Watch out for Iditarod poop and frozen nards!

The race had started and I felt great. We skied a loop at the high school and circled around to see the minimal crowd that had gathered and then we were in the woods! As were left the view of the crowd I prayed that I wouldn't fall on the downhill and turn...and thank goodness I didn't...how embarassing would that have been? We skied several kilometers when there was a man standing at a fork in the trail to tell the 40K striders where to go and where the 50K striders should go. During the first 15K two people and myself played cat and mouse on the trail....one would take the lead and while the other two dropped back for awhile. This kept on for several kilometers. It helped keep it interesting for us. The skate skiers had caught up to us by this point and I have to admit it was amazing to see the professionals racing!
I breezed through one water stop and felt good. I felt stronger than I had in a long time. I was breezing through the first part of this race. I was just hoping that things would stay this easy. I then passed the next water stop and saw Melissa and Doug to my surprise. I wasn't expecting to see them until 23-25K in. It was a good surprise and it gave me confidence to keep going at the pace I was going. I later passed another water stop and my lead on some of my teammates lengthened, though I had several more ahead of me! Just pasted the 15K mark I looked at my trust GPS tracker and noticed that I was an hour behind schedule. Unfortunately I hadn't remembered to set back the time to Alaska time when I turned it on, so it was still reading Pacific time...one hour ahead of Alaska time. Thus started my mental game with myself. Because I was unaware that my time was off on my GPS, I thought I wasn't going to be able to be an official finisher in this race...so I started to stress out about the finishing.
Luckily prior to the race, Melissa had given me a walkie talkie so I could communicate with her and Doug throughout the race. Around the 22K mark I tried to radio them, not knowing if I was within distance for them to hear me. I think I only said, "hello?" and moments later I heard my sisters voice...and I have to be honest...that was the best sounding voice I could have heard! She asked where I was and I responded with a very tired, "I have no idea!" She was cheering me on and telling me she was proud of me, that was what I needed to hear to keep going. I would be lying if I said that I wasn't having visions of getting in their rented punto and being done with this race, but I couldn't do it. I was trying to talk myself off the ledge that I somehow found myself on so early on in the race. I rounded the corner and saw a bunch of people cheering all the skiers on. I was crying, embarrassingly so, b/c I had hit my mental wall. I was trying to regain my composure when some random person said to me, "You are great! You can do this!" That was all I needed to regain my composure. Moments later I saw my sister and Doug, and once again I teared up. As I got closer I noticed that Doug had disappeared and Sis was videotaping me skiing past her. At this point I was 23K into the race. As I passed Melissa she yelled out some encouragement to me and then moments later I saw Doug. He was doing what he does best...cheering me on...and I kept going.
So many people from Anchorage came out to cheer us on. My team had gotten a mention in the Anchorage newspaper and people all over Anchorage knew that we were there to ski. Apparently my team had touched many people. They were impressed with us b/c we gave up our weekends to drive 3 hours to get to the snow to ski for 6 hours and then to drive 3-4 hours back home....that in their words is dedication. So with that said, people from Anchorage were scattered throughout the course cheering us on...not to mention the other skiers were cheering us on! That too also kept me going! How can one stop when so many people are proud of you and cheering you on?
As I left my sister and Doug behind I thought I would next see them at the finish line...which seemed so far away. I skied for a long time along the oceans edge and was trying to keep my mind off my lower back pain and how tired I was. The water was frozen where it came to meet land. In all honesty, it was a pretty view, but I really couldn't enjoy it much at that point! Some of my teammates that were skating, racer style skiing, in the race caught me at this point and we yelled our traditional cheer at each other, "Go Team....Stay Slick!" In and amongst those cheers some of the skiers that weren't associated with my team were cheering myself and others from my team on, like I mentioned before. It is amazing how nice everyone was on the course!
As I started up another hill I saw a sign that mentioned that I had 15K left before I finished! The end was drawing near! And to be honest I was thinking, "It is about freaking time!"
