The Monsters In My Mind
Mile 255
The Northern lights are dancing overhead, an ephemeral green on the northeastern horizon. My breath is strong, regular, and I am moving. I feel no remnants of the arrhythmia that I sensed going across the pass two days ago, deep in the Alaska range. It is 2:30 in the morning on a moonless night. I am strong, capable, and confident. Tired, yes of course, but in a way that I can manage.
We had just seen Nicolas Petit, who would go on to finish 6th in the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race. Traveling in the opposite direction, Nicolas and his dogs flew by us soundless in the night - a flurry of broadly grinning faces and shoed paws silently hammering on snow; swift and relentless forward motion towards the next checkpoint, the one we just had left from an hour ago, another five miles deeper in the night. For the first time since I started the race eight days ago I feel quietly confident and pleased. There are only 100 miles left to go, and I am now on foot rather than on skis. After a week of dilly-dallying and using the race’s early days to build the cardio shape that I had no time to develop at home, I am clearly chasing cutoffs. Yes, it is going to be tight but if the trail stays firm I now know that I can do this. We can do this.
Then, a yelp. Sarah is a few paces behind me; at first I keep moving without looking back. We have been traveling together since last Wednesday, five days and four nights ago, even though she is on foot and I am skiing. During a 350 mile race, missteps are bound to happen: Sarah has seen me wipe out on my skis at least a dozen times, and I have seen her punch through soft snow more than once. We didn’t know each other prior to crossing paths at Shell Lake, just over one hundred miles into this race - yet after going back and forth across the Alaska Range twice together it feels like we’ve been friends for a lifetime. We often don’t need to turn or break stride to watch out for one another; just a slight downward throttle to the leader’s pace allows us to stick together yet still maintain efficiency of movement.
This time is different. A glance over my shoulder reveals Sarah crumpled on the snow, her leg at an uncomfortable angle. She isn’t moving. ‘Sunny, I need a minute.’ This is different, and it isn’t good.
Sarah is gentle, kind, and tough as nails - a trained Army medic and fire fighter, Alaska resident, mom, and race director of the Resurrection Pass 100M and 50M Ultras. Ever since we started traveling together, Sarah was the one setting the pace and pulling us along. Day after day and mile after mile she’d coax me along and wait for me, sometimes stalling sleeplessly at checkpoints while I was blissfully slumbering, to celebrate a shared experience instead of chasing the perfect race.
But right now, Sarah isn’t in a good place. Punching through soft snow on the side of the trail, she has twisted and sprained her knee - aggravating a vengeful prior injury. I run through a mental inventory of our situation: we are in the middle of a cold Alaskan night, with five more hours until sunrise. The beauty of the northern lights does nothing to alleviate the unforgiving temperatures. Stalling without a plan is not an option; in the deep of this Alaskan winter night, a human’s choices are simple: move, make a fire, or seek shelter. Without metabolic warmth from movement, hypothermia and worse are just around the corner. I worry. These are Sarah’s options: Forward to stay warm and in the race. Backwards to safety and that dreaded Did Not Finish. Or dig in right where we are — which will invariably mean timing out from the Iditarod as well. A race is just a race, but we’ve come so far and given so much to be here. Where is the line of how much is too much?
“In the deep of this Alaskan winter night, a human’s choices are simple: move, make a fire, or seek shelter.”
I want to be a friend to Sarah and show compassion for her pain. Instead, I tell her to get up. ‘Sarah, listen: you have to move, or drop out. There is no in between. If you can walk, walk. If you can’t, you’re done.’
After painful minutes and a quick trail-side fire, Sarah decides that forward is the way. She buckles down and wills her knee back into service. I am the one to lead now. More sled dog teams are effortlessly running past us in the silent night, headed towards the safety of the checkpoint that we are moving further and further away from. It is Monday morning and the clock is ticking. 60 hours for one hundred miles. I know that I can do this — I am not injured. But Sarah… what about Sarah?
Mile 270
The sun is giving us new life - it always does. The early morning hours are the hardest in all endurance races: during the pre-dawn witching hour, your brain plays tricks on you. You have been on the move forever. Your body is depleted, and what’s even worse: your brain has lost its ability to steer your actions. In those pre-dawn hours, your body may still function but your mind is being shaped by its dark and desperate surroundings, by the enormousness of the undertaking that you are seeking out so voluntarily. It’s why I had a simple rule for myself during this adventure: I wouldn’t ever contemplate quitting in the night or until after I had slept. Every day, my goal was simple: get to a spot where I could rest. That could be a checkpoint or a cabin, or my sleeping bag on snow. Sleep, breathe, eat, assess. If after sleep and food I’d still feel like I could not continue on, then a DNF would merit contemplation.
