Susitna 100, 50k racers take off from Big Lake

BIG LAKE — More than 250 cyclists, skiers and endurance runners launched themselves into the wilderness from Martin Buser’s Happy Trails Kennel on Saturday morning for hours of exercise in the Susitna 100 and Little Su 50k races.

The number of participants was split between the 100-mile and 50-kilometer races, with fat-bike cyclists showing the biggest representation this year.

Susitna 100 Race Director Erin Kittredge said that’s probably because of the lack of snow.

“I think we have fewer skiers this year because there’s nowhere to train,” Kittredge said.

By contrast, “if it snows a foot” the day before, “bikers are not gonna do well,” she said.

Anchorage cyclist Megan Chelf said Saturday morning she was excited to bike the full 100-miler with her husband Josh this time around — last year she entered the 50k — but she didn’t always feel that way. After a grueling 90-mile ride a couple years ago, she was pretty sure she was done with long-distance racing.

“I swore I would never do a long one again, but just like every racer, I signed up again,” Chelf said.

For her first Susitna 100, she set a broad time goal of 10 to 14 hours, with the hope of gaining a positive personal achievement.

“I just wanna ride my best and be smart,” Chelf said.

Anchorage skiers Grant Stevenson — a newbie to the Susitna 100 — and Greg Mills, who last finished the race on foot in 2014, said their main goal was just to finish.

“The only hard checkpoint is the first one,” Mills said.

Rather than hoping to finish the race in a certain time, Mills said he’s looking at the Susitna 100 simply as endurance training for the 150-mile Alaska Mountain Wilderness Classic in April.

Stevenson said he signed up for the Susitna because it “just seemed like fun.”

“I like doing long distance, and, as she says, ‘Stupid things like that,’” he said, gesturing to his girlfriend, Cassandra Dale.

Dale said she expected Stevenson back around 11:30 p.m. Saturday night, about 14.5 hours after the start of the race.

The runners are likely to take much longer than that, however.

Returning champ David Johnston, of Willow, finished last year’s foot race in 21 hours, 19 minutes and 28 seconds — more than eight hours before second-place runner Rachael Gano.

South Carolina runners Tim Waz and Lester Farmer — who heard about the Alaska race through Johnston, whom they met at a race in Pennsylvania — said they had run 100-mile races before, but never in Alaska in winter.

“This is a little out of our norm,” Waz said.

Waz said his training down south consisted of pulling a tire around on his runs to mimic the 15-pound sled of gear Susitna racers are required to take with them.

Farmer said he found a sled with wheels, threw in some 25-pound weights, and dragged it around the high school track near his home.

Los Angeles model and ultra runner Ryan Young was also new to Alaska ultra running before starting the Susitna 100. He said he decided to run the race in part to raise money for the 100 Mile Club — a national running program for elementary school students — which has local chapters at Knik, Goose Bay and Machetanz Elementary schools in Wasilla.

Young also had a film crew with him this weekend to document his journey as a runner, which started just four years ago.

“I was just bored,” he said, in explanation of why he decided to step on a treadmill for the first time at age 31.

Young said he and his six siblings had always been encouraged to be active growing up in Chicago, but it wasn’t until he saw Los Angeles Marathon runners speeding by his apartment in the rain one day that he thought, “I could do that.”

Months later, he ran his first marathon.

“When I find something I love, I kind of become a little obsessive with it,” Young said.

And unfortunately, it showed. For a while, he was running so much that he began “wasting away,” according to his employers, and lost a lot of model bookings because of it. After that he realized he needed to find some balance between work and recreation.

“I thought, OK, I love running and I don’t wanna give it up, but how do I sustain that and keep my job?” he said.

Little Su 50k Race Director Pam Richter, who’s run, skied and biked both distances, said the important thing for all the race participants is just to get out there and do it.

“It (is) a lot of fun, but still tasking,” she said.

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