At the front of the room, Ed (our fearless
leader, multi-tasker extraordinaire, crazy-man of the back-country, and
peerless interpretive dancer) advances to the next slide.
Most
Improved: Nancy Fresco
What?
Oh. Yikes. I grin awkwardly, as if I expect people to boo.
They
don’t, of course. The applause is cheerful. In fact, the crowd at the
White Mountains 100 post-race party is almost impossibly cheerful. About everything. Folks are happily
nibbling on veggies and hummus while comparing second-degree frostbite. They are slurping down soup while discussing
the hallucinations they experienced after forty-plus sleepless hours on the
trail. Nonetheless, I feel the need to demur in the face of their
congratulations.
“But…
I cheated! I switched from skis to a bike!”
Given
that more than half the 65 participants rode snow bikes on the hundred-miles of
backcountry trails that make up the race course, “cheating” is perhaps not
exactly the most politic term. Still, I can’t shake the feeling that it
is the right term.
I
take part in a fair number of long-distance races, but I’m definitely not a racer.
In 2011 and 2012, I was a skier in the White Mountains 100. A
classic skier. A slow classic skier. Ok, fine, I was an outright
shuffler. This year, for a change, I rode my shiny new fat-tired bike –
but for all its lovely purpleness and high-tech panache, I didn’t really expect
it to make me anything more than modestly speedier.
Theoretically,
any competitor – whether on wheels, on skis, or on their own two hoofs – can
triumph in the 100. In reality, in the four years that the race has existed,
the snow bikers have always won – albeit not by much. In 2010, bikers
took the top six slots, but skiers nabbed ten of the top twenty. In 2011,
a skier took fifth, less than an hour behind the lightning-fast top
biker. In 2012, skiers took fourth, seventh, eighth, and ninth.
This
year’s race, however, was indubitably the most one-sided to date. Due to
bitterly cold conditions at the start and considerable snow accumulation later
in the event, the advantage fell squarely to those who rolled rather than those
who swished or tromped. For the same reasons, it was a race even richer
than usual in grisly tales of fortitude and exhaustion. It was also, for
me, a race full of peculiar surprises that left me feeling – well, feeling as
if I really had somehow cheated.
Sunday,
8 a.m.
Sixty-five
crazy individuals crowd the trailhead at Mile 28 of the Eliot Highway,
stomping, chattering, and lining up to enjoy the questionable joys of the
port-a-potty. It’s twenty below zero (Fahrenheit). I may be just a
trace too caffeinated. Just… a… trace. A quart of Cheerios are
bouncing in my innards. The snow is packed like white pavement. I
decide not to reduce my tire pressure at all.
Sunday,
10:09 a.m.
Rolling,
rolling… I haven’t taken out my audiobook, or even my snacks, for that
matter. Can I really be at Checkpoint #1 already? But yes, there
are my neighbors, in their new guise as volunteers: Mark, bundled up like a camera-wielding
yeti, and Trusten, proffering the cocoa and Fritos. Second breakfast of champions -- or
hobbits. I’m pretty sure I have more similarities to the latter, but so
what? I’m feeling as happy-go-lucky as Peregrine Took.
Sunday,
1:30 p.m.
Wait…
have I already completed the section of trail that was billed as being badly
drifted, soft, a potential slog-fest of push-a-bike? I did have to let
out quite a lot of air in order to float my less-than-ladylike weight on my
squishy tires. I took a few remarkable headers into snowbanks when I hit
soft spots in the flat, flat light, as clouds came in. But I chalked that
up to my monocularity and general klutziness. Clambering out from under
the huge purple bike and shaking the snow from my hair, my ears, and my pogies
is par for the course when Nancy goes biking. The key fact was, I was
still riding. And now I am just outside Checkpoint #2, and…
…and…“Kevin?!”
I
see Kevin plenty when I amble the hundred yards from my workplace to his, in
order to buy more inner tubes or blinky lights and gossip about snow conditions
and suchlike -- but he is not someone I am supposed to see during the White
Mountains 100. That is, I wasn’t supposed to see him after we all shouted,
“three… two… one…go!” For a turtle such as myself, Kevin is supposed to
be nothing but a memory of fast-moving snowdust. But here he is at mile
39. And he is biking in the wrong direction.
Quickly,
sadly – but with impressively upbeat resolve – he explains his dilemma: a
burst water system, drenched clothes that he’s spent the past two hours drying
out at Checkpoint #2, and to top it off, a frostbitten stomach. For
(arguably) the fastest racer in Fairbanks, the race is already over.
