Posts Tagged ‘susitna 100’

View The Su

Monday, February 21st, 2011

It’s become sort of an annual tradition for me to spectate the Susitna 100. Go to the start, head out on the trail a few minutes before the racers, then cheer them on as they pass by. I usually get in a nice long ski as well. I don’t really have any interest in racing the Su 100 again. There are a number of things about the race that I don’t really care for. But the racers – I respect and admire all of them, so its fun to get out on the trail and cheer them on.

This year, Rob and I went together. Our original plan was to ski out to Luce’s Lodge. We’d get to spend the day in the middle of the pack, seeing a lot of the bikers and skiers. We’d stop there for a burger, then turnaround and ski back to the start in the evening, seeing the runners and the rest of the bikers and skiers along the way, and maybe even get passed by the leaders near the finish. That would have been an ambitious day (75 miles), for a couple of spectators. Because of a litany of excuses ranging from head colds to cats, we decided to turnaround just after we hit the Yentna River. So it was only a 60 mile ski.

The race was really interesting, as always. After pre-race rumors of “a foot of new snow”, there were only a few inches at the start. It had been packed well enough that the bikers were able to ride without any problems. But the cold, dry snow didn’t glide very well for the skiers. By Flathorn Lake, there wasn’t any new snow, making the trail even faster for the bikes, but at least by then the sun had warmed the snow enough that the skiing was pretty fast too. The lead bikers rocked it the whole way. Three guys finished around 11 hours. That’s fast. Given the conditions, I would have expected relatively fast skier times as well, but we only saw about have the course, so who knows what it was like the rest of the way. I do know that Chet had some problems with his sled early on, so that was likely a factor for him. But no skiers under 20 hours – I can’t remember the last time that happened.

For us, it was a fantastic day of fun in the sun. Here’s a link to our route on a map. Once again, Rob was the trip photographer.

 

IMG_0099

 

I had an idea that since we’d be seeing so much of the race, it would be fun to create a little documentary video. So early on, I tried to get video clips of everyone. But I didn’t realize that my memory card was pretty much already full of photos and videos of my kids. So I ran out of card space before we were even got to Flathorn. Bummer! So instead of a cool race documentary, all you get is a little video dump of all the footage I did take in the first couple of hours.

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Posted in Alaska, Ski, Susitna Valley | 1 Comment »

Su-per Fans

Saturday, February 20th, 2010

If you read my last post about being laid low for a couple of months, I am sure you understand how badly I have been needing to get out for a good, long ski.

My first bright idea was that I would do the Susitna 100. Not race it, just ski easy, enjoy the hospitality at the checkpoints, and treat it like a tour. A nice weekend vacation. But when I went to sign up, I realized that the entry fee was $350! Holy crap! That’s an expensive ski tour. Unless they are serving lobster and caviar at Flathorn, no thanks.

So I decided I would watch the race instead, and get in some skiing and camping along the way. I recruited my friend Bill and we headed to Point MacKenzie early Saturday morning.

We started at 9:00 AM, same time as the racers, but we gave ourselves a two mile head-start by parking at the snowmobile lot up the road from the race start. We were able to ski the course, and watch the lead racers go by us along the way. We hung pretty close to the leaders until we got to Flathorn Lake, then stopped for a bite to eat. Our goal was to make it to Luce’s Lodge on the Yentna River (about 40 miles into the race) for a burger, then decide where to camp.

I felt surprisingly good while skiing. Sure, we were just cruising and I was pretty tired by the time I got to Luce’s at 3:00 PM. But I was psyched to see that we were only 30 minutes behind the race leaders at that point.

Bill and I hung out at Luce’s for a couple of hours, enjoying delicious burgers and chatting with many of the racers. Around 5:00 PM we packed up and decided to head back down the Yentna for an hour or so before camping. That would give us a shorter ski back to the car on Sunday.

As we crawled into our sleeping bags at 7:30 PM, Chet Fehrmann, the race leader, skied by in the darkness. We cheered for him, and then cheered for bikers Pete Basinger and Lance Andre when they went by five minutes later. The cool thing about this year’s race was that the conditions were good for both skiers and bikers, making for an even and exciting race. I have a feeling Pete was just using this race for training for the Iditarod Trail Invitational, but it was exciting anyway.

