Die A Little Death: Fat Pursuit, Skinny Skis

 Look at all this room I gave myself to blog about the race itself since I already wrote about the preparation. Huh, maybe I should do this more often.

I cruised up to Island Park on Friday night with Harrison and Kate in the back of Diego, a sketchy old SUV, and crashed at the volunteer house. Maybe the best part of the Fat Pursuit was dipping back into the Teton Valley bike world and talking to friends I made almost ten years ago and rarely see anymore. As seasoned veterans of the Fat Pursuit, they all had their own important stuff going on, documenting the 3 am finishes of the first 200K racers, re-upping the Coke and PB+J supplies at the aid stations, making sure JayP ate something during his sleepless multi-day race directing stint. 

I took two pictures over the entire race and the internet hasn't provided any yet. 

Just like the old days 

At the start line I posted up near the back, not sure how to handle the chaos of a hundred nervous bikers while I'm on awkward edgeless skis. I started conservatively but the first stretch of trail was slightly downhill on partially-groomed mashed potato snow that looked challenging for the riders and was perfect for skiing, so I was effortlessly passing riders and made it up to the first third of the pack, in sight of two skier guys in skin suits. 

We crossed the highway. I had realized the day before, looking at the course map, that I would have to remove my skis for several road crossings, and bikers definitely had an advantage there. We traversed a chilly meadow on a very fast track and then entered beautiful, snow kissed woods. 

I had been a little leery of sharing the trail with bikes but the riders gave the strange hairless two-legged creature a wide berth. They regained time on me but I was in heaven, relishing that first ten mile euphoria that always hits. I was having a ball, convinced it'd be good times the whole way, plotting how to help Jay market this as an endurance XC ski race because more skiers should join in on the fun! No matter how many times my happy haze slams up against the reality of endurance racing, I still can't help but think at the start of every race that the whole event will reflect those first hours of cheerful excellence. 

The conditions began to get a little sloppier as we left the track that had been groomed only hours before the start. Island Park is the land of slednecks, with miles and miles and miles of wide trails devoted to snowmobiles, and heavy sled travel churns up soft snow and leaves it variable and rutted. We had the best possible weather, just below freezing and no precipitation after 9 am, but even then the track proved challenging for me, requiring that I pay attention to each ski glide and tack across the trail to find the best skate surface and use all the little stabilizers muscles in my feet to stay upright and keep my skis flat across the washboard. This is what Jay had said, that I should train on snowmobile trails, but I figured a few days of skating on tracks with four inches of fresh snow on top of corduroy was adequate. Not the case. 

Fat bikers continued to pass me on their single ribbon of tire-firmed snow on the edge of the trail, while I worked hard to keep moving forward. And yet I didn't ever wish I was on a fat bike - I watched the earthworm squiggles of their tire tracks wherever they deviated from the single firm line, washing out in soft snow and having to walk their bikes, or just mindlessly pedaling down the broad, flat roads. 

I never had the luxury of being mindless, engaging every muscle in my body in this never-ending cycle of pole-push-glide-pole-push-glide. 

The low point came around mile 22, after the route passed a beautiful lake with sapphire blue sky above, then spit us out on pavement. Oh dear. At first I tried skiing on the whooped-out sled track on the bank above the road, but the constant ups and downs and narrow tracked out ruts proved to be extremely slow and fatiguing to navigate. There was a skiff of plowed snow on the shoulder of the road, just wide enough to skate, with occasional large ice chunks threatening to catch my skis and toss me off my feet. Sometimes I had to take off my skis and walk. Many bikers passed me. 

Along some lovely little body of water, no idea I was about to ski down a road.

Fortunately, after over a mile of this nonsense, the road section ended at an aid station. After a pickle, a cookie, and some ginger tea (maybe someday I'll learn to eat enough during races) I set off again, knowing that I was starting up a long "climb." The course had barely any elevation gain, 1085 feet over 35 miles, but even a 400-foot climb felt like a lot in choppy mashed potatoes. 

I felt pretty shelled and kept getting passed. Harrison, who had stopped for multiple tokes and a visit with his girlfriend and dogs at the last aid station, leapfrogged me for the final time. Another rider, as she passed me, said "I think you're working harder than I am," a point I had to concede. I would've been at least an hour faster on a bike, but still wasn't wishing that fate upon myself. Even though I was in a gloomy place, I still had the presence of mind to marvel at the act of skiing, and notice that every time I put effort toward using good form, it made me faster. 

I was mostly using V1 by the end, the first-gear style of pole planting used for climbing. V2-Alternate had served me well at the beginning when I was moving faster, but the surface was never smooth enough for me to try out my nascent V2 skills. I had to switch primary pole sides in V1 because my left arm and shoulder were complaining by mile 20. 

I finished the climb just as the political podcast that I had put on to dull my brain ended. I switched back to music (this was the first race I've ever used headphones for, and it was essential) and braved a glance at mileage. Only two to go! Okay, I thought, here goes. The final miles were down a windswept meadow where I could see for eternity, but it didn't really drag down my spirits as much as a straightaway usually does. I put my head down (only in the figurative sense; I had to concentrate the whole race on keeping my head up) and churned to the finish line. 

Jill Homer always picks a song as she finishes races to set the tone for herself. I didn't have the wherewithal for that but The Beths song "Little Death" came on as I was pushing on the final stretch. Ignoring that the song is about lust, I appreciated the words as I was feeling dramatic and was pretty certain I was dying little deaths. 

