Iditarod 2020 - race report EP 1

Eat. Sleep. Rave. Repeat. That was my theme for the 2020 edition of the Iditarod Trail Invitational, my backcountry version of Alaska's got talent: the all singing, all dancing race along the iconic Iditarod Trail. This was my 5th trip to Nome, every year has been different and this 2020 race would not break from that tradition.

Each year is an opportunity to experiment with a heap of stuff, trial new things, while many proven things remain unchanged. I came into the race with a much higher level of fitness than the previous year, but dragging behind it was a big load of sleep debt that had accumulated from months of a high workshop load in my business - I was still working on bike projects through the night, right up to 2 hours before I headed to the airport! Not much I could do, except do the very best I could with acclimation once I was in Anchorage. Sometimes just getting to the startline is an epic adventure in itself.

Sometimes the best parties start with tear away pants. Others may argue adult sized absorbent pants are the sign of a good planner. Whatever your view, this party started off with some male stripping.

'2 minutes' came the call, I was just coming back from my warm up. Got to the start line and I needed to strip off my puffy pants, so around the 1 minute call from Kyle, I'm ripping off and stuffing my pants into the pannier, cool and collected, while my buddies on the line are joking about places to be. You can see the comedy in the race start video. There was no time to ask for money in the waistband, the gun went off and we sprint off across Knik Lake and onto the trail. We hung as a bunch through the tight forest trail, quite picturesque through heavily laden pine spruce trees with a pillowy white carpet all around. Temp was warm around -8C, so it paid to be on point with your layering right from the start - too much and you burn up and wet out your layers, so you stay on the cold side and vent to suit. Stay frosty, mate.

There is a vital intersection, a left turn will run you along the powerlines to the road, or continue straight on the main Iditarod trail. I took this main trail route in 2015, it's a lot hillier, more scenic and suits the foot athletes better, it bypasses the snowmachine trails along the Gasline Rd. Some bikers took this Iditarod trail route this year with mixed feelings, that's Rebecca heading off down the trail. For me though, turn left, push and head for the road.

Pic: James Howery

The fast 350 crew breakaway here and by the time we get to the road, it's just Jay Cable, Kate Coward, Jussi K and I. We shuffle around a bit doing turns, get to the gasline trail and it's a mixture of push and slow pedal on the mash potato like snow.

Pic: Sean Grady

Snow began to fall and it continued all night, I had light layers (LG long sleeve base layer cycling top and MACPAC Nitro Polartec fleece - the Macpac top was just brilliant) on under my thin Salomon XC softshell jacket. Lightweight cap, with an OR ear warmer around the neck, ready to deploy over my nose and cheeks, summer buff for the neck and mouth as required.

Flathorn Lake was push time, the foot athletes take a slightly different route than the bikers for the first section, so no surprise to see them leapfrog the bikers by the time we got to the Susitna River drop in point, also known as the Wall of Death. A few bikers had chosen to bivvy here high on the river bank, I think it was Janice Tower and Matt Tanaka.

It was midnight, I made a hot meal of ramen and chicken teriyaki freezie and a 750mL hot chocolate for the long and cold river segments to come. Petr came past me as I made my meal, he was riding albeit very slowly, just grinding it out. There were several snowmachine trails out on the Su that night. I passed Jussi and Casey, they had bivvied down around 2am right on the river, which I thought unusual, it was down to -20C on the river. The snow continued to fall, by now my softshell had absorbed moisture from the snow, I had my lightweight Berghaus synthetic puffy jacket on now and it too was slowly wetting out from falling snow (I don't carry a hardshell). I am a proponent and experienced practitioner in the art of drying clothes on the body, so I wasn't concerned with the moisture load, MO is just keep moving and put the fuel in. Upper body layers were damp, I still had my heavy weight parka and puffy pants in reserve if I needed to emergency stop.

PRO TIP: Your body is the best place for these technical layers to dry, you just need to find the optimum speed/workload at which to travel to create the right amount of body heat, vent it all to create the airflow and keep the food and water going in to fuel the furnace. There is a process called sublimation, where ice will evaporate from surfaces without going through the process of melting/liquifying, but you need time for this to happen. Any clothing layers you remove will quickly resemble mutated paper mache shapes as the moisture in them freezes out of shape. Keep layers on and keep moving!

I knew there would be firmer trail once I got past the confluence and onto the Yentna River, as there is a lot more general snowmachine traffic on this route. I was right. Fast and rideable. I flew down the river, and got to Yentna station CP1 right on daybreak, feeling really good and ready for a fast transition. By this time my clothing layers were dry so it was top off water, change of socks and keep trucking. Petr rolled in as I was leaving, he must have taken an alternative snowmachine trail on the Susitna River and he just gutted it out as I did not pass him along the way, but I recall seeing other headlights on the river that didn't match up to the route I was on.

