International Women's Day!
Today is International Women’s day, variously described to draw attention to women's achievements and the fight for gender equality, or as a global day celebrating the historical, cultural, and political achievements of women. If you’d like to learn more about women in sports, check out this article on 50 Years of Title IX, or this report by Asics on the gender exercise gap. However you define International Women’s Day, this seems like an appropriate time to highlight the women that pioneered human powered racing on the Iditarod Trail.
One of the original bike races on the Iditarod trail took place in 1987 and was dreamed up by Joe Redington Sr. and the Mountain Bike Club of Alaska. That 210 mile race drew 20 men and 6 women, 13 of those racers finished and Martha Kennedy led the women’s field. We learned this and more from A Brief History of Iditabike [http://halfpastdone.com/.../20/a-brief-history-of-iditabike/] by Jill Homer.
The multisport ITI was formed in 2002, and since that time participation by women has slowly increased. In the first decade an average of 4 women finished each year, with a low of 1 and a high of 7. The second decade saw an average of 8 women finish per year, maxing out at 14 women in 2016. These accomplished women have set records out there. In the 350 the bike record set by Heather Best in 2014 is just 2 days 14 hours; Anne Ver Hoef set the foot record in 2013 in 6 days 12 hours; and the new ski record of 6 days 23 hours was set this year by Christy Marvin and Robin Beebee.
Record times in the 1000 mile event range from Jill Homer’s bike record of 17 days 3 hours set in 2016, to Loreen Hewitt’s foot record of 26 days 6 hours set in 2014. Think about this for a minute, that means walking (most foot racers walk most of the time, albeit quickly) something like 35-38 miles per day, for 26 days straight. Since we all know things like weather, illness and other less than ideal conditions happen, several of those days are likely much longer to make up for necessary rest and slow days.
Today finds our four remaining women along the trail between Ophir and Ruby. Sunny spent about 10 hours in Ophir, hopefully she was able to enjoy the hospitality of the Iditarod Kyle Forsgren’s cabin, his cabin has hosted this checkpoint for many years. As the last racer Sunny must be feeling pretty alone right now, and hopefully she had a warm welcome at Ophir. She’s currently less than 10 miles from the Carlson Crossing cabin.
Faye Norby rested at the North Fork Innoko River cabin for about 9 hours, after arriving around 2am. She and Jeff pushed straight through from Carlson Crossing to the Innoko cabin, a 42 mile, 19 hour trip. They left the North Fork cabin at about 11am, made a brief stop in Cripple to pick up their drops, and have about 67 miles remaining to reach Ruby.
Leah Gruhn bivied last night for about 6 hours near Poorman Creek, and is about 22 miles from Ruby. Her pace has ranged from 1-6 miles per hour, indicating she’s probably found a mix of somewhat rideable but often not rideable conditions. Racers have generally been moving slowly through this section, there has been quite a bit of snow and hopefully the trail will firm up soon.
Leading lady Kinsey Loan made good time this morning after sleeping last night before Long. Kinsey and Mark brought a tent and have been sleeping outside of checkpoints fairly regularly. Based solely on their social media posts, Kinsey and Mark seem to be having a great time out there. Fun fact, they are recently engaged, congratulations! Kinsey is resting in Ruby as of Friday afternoon.
Author: Amber Crawford
Photo credit: Selfies!