Most of the other racers passed us by during the twelve wonderful hours that we slept. We relished the luxury of sleep that the racers did not have. By 9:00 AM we were packed up and back on the Yentna. A slight tailwind made the return trip a little easier. We passed a few runners, bikers and skiers on our way to the finish. At the finish we learned that Chet held off the bikers to win the race for the third year in a row. Congratulations Chet!

It was a great weekend. Beautiful weather, great ski conditions, and lots of fun hanging out with other people who enjoy recreating in semi-remote Alaska. Oh, how I’ve missed this.
 

Susitna 100 Camp-Out 2010

 

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Posted in Camp, Ski, Susitna Valley | 2 Comments »

Susitna Shakedown

Sunday, February 15th, 2009

Two weeks to go until the big race starts. This weekend was my last training opportunity before focusing on rest. It also happened to be the weekend of the Susitna 100 race, so I decided to combine my training with a little spectating.

The Susitna 100 is a cousin of the Iditarod Invitational. It’s a 100 mile race for bikers, skiers and runners through frozen Alaska on trails that vary from snowmobile superhighways to almost no trail at all. While the Invitational is mostly about survival, the Su100 is definitely a race. For 100 miles. It is so physically demanding that, after I finished in 2005, I told my wife never to let me do that again, even if the painful memory faded with time. So I’m doing 350 miles instead. Yeah, that makes sense.

As with most of my training this year, I got a late start leaving the house on Friday night. After I helped put my son to bed and got packed up, it was 9:30 PM. I still had a two hour drive and then a ski before I could sleep, and my motivation was low. Fortunately, a RockStar Roasted Mocha and a killer playlist on my iPod got me fired up during the drive. By the time I started skiing at 11:30 PM, I was raring to go.

I followed the Su 100 trail from Point Mackenzie until just before Flathorn Lake which took about 2.5 hours. As I set up camp, I tried to focus on doing things warmly and efficiently, but the temperature was a mild 20 degrees F, so it felt a little silly to be wearing a down jacket and mittens.

I had a fitful night of sleep, mainly because I am still experimenting with sleeping pads. I had hoped to use only a Z-Lite foam pad in the race, but after shivering through a recent night at -5F, I decided I needed more. I’ve also got four different Thermarests that I could use either with, or in place of, the Z-Lite, but they are bulky and heavy. This time around I tried the Z-Lite with an Insulmat Air Core 3/4 length pad on top of it. The Insulmat folds up small and light, but it has no foam insulation, just air. I was plenty warm for this trip, but the race will be MUCH colder. Plus, the Insulmat was slippery and I kept sliding off it. You would think that with seven sleeping pads in our house, I’d have a decent combination for the race, but you’d be wrong. That is my biggest question mark as far as gear goes right now. Still trying to figure it out without dropping $200 on a down/air mat. Anyway, back to the Susitna 100.

Saturday morning I packed up camp at 9:00 AM and skied across Flathorn Lake. When I intersected the inbound Su100 trail, I came across the tracks of a fat bike headed out on the trail. The tracks were clearly made the night before, likely by someone doing the same thing I was. For some reason I thought it might be Epic Eric. He’s crazy enough to camp out in the middle of winter just to watch a few bikers and skiers go by. I followed the tracks through the Dismal Swamp and across the Susitna River. Sure enough, on the opposite river bank, Eric was kicking back, getting ready to build a fire and cheer on the racers. We hung out and chatted as we waited for the lead racers to come through. Some people camp out for Star Wars or iPhones, we camp out to watch the Susitna 100.

The trail this year started out a little soft in the morning, but still good for both skiing and biking. As the day went on, and the temperatures climbed into the thirties, the trail softened more. The skiers and some lead bikers seemed to handle it fine. Other bikers and runners really struggled. I kept telling them “It’ll firm up when the sun goes down,” even though I wasn’t nearly as confident as I tried to sound.

I did a little more skiing up and down the trail towards EagleSong lodge, watching racers go by. About 2 PM I realized that if I wanted to sleep in my own bed that night, I’d better get going. On my ski back towards Point Mackenzie, I stopped in the Dismal Swamp to cook dinner and melt some water for my CamelBak. I cheered on the racers as they passed. I think a few were tempted to sit down and join me.

Most of the Su100 and Little Su 50K racers I passed in the last four hours of my ski thought that I was the leader of the race, headed for the finish line. I felt like I was disappointing them when I had to say, “No, no, I’m not racing. I’m cheering YOU on.” Sorry to steal your thunder, Chet.

