This month I’ll stick to my actual runs and relegate my skiing and other outings to my “Alaskan Journal” (https://www.trailnotes.org).
All of my recent runs have been linked to “Running Club North”. In fact their running calendar is pretty full, with one to three events per weekend. Then during the week there is the Wednesday Fahrenheit Be Darned (FBD) and the Thursday Hoodoo Brewery run. Which is more than I could handle. So I do just the Wednesday runs, backcountry ski twice a week, and skate ski once a week.
And I slipped in one quirky race.
>>March 4 FBD – Pooch Trail & Large Animals
Wednesday runs are always fun, but sometimes memorably hard. Like the night we ran on the “Pooch Trail”. But even hard runs have some nice perks.
Since it is March, we are now running with a bit of daylight. Light and temperatures are changing very fast, but I have yet to see even a single hour above freezing.
This Wednesday we started by heading north, across the UAF campus and then into the “North Campus”, a square mile of forest laced with ski trails and foot paths. The ski trails are machine groomed, whereas the footpaths are mainly groomed by snowshoes.
If the snow had been a bit harder, and Ed claimed it had been on Monday, this would have been a gentle run. But today ever step went four to six inches down, and that makes for a lot of work, like running in loose sand or ankle deep mud. And harder than that was an occasional step which slipped off the tread-way and sunk into the snow next to the trail. These mis-steps are at least knee deep and sometimes more. Right now there is between three and four feet of snow on the ground.
So after an exhausting mile we came out on Dalton Road and after circling through a neighborhood are back on a trail. This trail is just outside the fence for the University’s “Large Animal Research Station”.
And there, on the other side of the fence, was a heard of Wood Bison. The Wood Bison is actually bigger than the Plains Bison found in the lower 48. But they (like the Musk-Ox and the Reindeer in the next field) seemed to be unfazed by the cold.
I, however, did note that my face was trimmed out with a rime frost.
>> March 7 – A Snowshoe Race
Every other weekend through the winter, Running Club North organizes a snowshoe race. I don’t think I would normally willingly participate in a snowshoe race. But I recognize that as the agent of my readers I need to participate in as wide a range of Alaskan activities as I can. So I pointed the car out Murphy Dome Road and headed to the races.
I have avoided snowshoe races because I thought they would be really hard; and it turns out I was not wrong.
The race starts at the end of Richard Berry Drive. Eric and Jane were there to park us and register us. I borrowed a pair of snow shoes, then stripped down five minutes before the start. We started 20 meters from the trail head such that there was space on the road after the start to jockey for position.
Jane called out “Go!” and Sam – of course — took the lead. Should I mention that there are only a dozen of us running today?
The trail is single track, not much wider than a set of snowshoes. I let myself get boxed in because I had no idea what pace I could run. But about five minutes in I decided there was too much conversation going on around me, so I called out “On your left” and passed a few people. Fortunately small running snowshoes are a bit narrow then the wider footgear most walkers ware, so you can kind of squeeze around other runners, if you have their cooperation.
This is hard work! Very hard work. In half a mile I am sweating despite it being sub-zero. The course is up to the ridge line and then back. Our footing is better than on the “Pooch trail” because of our footgear, but snow is still hard to run in.
A friend of the running club is at the halfway point and checking us all off as we turn and head for home. One last uphill and then . . .
I don’t think I really realized how steep the hill up was until we started down. I had wondered if I had put too much into the first half of the race, little realizing how now we could fly home!
Kelsi is a better flyer than I am and takes me in the last mile. She is young, limber and a great athlete, so I don’t mind being beaten by her.
When running downhill with snowshoes, snow flys all over and by the time we finished our backs are plastered with snow.
At the finish line there is much camaraderie, hot chocolate and brownies. Snowshoe racing is fun in its own special and weird way.
>> March 11 (FBD) – Farm & Campus Loop
From my point of view, what made this run unusual was that other runners deferred to me for directions.
Every week George and Ed send an email on Tuesday which explains the Wednesday run and includes a map of the loop. It also has a link to where you can sign in and sign out online.
I usually used the paper sign-in sheet, which is at our meeting point, the Patty Center (UAF Gym) . Once I didn’t sign out and received a phone call from Ed an hour after I got home to check on me. He said he didn’t want to send out the St. Bernards. I guess they feel responsible, especially on bitterly cold nights.
One reason for the maps is that they try to go the six months/twenty-six Wednesdays of the Fahrenheit Be Darned season without repeating a route. Because all these runs radiate from one point, that means sometimes a lot of twist and turns. And, since I like maps, I study them before the runs.
Tonight’s run, or since it is daylight now at 5:45 perhaps I should say, this afternoon’s run, starts with a loop around the fields of the university’s ag school. Having only been here in the winter, it is hard for me to imagine crops and pastures, but that is what the signs say.
Next we are running on Geist and University Ave, where road graders have scraped the sidewalks clean for the first time since a recent series of storms. This is so easy after the trail running. Then around campus and home.
>> March 18 (FBD) “Campus Cardio Stairway to Higher Knowledge”
As the name of the run indicated, this run is a lot of stairs on campus. With the added challenge of reporting the total step count to George at the end.
I ran with Austin and Sam. Sam normally is about a mile in front of me, but he is running the “White Mountain 100” in a week and so today is carrying his pack to test it out. He is also running light and easy as part of his taper.
The “White Mountains” in this case are in the middle of Alaska. The White Mountain Recreational Area (Bureau of Land Management – Alaska) is about 30% larger than the White Mountain National Forest in New Hampshire. The race can be done running, fat bike (snow) or skiing. There are five check points and the staff get there by snowmachines. But you must carry your own food and water, the trails are very remote.
But today we are just climbing staircases and counting steps.
Our group counted 355 steps. The “correct” answer is 357. But the bottom few steps going up to the cross-country ski warming hut were buried in snow and we wondered if they should count.
>> March 25 – last FBD Fahrenheit be Damned / Beat Beethoven / Final Exam & Pizza
Fahrenheit be Darned (or Fahrenheit be Damned) is a twenty-six week program, and so it eventually comes to an end. And this week is it. So the plan is a short run (5k), pizza and the final exam.
We are going to run the “Beat Beethoven” race course (if you are in Fairbanks April 18 – consider running it). The race is co-sponsored by the Fairbanks Symphony Orchestra and Running Club North. Beethoven’s 5th Symphony is 30+ minutes long, and I’m told they play a particularly long and slow version of that piece. Any one who finishes before Beethoven does, gets a free concert ticket.
I ran with Kelsie and she told me about the Tanana River Challenge, an ultra-marathon skijoring race. Skijoring is cross-country skiing while being towed by a pair of dogs. Perhaps “power assisted” by dogs would be a better description. She told me that there was much drama as she was passed by dogsled teams, and then re-passed them.
Today we beat Beethoven and ended at the student center where George and Ed had pizza waiting for us. And then the final exam. “When was the coldest run this year?” “How many miles did we run?” “How many cookies and cups of hot chocolate were consumed afterwards?” “According to the UVRC newsletter, how many Watts of heat do runners produce?”
A nice social hour, and George and Ed’s official last time as “trail bosses” after 18 years? (I may have got that question wrong on the exam.)
But the days are long and getting warmer. The thermometer has not gone above freezing here in Fairbanks since Halloween Night, but it looks like it will happen in the next week. So I’m leaving here in a few days.
Or as an Alaskan would say, “I’m going Outside.”