Johnston claims consecutive wins in ultrasport races

WILLOW — David Johnston doesn’t take his own internal “no” for an answer when deciding to race hundreds of miles on foot.

After he won the Susitna 100 foot race Feb. 15, Johnston had two weeks before the start of the Iditarod Trail Invitational 350-mile race. His feet were badly blistered, and they wouldn’t completely heal before the start of the Invite. He had already raced hundred of miles in 2015 between the Susitna and the 6-day “Across the Years” race in Arizona, plus more than 1,000 racing miles in 2014 (no, that does not including training miles).

He told a few close friends and family members he wasn’t going to race the 350-miles from Knik to McGrath this year.

“I just knew I had bitten off a little more than I could chew just the beginning of this year,” Johnston said.

But come March 1, he stepped up to the line with 54 other competitors on feet, skis and fat-tire bikes to make the trek north — 12 of whom were headed as far north as Nome.

“You don’t ever know what mental frame of mind is gonna show up until you get our there. All week you could be feeling like Superman and then you wake up that day (of the race) and you feel so vulnerable,” Johnston said. “My mind showed up for this race.”

Still, the race was tough. With the recent warm weather, Johnston said, the trail was much wetter than usual, with one mile-long section where competitors had to slog through shin-deep water.

For racers who brought extra shoes and socks, it might not have been so bad — there would be an opportunity to change clothes at the next checkpoint.

As Johnston squeezed his swollen, blistered feet back into his wet and only set of socks and shoes to run the last 50 miles to the finish, he felt less regret that one might expect.

Extra clothes, he said, only slow him down.

“Those are some of the things that you sacrifice when you try to go fast,” he said. “It’s smart to (bring extras) but it’s not conducive to fast times.”

Neither is taking a long break, but when he came to the Rainy Pass checkpoint about halfway through the race, Johnston decided an 8.5-hour layover was in his best interest.

“(That’s) unheard of for the lead person to do, but it was a really good move on my part, in hindsight,” Johnston said.

In a Facebook status update posted March 7, he described his reasoning in detail.

“The weather looking up over Rainy Pass didn’t look promising and I started to get scared to cross the pass alone. I have never been scared of much … so I knew my mind was getting weak. I was traveling very light gear wise so I also knew if something went wrong I wouldn’t be able to survive very long. I made up my mind right then and there that I was just going to wait for the next racer to head over to Rainy Pass and go with them,” he wrote.

So after two full meals, three Budweisers and 3 hours of sleep, Johnston headed out with second-place finisher Jason Buffington for “the toughest 150 miles of my life,” Johnston wrote.

But when they reached the top of the pass and gazed down at Dalzell Gorge — a famously treacherous section of the Iditarod trail — Johnston was ready to take back his lead.

“I left (Buffington) there ’cause I just love downhill running. Basically I just go all out, and it’s like a rollercoaster for 12 miles down to the bottom (of the Gorge),” he said.

Johnston said he knew Buffington would need to sleep before he did, having raced with him before. The runner-up took second to Johnston a couple years ago, and had also taken seventh in the bike division before, but Johnston had regained his confidence in his mental fortitude — whether he knew it or not.

“I was surprised that my brain kept helping me out,” he said.

When Johnston finally crossed the finish line, only 26 cyclists had finished ahead of him, and his wife Andrea Hambach and son Miles were waiting for him.

“Probably the most fun thing about the race is the finish line,” he said.

Although he missed his goal of finishing the race in less than 4 days, Johnston posted his second-fasted time yet. His record — and that of the foot race as a whole — is 4 days, 1 hour and 38 minutes, and was set last year. This year he finished in 4 days, 8 hours and 45 minutes, compared to his 2013 finish of 4 days 19 hours 13 minutes.

In 2012, Johnston and Hambach walked the race together in 8 days, 17 hours and 47 minutes.

Now, Johnston is looking forward to the Boston Marathon April 20.

“That one I love now because now that I do so much of the ultra stuff and I concentrate on that, the Boston Marathon, I’m gonna treat it more like a fun, celebratory event,” he said. “I’ll probably go run hard but it’s not gonna (yield) superior results by any means.”

That remains to be seen.

In the meantime, Johnston plans to spend a lot of time at Northern Edge Physical Therapy in Wasilla undergoing a process called “dry needling,” in which the therapist uses “solid filament needles to improve local tissue nutrition near the site of muscle or nerve injury” or “ to deactivate and desensitize trigger points in muscles,” according to the facility’s website.

“I’ve done it so much now that I realized that it really works to speed up healing process,” Johnston said.

ITI 350 highlights

Newcomer John Lackey of Anchorage set the men’s record in the fat-tire bike division with a finish time of 1 day, 18 hours and 32 minutes, crushing former Idaho champ Jay Petervary, who finished the race in 2 days 19 hours and 16 minutes in 2013.

On the women’s side, Heather Best sliced 6 hours off her own cycling record of 2 days 14 hours and 13 minutes, making it to McGrath this year in 2 days 8 hours and 9 minutes. Best also won last year’s Susitna 100 by bike in 9 hours and 36 minutes.

Loreen Hewitt was the first woman into McGrath on foot and is on pace to finish first in her division in Nome this week.

For complete results, visit iditarodtrailinvitational.com.

Contact Caitlin Skvorc at 352-2266 or caitlin.skvorc@frontiersman.com