by Jill Homer
Throughout the day I moved in robotic motions — eating energy-storing meals without joy, pacing the hall at Craig’s house, and packing and repacking my supplies, which included obligatory gear as well as spare clothing, water containers, and food. The gear was bundled inside of a dry bag that I strapped to a seat-post rack on the back of my mountain bike, or stuffed into an empty sleeping bag sack and strapped to my handlebars. A small square bag attached to the frame held most of my “fuel” — sandwiches, chocolate, and Power Bars. Inside this bag, I opened several hand-warmers to “heat” my snacks and prevent them from freezing to inedible bricks. In hindsight, my conviction that this would work was amusingly naive.
Geoff planned to only carry a small hydration pack with water and some Power Bars. His preparations for the Little Su 50K were less involved, but he was visibly nervous as well. He stared quietly at Craig’s television — Geoff never watched TV — as I made fumbling efforts to glue the bead of my studded tires to the rim. A few blog readers recommended this technique for low tire pressures, which snow bikers often run to increase the surface area of the tire and improve flotation. With the tube mostly deflated, tires had a tendency to slip along the rim, often tearing the tube’s valve stem in the process. Glue would prevent this slippage. Still, the gooey adhesive didn’t immediately stick, requiring long minutes of wrestling with the tire as layers of glue flaked onto the carpet. My fingers were cemented together by the time I completed the job.
“Do you need any help?” Geoff asked ninety-five minutes after I’d started the tire-gluing project, when I was clearly almost done.
“No,” I grumbled, wishing that he had just offered in the first place, as he was so much more skilled — or at least more willing — in mechanical work. I wanted to just get on my bike and start riding it somewhere … anywhere. Waiting for the race had to be tougher than racing itself. It just had to be.
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Susitna Sustained
February 20, 2006
Did I finish the Susitna 100 with a smile on my face? Well, based on this photo Geoff took (that I don’t remember him taking) — not quite. Actually, I look like a drunk zombie. But I gave that smile my best shot. Just like the race.
Also, I forgot to mention in yesterday’s post that Geoff won the foot division of the Little Su 50K. He came in first with a time of 3:54, just ahead of elite ultra-marathoner Julie Udchachon. I biked the first 25 miles of my race in about that time. He ran 31. Geoff’s the champion. I’m not even a contender. But I do feel good about what I did. Really. I did something that as recently as six months ago I would have never imagined myself doing, and I had an incredible journey.
Yesterday, when I was mulling over some of the decisions I made on the trail — and the times I posted — Geoff told me, “Only you know what you did out there.” He’s right. The ideology behind the Susitna 100 is not necessarily to be the fastest runner or best rider. It’s about pushing into the Alaska wilderness and making some tracks in the snow, whether they’re tire tracks, footprints, or a swerving combination of both.
There are some ways I could have been better prepared. I knew it when I lined up next to my fellow racers, most equipped with specially-built snow bikes, wide rims, four-inch tires and rigid forks. And there I was, straddling my rock hopper. I felt like I was standing at the startling line of the Tour de France with a beach cruiser. In conditions where flotation was everything, that analogy isn’t that far off. But I did the best I could with what I had. And, for its highs and lows, its loneliness, pain, joy, beauty and desolation, the experience was amazing.
*****
By 8:47 a.m., sunrise had nudged hints of morning light over the Chugach Mountains, but it was difficult to discern the transition from pre-dawn to day. The sky was a dark pall, choked with storm clouds. After days of sleet and rain, snow on the ground was dull and saturated. Silhouetted spruce trees lined the horizon, drawing the only distinction between competing shades of gray. The race itself was the only splash of color. Clad in brightly hued gear, dozens of skiers, cyclists, and runners funneled toward the official start of the Susitna 100 — the referee box of the Aurora Dog Mushers racing track. Someone had spray-painted a yellow line across the snow, and about sixty people gathered behind it, perched at the edge of a monotone infinity.
