In summary, our grand “Couch to
Arrowhead 135” experiment failed but possibly not for the reasons you might
think. First a little back ground. Kathy and I entered the Arrowhead 135 when
entry opened for rookies back in mid October. However after the Huntsville Half
Marathon we were both ready to take a break from serious training so decided it
would be best to skip the Arrowhead 135 in January as we’d need to soon be
putting in big miles and lot’s of specificity training if we had any realistic
chance at finishing. So, instead we decided to focus on a Barkley Fun Run
attempt in the Spring as this would give
us a chance to rest over the Winter then get back into serious training in a
couple of months. However, “the best laid plans…” don’t always work out. While
out in Colorado for the Holidays we learned that neither of us got accepted
into the Barkley Marathons[1].
Sure we were disappointed but we let it go; perhaps in 2014 we’d have better
luck? Interestingly though, Kathy and I had been doing a lot of snow-shoeing in
sub-freezing and often sub-zero wind chill conditions and doing quite well
doing it. So we started to think that maybe we should give the Arrowhead 135 a
shot anyhow? We’d had ample experience (we thought) with proper clothing and
gear selection but the main issue was we were woefully under trained and the
race was in less than a month! Thus the “Couch to Arrowhead 135” challenge
began. We had less than a month to prepare for a mostly self-supported 135 mile
race across frozen terrain while pulling 30-35lb sleds full of required
emergency gear, food and winter clothing. What possibly could go wrong?
[1]
Technically I was #7 and Kathy #10 on the weight list and most likely we both
*might* have gotten in BUT neither of us wanted to commit to training our butts
off for *might*.
The plan was to stimulate our deep
ultrarunning muscle memory and hope for the best. So the week we got back from
our Colorado trip we threw down a 100 mile week, for me this was a 500%
increase in mileage over the past week, for Kathy a nearly 1000% increase and
both of us fighting colds! Yuck! The following week we started our taper and
carried weighted packs on a couple of occasions in the cold rain. Going into
race week I actually felt pretty good physically and mentally; I liked our
chances of success. On the positive side we both had very recent cold weather
experience, were well rested and extremely motivated to finish, on the negative
side we’d done no specificity training such as higher sustained mileage and
weighted sled pulling. It was going to be tough!
Race week arrived and all the long
range forecasts were looking pretty good (we thought at the time, being
inexperienced Winter Ultra Athletes): Monday (race start) had a high of 33°F and an overnight low in the upper 20s but
then a progressive temperature drop would continue through Wednesday bottoming
out in the single or slightly negative digits not including wind chill. We thought the warmer (overall) forecast
looked pretty good as our great fear was still the extreme cold even though we
had more than ample gear to handle anything down to well below -30°F. But, as
we soon learned warmer temperatures don’t mix well with long distance trekking
and sled pulling in the snow!
Saturday morning while most of our friends were racing the Mountain Mist
50km in our hometown, Kathy and I were travelling up to International Falls,
Minnesota. We flew to Minneapolis then drove another five hours the rest of the
way; way up north! I noticed a
relatively lack of snow on the ground on the way up and it really wasn’t all
that cold, perhaps low 20s or teens but nothing Arctic. We checked into the Tee
Pee Motel and settled in, sorting our gear out. The next day we attended the
gear check where we presented the required emergency gear that we had to pack
with us at all times:
· Minus-20F sleeping bag
· Insulated sleeping pad
·
Bivy sack
·
Firestarter
·
Stove
·
8 fl. Oz fuel at all times
·
Pot (min. volume 1 pint)
·
2 qt (64 oz or just under 2 litres) insulated water
container
·
Headlamp or flashlight
·
Flashing red LED lights, front and back. 10
square inches of reflective material on front and back.
·
Whistle on string around neck
·
3000 Calories at all times
In addition we’d have to carry enough food and water and additional
layers of clothing to get us through the long distance between checkpoints. As
our only real chance to resupply food is at the first checkpoint at 37 miles
and then later at 72 miles; we’d be carrying a lot of food and water! In order
to realistically be able to carry all this gear, typically foot racers pack it
all into a sled that they then pull behind them. As winter snow trekking isn’t
very popular in the south we called upon the race director Dave Pramann who
graciously let us borrow a couple of SkiPulk Paris Expedition sleds and polls.
