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2011 ARROWHEAD 135 RACE REPORT
Internatonal Falls Minnesota, 7am Feb 4 myself and 55 other runners
started the Arrowhead 135 mile race. This would be my second attempt at the
most dangerous race I have ever attempted! The temperature at the start was
minus 9 deg F. The snow was soft do to 8 inches of snow that fell just a few
days before the race. The soft snow made the going tougher and slower. My race
strategy was to power walk the flat and uphill then run the downhills while
pulling my 40 lb sled with survival gear and food. My plan was to stay on my
feet, keep moving and take no breaks till the 35 mile check point. The cut offs
at Arrowhead are very tough for me so a minimal rest strategy was what I was
going with.
I felt good and was banging out 20
minute miles like clock work when another runner caught up to me at mile 30
after 10 hours of racing, It was about 5pm and the temperature was about 10
degrees the racer said "You look like a human snowball your fleece is all
cover in frost! He then asked me "Are you sweating? I said "If I was
sweating couldn't that kill me."
He said " Eventually yes!". I replied "Then no I am not
sweating!!" I try to always be positive!
At mile 34 It was now dark and about
6:30pm when I missed the turnoff to the 35 mile check point at Gateway. Two
women on skis turned me around about a mile down the trail. I ended up going an
extra 2 miles to the check point. It ended up costing me a precious 40 mins. I
tried to put a positive spin on it by telling myself 2 miles is nothing it
could have been a lot worse. When I finally arrived at the check point I asked
my friend Roger ( who has climbed Mt Mckinley) if the frost on my fleece was
from sweating? (I was in no hurry to freeze to death as the race was still
early! ha ha! ) He said "No".
Oh the power of positive thinking!!!! I had stuck to my plan and not
taken a break or been off my feet in the 12 1/2 hours since the race started. 26 of the 56 runners who started the
race would not make it past the first check point.
I stayed at the check point 1 hr and 30
mins eating and drying my clothes preparing myself for the minus 20 degree
weather that was now outside and the 12 hour trek I would be taking through the
night to the 73 mile check point at Mel Georges. Four of us left the check
point at the same time. I ended up pairing up with a college student named Ben
from North Dakota. Our plan was to push all the way through the night with no
sleep all the way to the 73 mile check point. At about 2 am we came across a
lady walking,( the safety patrol guys say 1am is when all hell breaks loose
because the temperature drops just as the racers are getting real tired! ) She
told us her water was all frozen and she had quit an hour ago but nobody had
come along to pick her up yet so she just kept walking to stay warm. We gave
her some water and left her with the next guy we came across about a half hour
later who also had quit with frozen water but also had to keep walking to stay
warm. At 3 am the temperature dropped to minus 30 degrees. Anyone who tells you
anything below a certain temperature is all the same is wrong! You could feel
it in your bones as it got colder! At this same time we arrived at an unheated
Tee Pee where my friend Ed had a fire and was serving hot chocolate at around
mile 53. Here I would take my second break since the race started I had been
going at it for 20 hours. Ed radioed out to the snow mobile safety patrol that
they needed to go pick up the two people on the trail who had quit. I told Ed I
felt great! He told me "But Bill you haven't slept!" We left Ed's Tee
Pee after about a 30 min break.
As we got back on the trail I had jinxed
myself. We were now in the hills and me and my new friend Ben were no longer
feeling great! The fact is we were
both falling asleep on our feet at the same time as the temperature dropped to
minus 35 degrees. I told him we need to fight through this I said I am now
Superman and you are the Terminator! Cold doesn't bother us and we can't be
stopped!! We had left Ed's Tee Pee
with a 2 hour cushion on the cutoff. At 4am my camelbak hose froze. I was
wearing 4 layers of clothes and had the camelbak under 3 layers. I would take
the hose out to drink when necessary. But as I got tired and delirious I left
the hose out a few minutes to long in the minus 35 deg temperature and it had
frozen solid! I put the hose back under all 3 layers and kept moving figuring
it would thaw out from my body heat. After an hour it was still frozen solid! I
had to drink. The last thing I wanted to do was stop in this cold. When you
stop you are no longer generating heat and you freeze! I was also slowing
drastically from the lack of water, I told the Terminator to go on without me.
I had no choice but to stop and go for my spare water. I pulled off my harness
at 5 am and in the dark of night ran quickly back to my sled to get to my spare
water. I pulled on the zipper to the cover of my sled, nothing happened it was
frozen and wouldn't open! I
reminded myself I was Superman and gave it a mighty yank and it opened. I
grabbed my spare insulated water bottles that had been filled with boiling hot
water at the last check point. I saw I had left the both zippers open about an
inch and both bottles were frozen solid!
