Iditarod 2020 - race report EP 4

This final episode is a bit of a roller coaster for me, as I look back now at the many moving parts of the 2020 race. It comes with a veteran's helping of selflessness to a Nome rookie, along with some very bitter-sweet decisions that were both easy and hard to make at the time, and would bring about their own residues to manage at a later point in time. Lets dive in - I'm at Nikolai checkpoint and we'll rewind with a bit of copy and paste:

'About an hour after I arrived, word filtered through that George Adams had an issue with his bike. The details were sketchy, but he couldn't ride it and was pushing from around Bear Creek. I built this bike for George around 6 weeks prior to the race and he was going to Nome with his lifelong buddy, Graham Muir. My focus instantly shifted from my own goal, into doing everything that I could to get George's bike fixed and back to 100%. The dream adventure for two people was on the line here as George and Graham were racing as a pair. With 4 Nome finishes under my belt, I knew how much work they'd done to get here and also how important it was to continue - those that know, know. When you are in the theatre of Iditarod, there is a lot of camaraderie between racers that gets magnified in situations like this. George's Muru Canning build spec was modeled around my own Muru Iditarod LE, and if it meant taking parts off my own bike to keep him on track to Nome then that's what I was going to do.

At his rate of travel, George was due into Nikolai the following day...sometime. There was no way to get a message to him on the trail that I was waiting for him, to assess and hopefully repair his bike, so George unfortunately had to wallow in push mode for another 24+ hours. I had to wallow in eat and sleep mode until he arrived, but also the anguish of seeing my own race potential adapt and evolve.'

All I could do was watch the tracker, strategise and fill the time with tasks; re-organise my foodbags/framebag; mop the floor of the checkpoint; fix bikes - Roberto Gazzoli's bike had been stomped on by a moose, two spokes had torn through the rear rim and the gears were not indexing right with no climbing gears, so I spent a bit of time down in the laundry space of the checkpoint tuning his drivetrain to get him as much gear range as possible for the next 750 miles. Roberto and I chatted about George's scenario, I still didn't have any firm intel on his mechanical failure, but I said to Roberto that I'll do what it takes to keep George in the game, I will give him parts off my bike, even if it makes my bike unrideable. That was where my mind was right there. But I also had to be patient and wait for George to arrive, while I watched my competitors gain more distance up the trail. 

As if by happy accident, there had been a fair bit of salad shipped to Nikolai. In the world of ultra-distance racing, salad isn't one of those foodstuffs that is demanded or revered by athletes for it's energy content or satiety. But it was there. George G. (checkpoint host) became aware of my situation and my reason for pausing, he set about fixing me a karma meal like no other - a big leafy green salad with a grilled Salmon steak, cherry tomatoes with garnish and lemon dressing. He said to me "Trail karma comes back around". My response was "mate, do good things even if nobody is watching". 

We chatted quite a bit about luck and the effect it can have on many aspects of the race. I'm not a superstitious person, I'm a firm believer in making your own future with good planning and execution, however I was coming around to the premise that when stuff happens in close proximity to other happening stuff, it's just easier to brand it as luck and prefix accordingly with bad, good, or shit outta. Word from the outside world was that the travel situation with COVID was worsening. Crazy times.

I had some management of my own to do: my legs were ballooning up with oedema and inactivity. It seems the dehydration over Rainy Pass was catching up with me, along with the side effects of sleep deficit piling up from the last 2 months or so. Oedema is something I've had mildly in the past, bit of puffiness always went away as the body normalised from life on the trail, but this was different and exacerbated the bursitis I get every year - but normally that hits around the 500 mile mark when I hit the Yukon. 

I watched the tracker for George's arrival. I swept and mopped the checkpoint floor, ate, napped, got my tools and the pit area ready in the laundry room for when George arrived. The checkpoint gradually filled with more tired foot/biking/skiing bodies and gear, racers eager to cram themselves in whatever warm and dry space they could find. 

