One Heck of a Ride (or how not to get to the race!)

Okay, so buckle in, because this was one heck of a ride to get to my first Klondike Road Relay. As you might notice from my last name, I come from a family of runners. While many of my cousins, aunts, and uncles are fantastic, I would consider myself good, but not great. Or, at least not great in comparison. But running has been in my family for generations and I was excited to participate in race.

This story begins about 2 years ago, summer of 2015, when we had a family reunion in Washington State. I collaborated with a cousin who had run this race many times before to see if we could organize a team of cousins to run the race. We eventually did for the 2016 race, but supplemented it with a few honorary family members to fill out our team, Thibodeaus and Friends Unite. I was excited to run this race and I specifically took a few days off from law school in Milwaukee to fly back to Alaska just for this race.

Being a busy and broke law student, I waited to buy my tickets to Juneau until the middle of the summer. By that time, no ferry tickets were available, so I booked a small flight from Juneau to Skagway, and I saved money by using airline miles to fly to Juneau. Unfortunately, because I used airline miles, they put me on the flights with the most space, so my trip started at 7:30 in the morning, and I flew from Milwaukee to Phoenix, to Los Angeles, to Seattle, then to Juneau. I didn't arrive until almost 9 at night, 20 some-odd hours after I woke up at 4 in the morning 3 time-zones away. Lucky for me, a few of my cousins were on the same flight from Seattle to Juneau, so I had company on my final leg. By the time I reached my uncle's house and went to bed, it was almost 1 in the morning.

The next morning I woke up at about 6 because I was still on Central Time, and spent the day with another uncle that lived across the street from JDHS. Unfortunately, the rest of the family either left early in the morning on the first ferry, or lived out in the valley, and not downtown where I was. Throughout the day it looked like I might not be able to take the plane out of Juneau because low clouds started to roll in, so I frantically started calling the rest of my family. I was stranded in downtown Juneau with no way to make it to the ferry for a standby ticket. They left on the afternoon ferry, and my last hope was to take the bus to the airport to take the smallest plane I thought I could book a ticket for at about 4:30.

When I made it to the airport, unfortunately for me, basically all small flights were on a weather hold because the clouds rolled in, and visibility was exceptionally low. I explained to the airline that I needed to get to Skagway for this race, no matter what the cost. Luck was on my side, as one pilot was willing to fly me, despite their dispatch telling them it was on him, and the only way was if I paid for 2 tickets. For me, this wasn't even an option. I forked over the money, and hopped in this small 4 seater plane and we took off.

To be honest, visibility wasn't that bad. It wasn't good, but between flying to the Slope and back, this was really nothing. But, the airlines have FAA protocol for paying passengers, so I wasn't surprised at their lack of willingness to fly me. But we were in the air, so I was happy. I was going to make it!

Until, about halfway through the flight, we get a call on the radio, telling us to return. Apparently the GM of the airline thought it was a waste to fly one passenger, and the profits weren't worth it. My pilot (who was absolutely fantastic, and an all around good guy) explained to his boss that we were almost halfway there, and that I paid for 2 tickets. The GM wasn't happy, but he let it slide, especially since it was cleared by their dispatch. I'll be honest, I think I might have had a small heart attack when we started to turn around, but I'm so glad that we were able to continue. I really have to give some major thanks to my pilot because he understood my plight, and was willing to put his career on the line for me, even though (in his opinion) the hold was merely because the senior pilots didn't want to fly anymore that day.

I met up with my cousins and we had a fantastic time! It was basically one non-stop party all night! We later learned that usually the runners would try to get some sleep, but we were ecstatic because this was our first relay! Our start time was at 10, and we all basically stayed up until at least about 1-2. I tried to sleep a bit during that time, but between the time adjustment from Milwaukee to Alaska/Yukon, and the excitement in the RV, I only got about 2 hours of dozing, rather than good ol' sleep. I ran my leg just like any one of us did, and it was great. I spent some time in the Yukon in my youth, and it was nice to be back to a familiar place, running through the woods (albeit, on a road). My times weren't as great as I would have liked them to be, but considering I hadn't had a good night's sleep in 3 days, I'm satisfied.

