel to melt snow and make meals, an expedition puffy coat and sleeping pad, extra clothing and emergency gear, among the more conventional items that I also was carrying. Our plan was to travel together; Beat's walking pace has always been considerably faster than mine, and he's stronger than me in any situation. Even with the extra weight and 600+ tough miles on his legs, we both figured he'd have no problems holding my pace.


This is the part of the race report where runners always sandbag, but I really did not expect the White Mountains 100 to go particularly well for me. Even though I hadn't even traveled half the distance I expected to during the five days I spent on my coast bike tour (just 120 miles), I felt nearly as wrung out by this trip as I did after walking 350 miles to McGrath last year. I had night sweats and sleep disruptions, tingly muscles, cramping, and general exhaustion. On top of that, the kennel cough I caught in Shaktoolik stubbornly held on, and I was still hacking and congested the following Sunday. My training had fallen off a cliff amid all the Alaska adventures; total running mileage since I left California in late February was less than 50 miles, probably closer to 40. Plus, I had the untested shoes and backpack. Still, I went out harder than I intended in the first few miles of the race, partly due to embarrassment about being at the very back of the field.

The early miles were great. The sun was out, it was warm, and I was amazed how effortlessly I could climb the rippling foothills of the White Mountains. After the race, several people asked me if I missed my bike during this year's race. The honest truth: most of the time, I didn't at all. Although trail conditions were for the most part superb and there was potential there to best my PR from last year, all of my recent associations with my fat bike involve extremely arduous pedaling and pushing. Without the anchor, I felt like a little feather, floating up hills and drifting down. When we reached Moose Creek, about mile 16, I looked at my GPS and marveled that it had only taken us three and a half hours to get there. Two weeks earlier, I needed more than four hours to cover this stretch of trail, with a bike. Granted, it was 20 below and there was a foot of new snow. Still — this running stuff is so easy compared to snow biking! (Not really.)

 
Trail conditions were superb, but not perfect. Here, you can see the punchy tracks of the runners in front of us. These trails were probably sidewalk smooth for skiers and bikers, but runners and their little feet are at the highest disadvantage when it comes to float. It's yet another reason why it's pretty silly to run a winter snow race; traveling on foot doesn't make a whole lot of sense in most cases. And yet — the appeal persists. There's something pure and freeing about traveling on your own two feet, and I find rhythm and flow that I don't experience in any other way. As the warm afternoon sun softened the snow, we danced around the tracks, searching for the best surface in a patchwork of crust and slush.

Beat was hurting. His 200 miles of trailbreaking on the Iditarod Trail weighed heavily on his body, and the sled didn't help matters. I thought I was keeping a fairly easy, breezy pace, but he began to complain that I was driving him too hard, calling me a taskmaster, or something like that. He wondered why I never wanted to take breaks, reminding me that on the Iditarod Trail, it pays to stop once in a while. At first I didn't take his complaints too seriously. Beat's known to joke about such things. I argued that he had a different mindset than me, since I was in "race" mode and he was in "tour" mode. He was running out of water, so I encouraged him to take sips from my Camelback vest and hold on until checkpoint 2, where I'd take a longer break and he could melt some snow.

Checkpoint 2, the Cache Mountain cabin, came at mile 39. It was about 5 p.m., and we were just over nine hours into the race, a statistic I was pretty stoked about, because I didn't feel much more tired than past years when I rode a bike here. The friendly volunteers wore Elvis glasses. All three remote cabin checkpoints provide one meal along with a few bags of chips and cookies, as well as hot and cold water. The other two checkpoints offer a small bowl of soup, but Cache Mountain offers a relatively huge meal — a baked potato with cheese, bacon bits, and sour cream. I made the mistake of eating it in 2010 and got quite nauseated climbing the Cache Mountain Divide; I've avoided the potato every year since. This year, however, with my own supply of trail food already rapidly diminishing (snow running always makes me so ravenous; I don't even know why), I greedily devoured the potato along with some Fruity Pebble crispy treats.

I also took the time to dry and re-lube my feet — an opportunity one should never pass up when temperatures are too cold to work on feet outside. My heel blister patch was holding up well, and skin maceration was relatively low — overall, the new shoes were working out great so far. We spent 47 minutes at the cabin — where does the time go? — but in the grand scheme the long break gave both of us a needed boost. I felt great as we started up the pass, as though the race had just started — which, at only forty miles in, it just had.

