Editor’s Note: Elliot McAllister is one of 50 people currently competing in the 2005 Alaska Ultra, which follows the famed Iditarod route. Only instead of mushing dogs, contestants either ski, bike or run their way from Knick Lake (near Anchorage) to Nome, 1,100 miles of unadulterated hardship. Racing in his fourth Alaska Ultra, Elliot will ride his bike across the frozen tundra. He is sending us updates of the race whenever he steps in from the cold - so read on and stay tuned.

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Saturday, March 19, 2005

Hey MountainZone:

OK, into McGrath here. Not much to report except that it was really cold this morning when I left to ride over. The report on bush radio said McGrath -30 and Nikolai -10! Zoinks! Luckily, it felt pretty warm. Jon Orban and I left around 8:45 this morning, and were making some good time together, reminiscing over Monty Python's "The life of Brian," and "The Holy Grail." Within an hour we had frosty-beards and were grinning all the way.

It's hard to get lost coming out of Nikolai. They have six foot tripods every tenth of a mile leading the 50 or so miles into McGrath with huge reflectors on them. So it's nice if you don't have an odometer to just count the miles by.

The funniest thing that happened today was falling off the trail. I expected to sink up to my knees or maybe a little past there, but as I stood up, the snow went up past my waist and nearly to my armpits! It was a bit odd to try and roll up onto the trail.

Peter's house, our checkpoint, is buzzing with about 10 other racers, most of them heading back to Anchorage or in the case of Roberto, Allan, Karl onwards to Nome. I'm going to take some time here to heal up a bit before I leave. My bike needs some heavy maintenance as the rear hub decided it didn't want to go around anymore at about 10 miles out of town, so once again I was pushing. The irony of the whole situation is that the last 12 miles of this leg is on a ROAD. I could get the bike up to speed, and coast for about 15-20 feet before I'd stop...simply amazing.

It is incredible to me how EASY it is to elevate something that is already at the "quite difficult" level to the "nearly impossible" level. Ah well, keep smilin' or at least grimacing! It is fun though...and incredible to be here.

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