by Jill Homer
Even though my legs were toast and my hand hurt more each day, my lungs recovered quickly. Whatever crud I picked up in Koyuk vanished after two days. My embarrassing bonk with Troy kept me more vigilant about eating regular meals— even though it would take another week to pick up an appetite. Two days after my finish, I was itching to get back on the trail, and quelled these desires with long rides out the unmaintained roads beyond Nome. These roads were coated in glare ice and concrete snow, and climbed into the foothills en route to the isolated interior of the Seward Peninsula. I would pedal until my legs began to hurt once more, then look at my GPS and realize I was twenty miles from anywhere. This realization would always cause a brief moment of panic about whether I’d find the energy to propel myself back to Nome. After I calmed down and resigned myself to the return, I’d gaze wistfully toward the Kigluaik Mountains — craggy, snow-capped, pummeled by the North Wind, and more wild than the wildest segments of the Iditarod Trail.
“Next time,” I assured myself quietly.
Sam and Katie arrived the day after Tim, and had their own sights set on possibly extending their ride farther north. We spent more than five hours at a tiny coffee shop, entertaining ourselves with trail stories and cleaning the place out of coffee and pastries. They spent the rest of the day at the library, looking at maps and scheming a route to Kotzebue, but ultimately decided to return to Anchorage. Comfort is difficult to leave, no matter how much the unknown beckons.
After Beat, there were two more finishers: Eric Johnson, and an Austrian man, Klaus Schweinberger. After six McGrath finishes and at least three failed thousand-mile attempts, Eric finally made it to Nome in twenty-five days, eighteen hours and twenty-four minutes. Less than three miles from town, he became lost in a snowstorm and wandered several miles out of the way. Beat and I watched his progress online from Nome, yelling at my phone as Eric drifted farther north. Eventually he drifted back, but threw his trekking poles in a huff when he finally found the burled arch. Two minutes later, all was forgotten, and he jovially consumed two breakfasts at the last restaurant in town still open after the Iditarod.
Klaus had walked to Nome once before, in 2013. The journey took him thirty-two days, which was past the race’s designated thirty-day cutoff. He achieved his first official finish in twenty-nine days, twenty-three hours, and seven minutes — with just fifty-three minutes to spare. Klaus joked that he was the slowest of the slow, but I disagreed. Anyone who can walk a thousand miles across frozen wilderness, let alone in fewer than thirty days, is incredibly strong.
Beat finished during the evening of March 23, after twenty-four days, three hours, and fifty-nine minutes. It was officially spring, and on this far western edge of the Alaska time zone, daylight lingered after 10 p.m. I tracked Beat’s progress and started pedaling east in the late morning. After several days of long sightseeing rides, fatigue gnawed at my legs. The Nome-Council Road was still coated in ice and concrete-hard snowdrifts, but wind gusts had deposited enough new snow to slow progress considerably. The North Wind had shifted during the week — now the breeze came directly from the east, into my face. There were a host of discomforts and protests from my body to remind me that the race was over, I had survived, and I really shouldn’t have to do this anymore. My primitive mind begged me to turn around, but eagerness about seeing Beat drove me forward.
At the edge of Cape Nome, I stood five hundred feet above the coast, scanning a thoroughly white landscape for a single dark speck. When I failed to locate Beat, I descended off the steep eastern face — still throttling a barely working front brake for speed control — and continued pedaling toward Safety. The Iditarod Trail was in terrible shape — covered in soft mounds of power that had been tossed around by irregular snowmobile traffic — but I was still able to pedal. It occurred to me that during my seventeen-day journey to Nome, trail conditions were rarely unrideable. My own legs and lungs were usually the limiter, as the bike stayed afloat even in this inconsistent fluff. Eriksen truly was an incredible bike, and this had been an incredible year.
I caught my first glimpse of Beat from at least two miles away, judging by how long it took us to meet. At first he was a barely discernible dot, and then a squat silhouette, and then I could make out the rhythmic motion of trekking poles slicing through the snow. His smile was apparent from a half mile away — that same dominating grin that I found so captivating at the finish of the Swan Crest 100 in Montana, five and a half years earlier. The rest of his face was hidden behind dark sunglasses, beige tape and a four-week beard. When we finally stood side-by-side, I could see his eyes were drooping and dull. We shared a long kiss and then I asked, “How are you?”
“I’m tired,” he said. “I can barely stay awake. I almost took a nap back at Safety, but I’m too close now.”