After the race, we were all quite tired, but we were satisfied with our 5th place finish, and partied with the best of them. I eventually returned to the RV at about 12:30, only to wake up at 5:30 so we could make it back to Skagway for the the 9 am ferry. I wasn't booked for this one, so I wandered around town the whole day, and didn't really nap, like most of my cousins. However, as many of you might recall, the ferry's were backed up that day, and instead of leaving at 3, we left at about 4:45. This was bad news, since I had a flight out of Juneau at 8, and this was going to cut it close.

We docked at about 7:35ish, and I remember sprinting on my wobbly legs while carrying my bags up the ramp with my uncle to his truck. We booked it out of there as fast as we could, and I got to the airport about 15 minutes before departure. I just barely made my flight, and napped all I could back to Seattle. I had about an hour there before I had a direct flight back to Milwaukee, where I got in at about 9:50 in the morning. I hopped the first taxi I could find, and made it to my 10:30 am class in time. Later that day, I took a good long nap, and then I started preparing for an 8K I was running that Saturday (but that's a story for another time).

All in all, given headache, heartache, triumph, and tribulation that I endured to make it to this race, it's a wonder I would enjoy any minute of it. But it was by far the best race, and the best experience I have ever had. I wouldn't trade a single second of it for anything in the world! I had a great time with old friends and family, and made new friends and family all in one go! While my trip was a lesson in organization (or more like, how not to make it to the race), it was a delight to be with family, running through the hills, seeing the mountains and oceans again (after being in the flat Midwest for the past 3 years) and partyin all night. This trip was incredibly meaningful because our plans started years ago, and came to fruition through the most haphazard ways. I wouldn't trade it for anything in the world, because these are the moments that define you, that make life worth living, and give color to life. It also provides great fodder for elaborate stories, and lessons in life. Thank you to everyone for making this happen. And a special thanks to my teammates for never giving up on me, and making this a trip of a lifetime. Thanks!

I was hooked on the race the first time I ran ( even though it was leg #2) Still hooked on it after 10 years of running it. Special thanks to the volunteers and the folks at Sport Yukon. EXTRA special thanks to Judy Hartling for putting the team together and organising it all these years!!

Oh Canada!

If it was not for the Klondike I would not have a Passport and I would not have seen o.r experienced the beautiful city of Whitehorse!

I've been to baseball and basketball stadiums with thousands of screaming fans! Cheering and shouting loudly, but even that doesn't compare to the cheering of your Klondike Team mates, or quiet words of encouragement!

The Klondike really did help create legends in our own time; big names like Glenn Frick, Merry Ellefson, Bob Rehfeld, Peter Metcalfe, Kurt Hopewell, Keith Levy and other old buggers, and many others that we passed in the night! All running wide open, that's for sure!

Once per year at Klondike there are no slackers!
Then there are many babes up and coming, the Seanna's, Carrie's, many Lisa's and one Ricardo!

It's a blast! Only Canada can throw a middle of the night running event!

It's a great race!

Don

The following was my email response to string of team emails for Klondike Relay Race 2009. We were sharing and discussing our concerns about whether our start time would allow us to get to the leg 9 checkpoint in time before mass start time.

Re: Our race start time

Speaking of estimated times, I don't know if I've told all of you a funny story about my experience on the Klondike about five years ago. I was slotted for Leg 6, and I got dropped off with my girlfriend in a tent by the side of the road on a nice flat spot near the 1 km-to-go mark at the end of Leg 5. I set my alarm for about an hour before I needed to be at the start, according to the estimated times provided by each of the runners. I was dead asleep in the middle of the night when our Leg 5 runner came along and shouted as he passed the tent, a full two hours earlier than the estimate. I didn't hear a thing, but my girlfriend somehow woke up and shook me awake. In a matter of seconds, I pulled on my running clothes and hopped into the car, without anything to eat and just a quick gulp of water, to arrive at my start just before my teammate sprinted in. I spent the next two hours feeling groggy and somewhat nauseous from the shock to my system of going straight from a deep sleep to on the road for a brutal run without any kind of warm up or nourishment.

