Anchorage Daily News

POINT MACKENZIE GENERAL STORE -- Fifteen minutes before the start of Saturday's Little Susitna 50-kilometer endurance race, Brion Bearle of Anchorage made a wise decision.

He packed his fat-tire mountain bike back into his Volkswagen van and pulled out his skate skis.

Ten miles or so into the race, as Bearle strode past biker after biker who was pushing, rather than riding, through the snow-drifted trail, he was very glad he opted for skis.

"I don't think I passed a single person riding their bike," Bearle said. "They were using it as a luggage rack."

The 44-year-old Bearle won the Little Su 50-K in 4 hours, 59 minutes, 12 seconds -- more than two hours slower than the winning time in last year's race in which bikers dominated.

Greg Matyas of Anchorage won last year in 2:39.30 on his fat-tire mountain bike. Nine of the top 10 finishers among men last year rode bikes.

Not this year. With bikers forced to push, skiers grabbed the top two spots. Todd Kasteler, also on skate skis, finished second in 5:12.17.

Five and half hours into the race Saturday, nine people had scratched and the only finishers were Bearle and Kasteler.

Seven people scratched from the Susitna 100-mile race, which should finish today. Expect more scratches.

Kasteler reported 40-50 mph winds, a ground blizzard and white-out conditions at Flat Horn Lake, the turnaround point for the 50-K. He said a number of competitors, mostly bikers and runners, were dropping out.

"There were a lot of cold faces," he said.

Bearle, a masters skier with the Alaska Pacific University Nordic Ski Center, said he and wife Janice Koval checked out the trail and saw that it was soft and punchy. Near-blizzard conditions at the start also swayed him to ditch his bike for skis.

Koval, 45, had only her bike. About nine miles into the race, she encountered John Evingson and wife, Kathie, pushing their bikes back toward the start at Point MacKenzie General Store.

The Evingsons said the trail ahead was unridable. Tired of falling off her bike whenever she tried to ride, Koval turned around too, and all three scratched.

Pushing your bike isn't bad when you know ridable sections lie ahead, Koval said. But the thought of pushing her bike for the entire race -- she still had almost 25 miles to go at that point -- was too much.

That was John Evingson's thinking too. He said he was able to ride on narrow, tree-lined sections of trail protected from the wind. But where the trail opened, the wind deposited up to 12 inches of snow, he said. He was forced to get off and push, every once in a while post-holing in the sloggy, uneven trail. His knees hurt.

"I said, 'There's no way I'm doing that,' " said Evingson, a veteran of the Susitna 100 and its predecessor, the Iditasport. "I turned 50. I get to say no to something, use common sense."

Apparently quite a few competitors had the same thought when they woke up Saturday morning. The maximum field of 100 was filled months ago, but just 65 showed up at the start.

It was a good day to stay in bed.

Blowing snow and a wind chill that pushed below zero made life miserable for the hardy souls who set out to ski, bike, run or snowshoe along the frozen swamps, lakes, rivers and snowmachines trails that zigzag throughout the flatlands near Point MacKenzie.

A number of runners who scratched and got rides back to the finish on snowmachines were surely thinking so.

Robert Hildebrandt, 59 and from Fairbanks, decided to turn around when he could no longer make out the trail.

He was about three hours into the race and crossing a small lake. Strong winds, which he estimated were blowing about 30 mph, filled in the ski marks and bike treads he was following. He turned around and his footprints were already filled in with snow.

"I wasn't cold," said Hildebrandt, a veteran runner who has completed marathons in every state. "But I figured if I stayed outside, I would get cold."

Michelyn Grigg of Anchorage, racing on foot, turned around at about nine miles. The water tube on her hydration system froze, so she couldn't get anything to drink. Another insulated water bottle in her backpack also froze.

Perhaps more stressful, she had a plane to Las Vegas to catch Saturday evening. She figured at the pace she was going, she might not make it.

"The trail was like running in sand, only it wasn't hot," she said. "And I wasn't in a bikini."

Find Ron Wilmot online at adn.com/contact/rwilmot or call 1-907-352-6712.

RESULTS: Finish times from the Little Su 50 and Susitna 100 will be in Monday's edition.

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