I rolled out onto the river and made good time on the river to the next checkpoint of Skwentna Roadhouse. Part way along, I ran into my friend John Lackey (record holder of the fastest time to McGrath in '16 of 1 day 19 hours) and his wife Kara. They were riding back to the start after a camping trip with friends - lots of people do this on the trail - hang out with friends and cheer racers on into the wee hours of the night, around a bonfire, in the middle of nowhere. All day the trail was rideable with a few patches of soft trail, it had setup well despite some snowmachine traffic.

I shared the trail with Jay Cable most of the day, both of us had a LOT of seat time accumulated, you really need to make a conscious effort to get out of the saddle regularly to avoid freckle aggravation. It's exactly how it sounds. I caught it early, could sense the anger in the chocolate starfish and quick action is needed. I stopped on a section of the trail that allowed good visibility each way, out with the wet wipes. Now I have to tell you this is a bitter sweet experience. The ice cooling effect of a wet wipe at -15C on a ring of fire is like nothing you've felt before. Alcohol wipes are next level pain, but they are a lot smaller and you are trying to limit poo poo fingers here. Then with a SINGLE DIP into the chamois cream tub, apply to affected area, work it in there, don't be shy, do it once and do it right. See, this is the reason you select a trail section with good visibility each way - coming upon a grown man looking like he is trying to 'find the walnut' isn't a pleasant experience for either party. Sadly Jay scratched at Skwentna, I overheard a description of his reason to the race director and sounded similar to my own damaged area, only much worse. Racers are tight, but we don't offer to help each other out with these kinds of things...

I arrived at Skwentna CP2 sometime in the afternoon, again it was a fast transition, sock change, top off camelback with free cold water (they were charging for hot water), quick check of the tracker - still where I wanted to be, out the door, always thinking efficiency, not speed. The arvo wind had picked up and I knew there were a few exposed miles of trail that would be blown in until I reached the trees of the Shell hills. So it was down to pushing, but oh the golden hour of arvo light was amazing and my enthusiasm to be out in it could not be damped.

I got into the trees and out of the wind, got a bit of elevation to spot any following headlamps, fired up the stove and made a hot meal of instant mash potato with beef lasagna freezie and some hot Tang. I'd made a few mods to my stove setup and was keen to see the time savings made by field usage. Using the same stove I've used out here for years - MSR whisperlite, a stove that has never let me down, and I've tried several others to compare. I use the arctic pump, that has the leather pump cup and improved cold weather sealing. But this year, I unitised the stove and the bottle onto a base of 1mm carbon fibre, modded the stove so the 900mL ti pot could nest over the top of the stove. Quicker to deploy and get water on the go.

Of course, there had to be some bike influence in the build with short spokes and red alloy nipples to fasten the stove to the carbon baseplate. This all fitted neatly in the bag I made to go between the seatpost and the rear rack.

I only had another 4 hours or so to get to my planned stop point of Shell Lake. By this time though, the intense pushing and violent jolting of the knees earlier in the race had started to take the toll. When you are riding in marginal conditions, the machine packed centre of the trail is the firmest section of snow, off to the sides it was feet deep in many places and very soft. You'll be riding along, get a bit squirrelly, you wobble to try and save the line. Sometimes it can't be saved, so you put out a foot onto either firm snow (jarring) or nothing at all (hyperextension) and make a snow angel. The damage is cumulative as it's so random.

PRO TIP: bend your elbows and weight the hands, do short and sharp corrections to your line to stay in the butter zone of firm trail. Drop your seatpost to lower the COG when it's marginal to get better control to stop and start, but this has its own issues so soft pedal to negate loading up the knees. Also try pedalling without clipping in, place the pedal in the arch of the boot to get more heel drive.

The climb up into the Shell Hills is something I'd normally ride up, but this time it was reduced to a push to preserve the knees. Things were starting to get a little foggy around the edges for me around 10pm as I still hadn't slept, it had been 32 hours since race start, I got to Shell Lake lodge around 11:30pm. There were heated cabins ready for us racers, I quickly unloaded my wet gear by the stove to dry and was asleep by midnight. I woke at 2:30am, thinking I should get moving, but also knew I would benefit from a few more hours of brain-off time. I was snuggled up in my Sea 2 Summit Traveller TRII -1C bag (I carried two bags that combined, were lighter overall than my -40 Inferno bag) on a comfy bed, in a log cabin in the Alaskan backcountry with a crackling wood stove nearby, I was right on track with strategy, 130 miles in, out front and feeling fresh. Life is good.