My favorite races: The White Mountains 100
Part three of a series about the best endurance events, as subjectively chosen by me
I had hit a low point in my life. I was certain that endurance racing was to blame.
Sure, I was practically homeless, renting out a single room on a remote spit of land miles from an already isolated city in Alaska. And sure, I had to sleep on the floor because the horrible bed that came with the furnished room gave me back pain and a pinched nerve, and my cat had clawed all of my inflatable pads to shreds. And sure, most of my meals consisted of spoonfuls of peanut butter and raspberry jam because I was too exhausted to bother making a sandwich after bike commuting from work along the icy streets of Juneau after 2 a.m. And sure, I was miserable at a job that required upwards of 60 hours a week after shunting me into the stressful role of middle management in a severely understaffed newsroom. And sure, I was still reeling from a breakup nearly a year earlier, still seeing my ex on far too regular of a basis, all while shuffling through several unfulfilling flings with the 30-something dude-bros of Juneau.
All of that was the result of countless life choices that had nothing to do with endurance racing. But I convinced myself my life wouldn’t be such a mess if I weren’t so obsessed with endurance racing. My last relationship wouldn’t have dissolved, and I could dedicate more mental energy to my work. Maybe I’d find a better job and have enough time and money to move away from this stark isolation in a town where all of my friends were my ex’s friends and the dating pool was comprised almost entirely of dude-bros who lived in boats docked in the harbor. (And their rent was not cheaper than mine; I checked.)
So this is where I was at in February 2010 — 30 years old, going nowhere, and convinced the only way to turn my life around would be to change everything — when I received an e-mail from an acquaintance in Fairbanks. Ed Plumb was starting a new race in a Fairbanks-adjacent recreation area called the White Mountains. It would be a 100-mile loop through “some of the most beautiful country in Alaska.” The race was set to start in less than a month, and “everyone who’s signed up is from Anchorage or Fairbanks. We need some Juneau representation.” Was I interested?
I was depressed, I’d been eating and sleeping like shit for months, I had barely recovered from a weeks-long battle with the Swine Flu, and my only training for a 100-mile fat bike race was my occasional 25-mile commute to and from work. (Honestly, I only rode to work when the weather was so bad that I couldn’t coax my Geo Prism out of the driveway, which in Juneau happened at least twice a week.) And of course, there was that whole thing of needing to quit endurance racing so I could get on with my life. But I thought … what do I have to lose? Why the hell not?
Within two weeks of deciding I would ride the White Mountains 100, I had put in notice at my job, put in notice with my landlady, made arrangements to move in with a friend in Anchorage, convinced myself I could make it work by finishing my book about the Tour Divide, and felt empowered through it all. I can change my life and don’t have to quit endurance racing — even if this hobby is time-consuming, expensive, strange, exhausting, and often infuriating. I was in love with endurance racing, and I now fully believe that you don’t necessarily choose who you love.
A friend and I drove in his beat-up old Subaru from Juneau to Fairbanks, an 800-mile journey via the ferry to Haines and the icy Alaska Highway. We couldn’t afford a hotel room so we camped overnight beside Slim’s River in Canada, listening to wolves howl through the 20-below night. I loaded my Surly Pugsley with survival gear since I had no idea what to expect. Indeed, the White Mountains seemed to throw everything at me in a short 100 miles. The race started under bright sunshine on hardpacked trails, but the temperature seemed to plummet 20 degrees at every descent of the steep, rolling hills (this was my introduction to Interior Alaska temperature inversions.) The trail was frequently clogged with aufeis (frozen overflow), a real hazard in the days before studded tires. I battled fearsome winds and deep snowdrifts as night fell and temperatures plummeted to 25 below zero. When I walked into the mile-80 checkpoint — a single-room cabin on Beaver Creek — I announced, “Damn it’s cold out there … I mean for me. I’m from Juneau.”
The checkpoint volunteer replied that 25 below is cold for everyone. The cabin was packed with skiers and bikers nursing varying degrees of cold injuries and shellshock. My butt was an ice cube so I went about stuffing hand-warmers in my boots and down my pants. A volunteer served me coffee that I spilled everywhere because I was still shivering, and then I received a lukewarm bowl of crunchy ramen. It was delicious, of course. I was on top of the world. I was strong. I was brave. I was out here, really out here, crushing it!
I finished my first White Mountains 100 in 22 hours and 23 minutes — 14th out of 50 competitors, third woman on a bike. The first and only from Juneau!