I stopped to say a quick hi to Bill and Kathi at the Alaska Ultrasport tent on the homestretch of the trail. See you in two weeks!

I arrived back at my truck at 7:30 PM. It was a 10 hour day, probably about 8 hours of actual ski time. The total trip distance was about 60 miles. Mostly skating, with maybe 8 miles of classic skiing thrown in for practice. I didn’t get to work on cold weather strategy as much as I hoped, but it was a good training session. It was a lot of fun to see so many friends out in a beautiful area on a gorgeous day.

Susitna 100 results

Eric took a ton more photos than I did.

My photos
 

2009 Susitna 100

 

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This just in…the Iditarod Invitational is going to be really hard

Monday, February 2nd, 2009

Om Saturday, Scott and I headed out to Knik to do a long ski on the Susitna 100 course. A snowstorm on Friday had dumped almost a foot of new snow on the trail, which wasn’t ideal for skate skiing. But we headed out anyway, hoping that plenty of snowmobiles would hit it before we did. Besides, I’m going to encounter a lot of challenging trail conditions in my race, so a day of slogging through soft snow would be excellent, if difficult, training.

The trail from the Point Mackenzie General Store was as good as we could have hoped for, given the new snow. We skated down the road (FYI: travel on the road is not allowed in the Su100) for the first few miles until we hit the trail. The road was slightly icy, and super-fast. The trail was not. It was packed by many a snowmobile, but it was soft and uneven. About what we expected.

We had planned to take the Su100 oubound trail to Flathorn Lake via the Nome Sign, then maybe ski out a little farther before returning via the Su100 inbound trail. We never saw the turn-off for the outbound trail towards the Nome Sign and ended up going out and back on the straight section line that is the inbound Su100 trail.

It was slow going. I was towing my loaded gear sled, and Scott was wearing a heavy pack. In soft snow, there is no way to skate at an easy pace while towing a sled. You need to maintain a certain amount of momentum to keep the sled moving, and that requires churning the legs at a quick pace, even as they sink into the collapsing snow with each stride. It took us about 3 hours to travel the fifteen miles to Flathorn Lake. And even though that’s a pathetic 5 mph average, I was spent by the time we got there.

We took a short break to eat when we reached the lake, and I got cold really fast. The temperature was zero degrees F, not too cold, but a slight wind on the lake chilled us to the bone in minutes.

As we skied across the lake for a look at the Su100 checkpoint, I started to get really nervous. No, not nervous. Scared. I began to think about how tired I was after only three hours and fifteen miles. And I began to think about how cold I was, even though the current weather would be considered mild for the Iditarod Invitational. I knew I would survive this day. I knew my fingers and toes would warm up and I knew I would make it back to the car after a long slog. But what would happen when it is much colder and windier? When I’ve already skied 150 miles, not fifteen? When I don’t have a warm car and a bowl of soup at the end of the day, but only a sleeping bag and frozen chunks of peanut butter? And I have to get up and do it all again in a few hours? These are all concerns that I’ve had for a long time, but they all hit me at once as I looked across the barren expanse of Flathorn Lake.

Just before the four hour mark, we turned around and headed back. I skated as much as possible and resorted to classic ski shuffling when needed. Surprisingly, the shuffling was only marginally slower than skate skiing. My worries haunted me for the entire return trip.

It was almost 8 PM when we finished. It had been a 7.5 hour ski. Scott and I had a bowl of bean soup and a Coke at the General Store before heading home. It was a great day of training, and yet I went to bed that night feeling much less optimistic about my race than I had the day before.  I told my wife I thought I had a 20% percent chance of finishing the race.

On Sunday, I loaded up my sled again, but I didn’t have time for a long ski. I skied the trails at Kincaid Park instead. It was amazing how much easier it was to ski the firm corduroy of Kincaid. Even the steepest hills of the Lekisch Loop were easier than the flat section line from Saturday. I skied for two hours and felt like I could have kept going forever.

Sunday’s workout lifted my spirits quite a bit. I’m now pretty confident that I could make it to McGrath if the whole trail was groomed like Kincaid Park. Which is to say, I’ve still got a lot of work to do.

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Posted in Ski, Susitna Valley | 3 Comments »

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