2010 Alaska Ultrasport Day 2 part 1, Shell to Finger

2010 Iditarod Trail Invitational
Day 2, Part 1
Shell Lake to Finger Lake


As we killed time at Shell Lake Lodge, stretching, eating, drying clothes and resting, riders came and went. Eventually I put my wet shoes back on and headed out to catch Tim, Chris and Kyle(Phil might have been in that group as well), who had left a minute ahead of me. Brij, Big Nicola and Bill had left a while earlier and were well ahead of us. We had been warned of some overflow and open water in the first meadow out of the lodge by Mike Schoder, and soon enough found ourselves at a big, wet rift in the trail. It looked deep enough to go around, so we walked and occasionally crawled through the deep snow skirting the edge of it. I’ve found that when I punch through into deep snow it’s easier and more efficient to just proceed by ‘walking’ on my shins till the trail looks like it firms up. I was walking in front of the procession, so rejoined the main trail before the others. I mounted my steed without pause and pedaled away. Mike had been grooming it all morning, so despite the fresh snow the night before, it was hard packed and rather fast, especially with the tracks of several riders in front of me.

Last years travels through this section had felt like a bit of a slog, but actually ended up taking about the same amount of time as this year. I think the difference could be accounted for in this years slog from Skwentna to Shell, my gear woes in the middle of the swamp, and perhaps a longer rest at Shell. The swamps and meadows did seem to fly by under my tires this year, and I took no photos on this section. So I’ll add a few from last year to keep your attention.









Around the time it became justifiable to put my headlamp on my head, I spotted a brief flash of light a couple of hundred yards up the trail. Often, at night on winter trails, you won’t see another racers headlamp in front of you unless they look back. The headlamps we use are light and small, and usually not more than 100 lumens due to the reflectivity of the snow. Combine that with the trail being in somewhat of a trench most of the time and a rider could be 200 yards in front of you and you might not even know it. Squinting in the fading daylight, I was able to make out the shape of two riders not very far up the trail. I pressed ahead to see who it was(and to pass them, this being a race after all)… It was Lou and Eric, a couple of pros from California, who had done this race numerous times before. I had remarked at some point after last years race that getting myself to McGrath before a racer as accomplished as Louise Kobin would be a nearly insurmountable feat. Catching up to her and Eric on the trail gave me a bit of an adrenaline surge, and I pressed on at a quicker pace than I had been traveling at, thinking about my chances of maybe catching a few more racers.



It wasn’t long before I saw more headlamps and came upon Bill, Brij and Big Nicola. They were happy to see me as they had been setting in tracks through the churned up trail for quite a while. Craig Medred was on the trail reporting on the race, and unfortunately had a paddle track on his snowmachine, which really makes a mess of the trail and is difficult ride behind. So far it seemed like myself and the other racers mentioned so far had been playing leap frog with him since Yentna Station. It was only starting to get a tiny bit annoying at this point. By a stroke of luck, the point where I caught the three B’s was also the point where Craig had caught and passed Dave Pramann from Minnesota, so I had a track to follow for a bit. Unfortunately I was just coming down off the adrenaline fueled overexertion I had been cruising on, and my pulls were feeble at best as the trail continued to get softer for the last handful of miles into Winter Lake Lodge on Finger Lake. Brij summoned up his powers of levitation to calmly pedal away from the pedestrian travel of Bill and I, while Big Nicola fell off the back a bit, encouraging us to press on without him. Had a good chat with Bill as we made our way in to the checkpoint about 15 minutes behind Brij.





I had planned on pressing on a few miles before bivying, remembering the discomfort of trying to sleep in the weatherport last year at Finger Lake. As we sat eating our dinner, we found out that there were TWO heated tents this year, and that changed my attitude. Bill, Nicola, Brij, Lou, Eric and myself went to check out the second tent, with Dave sleeping soundly in the weatherport. It was warm, the floor was dry, and there were no fumes or odors, so I made the decision to join the group on the floor. Lou and Eric expressed the desire to leave around 2am, and I considered departing with them. I only had about a half hour of sleep so far though, and a good night’s rest proved too appealing when I heard them pack up and head out in the middle of the night.

2010 Alaska Ultrasport Day 1 Knik Bar to Shell Lake

ITI 2010
Day 1
Knik Bar to Shell Lake

My attitude and emotions leading up to this year’s Iditarod Trail Invitational 350 were decidedly different than they were in ‘09. Last year saw disappointment in my physical condition and gear set up and resentment toward everyone I blamed for those. Mostly myself. Should have been entirely myself. I had wondered whether it was even worth showing up on the starting line. This year was a complete reversal. I came into the race with significantly better fitness, a more refined gear setup and an eye toward performing to the best of my abilities. I was actually nervous this year. Excited, anxious and nervous. Greg from Speedway Cycles/Fatback hooked me up with a demo black aluminum Fatback for the race. I set it up SS using a tensioner, and it took no more than one ride for me to realize how foolish it is to ride anything less than Endomorphs for this race anymore. They simply roll faster on snow than anything else. Thanks, Greg!!



I got a lift down to the starting line with Tony, Julie and Jill. Thanks!! Got there early and napped in the van for a bit while they joined Jenny, Taig, Charlie, Jamin and eventually Greg for a ride on the first few miles of the course.





