Iditarod Trail Invitational 2018

Have you ever felt the scales of a salmon? I mean, not just touched but felt individual scales? They serve no purpose when pealed from the skin but no less than hundreds, probably thousands cover a salmon. And those thousands of useless flakes suddenly become something. 

Fucking slippery. That’s what they become. 

That’s a little bit how I feel about the Iditarod Trail this year. Sometimes, you pull in a fish and you eat well that evening. This year I went home having felt the salmon just slip from my hands. 

PC:  Laura Fox!

I left Knik lake this year with great fitness. My strength was there, my knowledge of the trail is good and my food and gear are pretty amazing. I’m not going to bore you all with recalling my trip up to Skwentna. Basically, I pulled over to lower my tire pressure in the first couple miles and lost site of Jay and Neil. I put in a huge effort the first 90 miles. Jay and Neil pulled really hard up the river. I trusted my intuition and pace and kept my head down and after eating some amazing spaghetti at Cindy’s lodge I popped back onto the trail to head up to Shell Hills. 

I felt great heading up the hills. The trail was in decent shape and I figured I just need to keep putting miles in. 

I pulled into Finger Lake and I was glad to see that I had pulled back some time on Neil. This gave me a lot of confidence in my race plan. I decided that this next day I was going to eat well, conserve energy and keep my mind sharp as the race really starts for me after Rainy Pass. 

Neil took a short break at Finger Lake. I decided to get a rest in. I left the checkpoint and headed up towards Puntilla Lake. As I go up the Happy River valley I noticed that there was a good amount of cloud cover. This meant one thing to me, snow. 

• I hung out on the side of the trail enjoying a dehydrated Heather’s Choice lunch. That was really helpful this year. I brought a 26 oz. Yeti Rambler thermos. It has a large mouth and fits in a Revelate Designs Mountain Feedbag. I would just put hot water and food at each checkpoint. Then, when I got hungry I would just pull over and have a bite. Traveling in style baby!

Back to the snow. I figured both Neil and I would hit a wall and the mileage and gap would be a wash till after the Pass. Remember that slippery ass fish...

I got up to Puntilla Lake and sure enough there was snow falling. I noticed that my goofing off and lax pace gave Neil a couple hours head start into the Pass. No big deal. Still sticking with my plan. I felt strong. I hadn’t used much energy headed up the valley and felt like my plan was working well.

Jay rolled in not long after me. He then left before me. Not long after that Jussi and Casey rolled in. I decided that it was time to leave. Can’t get too comfortable. The moment I got onto the lake the wind started picking up. 

There are just some things you can’t control. Weather being one of them. I caught Jay on the plateau of the valley but my heart was broken. We were getting hit with a decent amount of snow and the wind just completely blew the trail in. I could see that the gap I allowed Neil to pull came back and bit me in the ass. Both Jay and I noticed that while we were berm busting and walking across the valley that Neil was able to ride quite a bit more than we did. I figured that we must have lost hours because of that. 

Neil and Jay have a lot of bike packing experience. It shows in their actions. Jay just kept plugging along. This really helped my spirits. He stopped to bivy at the entrance to the Pass and I continued on. My plan was to get over the Pass and into Rohn.

Rainy Pass is tough. There’s videos to watch and pictures to look at if you’re so inclined. I got most of the way down Pass creek and after I dropped down to the creek a bit too soon and having my bike tumble over me while crawling up the cut banks I decided it was time to bivy. I slept for three or four hours. I woke up, saw a headlight and it was Casey. He pushed all the way over the Pass to Rohn with no sleep. Impressive! The ride into Rohn was nice, pretty much right where I stopped to bivy was where the trail was once again ride able. Dazell, Tatina rivers were both in great shape thanks to the ITC workers. 

• Adrian and crew at Rohn are so awesome and amazing. I was surprised to find out that Neil only had a few hours on me. With a renewed heart I headed out the door after getting my bratwurst fill. I thought to myself I could catch him. 

I did some of the best riding I’ve ever done out of Rohn. All eight cylinders were firing and I was on a mission to pull back three hours. 

Mother Nature is a mother fucker sometimes. As soon as I got to Farewell Lakes the winds began-a-whippin’! Damnit we couldn’t get a break! Within minutes the trail was completely gone and within what seemed like half and hour I was stomping through a LOT of snow. 