There’s nothing I can do but remind him of what a great season he’s had, and
wish him well as I head into Cache Mountain Cabin.
Sunday,
1:50 p.m.
One
ultra-cheese-laden baked potato later, I have my second shock of the day.
Joel.
Forty-five
miles of crazy-fast riding with the lead pack, a bad knee, and here he is,
another amazing athlete, limping in to scratch from the race. And here am
I, slowpoke Nancy, with nothing to offer but a couple of heartfelt hugs and a
handful of cookies. It’s not fair, I think. He helped me sort, crate, and transport all
those cookies, and everything else, besides…
It’s
at this point that I began to feel as if there’s something amiss. How
could I be going strong when these two are not? I hit the trails again,
potato-powered, yet still thrown off by my speedy friends’ misfortune.
On.
And on. And up. And up.
Sunday,
circa 5 p.m.
This
year, I get to actually see the Cache Mountain Divide. In daylight.
Just
as I summit, pushing my bike through the soft, steep snow, I hear a sound
behind me: an even whoosh, whoosh, whoosh. The sound of a
skate-skier. It is, of course, the super-human Mike Kramer. That
Mike should pass me is a given. That it should take until mile 50 for him
to do so is unthinkable.
In
previous races, I plodded over the Divide near the back of the pack, and
crossed the notorious ice lakes in pitch darkness. Checkpoint #3 -- Windy
Gap Cabin -- was a refuge I reached at about one in the morning. The cabin was
always a glowing beacon signaling the first stage of exhaustion. The
forty miles of race that lay beyond it were the miles covered in a
semi-somnolent and aching blur.
Sunday,
7:02 p.m.
This
time, I arrive at a respectable suppertime, even if the supper I eat is not
terribly respectable.
“Number
thirteen, checking out.” I might have sounded kinda official, were my
mouth not stuffed full of chocolate.
“Already?”
Teresa, an ever-smiling volunteer (not to mention a strong skier and darned
talented research ecologist) has already given me the second-hand hug that Jay
left for me, as well as the message that went with it: “Have fun!” She’s
seen me mixing the Gatorade double strength and chugging Coke (sugar and
caffeine, gurgling down with a belch). Still, she seems surprised that I
am ready to take off.
And
so, in truth, am I.
My
haste is certainly not attributable to competitiveness. Although I ask
after Jay, I don’t check the sign-in sheet to see how many people are ahead of
me. My previous finishes placed me 54th and 53rd out of
an annual field of 65. For me, it’s always been about (as Jay wants me to
be reminded) having fun. And finishing. And maintaining a
standard-issue numbers of fingers and toes.
So far, so good.
Sunday,
7:17 p.m.
I
leave Windy Gap full of junk food and energy. I leave because there is
daylight still to burn; even in a mist of softly falling snow, I have some
chance of witnessing the long and mountain-hedged valley that glides on down
toward Borealis. Or, in this case, rolls on down. Bikes, I
discover, are pretty darned swift in this section.
There’s
a skier ahead of me. But… wait… I cannot possibly be passing Mike Kramer
– can I? My brief hello sounds apologetic. He disappears behind me
in the snowy twilight. Still skating.
Sunday,
10:20 p.m.
Hello,
Borealis Cabin. I remember when you used to seem like an ambitious
destination, a whole twenty miles from the trailhead. When did twenty
miles become the “home stretch”? There is clearly something wrong
with my life choices. Hey, can I have one of those brownies with my
ramen? Or in my ramen. Or, really, whatever.
I’ve
been plugged into my epic audiobook for quite some time now, and I’m at a
dramatic point. Actually, all of George R.R. Martin’s points are
dramatic, or bloody, or licentious, or all of the above. I need to find
out what happens next, so I’d best be going.
Wait…
you there… relaxing in the upper bunk… you’re not… you can’t possibly be Janice
Tower, can you? Because, even though I don’t know you, I certainly know
that I’m several orders of magnitude slower than you are.
Um…
feel better, ok? This can’t be right.
Sunday,
10:40 p.m.