Hey heart, on the run again

Anchorage had transitioned into full-blown spring breakup by the time Beat and I reunited on Sunday. Snow was disappearing from the mountains, sun blazed in the sky, and temperatures climbed into the low 50s. I wheeled my loaded bike with its clicking studded tires through the Anchorage airport (Ravn airlines let me put it on the plane in tact!) and found Beat in a hulking rental truck. It was an anticlimactic setting after two years of greeting Beat in Nome, but we shared a long hug that was every bit as satisfying.

Times of loss have a way of expanding perspective, and Beat and Steve shared open and honest conversations as they made their way back to Anchorage. In turn, Beat and I openly addressed our relationship, joys we experience, values we share, and hopes for a future for which there are no guarantees. I recalled that adage that life is what happens while you are making other plans. All of our journeys were cut short, but we arrived at a more cathartic and meaningful destination.


 In Anchorage, our friends Dan and Amy where there for us, supplying cookies and tender sympathy as we processed the events of the past few days and recovered our battered muscles and diminished strength. Beat's and my annual sojourns in Alaska would be a lot more logistically difficult and a lot less enjoyable without a network of friends across the state, and their generous hospitality and kindness. Dan and Amy's house in Anchorage has been our Alaska "base camp" every year since we raced the Susitna 100 together in 2011. We're most indebted to them for everything they've done for us, and it was rewarding to spend a few unplanned days with them during this time.

Here's Dan the professional adventure photographer, doing what he does best. The four of us went for a "hike" on Flattop Mountain that was really more of a sunset photo safari and goof-off outing. I'd embarked on two short and yet disconcertingly difficult runs since I returned from Unalakleet, and this was Beat's first venture outside since Koyukuk. Molten lava-like mud oozed down the mountain as we traipsed through slush and crossed bulletproof crust. When I lived in Anchorage for a short time in the spring of 2010, this is how I remember hiking conditions in late May. 

 Here, Amy shows me one technique for building strength for future fat bike endeavors — elevated pushups while hiking. Amy can do these one-handed; I look to her as my muscle-building mentor. By incorporating some of these exercises amid my running and biking outings, I may be able to trick myself into more strength sessions. I also genuinely believe it's time for me to start looking for a gym that might have a reasonable membership to attend 2-3 times a week for weight training. The yoga mat and barbells at home just aren't working for me. I tend to come up with any excuse to avoid them. Although I'm not proud of this, I could use some accountability.

After my Shaktoolik adventure, my own upper body was wrecked. My biceps gave out before I could even achieve one pushup (I can usually do more than zero!), my forearms were slightly tingly, the muscles in my hands were stiff and slow to respond, and my shoulders and lower back were quite sore. On top of that, I'd tried two runs that were 90 minutes or less, at a slow (untimed) pace, that still felt like they were overtaxing my leg muscles and exhausted cardiovascular system. Amid these unsettling physical assessments, I received an official invitation to the White Mountains 100. After four months of languishing on the wait list, my name had finally risen to the top and I had to decide whether or not I actually wanted to take on the challenge of a hundred-mile run on snow in the remote and hilly White Mountains. I gleefully accepted.

 After wavering on whether to return to California early, Beat decided to keep our original April 1 flight home and join me in Fairbanks. The White Mountains 100 RD, who is a friend of ours, gave Beat the okay to quietly tour the course self-supported, as long as he provided for all of his own food and water, did not bother any of the checkpoint volunteers, and gave no assistance to me at any time. Running a hundred miles self-supported is much harder than running a race, and Beat was still recovering from a journey that was longer and exponentially more arduous than my own. Still, he seemed enthusiastic about this idea.

 Traveling to Fairbanks together also gave me an opportunity to show Beat one of my (many) favorite places in Alaska, Denali National Park. Although winter conditions and a few short hours to spare only afford ventures on the closest trails of the front country, Denali is still an incredibly beautiful and wild place. After visiting Dave Johnston in Willow and exchanging trail stories, we made our way north for a hike to the Mount Healy overlook.