How close did I come to quitting? Closer than I’d like, but never that close. Early in the race I was fighting foot pain demons. Pace wasn’t a concern — my Morton’s neuroma was. I had hoped that skiing in soft boots would alleviate some of the constant struggle that running has become. Sadly, I was wrong. After a few miles on my feet each day I’d feel the old familiar searing pain. There was a text to Paul, my husband, on day 2: ‘It’ll be really hard for me to not drop out. It’s not the skiing or the endurance, but the pain.’
Then I found a way. When sit-down breaks every other mile no longer were enough, tape and homemade Z-Rest insoles helped me cope. What at first had felt like grasping at straws soon became my miracle. Every passing hour without worsening pain confirmed that I would manage.
Did I want to quit? Sometimes in the early days, yes. It all seemed too far, too hard, too impossible. Sarah helped - tremendously. Her good cheer and strength took me straight to Rohn, the far point of the race. Along the way I saw the stragglers; those who’d taken a wrong turn or suffered frostbite after getting wet. The ones who decided to drop out on account of mechanicals and broken electronics, tiredness, and pain. And I saw those who decided to drop out and then continued anyway. The ones who stayed. I became the one who stayed.
There’s a perversion to extreme experience. Over time, you learn that it’s OK: It’s OK to hurt. It’s OK to be tired. It’s OK to fall asleep while walking. It’s OK to puke, and it’s OK to hallucinate. Sometimes it’s OK to not feel your fingers. Every night and every morning I took stock: I was hurting, and I wanted sleep. I was sore and stiff and sometimes incoherent - and that’s OK. Every time I woke up from a bit of fitful sleep a miracle would happen: taking stock of my condition, I had to concede that I had no real reason to drop out. So I didn’t.
Until I did have a reason to drop out. On Day 8 my binding breaks: I’m now a skier without skis, carrying more than 40 pounds on my back. But I have soft boots and strength and stamina. The trail is firm, and hiking is my jam. Why not. Another text to home: ‘Walking now. I’ll most likely walk it in. No reason to drop for a mechanical or what do you think? Pack is heavy and I don’t have snowshoes but I do know how to hike…’
Yes, the sun is giving us new life. Dawn means light and energy, and we are now at a junction: go left and there is warmth and food and sleep at Shell Lake Lodge a few miles out. Go right and we are committing to the 40-mile, relentless overland stretch to Yentna Station, the last checkpoint before the finish. All in all we are just eighty miles from the finish line. I know I will go right, but Sarah is now at a crossroads - literally.
We actually said our goodbyes earlier, when it was still dark and cold. Sarah, battling her injured knee; me, struggling to stay warm at our slowed-down pace. We said goodbye, and hugged, and I briskly hike off into the night. Twenty minutes later, Sarah has managed to keep pace despite the pain. We retract our goodbyes.
Now, at this crossroads in the bright morning sun, Sarah wants to drop. She’s had one or two prior moments of wanting, of needing, to drop out — and didn’t. This junction is her exit ramp; we both know that it is not a good idea to force another eighty miles and two nights in the open on a busted knee, exhaustion, and light footwear that is no longer waterproof. But she has worked so hard to get through that last night against the odds, and the finish is so close now. 270 miles behind us, eighty yet to go. Where is that line of how much is too much?
I want to be a friend to Sarah. Rationally I know that she’s already pushed beyond the line. But I also I know that often times endurance racing is mind over matter, and what we racers need the most is someone to shoot down our reasons for quitting. I feel guilty, too: if Sarah hadn’t waited up for me last week, early in the race, she wouldn’t be so close to timing out. She’d have time to head to Shell Lake lodge, rest, warm up, and then head back out to still finish. As it is, the decision is clear: Left - Shell Lake and DNF. Right - overland route and a chance of finishing. I lobby for Sarah to continue on.
Mile 295
The junction is a distant memory. The bonfire, the friendly snow machiners we encountered, the optimism that we still can do this — it all happened earlier today but feels like flashbacks from a different life. After deciding to commit we made great progress along the overnight route. I come up with a crazy plan: the mad dash for Yentna. Rather than metering our energy, I convince Sarah that we should dig deep and put down a 10-hour 50km effort. Get to Yentna just before the witching hour, warm up and sleep indoors, and continue to the finish yet with time to spare. I motor on ahead.