The moral of that story is we all tend to overestimate our times, whether out of false modesty or lack of recognition that the adrenaline of race day pushes us faster. So I bet we get in to Whitehorse considerably earlier than we're anticipating. Except for my estimate, which of course is way too fast compared to the reality of what I'll probably end up doing....

(note: Our team estimated race time for that year was dead-on...to the hour and minute. Honest.)

Playing the Lottery: With our feet...and psyches!

The Klondike Road Relay is an event that captures the imagination of over a thousand people every year. For some, it’s a chance to stride effortlessly at sub six minutes per mile towards shadows and tail-lights in the distance en route to winning the overall title. For others, the goal is to keep from being passed by one of these shadowy and short-shorted cyborgs intent on winning the overall title!

For many, the goal is just to run and complete their legs. The culmination of a summer’s training - and dreaming. But for everyone, the relay is a celebration of sport, health, team, and community.

So if this event is really about the joy of running and reaching goals, with a little personal and/or group competitiveness thrown in just to keep some people focused, what would motivate a team to make the race exponentially harder? Isn’t racing uphill for six miles or running 26 kilometres in the thick of night hard enough?

What would compel an entire team to stay up all night long, unaware of what leg each member is running, until the very moment the previous runner reaches the transition line? What kind of sadistic group of psychos would train all summer for not one leg, but the potential of running any one of the ten legs at any moment between 11pm and noon the next day?

Who in their right mind would PAY money to wait “on the line” for the first nine legs, just to find out that he or she is running the final 21 km. into Whitehorse?

This is crazy!

This is ridiculous!

This is medieval!

This is what our team – On the Line 6/49 – decided to do one year for the Klondike Road Relay.

After years of dressing up like ‘80s rock stars, pirates, and superheroes, the staff team from Vanier school and their spouses and good friends, decided that spending a night together in a motor home and running almost a half marathon each on average wouldn’t be enough to satiate their thirst for athletic salvation. Instead, a change was needed. A change that would set the standard for middle-aged athletes attempting to do something that could be talked about at staff parties and running events for years to come - maybe even ten.

With the help of one volunteer who would randomly select the runners for each leg and then register the team, team members would stay ignorant of their preselected legs until the very moment the previous runner crosses the transition line.

Though our overall time that year is lost somewhere on the web amidst thousands of paces, bib numbers, and punny team names, the memories and excitement of the night will remain etched in our collective memories. Every year we look forward to reminiscing with teammates and interested listeners, basking in our runs as we slowly continue to take minutes off our supposed times while adding more degrees of pain to our overall experience that night.

This year, we’ll be Hurry(ing) Hard! in our curling sweaters and stretchy pants, with brooms in one hand and beer and cigs in the other. And though we look forward to paying tribute to one of our country’s national sports (curling, not beer-drinking…though if you’re from Nova Scotia…), we will naturally compare the runner highs and the temperature lows that come with a night out in the Skagway pass.

While we work hard to fight fatigue and make it look like we’re running smoothly in spite of cramps and a lack of training, in the back of our minds – like every year - we’ll be comparing our present race and efforts to the challenge that we faced that fateful/frightful night as we put our fitness, comfort zones, and patience on the line…as we gathered on the line…over and over again.

The members of On the Line 6/49 (in order of their legs run): Sylvie Hamel, Denise Chisholm, Jane Londero, Amanda Deuling, Mark Connell, Maura Sullivan, Jud Deuling, David Michayluk, Sean McCarron, and Michelle Rigoni.

I have long thought that I should write up something about the relay based on the "Big White Book..." It is a fat ring binder in which I have collected news clippings, brochures, and the "official results", such as was available, back to my own first run in 1984 which was the second year of the event. So here goes.