 This hike is 5.5 miles round-trip with about 2,000 feet of elevation gain, and trail conditions were alternately slushy and muddy. It was again the most difficult thing either of us had tried since we returned from the Iditarod Trail, and we were both dragging. All of my hiking gear, including my trail-running shoes, were still in a box that I'd mailed to Nome. By hiking in my over-large bike boots with only a single pair of socks (because it was so warm), I managed to develop a quarter-sized blister on my right heel, just two days before the White Mountains 100. Argh!

 After Mount Healy, we drove into the park to the end of the winter-maintained road and went for a short walk along the Savage River.

We spent Thursday evening with two Iditarod volunteers who I met on my flight from Unalakleet to Anchorage. I'd actually first met Kate last year at the White Mountains 100; she also finished the race on a bike. We'd exchanged a few messages since, but it was a surprise to see her at the Unalakleet airport after she and her partner spent a week volunteering for the Elim checkpoint. Kate has led a fascinating life — originally from New Zealand, spent several seasons working in Antarctica, including one winter at the South Pole (115 below!), moved to Alaska, finally achieved legal residency through the marriage equality act, and lives and works in a small community amid the expansive Alaska Range. She and her partner were house-sitting at a lodge on Tonglen Lake for the winter, and this was the view from their back porch. Not bad!

Having mailed all of my potential White Mountains 100 gear to Nome, I was left with the problem of having no gear to use in the race. After it became clear that I wasn't going to get my box back in time, I set to the task of borrowing or buying last minute supplies. I borrowed snowshoes from Dave Johnston, Ultra Distance carbon trekking poles from our friend Corrine (she purchased them under my recommendation, which worked out great for me), and gaiters from our friend Eric (blue Gore-Tex that were probably at least 20 years old, very vintage.)

One thing I couldn't borrow was shoes. My pair of Montrail Mountain Masochist Outdry shoes were getting on in years, and the waterproof version of this model isn't made any more. Icy spring conditions and reports of frequent overflow prompted a desire for carbide studs. As we drove into Fairbanks, Beat and I stopped at Goldstream Sports. After jogging around the parking lot in a couple of different models and getting helpful recommendations from a Fairbanks runner, I settled a pair of Salomon Spikecross 3, men's size 9 (women's 10.) They had large lugs that seemed great for soft snow conditions, nine carbide studs in each shoe, and a water-resistant "Clima-Shield" outer. Embarking on a 100-mile run in brand new shoes, in a model and brand I've never even tried? (This is my first pair of Salomon shoes.) Why not?

Goldstream Sports was also having a 50-percent-off sale on backpacks, among them the Salomon Agile 12. I'd already decided that I wanted to avoid dragging a sled in the White Mountains 100. This pack was a fair amount smaller than the one I'd planned to use in the race (a 25-liter pack), but with the warmish forecast and perhaps a little streamlining of my food and supplies, I thought I could make this 12-liter pack work. I still planned to pack 5,000 calories of trail food, two liters of water in a separate vest, a pair of Wiggy's Waders (one BLM ranger perpetuated a lot of gloom and doom regarding "knee-deep overflow"), a large puffy jacket, primaloft shorts and knee warmers, extra socks, vapor barrier socks (in case I got my shoes wet), extra balaclava, neck warmer, extra gloves, mitten shells, small medical kit, fire starters, space blanket, two headlamps, camera, Delmore tracker, and Garmin eTrex. I decided to leave the borrowed snowshoes behind. It was going to be a tight fit, but felt reasonably comfortable and, after dragging Snoots around on the Bering Sea coast, unbelievably light. I was so excited for the race!

Where the North Wind blows, part three

Overnight, ground blizzards swirled and mushers continued to stack up at the Shaktoolik checkpoint. As morning approached, there were 21 teams holed up in around the small armory. Some had been there for more than 24 hours — the kind of layover even mid-pack mushers aren't known to take — and still no one was moving north into the wind. One of the school teachers took her kids to visit the checkpoint, and described a scene of hundreds of dogs on the ice, and mushers crammed into every corner of the building. The stench, she said, was unbearable. 

As for me, I'd developed a bad case of the kennel cough. It started with persistent hacking and developed into a full-blown riot, doubled over in pain as gobs of mucus ripped through my lungs. I was concerned I was developing bronchitis, but I didn't feel too bad otherwise. Maybe this was the price of heavy breathing in the wind. Rumor also had it that lots of mushers were sick as well. It was unlikely I caught anything from one of them, but I took comfort in the idea that I wasn't alone in my misery. 