So basically you pack all your gear into a large duffel bag, secure it to the
sled then there are these poles that connect the sled to a harness that you
wear around your waist. Ideally you want to pull sleds like these in conditions
were the snow is very firm and smooth meaning it really needs to be very cold
out!
Race morning as Kathy and I quickly got our race kits in
order at the race start at the Kerry Park Arena, it was already 25°F! This is
crazy warm weather for International Falls, Minnesota where typical HIGH
temperatures this time of year aren’t even on the positive side of the
Fahrenheit scale! Kathy and I could only chuckle; the Southerners have yet
again brought very unseasonable weather to the higher latitudes! I’m alluding
to our 2003 Susitna 100 attempt in Alaska in February. That year was also
unseasonably warm, so bad that they had to move the Iditarod dog sled race start
further north closer to Fairbanks! The Susitna 100 course had to be drastically
modified because the race’s namesake river could not be crossed because it was
not frozen! We walked around in downtown Anchorage in nothing but long sleeve
shirts. Crazy. That race started out at 7°F but quickly got well above freezing
for most of the day. We ended up dropping out after pulling our sleds with
similar emergency and recommended gear a single 40 mile out and back of the
alternate course because of the rough and non-wilderness experience. This
wasn’t the Susitna 100. The route was a rough, chewed up heavily used
snow-mobile trail that had a lot of bare, snowless ground and overflow risky
swamps; I even punched through the ice up to my thigh just a few miles from the
finish! My pant legs froze solid! So it’s funny that going into the 2013
Arrowhead 135 the weather is looking much the same!
The race starts; the bikers head out first followed by a
handful of skiers a couple minutes later then it’s the foot division a couple
minutes after. Kathy had this idea to
try and take advantage of the mostly flat first leg of the course by sticking
to a run walk schedule of four minutes running followed by six minutes walking.
I personally wanted to just stick to a strong, fast hike for the duration but
so it goes. Very quickly Kathy, sticking to her guns, ended up getting ahead of
me for many miles as I stopped a few times to adjust gear. No worries, it’s a
long race and I’d catch back up sooner or later, or she’d wait for me at some
point (maybe?). I found out very quickly that pulling a 30-35lb sled through
soft snow is not fun and it’s tough for those uninitiated! I really struggled
trying to run at all that first nine miles on the Blue Ox trail that led to the
Arrowhead trailhead. Even shuffling continuously for 30 minutes straight didn’t
seem to get me any closer to Kathy who was sticking to her run-walk schedule!
After a few miles I was finally warmed up and settled in to
my burden and ended up matching pace with Steve Bailey from Minneapolis. Steve
and I chatted quite a bit about our racing backgrounds, the weather forecast,
our gear choices, etc… and eventually we caught back up to Kathy right before
the turn onto the Arrowhead trail. We
made the turn at 9.5 miles in around 2 ½ hours; we were actually making pretty
good time. As we began the next run cycle I found it very difficult to keep up
with Kathy even though it didn’t seem like she was exerting much effort. I
realized that perhaps I needed to adjust the load on my sled which I did at the
next walk interval. I believe that my duffle was a bit too far forward in the
sled causing the front to dig into the snow! I moved the duffle all the way to
the back of the sled and re-secured it and Voila! While there still was significant
drag friction on the sticky snow, it was noticeably easier to pull.
The next several miles to the highway 53 crossing all passed
in a blur; the three of us chatting about past race experiences and the last
weather prognosis that called for 4-8” of snow overnight. We crossed the highway a little over five
hours in to the race, dragging our sleds over the rough, snowless asphalt and
train tracks and continued on; back into the deep woods. We started seeing a bit more non-race
volunteer snow-mobile traffic; these guys really don’t slow down! The terrain started to get a bit more rolling
and you could tell snow was in the air as the humidity seemed to rise a bit;
you could taste it. I could also tell because the snow underfoot was starting
to stick to the bottoms of my shoes and pulling the sled became even more
difficult! The one section that seemed to buck the slow pull trend was when the
Arrowhead trail veered onto an icy logging road for a short way. Wow what a
difference! Running on the ice was almost effortless by comparison! Sure enough
the Arrowhead trail turned off the logging road and we were back into the
sticky, wet snow! Yuck!