The 2010 White Mountains 100 marked a big turning point, and I still credit the experience with giving me the confidence boost I badly needed. There’s also something uniquely special about Alaska’s White Mountains. As mountains go, they’re rather diminutive, with the highest barely topping 3,200 feet. Yet the frozen swamps, boreal forests, bald domes, craggy ridges, and limestone canyons hold a dynamic, piercing beauty that is difficult to define. Nearly every year since 2010, I’ve returned to the White Mountains — for both the race and multi-day trips. I couldn’t begin to count how many miles I’ve traveled in the Whites — thousands — even though I moved away from Alaska in 2010 and have never lived in Fairbanks. The White Mountains hold a grip on my heart that I doubt I can ever let go.
By March 2011, I had left Juneau, moved to Anchorage, finished my book, took a new job, moved to Montana, met a man, completed my first 100-mile ultramarathon on foot, convinced this man to race the White Mountains 100 with me, and was in the process of moving to California. It was a dynamic year, and none of it would have happened if I’d continued to languish in my depression. I credit the White Mountains 100 with changing my life, and owe a lot to Ed for that spontaneous invitation. Ed was still the race director when Beat and I lined up for the 2011 race. He had entered the foot division and I was riding his brand new aluminum Fatback that he purchased for himself to ride the White Mountains 100, but changed his mind at the last minute.
I remember little about 2011, except that it was sort of easy until it wasn’t, and then it started to snow, and I bonked so badly up the Wickersham Wall (an 800-foot climb at mile 93) that I thought I might have to roll out my bivy and take a nap. I finished as the third woman on a bike in 17 hours, 55 minutes. Beat tied for third runner with a new friend he’d made named Kevin in 35 hours, 41 minutes.
Beat and I returned in 2012 for a difficult race with warm temperatures, soft trails, and new snow. I finished in 20:47 and Beat in 33:34.
In 2014, I rode a fourth time on a bit of a lark. I’d trained all winter to compete in the 350-mile Iditarod Trail Invitational on foot, then showed up in Fairbanks less than three weeks after finishing the ITI with limited cycling miles and excessive leg fatigue. Still, after a warm winter that brought a freeze/thaw cycle to the region for weeks, the trails had hardened to white concrete. Hardpacked trails or not, a hundred miles is a hundred miles, and I assumed I’d suffer. Instead, I had the ride of my life. With what felt like no effort and plenty of relaxed rest stops, I zoomed through the course in 11 hours and 34 minutes.
The following year, I returned to make my first attempt on foot. After carrying everything and the kitchen sink for my first ride in 2010, I swung too far in the other direction with a 12-liter pack for my first run. Due to complicated planning logistics, all of my race gear was tied up in a shipment in Nome. Two days before the race, I walked into Goldstream Sports to purchase a new Salomon pack and new shoes, and I borrowed trekking poles and a few other items.
Beat came with me, as he’d stopped his trek to Nome after tragedy struck a friend he was traveling with along the Iditarod Trail. Still, even though he scratched at mile 600, it was arguably his toughest effort on the trail and he was exhausted. The DNF stung enough that he convinced the new WM100 race director, Joel, to let him bandit the course, walking unsupported with his food and fuel in a sled. Everyone expected that we’d travel together, a decision that I admit didn’t sit right with me — no other runner had a “pacer” — but I didn’t want to deny Beat his redemption run.
Long story short, trail conditions were fantastic and I felt strong. I started to resent that I was stuck with Beat. (Sorry, Love, it’s true.) It’s not his fault — he’s usually so much stronger than me, but his physical condition after the 2015 ITI was ragged, and he was weighed down with a lot more gear than the minimalist pack I was carrying (and because of my choices, I froze all night.) It’s a testament to his resolve that he finished as well as he did. But finally, around mile 60, he felt sufficiently exhausted trying to keep pace with me and said I could continue without him. I didn’t protest.
As much as I glowered about the seeming slowness of our pace together, sticking with Beat early in the race was probably the best race strategy I could have executed. I didn’t crush myself early and enjoyed a negative split in the back half, followed by a strong finish. I came in just under 30 hours. Beat finished less than 90 minutes later.
I returned to run the route in 2018, again on a lark and with few expectations. I completed the 2018 Iditarod Trail Invitational 350 on foot a few weeks earlier. I don’t even remember why I signed up for this race — probably because I half expected to DNF the ITI and wanted my own redemption race. It’s one thing to walk the ITI and then bike the WM100, and quite another to complete both on foot in the same month. Plus, my 2014 ITI had been a cakewalk compared to 2018, which pummeled me relentlessly with high winds, cold, and mounds of fresh snow that erased the final 120 miles of trail. I tore myself apart trying to swim through that deep snow. Then I spent the next three weeks with nothing but time while bopping around Alaska, wherein I tried to complete entirely too many “training” miles as an excuse to explore the places I was visiting.
