Arrowhead Ultra 135 Report: Fears, Doubts, Hallucinations, and Success--Part Two

Melgeorges Resort Checkpoint.

When I arrived at the checkpoint I saw a half dozen bikes outside. I grabbed a couple of bags with dry clothes in them and went inside to check-in. The race had rented a larger, newer cabin than in past years. It was spacious with a loft that had three twin beds and a private bedroom off the side of the loft. I got my outer wear off and went into one of the two bathrooms to change into a couple of dry shirts. The volunteers had a wide variety of warm food available for the racers, none of which I could eat with my Celiac Disease. I had planned ahead. My drop bag had plenty of food in it. I had a huge stack of blueberry pancakes to warm up and a small flask of maple syrup. Homemade hot chocolate mix and various other snacking items like bison jerky. I sat on the couch for about two hours, ate and listened to other peoples stories. I was still undecided about whether to try to find a place to lay down for awhile there, or move on and camp out along the trail. I was still worried I would sleep too long if I camped out. The noise level in the cabin wouldn't be conducive to sleeping. I did know I had to take a rest if I was going to make the distance. About 2230 I decided to try the floor in the loft, all the beds were being used. The cabin volunteers told me to take the bedroom, as it wasn't occupied. I couldn't believe they were offering me the private bedroom, and confirmed they were serious about me taking it. So I did. I set the alarm clock for 4:30 and tried to sleep.

The sound of all the voices, as people came and went, weren't stopped by the walls or door of this bedroom. I figure I might have gotten a solid 20 minutes of sleep the entire time I was in there. I finally got up at 3:50 and decided to eat again and get my stuff together. It took me until 4:58 to get it together and check-out.

Melgeorges Resort Checkpoint to Bayview Lodge.

The checkpoint is just past half way. However, the hilliest part of the course was yet to come. Talk of what lay ahead included steep, long uphills that came one after another for miles on end.

I only saw one other bike as I left the checkpoint. I knew a few more were at other cabins. I was sure I was not the last biker to leave, but I was close to it. I knew Lance Andre had left about 30 minutes before me and that the first three runners had come and gone. I couldn't believe runners had left before me.

A spur trail leads back to the Arrowhead Trail. It was a mile and half long uphill. I learned quickly that, to my surprise, the long layover at the checkpoint was paying off. My legs felt fresh.

It had snowed about an 1/2" in the past few hours. The only tracks I could see in the snow were the runners and Lance's. The temp had been 24 degrees when I got up and dropped to 20 degrees by the time I left the cabin. The trail already seemed to be firmer and much easier to ride. I only wished I had gotten out of there before the runners. Riding over their footprints made for a bumpier ride. I was looking forward to overtaking them and leaving their footprints behind. It took a couple of hours before I had passed all three.

The trail had several big hills early on. I had decided to once again to walk all the hills to save the legs. I saw a biker camped out at each of the first two trail shelters. I recognized the second one as Josh's bike. I'm not sure who was at the first one. Just before sun-up I caught up to Lance. I was a bit surprised. I had figured him for a strong rider. We talked for awhile. He said he had stayed so long at the checkpoint to get dehydrated. He said he had run out of water with about ten miles to go before the checkpoint. He stayed at the checkpoint until he was sure he was fully hydrated. Smart!! He also said he had a swollen foot from a wipeout last night. It was slowing him down quite a bit. Lance and I had the same goal; make it to the finish before nightfall. I went on ahead expecting to see him again, but never did.

About an hour after sunrise I noticed the water vapor that had accumulated on my jacket had suddenly frozen solid. I checked my little REI zipper pull thermometer. It was reading 10 degrees. The temp had dropped pretty significantly. My toes went cold not long after that. I stopped long enough to put some chemical handwarmers in my boots to warm them up. It worked. I hadn't been eating and drinking as often as I had in the first half. I was having a hard time getting the food down. It wasn't very appealing. I took the cold toes as a warning to start eating and drinking more.

The skies had cleared off after the sun came up. That might explain the temperature drop. I was feeling good enough to enjoy the trail. It was very beautiful and ever changing from recently logged areas to groves of White or Red Pine. There were some long flat stretches in low laying wetlands and sections with very steep hills. The trail had firmed up enough that it was easy to ride. I no longer had to worry about what line I was taking. The fat tires easily swallowed up everything in their path. I continued to walk up the hills and with the firm trail I was able to really bomb the downhills.

At some point Don Clark pulled up on a snowmobile with another person riding along with him. They both commented on how good I looked. I was feeling good, all things considered of course. With about 40 miles to go Josh caught up. It was the first time we had talked since we had given him a ride back to I-Falls last year. We talked briefly, he took my picture, and he moved on. He looked strong riding the hills up ahead of me. At this point I had left the flat sections behind. It was all hills. Up one and back down, only to go up another. This was endless. I was enjoying it, but still looking forward to leaving the hills behind. Little did I know how hard it was to become for me after the hills ended.

I never did find the big hills I had imagined after hearing the descriptions. It wasn't that they were big. Just steep and never ending. With 22 miles to go I came around a corner to see the steepest hill yet. It stopped me in my tracks and I muttered to myself, "You've got to be kidding!". It was a wall rising maybe 100-150 feet up. I slowly ascended it. Midway up I turned around to see Spencer Klaassen at the bottom just starting up. A shelter at the top was named "Wake 'em Up Hill". I chuckled and bombed down the other side.