The moment finally arrived, Graham 'Bush' Muir rode in first, with George not far behind pushing his bike off the river, IIRC it was just before midday. We cheered him in through the windows and he was surprised to see me there ready to wrench on his bike - lol it's not outside assistance if the help is from another racer!  Got the bike up on a workstand and the back wheel out for assessment. 

E13 9-46T cassette on an XD driver, using the e13 grease. E13 specify 1.5Nm of torque on the clamp bolt, as the clamp strap is easily broken. I'd fitted this cassette in Australia and used my calibrated Ritchey torque wrench on the bolt at 25 degrees celsius, I can only surmise that temperature played a part here, shrinking the freehub body just enough where the clamping force wasn't sufficient to hold the cassette on with George's significant power output. 

Plan was to get the bike going (there were no tools to 'split' the cassette to retension the clamp bolt) by easing the cassette back into place and re-tuning the gears so he could ride to McGrath (same thing I told Adam at Eagle Island CP in '18, after I field repaired his I9 hub): 

                  'Just don't hate f^ck it on the hills, mate.'

I did up a shopping list of parts for George to order and get sent to McGrath, then we would all rendezvous there and I do the final repair. In that time I can haul arse to McGrath, get my food cache, rack out until George and Bush arrived and strategise my next race plan to see what time I can recoup on the front pack. But first, fruit. 

Rewarded with a fast dance and groovy lightshow on the trail, I got into McGrath just after dark. Front Nome pack were still there - they'd had 3 days rest! 

I busied myself on the next phase, my food cache was missing so best get busy on discarded/scratched racer's food to make up supplies to get me to Cripple or Ruby. It's a fun process, digging around like a kid in a lego box looking for the right coloured block, but snacking along the way. 

Next task was body management. It's quite common in rest rooms to have flushable wipes, they are a staple item in your drop for a regular trail hygiene routine. I looked at the white cap on this pack and it fitted the needs at the time - disinfection, fresh lemon scent, virus protection (very apt at this point) and the scrubbing texture would help in key areas (don't make me explain it). However, I only looked at the front panel. 

                   

Yep. Go on, I know you're thinking of laughing, so just do it.  Initially, I liked how big the wipes were, the texture helped where needed and the scent was refreshing, along with the cleansing feeling. Until the burning started. I know you're laughing by now. My natural curiosity told me to investigate the package further, upon seeing the flipside, it all started to make sense. I began looking for a Scoville unit rating and there was an afterburn that kept on giving after the rinsing and powdering. But I was happy I'd taken steps to prevent entry of corona virus via that portal. Plenty of snow outside, it was dark, nobody could see my wormy dog impression. I racked out. 

Morning time - Peter is always up early to craft his bespoke mancakes - 1" thick pancakes with berries and apple chunks - you try and put back in what the trails takes out at every opportunity. I skyped Nyree and the news coming back was grim, changing by the hour, the dnb party was getting shut down. 

 'Aussies abroad come home now, Australia will be closing its borders due to the evolving pandemic. Any citizens abroad, make your plans to return home ASAP (DFAT)'. 

Shit. I've never scratched from a race or backed down from a challenge I've taken on, and yet here I was, able bodied to continue, the weather seemed about as perfect as you could get, and I was left with an extremely tough decision to make. George and Bush weren't due for another few hours, so I had to chew on this and look out the window at this bluebird day. 

I won't lie. Despite all the hard times I've had on the Iditarod trail, tough weather and physical/mental strain - sitting there on the couch in the back room, looking out the window and making that call to finish in McGrath, was THE hardest task I've ever faced in this race. It brought me to tears. When you put so much into doing this race, with people in your corner that support and believe in you, you shoulder that load as well - this is just as much their race too. There were so many moving parts to this evolving situation, Nyree and I discussed it on skype and workshopped many scenarios, but running it down the logic funnel always ended with the same constant. I knew it was a good and right decision, but it just hurt so damn much. 

