Posts - Page 69 of 287 - Christof Teuscher

If you wondered why I haven’t mentioned mushers yet, that’s because they only started today. The first mushers will pass me before Ruby (~mile 500). Stay tuned for dog team news.

One of MP’s mottos is “In der Ruhe liegt die Kraft,” which roughly translates into “strength lies in calmness.” I never felt as relaxed in a race as now. I slept longer than I would normally sleep, and, as a result, I felt good and strong every day. It may seem obvious, yet I was surprised how much of an impact one or two hours of additional sleep can have on your mood and body. Thus far I always tried to sleep as little as possible in races, but that may not be the best strategy. By sleeping a little more, I was able to move faster and further and felt better in addition. No more inefficient zombie walks and shiver trail naps. It’s the calmness that got me to Nome, not the race frenzy.

After an hour of moving and warming up, we made a fire and had a quick hot breakfast with an equally hot coffee. The rest of the day was pretty uneventful. The trail improved, there were less and less moguls, no more ice, and no more dirt sections. In true Duracell Bunny style, MP left me in the snow dust and made it to Nikolai ahead of me. She had already wolfed down her world-famous Nikolai checkpoint burger and rolled out her bed when my old and feeble persona finally arrived. The checkpoint was pretty busy with a bunch of athletes sleeping. Not even in the military have I heard as much snoring as in Nikolai. I found it hard to sleep even with earplugs. MP slept like a rock.

We got up well before daylight, had some coffee and sustenance, and headed out into the night. Checkpoint wizard George even handed us a bag of carrots “for the road.” Thanks! We had about 47mi to go to McGrath. McGrath would be MP’s finish line. For me, there would still be 700ish miles to go…

This is why you don’t mess with a moose. More on moose later.

Another one of these quick coffee breaks. Efficiency matters.

Getting my wide-open spaces fix.

Pretty skies before night is about to fall and the temperature will drop like a hammer.

Creative checkpoint sleeping.

Brewing a near-deadly coffee at the Nikolai checkpoint. Then some more.

A quick breakfast at the Nikolai checkpoint.

Only 47mi to McGrath, the finish line of the ITI 350 race. For me, there would still be 700ish miles to go…

#iti2022 #iditarodtrailinvitational #ultrarunning #nome #alaska

We were warned about significant overflow on the South Fork Kuskokwim River ~1mi past the Rohn checkpoint. The wind was howling badly and we moved on blank ice as soon as we hit the river. There were no trail markers to be seen and it was pitch dark, so we navigated by GPS and tried to find a good line on the ice. No ice is safe, so you want to read it as much as you can, look for changes in the structure, cracks, etc. As we moved closer to the shore, I suddenly heard cracking noises and saw the ice crack around me in what felt like slow motion. With a bang I was standing knee-deep in icy water. Crap. Well, at least it wasn’t very deep. We tried to retreat to safer grounds, but MP also broke through suddenly. Although we were now wet, we put on our waders before we proceeded carefully, breaking through the ice on almost every step. Once we reached the forest, we put on dry socks and kept moving to stay warm.

Slowly but certainly we moved into a section called “The Burn,” which traditionally receives little to no snow. And rather suddenly we found ourselves indeed on a pretty bare trail. It was surreal to pull the pulk on rocks, dirt, and grass for many miles and hours. Needless to say that it was incredibly slow and exhausting. Did we have a choice? Nope. So we pushed forward. The dry sections were followed by miles on bare ice on lakes. And then came the deep moguls for dozens of miles. Destroyed by exhaustion and despair, I finally came up with a dynamic technique to sail across moguls that did not feel unlike dancing. Over many miles, I perfectioned the technique, and to my own surprise, it almost became fun. Sadly, I only saw piles of bison poop and no bison on that section, where they often hang out.

Late at night we quickly set up a bivy on a nice hill and fell asleep. When the alarm went off in the middle of the night, the northern lights were in full swing. Like the pros we got up in a few minutes and were moving in a jiffy to warm up. We now had about 40mi to go to the Nikolai checkpoint, where a burger would be awaiting us.