Sarah pulls along, bad knee and freezing feet and all. She is fighting hard, but that is what she does: she is a fighter. It all works swimmingly while there is light; nightfall changes the game, as it always does. As the night gets darker, our gap gets wider. We are on a vast open swamp. I see headlamps far off in the distance - Amber, maybe, the other woman skier. Russ, a foot racer that Sarah knows. I keep moving forward. Every now and then I turn around to check for Sarah’s headlamp behind me, yelling encouragement and what I think is tough love back at her. I keep moving. If I slow down, we’ll both be done - or so I tell myself.
The next time I turn to look over my shoulder I don’t see a headlamp anymore. Where is Sarah? Just minutes ago she was a few dozen yards behind me. Now her light is nowhere to be seen. I wait. I can feel warmth leaving my body by the second.
I yell, expletives mixed in. ‘Sarah, f**’ing move. You can’t afford to stall!!’ What that really meant is: ‘I cannot afford to stall.’
No response. I wait and shine my light into the darkness. Nothing, even though I know that we’re in wide open country and I should be able to see Sarah’s headlamp from half a mile away. We have another eighteen miles to the warmth of Yentna Station.
The trail dips into a small grove of trees not far from where I stopped. I decide to make for the windbreak and dig a bivy - the very thing I didn’t want to do, but I also don’t want to abandon Sarah. I find a spot not too far off the trail, with a small dead tree conveniently ready to be burned. I don’t want to make a fire, not again, but having the option does add an element of safety. Better safe than sorry.
Ten minutes later and still no sign of Sarah. I head back onto the trail and holler. I curse. I worry. My brain is flooded with neurologic waste, accumulated from eight hard days on the trail and the last forty-eight hours with close to zero sleep. My judgement is poor, my filters non-existent. I shout more expletives into the dark. ‘Sarah, you have to f**’ing walk! You are wasting time!! Get the f**k to where I am, there’s a bivy. F***’ing move it!!’ No response. And, more disconcerting: still no sign of Sarah’s headlamp.
I hem and haw, deciding if I should backtrack into the night and look for my companion. I have dropped my 40lbs pack at the bivy and am not inclined to spend precious energy carrying it for bonus miles — but the idea of heading into the Alaskan dark with nothing but my headlamp, in this state of mind, seems like the perfect setup for an outdoor tragedy. I decide to wait another minute before setting out. Then I see her light.
‘Sarah, f***k.’ I am relieved and make it known with more four-letter bombs. ‘What on earth are you doing? Get over here, I dug a bivy. This is f**’ing dumb.’ I won’t learn until some hours later that Sarah had passed out on the trail, while pushing past the possible trying to keep pace.
Sarah limps to where I am, dejected, quiet. I am dejected, too, but I show it differently. I scold and patronize and curse. Exhaustedly we both settle into our sleeping bags, Sarah under a barrage of Sunny’s swearing. She does not retort. Sleep comes quickly, as does the alarm just 90 minutes later.
As I rouse us from our survival nap, Sarah finally speaks up in a small voice. ‘Sunny. Can I ask you for something. Can you please make a fire.’ I should know that Sarah, strong and self-sufficient and gentle as she is, would never make requests like this without an absolutely forcing reason. I should know that, and I do know that, but I don’t want to face it. I grunt, I curse, I question and I patronize. Sarah’s feet are too numb and frozen for her to be OK. I make a fire, yes, but not without berating Sarah. At this point I’m not a friend; I am the monster that I have been fighting in my mind.
With a Garmin GPS and one sparse bar of cell signal Sarah admits defeat and calls for help at 1:15am. Yentna Station answers our call. Jean, the roadhouse host some eighteen miles away, asks if there’s threat to life or limb. There isn’t, or at least not likely. ‘Wait for morning and get yourselves to Yentna.’ is the advice she gives. Sarah and I try the race officials next; no response. I am running out of fuel for the fire, and Sarah’s batteries are dead. That means my GPS is now our connection to the world. I say we need to go, and so we go.
Ninety minutes later I am done. I know I only have an hour or two to dawn but it might as well be years away. My brain is shutting down, my body barely moving. This third night of sleepless motion is catching up with me. I am falling asleep while walking. I falter. Sarah’s feet are numb, and she is not OK, but she is moving now. I’m not. I drop my pack and curl up on the trail. ‘I have to sleep.’ Sarah stays with me and gets her stove out to make water, coffee, for the both of us.