I grabbed my insulated food bag yanked on it's zipper and it just fell
apart causing the cold air to get to my sandwiches and freeze them. I took a
couple deep breaths to calm myself down and figured I better get in my sleeping
bag and regroup. My friend the legendary
Alaskan Racer Bill Merchant taught me always get in your sleeping bag while you
still can! I was now starting to shake with hypothermia and figured I better
get in my bag quick. I threw my pad down on the snow and put my sleeping bag on
top of it. Then I reached for the zipper on my minus 20 degree rated sleeping
bag and it wouldn't open, it also was frozen shut! I tugged on it a few times and couldn't get it to budge! I
remember looking down at my fingers through delirious eyes in the dark and seeing
totally black fingers and saying" Oh Crap this isn't Good!" "
What have I done to my fingers!!!
I then realized I still had my inner gloves on! I gave a big sigh of
relief! I was really starting to shake with hypothermia and my fingers were now
going numb! I decided If the sleeping
bag wouldn't open on the next try I would start running before I got any
colder to generate heat back into my body. I summoned all my strength grabbed
the zipper with my shaking hands gave it a mighty tug and broke it free and
open it! I climbed in my sleeping
bag and zipped the bag up over my head.
Although I had had my inner
gloves on while I had fought the zipper wars. And they were way better then
bare skin I knew they were no match for the minus 35 degree weather. My fingers
definitely felt frozen. I knew they were also frost bit but I didn't know how
bad. I put them under my armpits and had to stifle a scream as the blood flowed
back into them. After they thawed
out, I said to myself well I guess I am out of the race everything is frozen
and my fingers are frost bitten. I then heard a snowmobile coming up the trail.
I crawled half out of my bag to flag him down, he already had another exhausted
racer on the back of his snowmobile.
I told him everything I had was frozen and I had frost bite on my fingers
so I was out of the race. He told me the next check point was 15 miles away and
he would drop off the other racer and then come back and get me! I laid down
and fell asleep for an hour. I woke up really cold around 6am even with 4
layers on and in a minus 20 degree sleeping bag the wet minus 35 degree cold
was again getting to me! I was so uncomfortably cold, I decided to get up and
just start walking to stay warm till the snow mobile comes back for me.
I then saw three other racers coming up
the trail they said were staying in the race and thought they could still make
the cut off. I told them everything I had was frozen and I was waiting for the
snow mobile. As I got up out of my sleeping bag I realized I had slept with my
camelbak on. I thought I wonder if this possibly could have thawed it out? I then sucked on the hose and water
came out. I also had slept with a
couple sandwiches in the pockets of my jacket and they had thawed too!!! I
decided to do positive thinking on my fingers and figure they weren't that bad!
I decided not take them out of my gloves to look at them! I would deal with
them later!!!
I then said "Bradley get your ass
moving you are out of excuses you are back in this thing!!" About 15
minutes later the snow mobile came back and asked if I wanted a ride? I said No
I am good!!! I am going to push
on!!!
It was now daylight I was at mile 59 I
would have to average just over 20 minutes a mile to hit the 73 mile cut off
about an hour early. I would have
very little time to sleep when I got there as that cutoff is for leaving but I
would just deal with it when I got there. I was strong for about an hour then I
started nodding off as I was walking. In a desperate effort to stop the nods I
tried laying on my sled and closing my eyes for a few minutes a couple times.
But it was to no avail the battle with the nods would go on for 6 hours right
to the 73 mile check point. I had lost all my cushion I would hit the check
point with no time to spare. I remember wanting to call my dad to get his
advice as I came up the final straightway. He had always helped me to find more
strength when I thought there was none! He had talked to me at critical
breaking moments in RAAM and Double Badwater and several others. But my cell
phone had frozen and my battery had died. I would pull up to the cabin just a
few minutes before the cutoff! I
was hoping for a miracle!!! When I
stopped in front of the cabin all the fatigue from pulling that 40 lb sled for
73 miles through survival conditions hit me like a ton of bricks! I had pulled
that sled for 28 of the 31 hours I had been on the trail with only 1 hour of
sleep! My fingers were frost bitten! My knees buckled when I took off my
harness! I opened the door and the devil had got me!! There would be no
miracle!! I needed sleep to go on!! I was done!!!!
But as my
friend the Terminator would say " I will be Baaaaaack!!!!
Thanks
Bill
Notes
I made it 8 hrs faster then I did last
year to 73 mile check point.
I am already designing a new training
plan and figuring out how to get my sled lighter to finish next year.
Only 20 of the 56 runners who started
finished.
Congratulations to my friend Nick who is
only 20 years old and was one of the finishers. Amazing!!!
Thanks to my friend Ray Sanchez for teaching
me how a real pro prepares for a race.
My fingers
would blister and peel. But they would race another day.
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