The Susitna 100 is a 100 mile race through the frozen wilderness of Alaska. The race course follows remote snow machine trails that are extremely variable in both terrain and snow conditions. Racers can choose their mode of transportation: ski, bike, or run. The race starts at 9 am, and the fastest usually finish by midnight. A biker often wins, but not this year. This year Tim Kelley smoked the field on skis. He completed the 100 mile race in 12 hours and 44 minutes, a full hour and 52 minutes ahead of second place. It was a very good year for the skiers, the top five finishers were all nordic types. Second was Jim Jager, third was Brent Veltkamp, fourth Jeff Bannish, fifth Mel Strauch. And in the Su 100's shorter sibling, the Little Su 50 K, the top two were on skis, including FasterSkier's own Cory Smith who won the 50 K in a time of 2:45, a half hour ahead second.
<Full Susitna 100 Results
<Pre-race article in the Anchorage Daily News
<Race Wrap-Up In the Anchorage Daily News
 sled dog trail near Kotzebue and skiing across ANWR and the Brooks Range with former NCAA champ Tim Miller, skiing across the Wrangell Mountain with Audun Endestad and many, many dozens of other ski trips.</p>
<p>If you are a skier, there is nothing like seeing places for the first time after you journey there by skis! And there are endless neat and remote places in Alaska to ski to. So training for and racing the Su-100 is just an extension of what I really love to do.</p>
<p>What do you think about skiers dominating this race that is often won by bikers?</p>
<p>It was cool. The other 4 racers in the top five are all outdoor savvy, wilderness racing guys from Anchorage. We're all buddies and share gear, training and strategy ideas. So the bikers will be out for vengeance next year! Actually, the press hypes this rivalry for more than it is. I mountain bike race in the summer, so I'm friends with a lot of the bikers too. But still – I enjoy kicking there butts, with skis, when I can!</p>
<p>How did you train for this race?</p>
<p>Mid distance and intervals during the week. Major distance on the weekends. If I was in town I would ski across Anchorage and back on the trail system. Often I would do this 80 km ski on Saturday classic skiing and then do it again on Sunday skating. Total: about a 100 mile weekend. I introduced training partners Trond Jensen and Benji Uffenbeck to another of my workouts – the “After Work 50”. Leave work at 5, start skiing at 6, ski the 50 km Tour of Anchorage Trail, get to Kincaid by 9, home by 10.</p>
<p>My favorite workouts would be out of town. I'd do 6 hour skis on snowmobile trails from my cabin or I'd drive a snowmobile 25-50 miles off the road system in the Susitna Valley, park it and go on a long ski on trails I had never skied before. Two weeks before the race I skied the 100 mile course of the Tustumena 200 Dog Sled Race on the Kenai Peninsula. I pulled a sled and camped out on this trip.</p>
<p>What type of gear did you use and why?</p>
<p>In this race you have to carry required gear (-20F sleeping bag, sleeping pad, bivy bag, stove, fuel, 3000 calories of food, headlamp) and a total of 15 pounds at all times. The dilemma is … how? Pack or sled? It seems like the folks with adventure racing backgrounds swear by packs. Personally, I hate skiing with a pack. To me it's like instantly gaining 15 to 20 lbs, in this case, and then jumping in a race. This weight screws up your technique. I prefer to distribute the weight between an pack and a sled. My sled is a single pole design that I make based on past expedition sleds that I've made. I put the survival stuff I'll likely never use in the sled, say 10-12 pounds. I then wear a Camelback pack that has my fluids, food and headlamp. A lot of the course is on swamps and rivers, i.e. flat, and you hardly notice the sled behind you.</p>
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