 
My legs support a little less
My tongue becomes a little mess
My lips are longing to confess, uh
My lungs they catch on every breath
My heart beats harder at the cage inside my chest
I die, I die a little death.

The extent of my aerobic and muscular fatigue wasn't clear until I had to lay down in the snow at the finish, and then wandered around unable to get comfortable standing up or sitting down. I quickly changed out of my sweat-soaked socks and hateful boots (everything hurt but my feet definitely hurt the most) and regained my composure, some, so I could go cheer for others at the finish and hang out. The second place female skier didn't come through until we were packing up Diego to leave - she classic skied, which seems way slower but also probably a lot less painful. Harrison pointed out that I was operating at a higher intensity than the bikers the whole time, like basically running 35 miles, albeit with more elegant equipment. But yeah. It was really hard. I was afraid I had built it up too much beforehand to myself and my friends as a big effing deal but finishing felt like a major accomplishment. 

I had wanted to hang out and share the camaraderie with the finishers and volunteers, but my whole body and my stomach hurt so much that when my friends said they were taking off, I was content to hop in the car and head home. After twelve hours of sleep and a huge breakfast, I felt recovered enough to go for a ski tour with Dan and the dogs - not even sore, but missing my top end of speed, unsurprisingly. 

And now I'm looking at the registration page for some of the local XC ski races, because once you've skated 35 miles of sled track, 20K of corduroy starts to sound pretty relaxed. 

Fat Pursuit Preamble

I never write pre-race posts because I like knowing the outcome first so I can adopt the appropriate tone in my blog - insouciance or wry resignation or casual swagger, it all depends on how I finish. And when I was younger I was so calculatedly apathetic about race preparation, often to the point of self-sabotage, because it wasn't cool to try, and it was cool to do well effortlessly. 

But with the Fat Pursuit, I wanted to write about the run-up to the race, just as I've wanted to set myself up for as much success as possible, ever since I got the wild hare to register.

This came about because I'm writing a book with Jay Petervary, another scary admission that, by putting out into the world, holds me accountable to really do it. It seemed essential in order to capture the JayP zeitgeist that I finally attend the Fat Pursuit, the winter event he's been putting on for ten years. At first I figured I'd volunteer, because I like volunteering and because I have very little patience for fat biking. At its best I find it kind of boring, and if the conditions are bad it's an interminable slog. 

But then I jokingly posited to myself that I could skate ski the 60K. And then I asked Jay and he confirmed that skates are definitely the appropriate ski choice over classic, which is good because I don't classic ski. And while the Fat Pursuit, in particular the 200K, is notorious for rugged conditions, negative 20 or two inches of snow an hour or 30 mph wind or sometimes all three the same awful year, Jay said the new 60K course is more protected from the elements and is almost guaranteed to have a pretty decent groom on it (in other words, ideally it won't be 35 miles of wallowing through deep snow on improper equipment). 

So I registered. Committing was made easier by a very healthy coupon code.

Sitting with Jay for hours at a time learning about his experiences in the ultra-endurance world and his psychological inability to quit ridiculous races makes me feel sheepish that I've treated this paltry event with such single-mindedness and nervousness, but we're not all full of sheer New Jersey cussedness, I guess. 

I haven't done a ton of miles because the backcountry skiing has been phenomenal, and because our groomed tracks are pretty short so distance skating requires aggressive hamster-wheeling, but I did polish off an 18-mile day last month and figured if I could finish that just feeling a little sore and sweaty, I could probably schlep my way through double the distance.

Since I learned to skate in 2021, I've been watching Youtube to try and improve my still amateurish form, and this winter I started doing fifteen push-ups a day because my poling sucks. Chrissy is the only person who will skate with me, and is willing to listen to me talk about technique ad nauseum. 

My equipment is old and screams rental gear, and I haven't gone out and bought XC-specific apparel, the wind-paneled tights and streamlined hip pack and overkill insulated leather gloves, so I just wear what is essentially my skinning outfit. Skating is way too hot of an activity for the cute little beanies and puffy jackets people wear at the track, so I wear a ball cap and t-shirt and bike gloves, and weather-resistant vented softshell pants that seem more versatile than tights, I guess. And I'm bringing a skimo race pack, with loud neon Dynafit accents, for emergency gear.

To sum it up, I look like a waddling baggy dork but that's kind of how I ski too, so I've resigned myself to not fitting in at the Alta track, land of 65-year-old speed demons. 

Fortunately, there are very few skiers signed up to race, but one woman whose Instagram bio includes "cross country skier" is coming, so there goes my shot of a calm cool and collected start, not that that was ever likely - I am and have always been a first-ten-miles hustler who always blows up after three hours. I'm usually able to recover, enough, and this summer and winter have marked some of the fittest seasons of my life, at least out west, so it's fun to lean into that old lady strength I've been accruing. 

The Island Park forecast looks surprisingly good, gentle snow through the night clearing up to an overcast day just below freezing, but, as JayP warns, you can never trust the forecast in eastern Idaho. So I'm packing all the necessary outerwear as well as some ingenious (maybe?) skins for skate skis, thanks to Cy the inveterate tinkerer and preparer. 

All in all, I'm in no way apathetic about this. I'm really excited to take on a challenge that I'm not sure I can do, because isn't that what makes sports so dang rad?