True to character, Geoff and I got a late start in the morning, and Geoff nearly rolled Craig’s truck off Big Lake Road as we raced toward the start. By the time I pulled my bike from the truck and strapped on my hydration pack, it was 8:52 a.m., and the race director was already calling out instructions from a megaphone. I sprinted toward the crowd, dragging my gear-laden mountain bike alongside, and nudged my way into position behind most of the cyclists, next to skiers and runners strapped to sleds. Geoff’s race didn’t start until 11 a.m., so he buzzed around shooting photographs. I was so nervous that I couldn’t bear to smile at him or make eye contact with any of my fellow racers. Instead I stared at my legs. Covered in rain pants and overboots, it looked like I was wearing an astronaut suit. I tried not to think about the alien landscape beyond.
I blacked out for a second, or lost my focus, or there was a crack in the space-time continuum, but when I looked up again, I saw skiers and runners streaming around me. Loud cheers and the sound of skis scraping over icy snow erupted out of silence. I felt like a competitive diver, rising from the depths of a swimming pool to a roaring auditorium. I shook off my daze and joined the surge.
The dog mushing park was a maze. Yellow-striped laths marked the Susitna 100 course, but I was still distracted by trails jutting off in every direction. Adrenaline surged through my blood and I spun my heavy legs as fast as I could muster, skirting around several skiers while scanning ahead for course markers. Ten miles passed quickly, in less than an hour, and I reached the edge of the mushing park. From there, groomed trails ended, and real Alaska began. What had been a light breeze in the trees became a stiff wind as I crossed an open swamp. Drifted grains of sugar snow covered the trail, and my wheels spun out on the soft surface. I got off the bike and walked, rolling my ankles repeatedly as I punched through a fragile crust. High humidity gave the wind a sharp bite. Even though the temperature was just below freezing, the air felt alarmingly cold.
As I walked, all of the skiers I’d overtaken on the groomed trail glided past me with ease. Most of the other cyclists in the race were riding Surly Pugsleys or the similarly designed Wildfire fat bikes, and their tracks indicated they were able to ride atop this breakable crust. When I returned to the woods, I found better surface conditions, and was able to crank my way up the short, steep climbs that Geoff and I had scouted three weeks earlier. Descents were jerky and fast, and compression in the shock caused the rear wheel to slam into my seat post rack. I stopped to readjust the rack, but positioning it higher on the seat post pushed the gear bag uncomfortably into my lower back. There was no way I was going to endure back pain for ninety miles, so I was just going to have to gamble on repeated collisions with the tire, and hope the rack didn’t blow apart before I was done.
Sunlight was beginning to filter through the clouds when I pulled into the first checkpoint on the shoreline of Flathorn Lake. My pace so far — three hours and forty-five minutes for twenty-five miles — was respectable enough. My legs still felt peppy, although fatigue was creeping around the edges. The checkpoint was an idyllic lakeside cabin with smoke pouring out of a chimney. Even though it wasn’t particularly cold outside, the interior felt like a sauna in comparison. Sliced oranges and homemade brownies were piled on plates at the table. While filling up my water bladder, I shoved several orange slices into my mouth. I was astonished at how rich and flavorful they were. It was as though the proprietor had taken regular oranges and injected them with some kind of mood-enhancing drug. It just wasn’t possible for food to taste this good. I closed up the water bladder and attacked the brownies, stifling little moans as the warm morsels slid down my throat. I wo
ndered if I’d ever again experience such a taste sensation. I doubted it. After all, there’s only one first time for everything; never again would I be surprised by the bliss of food consumed during a race.
After spending a little too much time indulging in the exquisite satisfaction of sitting in a chair, I was one of the last cyclists to leave the checkpoint. I pedaled away from Flathorn Lake feeling guilty. Still, I was on pace for an eighteen-hour race — my best-case scenario. The trail hugged the shoreline of the lake for two more miles before cutting back into the forest. Before making this transition, I stopped to look back across the lake I had just crossed — a while expanse illuminated by the soft, filtered light of the overcast sky.
My heart fluttered, at once terrified and exhilarated. Only the gusting wind broke a primordial silence. Spruce tress lined the far shoreline, again drawing a harsh black line between the muted grays of land and sky. Mount Susitna, the Sleeping Lady, loomed in regal repose. I looked toward her with a grateful smile, knowing she was watching over me. It was amazing that such a place existed, so distant from the din of modern life, so frozen in time. And I had pedaled my bike to this place, by myself, under my own impetus, so I didn’t have to be afraid. Sugar and endorphins surged through my blood, and I didn’t know whether to cry or sing. Then I remembered that I was racing, so I turned away and continued pedaling into the woods.