I got to the top of the hill and noticed there was another water stop. I skied up and this time decided to take some power drink, I took a drink and immediately spit it out! It was warm and it tasted like Theraflu! How were people drinking that?! I noticed that as I handed the glass back to the girl that had given it to me that I had caught one of my team mates and my sister and Doug were at this water stop as well! I was so tired, but so happy to see them! Doug walked up to me and asked if he could take anything for me....I ended up giving him my jacket, b/c Lord knows that I didn't need it b/c I was pretty warm at this point. I mentioned that I had seen the sign for 15K left and I was told that I had close to 11K left....NICE...I was closer than I thought! I was with them a good 5 minutes then I started skiing again. Fleetwood Mac was on my Ipod...and it helped me start to ascend the hill that was looming in front of me!
I had my teammate in sight for the next several kilometers and then I lost her. The hill was pretty long and I had slowed up so I wouldn't be out of energy by the time I got to the top of it. Not long after reaching the top I started seeing signs for another water stop. Once I got there, I realized that I had caught 2 of my teammates. One that was in the 40K with me and the other from the 25K. I was handed some cookies to eat (little did I know that the hill from hell was several kilometers ahead of us, so they were feeding us sugar to keep us going!). While I was there eating my oreos, I was told that we had 8k left to the finish line. That was a great thing to hear to be honest! That gave me enough energy to get moving again! I was almost there! We were in the home stretch!
Randi and I took off to get this done! She skied in front of me and was the one to alert me that we had gotten to the 5K left marker! We were so close! The next several kilometers went by uneventful. I was praying during this time to help me get through this, I spoke to my Pa a lot and I listened to my music...hoping all of this would keep my mind off the physical pain that I was going through. I skied up to the 3K left marker and noticed that Randi was climbing a hill from hell. I then remembered that we had been warned that at the end there was a hill that was hard, only b/c it was the last hill to climb to get to the finish line. Don't get me wrong, it was a steep hill and would be challenging even if I hadn't have already skied a 37K. But to my credit, I had climbed some monster hills during our training and this wasn't any worse than what I had been on before. It was just going to be hard b/c it was at the end of the race. As I started to climb the hill I found myself yelling things out loud....at this moment I had tourettes! I was yelling things like, "You have to freaking be kidding me!", "Why would you have us finish this race on a freaking uphill?", "This is a freaking joke!", etc (and I would like to add that I never did say a curse word, which my mom would be happy to hear! I did really say freaking...I just said it a lot!). As I was in my yelling fit, an older gentleman skated passed me and said, "Honey, your almost there! Hang in there!" Talk about embarrassing! At that moment I decided to stop my bitching and wasting my energy and decided to put my nose to the grindstone, finish climbing that hill and finish this race already!
When I got to the top I noticed the 2K left sign....there was some flat and then another uphill. At this uphill I saw the 1K left sign and then I saw one of my teammates coming back into the race. He was skiing in to see how many of us were close to finishing. I was to later find out there were still 20 of my teammates behind me. At this moment I pulled out my walkie talkie and radioed my sister. I had been radioing her since the 5K marker and at every 1K marker thereafter, but I was too far away for her to hear me. I figured that since I was 1k out that I was close enough for her to hear me. As I radioed to her and said, "1K left" I heard her respond with, "Can you hear us? You are so close. You can do this!" Then there was a pause and then I heard my sister say something like hurry up and something about Doug freezing. I later found out that to help make me laugh my sister had really said, "Hurry up! Dougs nards are freezing off!" Had I heard that I would have laughed or attempted to laugh, but I was so tired that I didn't hear what she said unfortunately. Anyway, I knew that I had to be close and radioed again to let her know that I still couldn't hear them and at that moment I rounded the corner and there was my sister, Doug and several of my teammates. And all of them were ringing cow bells and yelling for me! I broke out in a very tired grin and my eyes filled up with tears again (I seemed to have been on the brink of tears and in tears at more points throughout the race then I thought I would be).
I thought I was at the end....thought being the key word! I was so happy that I could have collapsed. Doug and Melissa were walking along side me at this point, yes that is right. I was moving so slow that they were walking along side me. Doug mentioned that I had to go up and around to the finish line and then that is when I noticed that I had to climb a small hill, an ant hill really, and then loop around to the finish line. I replied with, "I can't do that! I am done." Doug responded with, "You've done it sis....you can do this! It is right there!" All the while my sister was clapping her hands. So I mustered up the strength for the final part of the race! I got up that hill and looped around and skied through the finish line!