'Always make good decisions - it's a backbone formula for any aspect of this race, for life's journey as well.' 

I was also looking at the long range weather forecast as well - despite it being a nice day today, the window was closing with a warm system moving in. I've been up the trail to Nome 4 times in consecutive years since 2016 - this was to be my 5th in a row - so I could read what was coming up on the trail - it wasn't going to be a record year of fast days with hard trail to Nome. It was going to be a slog, which is all par for the course any other year, without the threat of Covid closing international borders and causing flight havoc. 

Toni was laid up in McGrath with some sort of chest infection, he went to the McGrath hospital and got treated, he hung around waiting for me to leave and head up the trail, but I was waiting on George and Bush. They got in just before sunset. Plan was to stay another night and repair Georges bike the next day, as his parts were due in then. I felt so bad for Toni having to head out solo in his condition, but he is one tough unit and I knew he'd make good choices. 

 I had made my decision to finish early in McGrath due to Covid, but kept it to myself after notifying Kathi. I wanted to absorb and contribute positively to conversation with the finished 350 racers as they came through, not get quagmired in the negative vibe of a scratch. It felt good to imbue rookie finishers with the importance of debriefing and those precious memories at Peter and Tracey's house; reminding them that the only people that will understand what you've just been through, are the people currently sharing the table and meals with you. 

'Savour it, as nobody back home will understand your stories like this family seated with you right now.' 

It helped me process my own situation, by listening to the excited stories of finished racers and knowing the locations of their lowest moments - plus the food kept coming. Parts arrived just after midday so I got stuck into fitting them to Georges bike (a new HG freehub for his DT 350 hub, with a Shimano XT cassette and DT end cap fitted), adjusted the brakes, took a headset spacer off my bike and put it on Georges - they were good to go. There was surprise and disappointment from them that I wasn't riding out with them, but they had their adventure path in front of them and I wanted to set them up right. 

Race postscript: (for readers who didn't follow the race commentary or dot watch) the trail weather remained cold and clear for the next few days, then a warm front moved in and stayed, with a low cloud ceiling and poor light contrast conditions (quite hard to ride in as you can't see the firm trail next to the soft snow shoulder). Village checkpoints were relocating out of town and slamming shut to outsiders faster than racers could get to them. Some veteran racers were scratching on the Yukon river, as they knew they would get trapped with village lockdowns, no food cache access and risk of no flights out of villages (bush plane pilots weren't taking covid risks with foreign visitors - especially athletes that 'looked' sick due to normal trail exposure from racing). Coastal wind storms fragmented the Bering Sea ice/Norton Sound crossing from Shaktoolik to Koyuk and Golovin Bay, ending the race for 8 racers in Unalakleet, mile 700 (Toni, Jussi, Beat, Asbjorn, George, Graham, Willy and Roberto) with Jill, Petr and Casey continuing together to Nome. These 3 fell into step with 11 dog teams north of Elim, until the official Iditarod trail breakers could be dispatched from Nome to build a usable trail for the final 130 miles. A Blackhawk was scrambled out of Nome to rescue 3 dog teams that had fallen victim to the deteriorating conditions and open water along the Safety Sound coastline. Nome had issued a time curfew to ALL visitors and users of the trail - the covid lockdowns had begun. Northern villages were very frightened and protective as the 1918 Spanish flu decimated their population, along with Diptheria (of which, ironically, the Iditarod race and route has deep roots in the Serum Run of 1925). I'm summarising these final 2 weeks, there are a lot more details that are beyond the scope of this blog post - it's a whole other shitshow.

Back to me. Covid was already affecting international flights, small scale as well. Local pilots were starting to be re-directed for extraction/movement of officials for the Iditarod dog race, along with media and comms staff. Pilots make decisions about cargo and passengers based on mass - when he saw that we were lean and depleted athletes, he made the call and I was lucky to jag the last seat on this 208 Caravan. Next available flight out of McGrath was 3 days away - but this was a dynamic situation that was rapidly changing.  

