Race Coverage

RACE Coverage
Gobi March Blogs 2023
View All Posts 2023 From : Robert Ripley
10 March 2023 03:55 pm (GMT+08:00) Beijing, Chongqing, Hong Kong, Urumqi
North to Alaska!
Not the 1960 John Wayne movie.
Nope, I took a short trip up to Alaska last week to visit friends, ski in a couple of nordic races, and catch the start of the Iditarod.
As I may have mentioned, I grew up in Alaska, and it still holds a piece of my heart (albeit a tiny frozen piece). So I try to get back up there from time to time to visit friends and family. Unfortunately, the only family I have left living in Alaska, my brother Jeff and his wife Teresa, are spending this winter in Laguna Beach. Fortunately, my friends Jay and Moira are still hardy, and they let me stay with them.
The Tour of Anchorage is Alaska’s big ski race, usually with over a thousand entrants in the different races. The Tour is a unique point to point ski marathon, starting out in the Chugach mountains above town, traversing through urban east and west Anchorage to end in the woods at Kincaid Park south of town. This year I skied the 10km classic prelude “masters” race on Friday and then the 40km freestyle (skate ski) race on Sunday.
(photo credit: Jay VanAlstine)
The weather was perfect: blue skies, crisp and cold in the mornings, warming up to -6 (C) by the afternoons. The snow was a few days old, but hard and fast and pretty skiable. I caught a ski on some debris on the Chester Creek trail and took a faceplant during the 40km race, so I can attest that the groom was solid. I thought I skied well, skiing both races about 3min/km which is darn good for me, but some old Alaskan guy named Richard was kicking my butt, so I could only manage 2nd in my age group both days.
(photo credit: Joselynn Finch)
On Saturday we went downtown to catch the start of the Iditarod sled dog race. Anchorage is probably the only city in the world where they truck the snow out of the streets one day and then truck the snow back in the next so that they can race dogsleds down Main Street (4th Avenue).
These dogs are the real winter athletes. They will pull a sled full of dogfood and survival gear (not to mention some guy (or gal) in a parka) a thousand miles in a little over a week. And that includes a mandatory 24 hour sleepover. And, boy, do those dogs love to run. The energy at the start is palpable as hundreds of dogs get psyched up. (Not to mention some vociferous barking). Each team usually has a dozen people trying to keep the dogs in check until it’s time to go. I tried to talk my dogs (Holly and Cody) into pulling me on skis, and it worked pretty well as long as the squirrel they were chasing ran straight down the ski trail, but when the squirrel ran off piste into the woods… Well.
Anchorage might also be the only place in America where you might see some guy in a bear suit having a conversation with his congressman. (That’s Mary Peltola, the one without a bear's head, Alaska’s only representative in the US House of Representatives)
On Monday, Jay took me single track fat bike riding out in the BLM land near the Campbell Airstrip. I had ridden fat bikes before on a wide packed trail, but this was a little different. Some of the tracks were literally single track, the width of the fat bike tire, so if you were a little off track or off balance the bike would founder. And if you put your foot down, often you would sink in up to your crotch in the deep snow. And the bike would fall in on top of you. But eventually I got the hang of it, and we had a great time.
But now I’m back in Central Oregon. It’s still snowing out, but my ski racing season is pretty much over (I am signed up for the nordic ski leg of the Pole Pedal Paddle in May). And there are only 100 days until Gobi. (Holy camelpoop! Only a hundred days!). So I guess I’d better get started on my running!
Comments: Total (1) comments
Mary Gadams
Posted On: 16 Mar 2023 01:01 am