Slip and slide

Rarely do you find an official race in which winning really isn't deemed important by 99 percent of the participants. But the Susitna 100 is anything but your average race.

Winning takes a backseat to simply surviving in the Susitna 100, especially this year, when warm weather has led to dangerous overflow on the lakes and scant snowcover on the trails. The race is a test of endurance -- but an even bigger test of one's character.

And plenty of characters turned out for this year's race, which began Saturday morning at the Big Lake Lodge. Usually, the parking lot is filled on race morning with skiers fine-tuning their boards or bikers working on their vehicles. But not this year. Sheet metal screws were in high demand instead of ski wax this year, because of the zany weather. Participants were using screws as studs in their hiking boots and leaving the skis in the truck, because ice was the name of the game, and figuring out how to navigate the ice was the game plan for the field.

"The whole thing is like one long sheet of ice," said Dylan Kentch. "And I figured, what are you going to use on ice? Ice skates."

Kentch rented a pair of blades from Alaska Mountaineering and Hiking that slipped over his cross-country ski boots. Using the same technique as he would if skate skiing, Kentch took off from the starting line and glided to the front of the pack.

"They are like 300 bucks to buy, so I thought at the prerace meeting [held on Thursday] that I could rent them for the weekend," Kentch said.

It was at that prerace meeting that the course was changed, much to the chagrin of many racers. Because there was no snow, the route was changed to a basic 20-mile trip from Big Lake to Point MacKenzie and back, which racers completed twice. Then there was an additional 20-mile loop to account for the 100 miles.

For Robert Youngren and his wife, Kathy, the route change was a bit of a disappointment. They came from Huntsville, Ala. to run the race.

"It's ironic for us because we had such a cold snap at home and here, the problem was warm weather. You wouldn't think about that coming from Alabama to Alaska," Kathy Youngren said. "But it's all new to us, and we've never seen the country, so it's not that bad."

The Youngrens have competed in ultramarathons before, but the Susitna 100 was their first in Alaska.

"Doing this one seemed like a logical progression from the other ones we've done," Robert Youngren said. "We really would have liked to get into the backcountry here like the race was supposed to, but it's still a pretty unique race."

The Youngrens arrived Thursday, just prior to the prerace meeting when the route was officially changed. They said it won't change their "vacation."

"We came up to do the race and we're going to do the tourist thing for a week," Robert Youngren said. "We're going to have fun."

Many of the competitors changed their mode of transportation within days of the race's start. Fifty-nine people entered the race, with many expecting to ski. But because there was no snow but plenty of ice, a majority of the racers simply started walking when the race began.

"You can't ski on this. It's one big long winter hike," said Aaron Banks, who strapped a pair of skis to his sled and pulled on a pair of cleated hiking boots instead.

The weather cooperated for the weekend, as temperatures stayed below freezing and left the trail a hard pack of ice, rather than a soggy wet mess, which would have caused major problems in the form of frostbite and hypothermia.

"You gotta stay dry," Banks said.

Of course, at the root of the race it is still a race, and while a majority of the field was just trying to get 100 miles out of their bodies, a few select racers sprinted to the front of the pack and stayed there. Dave Delcourt of Fairbanks won his second-straight Susitna 100, covering the 100-mile slip and slide race in 10 hours and 28 minutes. Chugiak High School sophomore Ben Couturier, a 16-year-old who was the youngest competitor in the field. Both of those racers rode bikes in the race.