Alright sports fans here’s my play-by-play of skiing 200k (126mi) on Wednesday, April 7th.

But first…In hindsight, it feels like this was a big enough event that we could’ve raised money for something, but we were too spontaneous about it. Instead, I’m just going to mention Citizens Climate Lobby (citizensclimatelobby.org). They are a group I’ve been involved with recently, mostly in helping to lobby our Alaskan congress members to cosponsor their Carbon Fee and Dividend act (information at their website and if you just look it up). There’s lots of ways to get involved with them, most as easy as sending a note to your representative. Thanks!

To preface this, these long skis started (for our group in Anchorage) last year when Covid locked stuff down. We saw some posts of people doing 100 and 200k in Norway, where I’m sure they’ve been doing it forever, and thought it would be fun on the interconnected trails around town. So last year we had a big weekend where seemingly everyone was skiing wayyyyy too long. The snow and weather was perfect so it was just the time to go. My achievement last year was 3 days in a row of 60k, then 100k, then 130k, which is not the same as 200k, but still big. Another friend did 250k but that’s another story. This spring on the World Cup, JC and I were planning all the fun things we were going to do when we got home, like parties, snowmachining….and skiing super long. So we’d been loosely planning it for a while, and did 100k last week on a nice day. The motivation I guess is just to accomplish something with low pressure, and maybe feel a sense of cameraderie in commiseration. So it was really on the radar, we we’re just looking for the right snow and weather window. It got really warm and then froze hard Sunday, and we knew it wasn’t going to snow Tuesday or Wednesday, and our races coming up are on the weekend, so we pulled the trigger on Wednesday. There ya go, the backstory.

Packed a bunch of snacks the night before. This was probably the most fun part, making little tortilla PB&Js and tossing a handful of halloween candy…then another one…and maybe another into the bag. Grabbed a bunch of fruit too which ended up being one of my favorite snacks. Leftover fried rice for lunch. Thermos ready for coffee, to be consumed in a darker hour. Truly was so excited the night before that I didn’t sleep that well, woke up at 6am to be there at 7am. Got there a few minutes before the gate got opened, and JC showed up without his boots.

0km: JC forgets boots, we start. About 15ºF and freshly groomed, with the sun just starting to rise.

7:16am. Starting crew: Finn, Espen, Brandon

0.5km: We get to the first junction to see Elliot’s not groomed…Mize it is.

1.5km: Second junction, Sisson not groomed?! Oh boy. Session is the flat, fast loop that we were planning on using mostly. We finished up Mize to check back to see if JC was there yet, then went out on Lekisch 2.9, then skied a few more laps around the stadium until JC arrived.

10km: JC now in the group at 0km, we head down to check on Sisson and decided it was worth a go, even though it was hard and icy.

24km: First water break, JC kept skiing around the stadium to “catch up”

55km: We just did 4 laps of Sisson (each lap about 6km, doesn’t include skiing there or back). Ready to change it up and check out some other, hillier, trails.

10:17am. Snacking it out after a bit of a Sisson grind. Time to head to Jodhpur.

75km: 3.75hr in, decided to ski 10 laps of a 0.4km loop by Jodhpur parking lot to break it up a bit. Skied hard there. Definitely starting to lose energy for hills after only 2 lighted loops (stadium to Jodhpur and back).

100km: 5hr in, absolutely grinding Sisson laps. It was so icy, it hurt my feet, shins, and all other balance muscles, and I hated it. But it was fast and mindless. Ate about a Kiwi a lap. Getting close to lunch though, really looked forward to that

112km: 5:35 in, lunchtime!! Espen and Brandon were done now, making us feel very envious. I was definitely ready for a big break. Switched my shirt and jacket and undid my boots for a little. And ate my leftover fried rice and a brownie and a capri sun (pacific cooler flavor). And Ari, who had just joined us, had some chips. Would’ve stayed here longer if it was warmer, but my hands got soooo cold. Had to switch to mittens for the restart. So hard to restart after a good meal and getting cold.

1:26pm. Lunchtime! Bro on the left is already done :(

130km: 6.5hrs in, did 2 Jodhpur laps after lunch, which I was loving because it was so much easier on my feet in the well-groomed snow. Now eating a snack (PB&J, see below) and heading down into the abyss of Sisson. Getting much harder now. The crew now is JC, Finn, and Ari.

150km: 7.5hr in, still at 3:00/km pace. Did some more Sisson grinding, really honestly not feeling good at all now!! End in sight kinda though, just a normal long distance session ahead. 3/4 of the way. Doing too many watch checks and percentage done breakdowns.

3:26pm, somewhere on Sisson around 150km. Sigurd joined us a little before this, coming from the coastal trail after starting at UAA.

It’s a little bit of a blur to 200k, but we left Sisson at 160km, had a little too long of a snack break, then skied a Jodhpur lap together. JC had clawed back like 3k by skiing around during our snacks, but was still about 6k behind. After the first Jodhpur lap, the boys wanted to go BACK to Sisson, and I didn’t want to, so I stayed and did 2 more Jodhpur laps. The hills were killing me on the second one (3rd in a row!) but my ankles were a lot better, so I took a little downhill cruise into Sisson to meet up with the boys.

188km: 9.5hr in, found the boys on Sisson. Hopped silently into the train. Grind time. Just dying. Ready to be done but 12km felt like soooo much longer.

7:11pm. Big moment. Still buried in the folds of Sisson because I was guilted into finishing with JC, so I had to ski MORE than 200k.

203.4km, 10 hours, 17 minutes, and 41 seconds of skiing later. (more like 12 hours even when you include breaks). Done. Moose’s Tooth Pizza in the parking lot. Emma is an angel for bringing it. Not sure what we would’ve done without that. Best Thai Chicken I’ve ever had.

Dude that’s a vibe. Legs just throbbing.

Went home, thought I was going to have to take a test but it was messed up so I didn’t, thank god. Hot tubbed, ate way too much more food and slept like crazy. Woke up and my legs just felt swollen and so stiff. Got my covid shot this afternoon, feeling a little better now. We’ll see how long that lasts!

Definitely a once-a-year thing, maybe less than that. Although I’m sure by next year I’ll only remember the good parts and forget how hard it was. When I think that maybe I come back here and read what I said. Who knows, done for now, thanks for tuning in. Thought this was good content that wasn’t race related.