I was also starting to run light on food, having started out with what I thought was a generous three days' worth, and having surpassed day three. There were still calories left for just under two more days at the rate I'd been eating, but I'd cherry-picked all the good stuff and was down to one hot meal. A visit to the local Native Store was disappointing. In all likelihood the 21 mushers holed up in town had helped clean them out, but snack and convenience foods were surprisingly absent. I purchased two single-serving containers of instant mac-and-cheese, one can of tuna, one package of Twinkies (there was only one), one root beer, and one orange. The total came out to $23. The orange itself cost nearly $4. It was surprisingly fresh and delicious — worth every penny. There really wasn't much to restock my trail food, unless I wanted to eat raw ramen noodles. I figured that could be an option to extend my food another day, if I somehow ended up back in Shaktoolik again.

Daylight start on day four of my journey, still only 45(!) trail miles from my start in Unalakleet. My legs were so sore that I felt like I had already walked the full 350 to McGrath, and my shoulders and neck muscles burned fiercely. Principal Steve informed me the wind had died down, but the weather station at the airstrip still registered winds out of the north at 33 mph, gusting to 47. Of the 21 mushers holed up in Shaktoolik, eight set out in a paceline during the middle of the night. Among them were Lance Mackey and his brother, and another musher, Scott Janssen, who spent more than 12 hours stranded on the sea ice after his team lost the trail in "the worst blizzard I've ever seen."

Most of the remaining mushers set out after me in the late morning. I was amazed at the ease in which little dog paws could float over the snow dunes. Still, as each team approached and I stepped off the trail to let them go by, they'd run a few paces past me and stop. It was as though I'd been the one breaking trail for the dogs, and now they didn't see a reason to keep running. The musher would step off his sled, greet and pat each one of the dogs as he passed his team, and coax his leader until they were moving again. It was enlightening to see this interaction between the mushers and their dogs. I suppose I expected more of a boss/employee relationship, but the affection these mushers display makes it clear their love and appreciation for each dog runs deep.

For me, the day proceeded not much better than the day before, except for feeling even more physically beaten. However, just one more day of mental readjustment eased some of my angst, and I was more content to plod along at unconscionably slow paces. I recalled Beat's warning — "Everything that comes before the coast, prepares you for the coast." How true this is. I may have had fresh legs and a full belly starting in Unalakleet, but I had none of the experience or fortitude earned by battling the 750 miles that come before. I've spent the past few years believing the full Iditarod Trail was too much and section touring may be the best way to experience the trail, but I question that now. Yes, the full thousand miles is still too long and too far to comprehend. That hasn't changed. But in so many ways it's a race of the mind, more so than the body ... and I was vastly undertrained.

My body was not prepared for this effort either. Near mile five — which came nearly four hours after I started — I completely lost the trail. I'd followed a single teams' tracks that were rapidly disappearing in the wind, and came to a slough with drifts up to my thighs rippling across glare ice. There wasn't a single Iditarod stake in sight. After some bashing around, I found no signs of dog tracks, and scanning a 360-degree angle brought no stake sightings. Damn it. The wind was still blowing straight out of the north and I needed to go north, but even walking on the remnants of the trail base required an effort that was near my physical limit. Off trail, I stepped into drifts that swallowed my legs above my knees, and the sandy snow was so heavy that I could scarcely lift them out again. At one point both of the bike's wheels became so mired that I even as I lifted and tugged, it wouldn't budge. I felt truly, genuinely stuck — as though I really were trapped in quicksand. As though this was the way I'd die out here, and they'd find my frozen body upright and buried to the waist in a snow dune.

I often talk about my desire to become physically stronger, and promise to do the work necessary to get there, but I fall off the wagon quickly. I envy people who enjoy lifting weights and strength training, because all I want to do is be outside, moving through the world, and can't abide the indoor torture or even stopping long enough to do a few pushups. But I do understand the benefits. And out here, on the shoreline of the Norton Sound, I experienced a scenario where lack of strength could become life-threatening. If I ever attempt to take a bicycle along this trail again, I vow to come more prepared — both physically and mentally.