At mile thirty-three, I crossed the Susitna River, the corridor that cut through the heart of this overwhelming landscape. The surface of the river was flat and white like Flathorn Lake, and similarly frozen in time. The wind had quieted, and the world was so still that I wondered whether I really had entered a hiccup in the space-time continuum.
Suddenly, a gray figure darted through the trees across the river. A wolf? A lynx? What else could it be? My heart raced faster. This was not a place for humans. It was a place for predators, for wind-ravaged trees and scavenging birds, for hulking moose and snow-cave-dwelling rodents, all eking out their survival from an ice-encased land. My presence here had no relevance. I moved through the landscape like a ghost. The wind-driven snow would sweep away my tracks, and nothing else would change. In the human world I was insignificant, but out here I was less than that — just a shadow, bearing every part of myself to a wilderness that had the power to take my life in a whisper. I was at once humbled and amazed, and felt as though my fingertips were grasping something truly beyond the physical world — something sublime.
I crossed the river and again returned to the woods, where I reconnected with the human world in the form of two snowmobiles. They buzzed past, churning up the snow to mashed-potato consistency. The softened trail reduced me to pushing my bike again, and I made slow progress to the second checkpoint at Eaglesong Lodge. Despite fond memories of the magical food at Flathorn Lake, I felt edgy about my slower progress and wanted to keep moving. A race volunteer was waiting outside, so I gave him my name and continued without venturing inside the building.
As I approached checkpoint three — a cluster of cabins on the Yentna River called Luce’s Lodge — soft snow atop the lightly used trail forced me to walk for most of the next ten miles. Daylight slipped away almost imperceptibly behind a ceiling of clouds that had progressively thickened throughout the afternoon. Physical discomfort was beginning to consume most of my thoughts, and my brain rebelled by withdrawing useful functions, such as appetite. My stomach churned, so I opted to skip the spaghetti dinner offered at the lodge. In the span of less than six hours, the sensation of eating had switched from euphoric to repulsive. I wanted nothing more of food and the nausea it induced.
The sauna-like heat inside the building added to my wooziness, so I made a quick exit from Luce’s as well. A skier on the porch was removing his hat as I stepped outside. His face and hair bore an uncanny resemblance to a friend of mine back in Utah named Curt. “Hi Curt,” I blurted out before I caught myself. The skier looked up but didn’t acknowledge my inaccurate greeting. Without another word, I rushed away.
“Huh, I must really be out of it,” I thought as I hurried down the hill to the frozen Yentna River. It was unsettling to realize that my mind, which I needed to be sharp in order to make the best decisions, was incapable of making rational assessments about other people on the course.
The sky was black without a hint of moon or stars. The once-expansive landscape narrowed to the flickering beam of my headlamp. Snowmobile tracks veered in many directions along the wide corridor of the river, and I strained to pick out yellow-striped Su100 stakes. I was terrified of losing them, as though these wooden lath were the only thing tethering me to Earth. The river was too wide and the night too dark to see anything beyond the tiny island of yellow light. I might as well have been pedaling across the Bering Sea.
My breath was becoming increasingly labored, and my lungs and throat were raw. I’d never felt more small. This place was outer space, and I was a molecule, floating through the void. All-too-familiar anxiety started to creep around the periphery, so I focused on my hands. I stared at them for long minutes, wrapped in gray neoprene gloves and gripped around the handlebars, occasionally making slight movements to guide the bicycle’s front wheel. These were hands capable of piloting a bicycle across frozen swamps and over snow-covered hills, I thought. I looked at my legs and feet, hidden beneath rain pants and overboots, and saw limbs that could propel my body no matter how tired I became. As clouds of breath swirled in front of my face, I saw shadows of myself — shadows of fear and doubt and insecurity — dissolving into the hard air. And when I glanced behind me, I could see a sweepingly empty expanse that I had somehow managed to cross, under my own power, under my own impetus, by myself. With every passing mile I was transforming — from “Just Jill” to “Adventure Jill,” and then to something else entirely. A racer, perhaps.