A week before the WM100 started, I acknowledged that my legs hurt. Not just a little, but a lot. My legs felt as though somebody was actively striking me with a meat tenderizer, the sharp pegs stabbing at my quads and hamstrings at all hours of the day and night. I could barely sleep for the amount of pain I was in. Why, oh why, did I start the White Mountains 100? I suppose I was overconfident in my ability to push through pain by sheer will.
The race was … an experience. It was cold and windy — down to 30 below at night. Drifting buried the trail in open areas. Breathing into the headwind left my lungs feeling ragged despite wearing a buff over my face. And still, I thought of little else than the pain I was in. Every step felt like another forceful strike from the meat tenderizer. This sensation did not become numb and it did not go away.
As I slogged up Cache Mountain Divide, the most incredible display of Northern Lights I have ever seen suddenly erupted. For hours, I walked with my headlamp turned off and my neck craned toward the sky. I felt such awe that I hardly thought about my legs. A race volunteer shot a video from that year that still gives me chills, reminding me of the magic that boosted me through what otherwise would have been an unbearable night.
I finished the 2018 race in 33:59, not because I ever managed a step of running but because I couldn’t stop moving. My leg muscles would cramp and seize up whenever I did.
In 2019, I decided the White Mountains 100 would be my “A” race for the year. I was determined to sharpen my training (at least try to be more specific than my usual “I do what I want” style.) I wanted to improve on my 30-hour finish from 2015 and run strong so I could prove to myself that I was capable of taking on the ITI 1000 on foot in 2020, which was my A+ life goal and response to the fact I was turning 40 that year.
My training was derailed when I spent a month before the WM100 living in Nome. It’s not possible to be a regular winter runner in Nome. I didn’t know! The trails are merely an idea and even the roads are almost always buried in several inches of snow, usually blown there by the relentless North Wind. Even if I mustered the motivation to go out for three hours until I was coated from head to toe in icicles, I rarely managed better than a 20-minute-mile pace.
Still, the race started well. The trails were 2014-vintage white concrete and I kept a reasonable pace. My goal was to hit the halfway point at Cache Mountain Divide before sunset — about 12 hours in — and I managed it. But then the clouds closed in and it started snowing. And it kept snowing. By morning, the trail was buried in nearly 8 inches of powder. My mental game collapsed and I slogged it in, harboring the worst mood I’ve ever had in a race — and I can be grumpy in the best of times. I finished in 31 hours 22 minutes and immediately vowed to return and correct this wrong — not the time, but my bad attitude. I was not going to end my relationship with the White Mountains 100 this way.
Suddenly five years have passed. How does the time go so quickly? So much happened in those five years. I failed in my effort to complete the 2020 ITI 1000 and quit endurance racing forever … again. Then Covid shut the world down, and then my dad died and shifted my perspective on everything. I finished the 2022 ITI 350 on a bike only to realize how little such “achievements” mean to me now … and just like that, five years have passed. I’m still not entirely sure where I stand with endurance racing. I’m looking to the 2024 White Mountains 100 to find out.
I tell people that finishing under 30 hours is my goal, but truthfully, that’s not important to me. I want to run with gratitude and joy, take in the beauty of a place I love, and hopefully recapture some of the magic that can only happen when I open my heart to any and all possibilities.
It’s also true that even if trail conditions are conducive to a faster run, I have too many doubts about my abilities. I’m not the same athlete I was in 2015, for many reasons that have little to do with being nearly a decade older (though that doesn’t help either.) My training has been going reasonably well, but that fall I took in Canyonlands three weeks ago has left me with an injured rib. It doesn’t hurt nearly as much as my legs did in 2018, but the pain is concerning.
Still, I am excited! I don’t need to finish in 30 hours, or even finish (although timing out is the only reason I wouldn’t finish), to capture the magic of the White Mountains 100. With any luck, I will arrive at the finish-line supply trailer with the same look of contentment that my friend Jorge caught in 2018 (this smile is genuine. I was 100% asleep on those toilet paper rolls when he took this photo.)
Yes, the White Mountains 100 has been good to me.
I love this story arc. I missed out on why you left Juneau (shame on me, I haven't been a dedicatedly faithful reader). It's so funny that Fairbanks ended up getting a piece of each of us, as I certainly wasn't meaning to move here, or still be here now, when I first started reading your adventures 16 years ago. Life's funny. I hope you have good luck and enjoy your experience of your race this year. 🤍💚🩷
I wish you all the best in the WM100. I see the temperatures are going to be relatively warm with no below-zero temps in the forecast and virtually no precipitation. I hope trail conditions will be firm and the WM100 will be good to you once again.