Luckily there were still more dog teams on the way. After what felt like an hour of maximum-effort lunging across that slough, I saw one team off in the distance and made a bee-line for their path. It still took another decent amount of time to reach that spot, and the work didn't get a whole lot easier after I regained the trail. The dogs' tracks didn't help me much; they could float on top of the dunes that swallowed my clunky legs. If anything, the dogs churned up a crust that was starting to form, but I didn't find much purchase outside their tracks, either.

In the legend of Sisyphus, the gods condemned Sisyphus to the eternal task of rolling a rock to the top of a mountain, only to watch it roll back to the bottom and have to start all over again. The lesson being that there is no more terrible punishment than futile and hopeless labor.

"At this point of his effort man stands face to face with the irrational," Albert Camus wrote. "He feels within him his longing for happiness and for reason. The absurd is born of this confrontation between the human need and the unreasonable silence of the world."

The Little Mountain cabin stands on a narrow peninsula in the Norton Sound, and is the last shelter before one must cross 35 miles of sea ice. I could see its bright orange walls for more than six miles, from the moment I dropped off the final hill on land, waded down to the shore, and began my slow plod across the first section of sea ice. That was four hours of watching this cabin never grow closer, struggling under an effort that left me dizzy and disoriented, wondering if this was some kind of strange dream — or an afterlife. I was pretty sure all of the dog teams but one had passed by now. It was a stark and lonely setting, and I became aware of this as I looked down at my boots, still mired in the snow dunes, and realized that I was still very much a human out here in this desolate place, braced against the all-powerful North Wind.

I hadn't yet reached the cabin by 7 p.m. — the time Beat and I had agreed to talk via sat phone. I turned on my phone and there was a text message from him. I read through it but didn't quite understand at first — only that Beat was returning to Anchorage, immediately.

A few minutes later, we'd connected by phone, and the message became more real. Steve had received news of an unexpected tragedy while the two of them approached the tiny Yukon River village of Koyukuk. Steve need to return to California as quickly as possible, and Beat would accompany him and remain with him until he left Anchorage. They've been friends for ten years, and they'd been through much together in their journey on the Iditarod Trail. At first Steve encouraged Beat to continue onto Nome, but Beat couldn't imagine this.

"It would just feel so hollow at this point."

I put the phone down in a state of shock. The hollowness Beat described rang through me in a cacophony of grief. It was more than my exhausted mind could handle; I dropped into the snow, pulled my knees to my chin, and wailed. Although I didn't share a direct connection to this loss, the reality of it hit at a time when I was very vulnerable, and all of my defenses and coping mechanisms were buried beneath four days of fatigue and fear. So I absorbed the news in an affecting and personal way, feeling it ripple through every fiber of my body.

After I got up again, I pushed my bike the rest of the way to the cabin, leaned it against the porch, and continued hiking toward the tip of the peninsula — a small peak that gives "Little Mountain" its name. The last few feet were a headwall, and I struggled comically in the sugar snow, sliding a dozen steps back for every step forward. Another nod to the absurd, and yet I felt a strong need to walk all the way to the "end" — surrounded by the frozen sea, at the edge of the world. At the top of the headwall, I turned and fought cold gusts to the northern end of the broad peak, then stood facing the wind.

"Hello, North Wind," I said, aloud. My voice came out as a gruff squeak, and I sputtered through another bout of kennel cough before I got any more words out. "We meet again."

A couple of years ago, I wrote about a trek up a small mountain in Nome, recalling the way the strong gusting wind atop that barren plateau evoked an unsettling acknowledgement of the impermanence of all things — the unreasonable silence of the world.

"I block a tiny stream of The North Wind for a few moments, watch my warm breath turn to a cloud and dissipate, and I call this my life. There's joy in this realization. If life is a goggle-clad figure steeling herself against a sea of cold space, then it's more beautiful and valuable than I ever imagined."

Here, at the top of Little Mountain, the North Wind still reigned. I'd fought it so long and so hard to reach this point, and this was going to be as far as I'd get. I knew as soon as I spoke with Beat that we needed to reunite, as soon as possible. I admitted I was too battered to leave that night, but that I'd eat, rest, and I'd make my way back to Unalakleet and a flight to Anchorage as soon as physically possible.

So I stood facing the wind, letting it suck the warmth out of my body, scanning the bewildering expanse of ice, and the Bering Sea coast beyond. "Why?" I coughed aloud to the North Wind, without any specific extension to that question. "Why?" The North Wind only howled and blew effortlessly around my body, draining the last of my energy, and with it the shuttering grief.