The
kind and patient Borealis crew herd me upstream to cross Beaver Creek, avoiding
the section that, earlier in the day, half-swallowed Ariana’s snowmachine in
slushy overflow. On the ensuing uphill I pass a fellow biker who wants to
know how long the hill is. “At least a mile,” I tell him, with ebullience
that he does not seem to share. I think I drank some more Coke at that
last stop. Did I? Dunno. Boy, this fresh snow sure is pretty.
The beam of my headlamp glitters on each flake.
Just
after midnight, Monday morning
I
need to stop at the trail shelter because Mark and Trusten are there.
Except that Trusten is asleep, and Mark takes a photo of me without actually noticing
that it’s me. What, are my frosty outerwear and androgynous-bundled shape
not distinctive enough? But Jim is there, and he is all good cheer.
When is he not? He seems perplexed that I don’t want to ingest
anything. How could anyone resist that same Sam’s Club sack of corn nuts
that came across from Checkpoint #1?
“I
just wanted to say hi!”
Wickersham
Wall is waiting for me, after all.
Some
time after 1 a.m., Monday morning
At
the Wall, I find Amy and Cody. This isn’t right. Amy, who generally
inhabits an office just down the hall from mine, is probably faster than me at
all things climate-change-ecology-related – but she and Cody are definitely faster than I am at all
things bike-related. But really, right now, “faster” is not an operative
word, and logic is a bit foggy. I turn off the pseudo-medieval clash of
dynasties that has been pouring into my ears, and focus on putting one foot in
front of the other. Push. Push. Bicycle. Snow.
Mountain. Up. Push. We are not conversing. We are pushing. But somewhere along the way,
I extract a promise of a ride home from the finish line from my
overly-kind compatriots. Asking favors of exhausted people in the wee
hours is not exactly Kosher, it occurs to me. But I ask anyhow.
I
assume they will pull away from me after the wall, but somehow, the opposite is
true. In the Land of the Wobbly, the least wobbly takes the lead through
the darkness – and that, peculiarly, is me. I know these last six miles
of trail so well that I feel them
rather than seeing them. Slow downhill, short steep up, long down, slow
up, and… yes. The last downhill. Finally – and yet… already?
2:35
(ish) Monday morning
Ann,
Ed’s counterpoint and tireless mastermind of Endurance North, is in the trailer
– race headquarters – so I bang on the door to get my hug and my
sort-of-official finish time. We chat and laugh. Andrew, who skied
the course in the Nancy-speed league two years ago, comes to give me another
hug, and to usher me into the cocoon of the heated tent. A few other folks are sipping drinks or
snuggled on cots. I don’t ask how many people finished ahead of me –
except for Jay. Jay kicked butt. I knew that already, though.
4:00
Monday morning
Just.
Keep Talking. I have no idea what I’m talking about. Work? My
kids? Something inappropriately personal and humiliating? It
doesn’t matter, so long as I am keeping Amy awake on these snow-deep
roads.
Back
at the wall tent, after many minutes spent staring blankly at one another,
unable to fathom how we’d muster the energy and warmth to load all three bikes
onto the car’s roof racks, Amy, Cody, and I became the beneficiaries of
Andrew’s goodwill. He made it look so easy, as I fumbled with my wheel
and my hex wrench in the snow. Even in my tiredness, though, I knew I wasn’t
exhausted. Not really exhausted. I know that further zone of
Tired. I’ve visited it in other years.
And
so home. And so to bed, where Jay wakes up enough to congratulate me, and
I him, in blurry solidarity. And so to sleep.
12:00
noon Monday
Oh,
the sheer joy of snoring until noon, and then lolling on my window seat in
sweats! I slowly amble through my work emails. I answer a
few. I’m a bit on the droopy and aching side, but I sigh deeply and
contentedly. Parents don’t get to sleep until noon. Ever. But
other than approximately one minute of awake-time at 7:30, when the children
were permitted to come kiss their comatose Mommy goodbye, I got my
slumber.
I
check the race stats. I discover that there are people still out
there. As in, a lot of
people. I note that, out of 65 competitors, 35 of them on bikes, Jay took
sixth place. This seems about right. I also note that I took 15th.
This seems all wrong.
“Podium!”
comments Ned. Ned is one of the true stars
of the event, in my books. While Kristen, Jay and I were on the trails, he took
care of three six-year-olds with a joint penchant for naked trampolining. It takes me a moment to figure out what he
was talking about. But yes, it seems I
was the third woman across the (somewhat ambiguous) finish line. I tend to forget about fine points such as
gender. Besides, this is clearly wrong,
too. I can’t be third, or fifteenth, or
anything above thirtieth. I must have
cheated. Somehow.