Hung out with Bob O, Tony and Paul, Erik, Roger and Bill and others as the clock neared the 2pm start. Quite a few people asked what my goals were for the race, and my main goal was a sub 5 day finish if the trail was good, and that being within 15% of the winning time would be a perfect race for me. The nervousness slowly dissipated, and by the time I was standing on the start line, I was relaxed and focused. The gun went off, and nearly all the cyclists went left, all the walkers and the skier straight. We fell into a long paceline for the first 8 miles. Tim and Jeff cut left at one point for a shortcut to the plowed road, and I briefly considered following, but had plans for my own shortcut a little later on. At Burma rd, the ‘peleton’ was still pretty much all together. I calmly hung out at the back of the line and watched all of them turn left. I turned right. I cruised up the rd wondering what would happen. I had options to bail out to the main trail if my shortcut didn’t pan out. There had been a bunch of fresh snow in the three days before the race start and I wasn’t able to get a trail report on the trail I intended to use. My shortcut involved a combination of several rds and trails which, if in good condition, would cut a huge chunk out of the first 20-30 miles of the race. They would also allow me to avoid Flathorn lake and the Dismal swamp entirely, neither of which I’m very fond of at all.

I experienced my first setback when the second component of my shortcut turned out to only have two snowmachine tracks down it. Not enough to ride on, but not a huge setback. Just meant adding a couple of miles of paved rd to the route. It certainly made me nervous though, as I got closer and closer to what should be the next trail component of my route. The biggest problem, it turns out, was that I should have brought a map. I got lost. For about a half hour, I wandered around on some dead end roads as the thought that I might have to turn around and ride the 5 or 6 miles back to where the group had split and follow everyone else. Just as I was beginning to think that my shortcut was getting ready to kick me in the face, I found what I thought MUST be it. I followed the trail. It was going in the right direction. It was a little soft and mushy, but looked well traveled, so I assumed everyone else’s trail was soft and mushy as well. I really wouldn’t know if it was going to work till I got to at least the river, if not Yentna Station, the first checkpoint.



For the next 8-12 miles I switched back and forth between pushing and riding. The trail was mostly in trees, with lot’s of little ups and downs and the occasional swamp. Eventually it intersected another trail and became pretty bomber. Recently groomed and fast hardpack.



As darkness fell, I started seeing signs for the river. Off the swamp and through the woods and down the hill out onto the Big Su. I could see another racer’s headlamp to the south coming up the river, the first sign of another racer I had seen in a couple of hours. Adrenaline took over and a raced off along the trail, wondering if I would see any tire tracks when the two trails intersected. When I got there, there appeared to be at least 4 of them. I motored on. I could occasionally see that headlamp behind me, but I was steadily putting distance between us. There was blowing snow falling the whole way there, but it was rather uneventful and mostly rideable. My crampon clipless system was starting to bother my feet. It was putting weird pressure points on the ball of each foot. I could tell that I was having an easier time walking than others were though when we were doing so. I arrived in Yentna Station in 6th, just as Jay Petervary was leaving. Considering the setbacks I experienced with my route, I was pretty happy with my position.

I relaxed for a bit and downed a big bowl of french fries before taking off more or less with Bill Flemming. We jockied back and forth for a while. When I was able to stay on the bike, I seemed to be moving a little faster than him, but I crashed a few times, and got off to walk a few times to try and relieve some of the pressure the crampons were putting on my feet, and each time that happened he caught me up. We pulled into a rest stop that I skipped last year, where Bill hoped to get a nap in, and I planned to dismantle my crampons and turn them into platform pedals.



I left the rest stop a few minutes after Tim Stern pulled in. He informed me that Lou Kobin and Eric Warkentin had passed by not to long ago. I ended up walking a lot of the next section as my pedals just weren’t working that well. I had no traction on them and kept slipping off. Got to Skwentna around sun up and decided to take a nap for a while before trying something else with my pedals. I again got there as Jay was getting ready to leave.

After a big plate of pasta I went upstairs and layed down for a while, but had a lot of trouble actually keeping my eyes shut. When Bill came in, I got up and went downstairs to see what I could do with my pedals. I tried turning the crampons around, since that would put more material in front of the cleat and relieve some pressure from the ball of my foot. It actually worked, as far as that is concerned. The problem though, was that I couldn’t unclip. If I came to a stop, I just fell over and had to lay there, struggling to get out of the pedals. I left before Tim, Eric and Lou, but they quickly caught me up.







The conditions were mushy, and we were all doing a lot of walking. I walk pretty quickly, so I was able to get about 1/3 of the way across the marginally rideable swamp before they and Kyle Amstadter passed me by. After about 10 minutes of fast walking as they rode away I finally decided to sit down in the swamp and have another got at converting them to platform pedals. This time I added one of the screws from the bindings to the bare crampon to add some traction. Chris Plesko passed me by while I was doing this, on a SS Fatback as well. I would stick to this setup the rest of the race. It wasn’t perfect by any means, but it worked well enough to get me by.





Here's a short video clip shot by Craig Medred of AKDispatch as I was pushing my bike up the Shell Hills:



Everyone was walking uphill, so I caught up to the rest of the group of riders by the time we reached the high point where the trail crosses the Shell Hills. From there it became a lot more rideable down to and across Shell Lake to the lodge, where all but Lou and Eric rested for a couple of hours, with Brij Potnis and Phil Hoffstetter coming before long to join us.