I was not a part of the first event in 1983. I didn't even hear about it until sometime later when Juneau's Bill Joiner told me about his own near-mystical run in the wilderness on the newly constructed Klondike highway under a full moon, dead still, in the chill air in the Northern darkness, sounded interesting to me.
The next year I got an invitation from some Juneauites who wanted to fill the Rain Runners team roster. I went, ran leg 1, and was hooked, especially by that feeling of the night wilderness when I supported my teammates Keith Levy and Gordon Harrison on 4 and 5 to Windy Arm. Maybe it was the aurora. My daughter was born in 1985 a few weeks before the third year of the event. She and her mother came along for the ride (not actually a very wise plan with a newborn, but it seemed like a good idea at the time).

Now many years later she has herself run three times and can cover the miles faster than I do. We can hope that this wonderful event will continue maybe even for her children.
There must be a few persons in Whitehorse who can tell what was the motivation that would conceive of a run up that hill and thru the night with all the associated logistical problems. I think the late great Jasper-Banff Relay must have been a first inspiration. It also went overnight and was even longer overall but with 17 shorter legs, a mass noontime start and an expectation that the slowest teams would best 8 minutes per mile. It was run the weekend near the summer solstice which meant darkness was a problem for only a few legs. Calgary and Edmonton provided many gifted athletes but the size and success of that event (in the two Canadian National Parks, bear worries and traffic, and stressed park wardens) eventually lead to its downfall.

The evolution of the Klondike from racers-only to a more popular event parallels the changes that have happened in running as a sport in the US and in the world generally. Now some of the volunteers who wanted to compete but couldn't run for 10 or 15 miles have influenced the inclusion of the walking division which will probably grow in numbers.

The "official results" in the early years were a primitive thing. But I have whatever was available including even the first year 1983, thanks to Jerry Buckley of the winning Taku Striders team (which has evolved, aged, ripened into the infamous Smoking Ole Geezers.) As far as he knew, he had in 1997 possibly the only copy of the '83 results. It was the whole race on one legal size sheet, teams and leg times in a primitive spreadsheet format but individual runners were not identified. Somehow I have some of the names written-in in pencil. Some of those names are still competing. As we hear at the awards ceremony, only Juneau's ageless Glen Frick, founder of the Striders and the original Geezer, has run every year.

In 1983 18 teams began together in a mass start at midnight. Anchorage wasn't part of things very much back then but the Lion's Gate running team of Vancouver finished second behind the Striders. Running on the primitive road, the Striders that year finished in 11:34:27, a time that would place second or third most years to the present. The median time was about 14:30. Seven Men's teams finished with the slowest at 15:29.

There were seven Mixed teams and four Women's teams. There was no Masters category. The two slowest teams finished in 16:06 and 17:11. The event was set up for "runners" and back then slower teams weren't really invited. My copy of the 1986 invite brochure prominently says "Time Limitation--16 hours." By contrast the MEDIAN times in the past two years has been 16:55 in 2006 and 17 hours in 2007.

In the 1980s few of the competitors were over 50. Now many runners are returning at 50 and 55 and 60, slower but still motivated to compete. Glen Frick is 68+. Even Glen isn't as fast as he was in the 1980s. And the event opened up to what we all call "recreational" teams as more and more people wanted to be part of this adventure and get fit in the process. For many Juneauites it is the last hurrah of summer before the drizzles of September and October set in. and we all love the colors of the boreal autumn.

Does anyone doubt that the all-women's teams have more fun and more mutual support than do the elite teams? In fact it should be no surprise that women now dominate the event numerically. They have to dance together at the party because they outnumber the guys, not to mention that they dance harder and longer. In 2006 56% on the runners were women and I expect the ratio was even higher in 07. Hard Women ARE good to find and there are lots of them at the Klondike Relay!