My GPS registered sixteen miles since I left Nome. For Beat, the distance would take least five more hours. I couldn’t tell whether he knew or cared, but I didn’t share this information.
It was clear Beat didn’t want to linger long, so I turned my bike around and pushed it beside him, sharing updates that we never covered during our brief satellite phone conversations. I told him about Troy’s finish and Roxy’s hospitality, Phil’s new house and the horrible condition of Tim’s feet. Beat had little to add.
“I’m glad to see you,” he said. “But I’m just so tired.”
Beat had been walking for twenty-four days, stopping only a few hours a day to sleep, make water, and cook. With the thirty-day clock running and spring approaching, time was a precious commodity. He didn’t waste any minutes that he could control. In Beat’s race, there were no baths, no nine-hour recovery sleeps, no Fireball hot chocolate or twenty-mile sprints to pizza. Although it’s obvious that walking a thousand miles on the Iditarod Trail is more challenging than cycling, even I had a hard time conceptualizing the magnitude of difficulty. Beat’s sallow expression revealed a harsh truth.
We walked for a few more minutes in silence, and then I said, “I should go. Let you finish your own race.”
“Sorry,” Beat said. “This is all I can focus on right now.” His chin was lowered and his eyes were fixed on the trail, although he was still walking with his signature broad stride that made it look as though he never became tired and never slowed down. This was how he covered more than forty miles per day in all conditions — by pressing forward at the same pace regardless of how shattered he felt. I’d learned a lot from Beat during the past five years.
“I understand,” I said. “I’d feel the same way in your place.”
We both looked up toward Cape Nome. From this vantage point, the headland appeared as steep as a fortress wall.
“I’m going to ride around the cape on the road,” I said. “I will see you on Front Street in a few hours.”
Beat cracked another broad smile. “Looking forward to it,” he said.
I veered off the trail onto a fragile crust, which collapsed into airy layers of older crusts. Despite the pastry-like snow conditions, I managed to keep pedaling. The effort was taxing and I stopped often to look back. Beat’s silhouette moved stoically across the horizon until he was again just a black speck in an expanse of white and blue.
Although the fishing shacks that lined the coast appeared to be less than a mile from the trail, I battled breakable crust for more than three miles before I finally found my way to the road. There had been considerable drifting during the past week, and the road surface had become soft and punchy.
“A lot can change in a week,” I thought.
I pedaled around the cape in slow motion, observing a number of details I’d missed the previous week — wooden crosses marking a century-old grave site, jumbled ice blocks strewn across the beach, and an old cabin. My leg muscles quivered and I again wondered if I’d drained too much energy to propel myself back to civilization. But there always seemed to be enough left. Even if it was barely enough, it was always enough
.
At the trail intersection, I stopped to watch for Beat. I’d traveled seven miles versus the four he needed to walk to reach this point. Although nearly an hour and a half had passed since we parted, I saw no sign of him.
“Well, it was a steep climb,” I thought. “Maybe he decided to stop and take a nap after all.” This last thought brought me comfort.
I didn’t dawdle long. As slow as I’d been riding, I knew I needed to keep a steady pace to reach Nome with enough time to ensure a proper greeting for Beat. After the sled dog race ended, the burled arch was moved to an alleyway next to a liquor store. I intended to clean myself up, purchase some beer and perhaps Fireball from the liquor store, chips and ice cream from the grocery store, and gather up the friends I’d made in Nome to cheer Beat into the finish.
I could see the hospital building with windows glistening in the sunlight, even though it was twelve miles away. It seemed such a daunting distance, and I pondered how I ever found the wherewithal to travel a thousand miles, even when there was no finish in sight and danger lurking around every bend. I hadn’t forgotten how fearful I’d been, or how I’d longed for warmth and comfort. Still, I managed to thrive in that savage world. I was fierce, yes, and I was strong — even though my human insecurities never left. As long as I kept moving, I could ignore their whispers in the shadows. But the insecurities grew exponentially louder whenever I stood still. I’d stayed in one place for an entire week, and now I was deeply intimidated by a measly twelve miles.
“It’s funny how easily we slip into a feral mindset,” I thought. “And how quickly we lose it in the so-called real world.”
The easterly wind had shifted to the south. The breeze blew hard at my side, so I turned to face north. There the sky was an electric shade of blue over a sharp profile of white mountains. I was stunned at the clarity of the northern horizon, because a hazy darkness was hovering over the sea.
“South wind,” I thought. “A storm is coming.”