I’ll be honest. I was mentally spent by then. My strength was fine but I just didn’t see how I was going to catch Neil then. I was falling off the side of the trail, I was spending a bunch of time trying to figure out an easier way to push the bike. I began to think that perhaps I was going to have ration my food and break up this section into a couple of days. That’s how hard it was to push through. We were seriously up to our nutz in snow! Haha

Of course, the trail got better and eventually so did my attitude. 

• Sometimes you just crash while riding on snow. It's kind of fun and entertaining. Sometimes when you crash you twist up your handlebars a bit. Well, I didn’t know it until days after the race but I pulled the derailleur cable housing out of the shifter. When we got to a point on the course where I could ride again my bike with regularity it wasn’t shifting right. It was all over the place, too much tension, too little tension, wouldn’t shift into many of the gears. Also, my rear brake pretty much jammed up and the disk was rubbing really hard. I was also getting tired with darkness rolling back over the interior. I knew that my bike had iced up a bit with all the snow we were pushing through. I have never stopped at Bear Creek cabin but it was looking pretty good at this point and I could do some repairs to the bike. 

But I knew this meant one thing. The gap between Neil and I would get much, much larger. I had to accept this reality. I tried a bunch of things to bike after getting some food and a short nap. Ultimately I got it work well enough to get me to the finish.

I started getting some miles in again and passed Jay while he was sleeping on the side of the trail. He's got a good setup. Quick in and out of the bag. Pretty cool.

I stopped to get some water at Sullivan creek, kept on riding. Then another mechanical started to creep up on me. My rear tire started to lose air. This really sucks. I decided I would try and just pump the tire up and see if it would hold. I tried this three times, during this Jay had caught me and passed me. After pumping the tire up a few times over the course of an hour or two I realized that I was going to have to put a tube in. I believe it was around -15 or -20 around this time and I knew it was going to be a long install so I wouldn't get frostbite again. Looking back, I actually think this was a good experience and I gained a bit of knowledge. I got the tube in, stayed warm enough to not get frostbite and was back on the trail. I think it probably took me about 20-30 minutes to change that tube. Haha

Eventually I got to Nikolai, saw the gaps to Neil and Casey. I dried my gloves and socks in the social hall and checked how much food I had to finish up the event. I was a bit short on hand warmers which was the driving factor behind drying my clothing there. I wanted to be sure that I was starting with warm hands and feet. 

At this point, unless something happened to Neil I wasn't going to catch him. I told myself that I would put in a strong ride to the river and see if he had any problems. When I got to the river I chatted with Billy from Iditasport and that was nice. He mentioned that Jay and Neil looked good. I knew that my race was done then. I wanted just to make it to McGrath and get some rest.

Some of you may know that in December of 2017, our lab Palmer passed on. I carried a picture of him with me and while taking in the sunset I felt a rush of emotion roll over me. I really miss that dog. I decided to take a short break, a remembrance if you will.

Clipping in! PC: Laura Fox

One of the best human beings out there. PC/Selfie Credit: Laura Fox

Mt Susitna PC: Will Ross

The Gorge!

My bike was there too.

I didn't have a Rainy Pass picture yet. Here we go!

Rainy Pass Selfie. The ITI sure has changed in the past few years!

It was really deep. I had just pulled my bike out of a deep hole and needed a little break from the pushing.

Finger Lake checkpoint tent PC: Iditarod Trail Invitational

Farewell Lakes area PC: Gary Baumgartner

ROUGH! PC:  Laura Fox

I'm swole??? PC:  Iditarod Trail Invitational

MANCAKES!!! PC:  Laura Fox

Caution Bikes! PC:  Laura Fox

The finish in McGrath! PC: ITI or Laura Fox

She's such a badass. Thanks for surprising me at the finish. That meant so much to me. <3 PC:  Laura Fox

ABC IPA Beer hand up station with Andy Pohl PC:  Laura Fox

 I want to say great job to Neil! He did a great job. It was great to share the trail with everyone. I've learned some more, and I'm ready to head back to McGrath again this year with a little more knowledge. Thanks to all my friends, family and supporters for cheering and watching their trackers. It really means a lot. 

-Cheers!