At the meeting they told us the last section was boring and flat. You could see from the top of the hill that it turned flat. I was looking forward to staying on the bike, getting into a nice rhythm, and riding to the finish. Spencer passed me within a half mile and confirmed the hills were done. Spencer was spinning along nicely. I didn't even try to match his pace. I quickly learned that the hills had been a blessing. All the walking broke up the monotony and gave me a break. Once I had to sit on the bike I learned how bad my wrists and hands were hurting. I had a hard time finding a hand position that didn't hurt for my left hand. I also seemed to have some chaffing on the backside that became much more noticeable when I wasn't giving it a break with the walking.

I found out that 8 mph was the absolute top speed I was going to muster. I could keep it at 8, but could not increase it past that no matter what I did. I tried gearing down and spinning. I could go 8 mph in that gear. I geared up, still 8 mph. I settled into that pace and started calculating. Twenty miles to go at 8 mph...mmmm...two and a half hours!!!! That's an eternity when you're sleep deprived and have been at it for almost 30 hours.

This is when things started to get a little weird. I started to see things. I started to see people along the trail. I'd get up to where they were standing and they wouldn't be there. I thought that was strange. Then I started seeing buildings, dogs, cars parked along side the trail. I came to realize none of these things I was seeing was real. Then I'd see more people. And I'd think to myself, now those people are real......and then they wouldn't be there. I saw a great dane with a guy sitting on him like you would sit on a horse. Not real, but I swore it was there. Eventually I was very aware that I was hallucinating. I took a quick assessment of how I was feeling. I still had enough energy to keep my forward movement going. I wasn't chilled, my feet, my hands and my core were staying warm. I didn't think I was hypothermic. I finally decided that maybe I wasn't keeping up with my hydration I still had a little more than a liter of water left and I was still stopping at least once an hour to pee. I decided just to continue on, and to continue eating and drinking right up to the end. Apparently it worked.

I learned that if I stared at the trail directly in front of me I wouldn't see all these things along the trail. As soon as I looked up, I'd see a person walking on the trail up ahead. Then I had to work at not looking at the odometer. I'd look at it, it'd say something like 120.2. I'd say to myself, "Okay, don't look at the odometer, don't look at the odometer!" I'd hold out as long as I could, thinking I must have gone at least another mile, look down at the odometer and it'd read 120.3. This happened over and over. Several times I thought it must have stopped working.

I resorted to stopping every 20 minutes to eat or drink something for a couple of minutes just to give some relieve to the left hand and butt. It got to be close to agony. At this point I had a mantra I kept repeating. Every finisher gets a handmade Arrowhead trophy made by Pierre. My mantra was, "I'm going to get me one of those damn trophies, I'm going to get me one of those damn trophies". It was sincere too, because I really wanted to get that trophy. So I kept saying it over and over.

I was so happy when I got to the turn off to Bayview Lodge and the sign said two miles ago. I had calculated at least another 4 miles to go. At 8 mph, 2 miles sounds a lot better than 4 miles. There was one last small hill to the lodge. I had to push the bike up it. Then it was a quick gradual downhill to the finish. I even shifted onto the middle chainring for it. I hadn't been on the middle chainring for over 100 miles. I rolled in climbed off the bike where I saw all the other bikes next to the bar. All I had left to do was find where to check in.

Susan was staying at a friends house nearby in Tower. The plan was for me to call her when I finished and she'd come get me. As I was stumbling around trying to find where to go, Susan appeared. I was hoping it was really her and not another one of those damn hallucinations.

That's me, below, the way Susan found me at the finish.

Turns out it was her. I said the clock was still running, I needed to check in. She and another racer pointed to a row of cabins and I heard the word "Birch". Susan said I turned around and just kinda pointed my body towards the cabins, leaned forward and stumbled over to the cabins. I checked in, the time was 15:49. I was thrilled. Not only had I made it before sunset, I made it before 4:00. I finished in 31 hours and 58 minutes, putting me in 12th place overall.
Susan picked up on my state of confusion right away. I decided to take a shower at the cabin before heading home. Susan watched me try to find some dry clothes in the bag she had brought in for me. It took me awhile. She says I'm not a person who can multi-task. At that moment she said she couldn't even give me more than one instruction or ask me more than one question at a time without fear of overloading my brain.

I felt good, I was happy that I finished and thrilled to see Susan. She said she'd treat me to dinner. She drove us to Gilbert, MN where we had an awesome dinner at the Whistling Bird, a Jamaican restaurant. I thought I was doing good enough to enjoy a glass of celebratory wine. (I can't have any grain based alcohol like whiskey or beer.) Midway through dinner I went into the restroom and while in there I got light headed and nearly passed out. Whoa, I decided I wasn't going to bounce back very quickly from the days activities.

I had one more hallucination on the drive home. Susan was driving along and I saw two people walking out into the roadway up ahead. I almost yelled to Susan to watch out for those people. I decided not to. Good thing, there was nobody in the road. I thought it was best if I closed my eyes. I slept the rest of the way home.

I am thrilled to be a part of the finishers of the Arrowhead 135. It's an experience I will never forget. An accomplishment I couldn't be prouder of. This is an event that has a huge learning curve. Both years I learned more about myself than I've learned in the past ten years combined. And best of all, I learned I can do something extraordinary when I put my mind to it!!