Danger approaches from all directions. Maybe this storm would close in before I reached Nome, during a simple day ride when I was lacking most of my survival gear. Maybe I would have to hunker down somewhere along the trail, wondering why I didn’t just remain where it was warm and dry, why I rode out to see Beat, why I even started this silly adventure at all. It didn’t turn out this way, but for a few more hours I was again locked in a race against time, against my own fears, pedaling as though my survival depended on it.
I suppose that’s life. For all of our effort and toil, our joy and grief and fierce love — surviving to see another day may be our only reward. But it is a great reward.
For Beat
About the author
Jill Homer is freelance writer and community newspaper editor who lives in the forested foothills above Boulder, Colorado. She’s an avid cyclist, hiker, and trail runner who tries to squeeze at least a small adventure into every day.
Other books by Jill Homer
Be Brave, Be Strong: A Journey Across the Great Divide
Jill Homer has an outlandish ambition: a 2,740-mile mountain bike race from Canada to Mexico along the rugged Continental Divide. Be Brave, Be Strong: A Journey Across the Great Divide is the story of an adventure driven relentlessly forward as foundations crumble. During her record-breaking ride in the 2009 Tour Divide, Jill battles a torrent of self-doubt, anger, fatigue, bicycle failures, crashes, violent storms, and hopelessness. Each night, she collapses under the effort of this savage way of life. And every morning, she picks up the pieces and strikes out anew in an ongoing journey to discover what lies on the other side of the Divide: astonishing beauty, unconditional kindness, and boundless strength.
Becoming Frozen: Memoir of a First Year in Alaska
Jill Homer was just another naive young woman who followed a man to the Last Frontier — but it was Alaska that won her heart. This memoir is a love story about the wonderful, humorous, and sometimes harrowing experiences that await when a woman throws her heart to the wind just to see where it lands.
After taking a job at a weekly newspaper in Homer, Alaska, Jill and her partner forge a new life in a town where artists and sport fishermen drive the local economy, grizzly bears roam through back yards, social outings feature death-defying ski trips or kayaking rough seas in freezing rain, and business attire means wearing three sweaters to an unheated office. As Jill adapts to Homer’s idiosyncrasies, she finds her own quirky hobby — riding a bike on snow. Despite having little in the way of an athletic background or talent, Jill signs up for a hundred-mile race across frozen wilderness. As the harsh Alaskan winter sets in, she launches a tenacious training routine that takes her far out of her comfort zone. Here, under the Northern Lights, battling exhaustion and extreme cold, Jill discovers the heart of Alaska. And there’s no going back.
Arctic Glass: Six Years of Adventure in Alaska and Beyond
Arctic Glass: Six Years of Adventure in Alaska and Beyond compiles the best essays of “Jill Outside” from the thousands of posts that have appeared on the Web site. The essays chronicle the adventures of an unlikely athlete who takes on harsh challenges in the frozen wilderness of Alaska, the Utah desert, and the Himalayas of Nepal. Endurance racing, overcoming challenges, and self-actualization amid stunning outdoor landscapes are common themes in these vignettes about “The Adventure of Life.”
Ghost Trails: Journeys Through a Lifetime
Ghost Trails: Journeys Through a Lifetime is the inspirational journey of an unlikely endurance athlete locked in one of the most difficult wilderness races in the world, the Iditarod Trail Invitational. Through her struggles and discoveries in Alaska’s beautiful, forbidding landscape, Jill begins to understand the ultimate destination of her life’s trails.
8,000 Miles Across Alaska: A Runner’s Journeys on the Iditarod Trail
What compels a man to run, walk, and trudge a thousand miles across Alaska? “Because it’s there” isn’t an adequate explanation. “As a challenge” or “for the adventure of it” are closer, but still too vague. The thousand-mile dog sled race on the Iditarod Trail is often called “The Last Great Race” — but there’s another, more obscure race, where participants don’t even have the help of dogs. The Iditarod Trail Invitational challenges cyclists, skiers, and runners to complete the distance under their own power and without much outside support. Tim Hewitt is the only person to have completed it more than three times. His actual number? An astonishing eight. Six of those, he won or tied.
“8,000 Miles Across Alaska: A Runner’s Journeys on the Iditarod Trail” chronicles Tim Hewitt’s adventures across Alaska — the harrowing weather conditions, breathtaking scenery, kindness of strangers, humorous misadventures, humbling setbacks and heroic victories. From fierce competition with his fellow racers, to traveling backward on the trail to ensure the safety of his wife, to battling for his own survival, Tim Hewitt has amassed a lifetime of experiences amid the harsh miles of the Iditarod Trail. This is his story.
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