One of my main concerns for the upcoming White Mountains 100 is my Achilles tendon. It has been two years since I tore it, and I haven’t had a single problem with it in well over a year, but recently I’ve started to worry about it anyway.

See, when I was training for the Iditarod Invitational, all of my long workouts were skate skiing. I figured that if I needed to shuffle along, classic style, at times during the race, I could do that just fine. But I didn’t anticipate having to shuffle for hundreds of miles. My feet, ankles, knees, and – yes -Achilles, were not ready for that. Eventually the Achilles gave out.

So now, leading up to the White Mountains 100, once again all of my long skis have been skating. But what if the snow is squeaky cold? What if there is a foot of new snow the night before the race? What if the trail is simply too narrow to skate? My leg aches when I think about it. So, it was time to squeeze in one more long training workout – classic style.

On a related note, I’ve had an idea for a while now to do the Arctic Valley to Indian ski, a very popular backcountry route behind Anchorage, but as a loop starting at Hillside – without the car shuttle. You could use city trails to get to Muldoon, then up the 5-mile trail to Arctic Valley, across the regular Arctic to Indian trail, and then instead of dropping down to Indian, go up and over Ship Pass, down to Glen Alps and back to Hillside.

This loop would certainly fit my criteria of a long classic ski with lots of climbing. But Saturday’s conditions weren’t good for the Muldoon to Moose Run section, and I was short on time – I only had a six hour window, so I skipped the city section and got dropped off at the bottom of the 5 mile trail, where Arctic Valley road starts to climb. The full loop will have to wait for another day.

The 5-mile trail was decent skiing. The first kilometer was a hard-packed mess of wavy bumps caused by sledders, but after that I was skiing up a trail that had been packed only by a couple of snowboarders. It turns out snowboarders make a pretty good trail for skiers when they don’t have to turn or push much. The Arctic to Indian trail was in excellent shape, very enjoyable skiing on classic race skis and extra blue wax. Breaking trail up to Ship lake wasn’t bad because most of the snow was hard and wind-blown (sastrugi). Hiking up to Ship Pass was a little sketchier than I would have liked. The recent sun and wind made the snow rock-hard and glazed in spots on that steep slope. Definitely wished I had either an ice axe and/or crampons. The run down to Glen Alps was also a lot of sastrugi. No carving turns, just holding on while the skis chatter away. Then a straight shot down to Hillside and a walk to my house to finish off the day.

Here is a link to a map and statistics. 29 miles, somewhere between 4000 and 5000 feet of climbing, total time 6:00:31

It was a fabulous day. Great snow, great sun, and I did it in exactly 6 hours so I wasn’t late getting back to the wife and kids. In my rush to get home, I didn’t take any pictures. I stopped for a total of about 30 minutes to fix a broken pole (watch out for narrow cracks in the ice on Ship Creek!) and chat with friends skiing Arctic to Indian.

Here’s a picture from the last time I was up on Ship Pass. It looked pretty much the same on Saturday.

March 11: Ian and I took advantage of a bright sunny day to do the Indian To Arctic ski. Snow conditions were perfect for backcountry touring: hard crust base with 4 inches of powder on top. Plus a large group of about 10 or so had set a track for us!

On March 25 a group of six of us did the classic backcountry ski from Arctic Valley to Indian.

On April 9, Linda and I skied it the opposite way with another group.

On Sunday April 11, Scott, Taz (the dog) and I did a fantastic crust ski from Glen Alps trailhead. We skied around Avalanche Mountain, going up and over three passes along the way: Ship Pass, Indian Creek Pass, and Powerline Pass. I forgot the camera, so we don’t have any photos of the spectacular scenery. All we have is a map of our route. Sorry!

Saturday July 26 – Powerline Pass Trail Run
I was pretty beat up after Crow Pass, more than I expected to be. Sure, I knew it would be a very hard three to four hour run, but I figured that after a few easy days I would be back on the trails. I had run the last half of Crow Pass with a slight cramp in my right calf. At least I thought it was a cramp. When it hurt enough that I still couldn’t run on Wednesday of this week, I finally figured out it was a muscle strain. I gave it a couple more easy days, hoping I would be well enough to race the Powerline Pass Race.

Powerline Pass is a new race that starts at sea-level, climbs steeply up to 3500 foot Powerline Pass in five miles, then descends for about 1000 before leveling out for the last half of the 11 mile race. It was similar to many of the other great Alaskan trail running races that I was starting to become familiar with. I really wanted to do this one, because it was the first year of the race, and I thought it had potential to become one of the most popular races. Since there are races I can’t get into because I am new to the area (Mount Marathon) it would be nice to get in on one from the beginning. Kind of like seeing a band in a club before they get big.

On Friday my calf was still hurting but I really wanted to race. I decided I would jog over to race registration (about three miles from my house). If I could make it there, I would sign up. The run over was fairly painless, except for the one uphill, which really hurt. Hmm, not a good sign for a race that climbs 3500 feet. But, refusing to accept not even trying I signed up,a nd figured I would make a final decision during my pre-race warm-up.

Also affecting my race decision was the fact that my girlfriend (okay, actually she’s my fiancee but I dislike that word – seems kind of snooty) was signed up and ready for her biggest running event ever. I was extremely excited that, after watching Crow Pass last weekend, she immediately decided she wanted to give Powerline Pass a try.

Linda is in good shape and is a willing partner in most outdoor adventures, but she would never consider herself a runner. Runners are those people who wear the short shorts and singlets. Anyway, as much as I wanted to race, I thought maybe the pain in my leg was trying to tell me that this was Linda’s day. I should just be her support team, as she has done many, many times for me.

I drove her to the start this morning, thinking I would be fine with sitting this one out. Of course, I was dressed to run, with my number on just in case. Linda and I went for a short warm-up run. My leg felt better than yesterday, but was still tight. As the start neared, my competitive juices started flowing and I knew that despite my best intentions, my competitive instincts were going to get the best of me. I was going to race. I rationalized it by saying that if it hurt, I would back off and run with Linda.

From the start I felt a bit tired, but the leg was fine. Amazing, the pain and tightness was gone for the whole race. I was a little frustrated that there seemed to be a lot of people ahead of me, twenty or so, but without having any expectations I was able to enjoy a nice, hard run through the mountains. When I finished, a few people commented to me that I was crazy for running both Crow Pass and then this. And these were people who had run Crow Pass, then sat this one out. It never occurred to me that I would need more than a week to recover from Crow Pass. After all, in the winter, we frequently race 50K marathons only a week apart. I had forgotten that marathon runners rarely run more than one a month. Hmm, maybe that was why I felt tired today. I was pleased to see that even though I was not near the top of the results, only one person ahead of me had run Crow Pass as well. In fact one guy who beat me at Crow Pass came in well after me this weekend.

I basked in this accomplishment for about thirty seconds, they realized I now had to fulfill my support duties. I ran put on a dry shirt, grabbed some water and headed back out on the course to jog in with Linda. She came along much sooner than I expected and was moving quickly enough that I really struggled to keep up with her to the finish. I was very excited about her accomplishment. I may make her into a slightly insane endurance athlete yet. She may not be a runner, but she sure beat a few out there.

Grand Canyon Rim To Rim Run on XCSkiRacer.com