Little Su 50K suffer fest

I did the Little Su 50K fat bike race as last year. I ended up at the same place as last year as if matter, but what was very different as compare to last year were the conditions.

And i mean very very different. It was all hard pack or ice last year so you could buzz along very quickly. if I'm not mistaken it took me about 2 hours and 8 minutes last year. Also if i recall correctly i started cramping up at about 40-45KM into the race last time, which was not really a big deal as all can happen is that you loose the finish sprint.

Well this time around we got some fresh snow throughout the entire week leading to the race so the trails were soft and chopped up by snow machines. it was a slow going for me and pushing uphills. I also run a very low tire pressure which does not help to your speed either. I started cramping up about 20km into the race. i was totally surprised by that. By the 35km slowly rolled around i was almost unable to paddle due to multiple cramps. Not a pretty picture of me. I finished with the pain in my face at about 3hours and 40minutes pretty much one hour and 30minutes slower than last year.

All in All it was a good test for White Mountains 100 miles race which is scheduled for end of the March. Yeah i definitely need to do more biking before that.

here is the map of the course:

Chena Hot Springs

We, J and J, decided that instead of spending money on over-the-top presents, we will burn it on a trip. I was more than happy with this decision as our house is littered with crap which we do not use.
Also i really enjoy to plan the trips. Well, i usually do not plan well the details as logistics and accommodations but i love researching the opportunities what we can do and see on the way and at the location.

We decided to go to Chena Hot Springs which is a resort on the end of the road 60 miles north east of Fairbanks AK. This place is well known between the locals as the place to go when deep winter is throwing -40 F at you on daily bases.

The resort is literally in the middle of nowhere and it is built around hot springs pools. This location is also known as a fantastic place to watch norther lights. There is an outside hot spring pool, which is not actually a pool rather that is more of a tiny lake. I have no idea what is the water temperature but it is hot and you will not be cold even when it hits -40 (as it did). You will get your hair all frosted over and bag for a beanie. The best time to go is right at 7 am when its opening as you will enjoy entire place for yourself. If you like more of a party time than go after 8 pm as you will be in a company of buzzed people which the hot water eventually turn into being wasted.

The resort has a restaurant and cafe so you will not go hungry plus its about an hour drive from Fairbanks and Fox, where you can hit up Hoodoo or Silver Gulch breweries. Also do not miss out on Alaska Coffee Roasting Company in Fairbanks, which is great bakery and coffee shop.

The resort rooms are quiet expensive if you compare the price versus what you get. The rooms are outdated and walls are paper thin so bring some ear plugs as this place get crazy. There is bunch of activities which you can burn your cash on. You can visit ice museum and drink appletini at the ice bar, go mushing, go hiking/snowshoeing, fly to some remote village above arctic circle, take a trip in a snow cat to watch northern lights and other touristy delights.

I do like the hot springs itself. Well actually, i really like that its -40F and you are sweating balls in this place which would be freaking awesome if left undeveloped. However, it's not the case and the Chena Hot Springs Resort should do couple upgrades before they ask their clients to pay this kind of prices.

Fall and end of Summer

It has been more than couple months since my last post due to that we did not have any real adventures lately. We took a care of outstanding commitments such as weddings, family visits, birthdays and work related travels.
We went to Toronto to visits J's family and J's best friend wedding than i went for couple days to visit my family to Czech at the beginning of September..
Between those two trips J's parents and one of the nephews pay a visit to us here in Anchorage which was a lot of fun. We did some fishing and mushroom picking along with some necessary tourist trips.
Especially enjoyable was the trip to Halibut Cove which is very cool place. We took the Danny J boat out of Homer and spent several hours just walking on the island's boardwalks. The Saltry restaurant is pricey but food was pretty good. There is nothing better than have couple beers sitting on the boardwalk and overlooking the bay.

J took me for my birthday to live it up in the yurt in Talkeetna for a weekend at the end of September. It is our second time at the yurt and we just freaking love it! Not only it has a real Alaskan feel to it, but you actually has to work for it as well. Here is random fact about me, I love chopping wood! There was a lot of chopped wood after that weekend by the yurt! Just effing love that. We also had a big bone fire, good food and tasty beers.

October was in the name of hiking. We did couple hikes around the Anchorage. We really enjoyed the one by the McHugh Creek where we went to check out the burn site of the McHugh fire which was blazing through that area in August.

Other than that nothing major, but i already put the winter adventures planning into the works and I'm getting really excited!

Kenai 250 butt massacre

Kenai 250 is the bikepacking race to do in Alaska. It starts and ends in beautiful town of Hope and hits pretty much every singletrack and trail on Kenai peninsula between Hope and Seward. It consist of about 200 miles of singletrack, 65 miles of paved roads and 30,000 feet of elevation to peddle up. It is brutal.

The conditions this year were relentless, wet, muddy and showers definitely guaranteed being wet entire race. The streams which you had to cross were double in size due to rain over the past couple days and temperature was in mid 50's. All in all conditions were just like we love it up here in Alaska.

I was excited about this race entire year as I really wanted to explore all the trails on Kenai. So far, I only did the Resurrection trail as part of Soggy Bottom race in 2015. Here i could enjoy the Resurrection Trail, Devils creek trail, Johnson Pass, Crown Point Loop, Iditarod trail, Lost Lakes, Russian Lakes. Well at least that was my plan until I sat down (by sat down i mean fell) into one of the creeks on the Devil's creek trail and got sand in my bike shorts, which i did not realized until 6 hours later when i could not sit on my arse.

We left Hope at 9 am on Friday and by 9pm we were on the Iditarod trail heading toward Seward (half point of the race) and I had to bike standing up because of the sand paper like feeling in my pants. When we were pulling into Seward at midnight I not only had a mess of an ass but my legs were cramping due to the biking in standing position for past 3 hours.

So i decided that rather to continue as part of the lead group out of Seward and getting droped off from the group somewhere on the climb to Lost Lakes, I took couple hours of sleep and tried to recover my butt and legs. There is nothing more scary than bike in the middle of the night on overgrown trail in bear country. And i mean there was bear shit everywhere.

Next day at about 6 am I headed lonesome to the Lost Lake Trail, but I was not able to sit on the seat. Bottom line is that i called it in and biked the highway back to Hope, which still was 75 miles away.

I really enjoy the ride despite of the sand and not finishing and I definitely will come back next year.