I've been asked this a LOT in the past few months, about my 2023 ITI Nome attempt. It's taken me a while to coalesce my thoughts and feelings around this and how best to share it.
The short story - cold induced mild pulmonary edema. 2 hours into the race I knew I was in the shit - I wasn't able to get my heart rate over 120BPM (which is a pretty cruisy all day HR for me); any kind of effort felt like a major task for my body overall; deep breaths were a real challenge and usually ended in a hacking cough fest; and with an icy cold temp of -20C by 4pm, my lungs were getting whupped in the first round and I'll spare you the other mucky details. I had a heart a-fib episode in my 20's from overtraining, it's never been a limiter to what I do in sport, but this time I was just a tad spooked when I ran my self diagnostics a few hours into the race. We all live in a post-covid world and that can have different effects and residues in people.
'Make good choices, yeah? I drum this principle into attendees at the ITI training camp I instruct at, so I act on that same rule.'
I made the good choice to end my race at the first checkpoint of Butterfly Lake, a meagre 25 miles into the race. Yeah nah, don't take chances with your heart health kiddies, you've gotta make good decisions no matter how big the sheep station is in your head. Being a 5 time veteran of biking the 1000 miles to Nome, I knew what was ahead of me and I'd lost trust in my body's ability to do what needed to be done to compete and complete the long game. Bonus points as well for not getting caught up in the expen$$ive US health care system! It's a tough call to make - so much time and especially money invested in each trip - not cheap as an international athlete along with the horrible AUD-USD exchange rate...
However, I wasn't the only veteran racer to make good choices and retire early from the race. RJ Sauer was lingering around Butterfly Lake CP like I was, huddling around the stove, deep within the tempest of our minds. I eventually racked out on a couch, drifting in and out of a meek slumber as other racers arrive, dry some clothing, do a gut check and then get out the door into the early morning cold after a very quick nap on the floor.
Before the sun had risen, I noticed RJ up and moving - but not with vigour. 'If you're waiting for me so we can leave together...' he never got to finish his sentence as I knew what he was going to say - I clipped it short with 'Nah mate, I'm scratching. My airways are burnt. I kinda figured you were scratching too - I've been watching your body language all night'. Once that line had been crossed together, we were kindred brothers in arms, no longer feeling like singular race outcasts - only feeling the reinforcement from a fellow veteran that had seen plenty of good and bad along the trail - knowing how indifferent the horrible beauty can be out there. We chatted for hours all things ITI, Alaska, Tour Divide and family bikepacking. We sorted our combined logistics (thanks Beth) and debriefed along the slow paced ride back to Big Lake. It was a true bluebird day - bitterly cold and clear skies.
It wasn't until a few days later when I was back home in Australia, that the stinging cold brutality of that first night had surfaced. Many racers had succumbed to cold injuries, severe frostbite (that later required several amputations of digits) and medivacs from Yentna Station - only another 25 odd miles along the trail from Butterfly Lake checkpoint. This year saw the largest field of scratchings ever in the history of the race due to cold injuries, with many of them right there at Yentna, or a day or so later as a result of that first nights exposure. The first night is often the toughest, as your body is going through all kinds of hell to adapt to its new operating environment. Plus it's very easy to get caught up in the competition and make poor choices in the deep of the night, when you're depleted and sleep deprived, on a seemingly never ending frozen river and the temps are nearing -40C. Errors compound and multiply very quickly.
But all of this generally won't stop the fallen from signing up the following year. It takes a certain kind of dumb tenacity to make that choice. Often it's when we are truly tested in the theatre of the outdoors, is when we reveal a gritty aspect of our true self, to ourselves.
There are lessons in there too; each time we put ourselves in these positions we get a bit more intuitive and connect thought with action in a far more autonomous manner. Well, duh.
Unfinished business, along with dumb tenacity.