Ahead, a bright circle of light broke the darkness. Another point of civilization! I grinned and increased my cadence. Soft snow kept my speed to a minimum — the odometer often dipped below four miles per hour — but at least I was pedaling. I was pedaling hard. The distant light flickered. Minutes passed, and then miles. An hour passed. Through sharp breaths, a lump began to gather in my throat. Why wasn’t the light getting any closer? Was I moving at all? Was time passing, or had I entered another hiccup of space-time? My odometer still registered a slow progression of miles. I breathed out a sigh. The only power I possessed was to keep pedaling.
Two hours passed between the moment I first noticed the light, and the moment I finally arrived at a small canvas tent pitched on the ice at the confluence of the Yentna and Susitna rivers. A humming generator powered the floodlight, which garishly illuminated a campfire crackling on the ice. A man in a thick black coat stepped out of the tent and waved both arms toward me. I was still fifty feet away and apparently on the wrong tangent in a multitude of snowmobile tracks. The man continued to gesture wildly, so I stepped off my bike and pushed it directly toward him. Off trail, the snow was hip-deep, forcing awkward lunges. I was annoyed that the otherwise purposeless electric light had been taunting me for eight miles, but at the same time grateful that this encampment prevented me and others from turning the wrong way up the Susitna River.
The man introduced himself as Rich Crain and welcomed me to his “five-star tent camp.” He dished up a cup of lukewarm noodle soup. I downed it in two gulps and asked him about the trail ahead.
“It’s all stuff you’ve done before now,” he said. “You’re almost done with the lollipop” — referring to the forty-mile loop the course took after it crossed the Susitna River. “Might snow tonight. Shouldn’t be too bad. You have about thirty-five miles left.”
I pumped my fist, my first non-zombie-like gesture in many hours, and thanked Rich. Sixty-five miles done! And it hadn’t been all that hard — at least, not as hard as I expected. The Susitna River ice stretched out in front of me, wide and flat. Everything else was terrain I had already ridden, and knew to be mostly good tr
ail. My energy-deprived brain indulged in smug, but premature, satisfaction.
About a half mile from the five-star tent camp, I rounded a sheer bluff towering several hundred feet over the river. My shadow, which had been sharply defined by Rich Crain’s floodlight, slipped into the darkness. I was alone again. The small serving of soup provided just enough energy to re-engage my brain, which only served to shine a spotlight on my physical discomforts. My hands and feet were tingling — whether from cold or pressure, I didn’t know — and my back was sore from weight pressing against it, again. I stopped to tighten the straps of my gear sack and contemplated adding another layer and changing my gloves from neoprene to the thicker ski gloves. There was an odd chill to the air. I couldn’t quite place it. It didn’t feel like bitter cold. It wasn’t frosty or sharp. It was more of a dull, saturating chill. I looked up at the starless sky and felt tiny needles of moisture bounding off my nose and cheeks. Until that moment, I hadn’t realized it was raining.
Rain? Rain wasn’t good. How often does it rain in Southcentral Alaska in February? I had planned for blizzards. I had planned for Arctic blasts of cold. I had planned for snow, ice, sleet, open water, and even the unlikely ideal of twenty-degree temperatures and clear skies. I hadn’t planned for rain. Just as soon as I noticed it, the light drizzle began to pick up volume until large droplets were bouncing off my breathable — and therefore minimally water-resistant — Burton snowboarding jacket. Beneath rain pants my tights were also damp, and I could feel cold streams of water trickling down my neck, which meant my hat and balaclava were saturated. There was no warding this off; I was already wet. It was thirty-five degrees outside. The situation was not optimal.
Anxiety about the weather prompted me to pedal harder. Rain penetrated the snow, and the trail was already beginning to break apart. The bike’s tires spun through deteriorating crust, digging into the snow as they inched forward. Eventually the wheels stalled altogether. There were several instances where I nearly tipped over while furiously spinning the pedals, so reluctant was I to admit to myself that the trail was no longer solid enough to ride. Rain continued to pelt the snow like acid. Conditions were not going to improve, but my brain, still numbed by fatigue, let me cling to futile hope. Then I descended into not-frozen-over Hell — churning up slush until the wheels seized, stopping to push my bike for a few yards, trying to pedal again, stopping again, and again and again.