Wednesday, February 11, 2009


It has been very busy for us gearing up for the 9th annual Iditarod Trail Invitational.
We were able to sneak up to Willow for the 25 mile Va Moose bike race.
The last year and this year so far has been really good to us. The race roster filled up early in November of 2008. Our first winter training camp in November on the Iditarod Trail was a success and we had a great article and video in the New York Times. It has been so exciting to see the winterbike scene and winter ultra races grow so much over the last few years.
The race is growing in popularity locally, with more bike shops in Anchorage offering snow bikes And other smaller winter races such as the 25 mile bike race in Willow during the Willow Winter Carnival, a full Susitna 100 and Su 50K race
AND in the Lower 48 with new and exciting winter races such as the Arrowhead 135 in Minesota
And even overseas, with more international athletes signed up this year.
There has also been a lot of interest already for the 2010 and the 2011 races.
I decided to take a year off from racing myself and will be reporting from McGrath this year.
I think it will be great to see the athletes ariving into McGrath and interview them and post pictures on the website. It will give the race live reporting and what is going on the race course.
I am truly looking forward to that opportunity again.
Even though I am not on the trail racing I will be out there with the racers.
We will have a leaderboard, message board, sleepmonsters reports and MTB podcasts again.
I will post the links to all those sites on the website before the race.
Starting Saturday we will be out on the Iditarod Trail again for another 5 day winterbike training camp through Fabruary 18th.
I will be at the Point McKenzie store and watch the start of the Susitna 100 on the 14th at 9:00 AM where so many of our friends will be that have signed up the the 100 mile race.
On Saturday Feb. 21 we will collect all the drop bags for Fingerlake, Rohn and for the Nome racer's Iditarod drop at Alaskan European B&B at 3107 Cottonwood Street.
Bill will take those and the food & supplies for Puntilla and Rohn to Willow the next day to fly them out to the checkpoint locations with Denali Flying Service.
Our pre race meeting will be February 28th, at the Golden Lion Best Western Hotel in the Kenya Room at 2:00 PM.
It will be a very busy time for us between now and then, but it is always the most exiting time of the year for sure.
The big bus will leave the Golden Lion Best Western Hotel at 11:00 AM Sunday morning March 1 and take all the racers to the starting line on Knik Lake.
But finally the race will take off at Knik Lake on March 1 at 2:00 PM.
Looking forward to seeing everyone off again for another great race!

Kathi

2 comments:

Kid Riemer said...

Looking forward to your reporting of the race! Thanks for that!

Alaska Ultra Sport said...

Thanks Kid.
We will have a leaderboard, latest news twice daily, sleepmonsters.com reports, a message board and the MTB Podcast. This year I will report from McGrath the finish line of the 350 mile race.

Kathi