An open plan cargo space, with plenty of storage in the hatches in the lower fuselage for the foot athletes' sleds. My bike with Beth's bike behind. 

Looking back south over the Alaska Range and through some of the valleys we'd traversed just a few days ago, 2015 was the last time I'd flown back from McGrath to Anchorage on a plane this size. 

Getting back to Anchorage was surreal, as my mindset would normally still be running the Nome destination program for the next 2 weeks. Donald had also finished early, so to catch up with him back at the bnb post-race was something we'd not done since 2016. It was great to debrief with another Nome veteran - he was on foot this year, so he had a new range of experiences to talk about over a coffee. He managed to change his home flight much earlier on standby, I just managed to change mine in time before the situation got out of control and flights were being canned (we all saw how messed up that became). A huge shout out to my travel agent Sam from Helloworld Daisy Hill, she spent countless hours piecing together a seamless flight plan for me. 

I still had a few days with my bike assembled, the weather was the best I'd ever seen it in Anchorage, clear sunny days, loads of snow and firm trails around town. Each day I rode out to some places I'd not been to since my rookie year in '15, was great to reconnect at a recovery pace and take stock of things. 

Then I got real sick. Saturday afternoon I got back in from a day ride over in FNBP trails, all of the symptoms of Covid hit me - slowly at first - the fever, the chills, broken glass sore throat, dry wracking cough, swollen and sore joints, by Sat night it was fullblown. Then bedbound for 4 days, watching re-runs of MASH, following dots on trackleaders, race armchair commentary on the socials and eating the last of my race food (the chocolate diet lol). I was comfort eating at the same rate as if I was still on the trail - trying to meet some crazy 6000 calorie goal. 

'Hi, my name is Troy, and I'm a snackaholic'

I was alone now at the bnb, no other guests or staff. I was slipping down into the pit of post adventure depression, with the weight of a DNF, and wracked with Covid symptoms. I took the minimum of meds to control the fever, I wanted to remain in 'contact' with the severity of this sickness, not bury the symptoms under medications in case it was getting worse without my conscious knowledge. I could not afford to get bogged down in the US medical system at this point - my flights were locked in and all travel insurances were pretty much worthless, so I had to gut this out in iso for a few days and stay under the radar. The day before flights home, I managed to break down the bike and pack up all my equipment. US domestic flights were at 5% capacity, international was near 100%. I masked up and did what I could to protect others during my travels despite still being in the full grip of symptoms. Within 2 hours of arriving in Brisbane, I was at the hospital for a Covid test. 3 days later, a negative result. The various physical, mental and financial residues of my ITI 2020 campaign would linger another 18 months and as many of us have experienced in life, some things will never return to 'normal'. 

I had to capture this moment as it was so profound, in the garage at the bnb. I built my first Muru fatbike here in 2013, it was my first trip to Alaska for ITI training camp and backcountry tour of Oregon. I've stayed here every year and celebrated  birthdays in the snow. The great friends I've met and greeted here after long flights from our home countries, the stories we've shared, the pranks we've pulled, the gear chats we've had, the late night panic packing and re-packing - I really dig the history I have with this garage and how it's been a focus point for my Alaskan adventures. 

Sometimes the low point of a race isn't the harsh weather, or the physical and mental toll of exertion in the pursuit of our goals - these are the fundamentals and the things we prepare for, build our training programs around and choose gear for. However, there remain some aspects you can't plan for or rehearse with a theoretical scenario for - you have to experience it to fully grasp how it will affect you. How you respond to that, well, we are all different in how we process it and the time it takes. This episode has been tough to write, I really needed time to do this piece justice but also get to the other side of my own challenges to write it in a balanced style. I don't like melodrama and my life is not a soap opera.

The low point of emotion you see in this image is exactly how you imagine it. It's the final focus point of all those years; and a climax of the episodes you've just read - my 2020 ITI race.