In 1984 Lion's Gate returned and beat the Striders 11:09 to 11:23. I ran leg 1 for the Rain Runners starting at midnight. The only other time I had ever been in Skagway the railroad was the only way to get to Whitehorse. I recall the highway from the foot of the big hill was not paved but was just packed D-1 gravel, no paint stripes. I'm sure Scotchlite reflective tape had not been invented yet. It was dark and cloudy on the Skagway side as usual but north of Summit Lake it was a beautiful night, just as Bill Joiner said. My team finished 6th out of 26 teams and we were proud. I met some of my teammates at the finish line. The next year I first put together a team of my friends and came year after year. There were 75 teams by 1989 and 112 in 1995 with a median time of 15:38. The traffic at stations was a serious problem and one answer was to stagger the start.

The highway has been rebuilt piece by piece on the Canadian side since the early years. Some veterans will remember running the dark legs south of Carcross avoiding dozers and shotrock boulders and serious mud puddles. Several years we had snow. There were no shoulders on the Canadian road in the early years and we had the ore trucks to contend with and that's another story.

One aspect of the history of the Relay is has to do with timing and "pace." Our digital watches can give times to the hundredth of a second but to my mind the distances of the various legs have never been measured to an equal accuracy. So any one year the times of runners on any one leg can be compared fairly reasonably but paces on various legs should be taken with a grain or even a tablet of salt. Unfortunately it is too easy for a computer to list the runners by pace: garbage in, garbage out. For 1990, the year that the race was completed in the fastest time ever, the results for individual runners on the available printout are in a list from the fastest pace to the slowest with all runners on all legs mixed together. But each entry has only the running time when the runner finished, not his pace per se or his leg split. So it was tedious to include 1990 in the attempt to come up with all-time record single leg performances. And I for the most part haven't included in women's records the runs from 1990. The record time is 10:16:28, approached closely by a serious recruiting effort in 99 and 2000, but never equaled.
One more thing needs to be understood about the history of the relay. The stations have moved about over the years. We have always started in Skagway and finished in Whitehorse. But from the first year until 1992 the starting line for leg 1 was the ferry terminal. Yes there is a flush toilet there and that is a good thing, but the dock is actually a bit away from all the action in town. It was figured out that a much better location is the corner of Broadway and 2nd, next to the Park HQ and (more importantly) near the RR tracks and the Red Onion bar. This makes for a more festive start but cuts off something like 0.34 mile, which makes some of the earlier leg times even more impressive. Think Steve McCormick of San Diego.

The finish line for leg 10 in Whitehorse was moved in 1997 from the visitor's building next to the SS Klondike to the Rotary Park on the other side of the Yukon River Bridge. This adds some length to leg 10, I don't know how much. A bigger change for leg 10 was routing the run down the Miles Canyon road instead of staying on the Alcan and down the South Access hill. My notes show that happened in 1989.

The first two years the station between legs 7 and 8 was about two miles farther north. I don't recall just where it was or why the change except the Yukon highway department was working on the road in that area those years. In 1984 I was sound asleep in the Suburban as our night runners drove that section to Whitehorse and I didn't see the place but I heard that our runner had to dodge earthmovers when he ran that stage.

Another year the station was getting setup and the workers asked a carload of runners at the front where it should be. They picked a place probably not at the 1-kilommeter post where it has been since. Jerry Buckley says he was one of these but doesn't know which year it was. It must have been construction that prompted the station at the Yukon-BC border at Windy Arm to be moved north less to a large pullout on the right for the years 1989 thru 1992. So those difficult legs 5 and 6 have different times recorded and comparisons with before and after are problematic.