11:00
p.m., Monday
I’ve
gotten a bit of work done today. I’ve also picked up the kids from the
bus stop, helped them with their homework, and read stories with them.
We’ve done dinnertime and baths and more playing and more stories and bedtime
for little people. It’s time for me to go to bed, but just for good measure, I
check the race stats, again – just one more time. There are still people out there.
Thirty-nine hours into the race, longer than even I have ever been out there,
they are still slogging. They have seen not one sunset on the course, but
two. Nine of them. They are still going. One of them is
Michael. I’m pretty sure I told him the
race was “fun,” in years past, as we chatted while dropping off our kids at
preschool. Another is our perky and optimistic neighbor, Sarah. Jay and I have given her lots of race advice
over supper. At this point, is either of them coherent enough to hate
me? And why isn’t it me out
there? It ought to be me, shouldn’t it?
Those are my people,
struggling on through the deepening snow.
9:09
a.m. Tuesday
I
am at work, being semi-productive. But I’m also waiting, waiting.
At
last, at last, Sarah, the red lantern, crosses the finish line. Forty-nine hours. She has not slept.
8:00
p.m. Wednesday
Finally,
here I am at the post-race party. This, more than the race itself, is my
event. I booked the community
center. I hit Sam’s Club. I made the ten-gallon pot of sausage-and-bean
soup. I baked the eleven loaves of bread and the four double-size batches
of brownies. I enslaved my husband and children – and the ever-patient
Trusten – to arrange all the tables and chair, fruits and vegetables, cheeses
and dips, cups and spoons. Everyone seems to be enjoying themselves.
Everyone has tales to tell.
Kevin
is here, and so is Joel – both of them good sports to the core. So is
Michael, complete with frostbitten fingers and broad smile. So is Sarah, although I wonder whether
someone should send her home to sleep a bit more. Tom (classic skier, playwright,
Scrabble fanatic, and proud winner of the “Most Grunts and Moans” Award) skied
seven hours slower this year than last, and has blisters the size of the Goodyear
blimp -- yet cedes the Agony of de-Feet Award to Bob, uncontested. On
that score, no one can ever compete
with grinning, imperturbable Bob. Don’t look at the photos, just trust me
on this one.
My
own “award” is no more serious than any of the others. There are no
prizes. In the real world, outside of this steam-and-spices-cozy room, no
one -- except for a few stalwart and over-loyal friends and family members -- cares
who won, who lost, who was “Racer of the Year” (yes, you, Jay), or who got
honors for excessive puking.
And
within this room?
Ah. There, I realize, is the beauty of it. Within this room, we all care. We shout out
stories. Most of them are funny, in a
Type-Two fun-after-the-fact kind of way. All of them have merit. No one is less deserving of credit, or kudos,
or attention, or cheers: not the ultra-fast guy who had to scratch, with red
frozen welts on his stomach (yeah, he showed them to me – chicks dig that kinda
thing); not the woman who didn’t quite
make the 48-hour cutoff; not the winner, Tim, who crossed the line in a
breathtaking 10.8 hours; not the indomitable Mike, who skated on until 5 a.m.; not
the Carrolls, who finished at the next
5 a.m.; not Laura, who beat everyone else on foot (boys and girls both); not
the good-humored medic who flooded her snowmachine; not the “crossing guards”
at Beaver Creek.
The
sloggers, the plodders, the zoomers, the blistered and goofy and crazy – it
takes all sixty-five, plus a horde of amazing volunteers and two astonishing
Race Directors, to make the White Mountains 100 what it is. It’s not really one race, but sixty-five
different races, and then some.
So,
yes, I cheated. I totally, utterly
cheated by switching from skis (which would have placed me in the Monday Night
of Doom crowd) to a bike (which still placed me almost eight hours behind the
winner, because when all is said and done, I’m Just Not Fast). But, on the other hand, I didn’t cheat at
all, because the only person I was racing against was me. (It’s always a tie.)
“Have
fun,” Jay told me.
“Have
fun,” Teresa passed on, with a hug.
“Have
fun,” I reminded myself.
Yes. Yes, I did
have fun. I wasn’t really “most
improved” – but so what? I wasn’t trying
to be “improved” any more than I was trying to cheat. Snowbike or no snowbike, I had a blast.
I
wonder how I should do the race next year?
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