It was in the next long stretch that I could tell Kathy was struggling a
bit more now as we’d abandoned the run-walk cycle now and were simply walking;
still walking with a purpose, but not much running. We’d passed through the
marathon point and soon through 50km according to Steve’s watch; all well ahead
of even the best case pace chart I’d prepared. Still, Kathy was starting to
have issues with her lower back (she’d had the issue since the day we went
snow-mobiling a few weeks ago) and the constant jarring of tug-and-slack of the
sled were beating her up! The going had
been tough all day and I think this really was getting to her mentally as well.
She was humbled a bit I think. I’d known all along that these events can’t be
taken lightly that I had serious concern about our chances, which our best
option was to take it slow from the start and just settle into a nice hiking
pace and not worry about running. But we
tried it her way and now it looked like we were going to drop out when we
finally got to the Gateway Store checkpoint at mile 37. Personally I felt very
good both physically and mentally and would love to have continued on to try
and finish. BUT that wasn’t part of the deal; this endeavor was a team effort
from the start; both of us or none of us. So the decision for me to stop was
easy. No worries for as we soon discovered; not long after we both agreed to
stop, that the odds of me continuing on to finish would be extremely slim!
The sun sank lower in the sky and the temperature dropped
slightly though noticeably and then it began to snow! Ever so slightly it began
to snow; big, heavy wet flakes. By the
time we reached the turnoff the trail for the Gateway Store checkpoint, a few
miles later, the snow was fall much faster and harder! We dragged our sleds the
final quarter mile to the 37 mile checkpoint and immediately informed the
volunteers that we were done.
That night over 10” of snow fell on the next, LONG, 35 mile
section of the course causing many foot races, bikers and skiers to abandon
their finish hopes. Some racers had to be rescued from the course by
snow-mobile while most either turned around to return to the Gateway Store
checkpoint or else pushed ahead to one of few road crossings where they could
be picked up. In the end only seven wily winter ultramarathon veterans finished
in the foot division out of 42 starters; a humbling 17% finish rate! The slowest of which took almost 24 HOURS to cover the next 37 mile section that we were about to face! Yikes! In retrospect, this is why I know my chances
of finishing, as a Arrowhead rookie, were very slim. At best I’d struggled to
make it to the next checkpoint at 72 miles and probably missed the cutoff; at worst I might have ended up like
the guy that got rescued off the trail; they found him naked in his sleeping
bag shivering trying to dry his snow soaked clothing!
So, the grand “Couch to Arrowhead 135” experiment was a
failure but I believe not for the obvious reasons.We made sound gear choices, our equipment, food and water supply were ample and we didn't over pack. I think coming from a state that doesn't see regular snow fall and snow on the ground for months out of the year is a huge disadvantage but not insurmountable. I think a big part of these winter ultras is just having the courage to jump in with both feet and experience them and learn from them to build towards future success. That's what we did and I'm extremely proud that we gave it a good attempt! NEXT YEAR!
On a happier note, as Kathy and I now had some time to kill
before our flight out of Minneapolis on Thursday afternoon we decided to drive
back to Minneapolis and visit the Mall of America. We had a great time riding
all the roller coasters; been a very long time since we’d been on such rides.
We also came away from our Arrowhead 135 experience very intrigued
by the many fat-bikes we saw at the event.
They honestly looked like a lot of fun! So the gears and wheels started turning
in our heads so we decided to visit a bike shop in downtown Minneapolis, Freewheel Bike, that had several fat-bikes
in stock that you could test ride. Long story very short, Kathy and I came home
with two brand new Surly
Neck Romancer Pug fat-bikes! These extremely large (effectively 30” diameter)
and wide (ground patch is 4”+!!!) are what Surly dubs “omni-terrain bicycles”
and that is exactly why we bought them. I’ll leave the details for a future
blog post but suffice it to say these bikes are NOT JUST FOR SNOW but eat up
ANY terrain quite well!