Legs 6 and 7 have had one other major change in routing. For the first years leg 6 left the highway a short distance before the Nares river bridge near Carcross. The route went left, thru the native village, upsetting all the dogs, across the footbridge and finished at the train station, now visitor center, in Carcross village. Leg 7 then went back out to the highway and on northbound. The old SS Tutshi was on the beach there and the Matthew Watson Store was open for coffee or ice cream. Lots of parking and a nice, historically appropriate place for the Trail of 98 Relay exchange. But the ruckus was not a good thing in the village. The footbridge was often icy in those days (the race was held 15-20 Sept then and it was colder according to the memories of many of us). The village was avoided from 1992 by having leg 6 runners cross Nares River on the highway bridge and continue to the new Montana roadhouse. The exchange was moved a few feet again across to the right side of the highway and out of the roadhouse parking area a few years
ago. The effect was leg 6 was about the same length but more direct. Leg 7 lost some distance then and since. The lengths of every leg are very uncertain based on the published results in which the leg distances seem to vary as much as few tenths of a mile even when the stations were in the same places. Therefore one needs to be cautious interpreting and comparing the paces on various legs and over different years. I have heard but can't verify that the leg lengths have been measured more accurately in recent years, maybe by GPS tools. When I did the data collection for the original "profile" of the Relay, I used my Honda Prelude odometer and a Swiss Thomens altimeter, a clipboard and a pencil along with some topos. There are more accurate ways to do these things. I did it myself with the odometer on my bicycle riding back to Skagway after the race in about 1996.

Anchorage discovered the Klondike in 1985. The Sheffield hotel sponsored a team with Delaney and Downey and won in a still great time of 10:29:06. They won three legs but two of those were run by a phenomenon named Dave Bard. I believe his 35:12 on leg 2 and 51:22 on (a short) leg 8 are among the best runs ever. The Striders won five legs and finished second by just 8 seconds.

THE fastest run in the history of the relay was by Steve McCormick. His 57:56 on leg 10 (via south access) calculates to something like a 4:58 pace. At the SS Klondike he just missed reeling in Mueller, whose 59:44 is the third fastest ever run on leg 10. Some of us were watching these guys catch our own man and started giving McCormick gap times as the distance between them came down. And Mueller was flying. The story of McCormick and the San Diego connection is better told by Jerry Buckley in the Southeast Roadrunner newsletter for Aug-Sept 1996. My White Book has a copy.

In 1986 the Striders won again, this time in 10:26:49 with Lion's Gate second 11 minutes back and Edmonton Roadrunners third at 10:40. The 1985 results have runners' last names only so I don't know who ran what that year except for my own team. 1986 has no runner's names at all. The San Diego guys. The first year of the race the Striders had a Juneau man named Kelly Miller. He later moved to San Diego in part to be an aerobic athlete there. He joined a club or group of road runners called "the B Team" among whom was this Steve McCormick who ran so well in 1985. By 1986 and more so in 1987 "Mac" brought runners from San Diego for the event. I heard their team won a road relay in San Diego with a prize of Alaska Airline tickets anywhere. The Striders ran as two teams to make room and dominated for several years. In 1990 the "Juneau B Team" was all from the Southland and set the all-time record of 10:16:28. Some of them have come individually again over the years to re-live their youthful success.

From 1991 through 1993 the Pepsi Roadrunners based in Whitehorse (I think) gave the Striders, now called the Alaska Masters, some real competition and won overall several times. Since then the elite team from Anchorage has won most years with an evolving roster of talent. The exception was the Pacific Wolfpack, a Juneau-based team with some creative outreach aspect to their recruiting. A far as I can tell, the ringleader and chief recruiter was John Bursell of Juneau. The Wolfpack came close to the record with 10:18:39 in '98 and 10:18:58 in '99. So painfully close! The Anchorage team running as first National Bank or Take No Prisoners finished second in about 10:30. I don't think anyone has approached these times since though Take No continues to win. The original Striders team has become the Smokin Ole Geezers with some members running for Sitka and other teams and sometimes they recruit some fast 40 year-olds to keep their average pace high enough to win the Master category again and again. John Bursell went Geezer this year. It happens to the best of us, God willing.

In the last ten years I haven't paid as much attention to the teams finishing first overall, being more concerned in recruiting a team of my friends and trying to stay fit enough to run at all. When we could get printed results only by paying for them, I would call in the favor of a free copy because I, in a previous burst of obsessive behavior, produced the original version of the race profile at no expense to the sponsoring agency, and now with the results on-line I don't even print them out any more. The Big White Book is too heavy to carry about on the ferry or along the race as it is. It still carries a lot of memories.

Eric Olsen - Juneau

The purpose of road stories is to have racers or volunteers place interesting stories about past races that they have participated in.

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