I plodded down the mountain and still didn't feel like going inside the cabin. It was the only shelter for 50 miles, and I'd left Shaktoolik in the morning with this cabin as my far-reaching goal. It had been so important to me then. Now, strangely, I wanted to avoid it. I think much of this was a reaction to the intense loneliness I was feeling. Outside, I at least had the companionship of the North Wind. So I carried a log out to a section of cleaner snow and made my dinner even as the wind stole much more fuel than necessary. I sat on the log until I shivered, and then got up and walked around as the sun set, watching dusk take over, and then faint hints of the Aurora Borealis appeared to the north.

Overnight, the North Wind all but dissipated, and the temperature dropped to -5. A group of caribou hunters passed before dawn. I'd already told Beat that it had taken me 10 hours to push the 15 miles to Little Mountain, and would likely take at least that long to get back. But a combination of new traffic, subzero temperatures, and less drifting snow set up a thin crust on top of all the snow dunes I'd battled in the previous two days. Even though my feet still punched through, I discovered early that I could ride on top of the crust — not fast, but 5 mph feels like warp speed next to <1 mph.="" p="">

I reached Shaktoolik in less than three hours, undoing two full days' worth of hard effort. About three miles outside of town I met another fat biker, Andy Pohl, who was independently riding the dog sled route from Fairbanks. His nose was scabbed with frostnip and he seemed unmoved by my explanation of why I was returning to Unalakleet. He encouraged me to reconsider and instead join him for the remainder of the journey. After all Andy had been through on the trail so far — battling the cold snap and temperatures down to 53 below — I could understand why the thought of turning back would difficult to accept.

I shrugged. "Sometimes these adventures don't work out. Maybe next year."

More caribou hunters passed on snowmachines, ripping up the thin crust and reducing me to walking again. I felt a renewed surge of angst. In my raw emotional state it was all I could do to hold myself back from throwing a tantrum, which I refused to indulge in because my dramas were so shallow and small. Still, I have to admit that it took me more than two hours to summit the one-mile-long climb of the first Blueberry Hill. Some pitches were so steep that I needed to kick deep steps to give myself enough traction to support the bike. There were many times when my body just stopped, and wouldn't start again until I sneered, aloud, "Come on. Have some courage." I needed courage, because I was out of strength.

I also have to admit I was completely elated when I finally reached the top. Bursting with joy. The weather had also become oppressively hot. My thermometer said it was 19 degrees, with just a light wind.

The trail was still fairly soft, but it was mostly rideable — except for the steep climbs, for which I was steadily losing courage.

It was strange to pedal these sixty miles backward, undoing four days of an arduous and emotional journey in a single push.

It was only sixty miles, and yet I could still feel the intensity in which each mile passed, sense a connection to certain places, and wonder at how much and yet how little time had passed.

The wind was eerily absent, and the setting richly familiar. I felt more like I'd lived in this place at some point a long time ago, rather than just passed through once a few days earlier.

The Blueberry Hills. A home at the edge of the world.

I arrived in Unalakleet just before midnight, again fully shattered by the day's effort. I'd given everything I had to make sure I returned in time to catch a flight, and continued pushing hard even after I learned the only Saturday flight was in the afternoon. Still, as I approached the blinking lights of the airport, a sadness set in. Even though this trip tore me from the inside out, it was a difficult thing to give up. And even though I believe strongly that there are many more important things in life than these adventures, it was a difficult thing to give up. I wondered if Beat felt exponentially more crushed after what he'd given up, but of course our disappointments were minuscule next to our friend's loss.

I don't know if I'll return. This journey was my test for a dream that has haunted and intimidated me for years, which is the full Iditarod Trail to Nome. Being torn apart by sixty miles of travel was not how I envisioned this "short" journey starting, regardless of the reasons why it ended. Still, I learned quite a lot, experienced some beautiful country, and gained a profound respect and appreciation for the people of this region. Although there will always be more important things than these adventures, they add such richness to the absurdity that is life. Rolling a rock up a hill is a source of joy; the lesson of the North Wind is that it doesn't matter where it ends up, because everything changes always. I'll probably be back. 

"Live to the point of tears" — Albert Camus.