Susitna 100 Champ Tim Kelley
Published: Thu Feb 19, 2004 12:00 AM MST
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
Tim Kelley at the start of the Su 100
Tim Kelley made this extremely challenging race look easy, but that doesn't mean he took it lightly. His tireless preparation and training, plus his years of experience in the Alaskan wilderness, paid dividends on race day. We've all heard of the skiing exploits of our nordic heros, such as Vegard Ulvang skiing across Greenland. But very few, if any of them, have anything on Tim Kelley.
We asked Tim a few questions about the race, and Alaskan adventures in general.
You were racing and winning at National Masters last year, why switch to trail racing and ski the Susitna 100?
Two reasons: hometown pride and "what makes me tick". The hometown deal: My wife and I built a log cabin 25 miles from the nearest road in this area during the '90s. The Susitna 100 race course goes near our cabin. Because this course goes through my "backyard", I've wanted to race it for quite a few years.
The "what makes me tick" deal: I love track racing and have done it all my life. But I don't live in Alaska to just ski race in little set-track circles. What really "makes me tick" is exploring Alaska on cross-country skis. I've done a lot of this over the years and I never get enough of it. Such as skiing the 1150 mile Iditarod and the 1000 mile Yukon Quest sled dog trails with Bob Baker of Fairbanks, skiing the Kobuk 440 (mile) 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.
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.
What do you think about skiers dominating this race that is often won by bikers?
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!
How did you train for this race?
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.
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.
What type of gear did you use and why?
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.
These type of races are on ungroomed trails. In open areas and on the rivers wind keeps the trails fairly smooth, but in the woods the trails are usually very bumpy due to snowmobile traffic. So you need skis that won't blow up. I usually use Fischer skate skis. The RCS models can't take the thrashing of these trails, so I buy the wood core SCS models. The bummer is, no one makes a decent ski for this type of skiing any more. The stiff Fischer SCS 182 cm skis I use come close, but the problem is that Fischer cut the damn tips off! The low profile tips are very dangerous on narrow bumpy trails. The tips can break into the side of the trail and before you know it you are faceplanted with a groin that's about ripped in two. So I read up about carbon fiber fabrication and made some tip extenders for the SCS skates. These worked out really well. I hope that Fischer starts making SCS skate skis with tips again, or someone starts marketing tip extenders ... because a lot of people are now pestering me to make carbon fiber ski tip extenders for them! I'm letting the ski community know how I made mine so others can give it a try if they want (see pics:)
I used a 5 gallon paint bucket as a form for the ski curve in making a formed carbon fiber strip that I then cut out the tips with using a Dremel tool
What did you eat and drink during the race?
The only time you stop in this race is at checkpoints. Of the 6 checkpoints I stopped at 4, skipped two of them. I averaged about 3 minutes at each just to refill my Camelback and stuff some food down the front of my shirt. I try to eat and drink on downhills while on the move. I drank two gallons of weakly mixed Cytomax. I ate about 6 Power Gels and 6 Power Bars, all
vanilla flavored. Something about Power Bar vanilla, I love the flavor and never get tired of it. I'm not sure what drugs they put in with the vanilla, but they are good ones (ha ha!).
What is it like to ski 100 miles through the woods alone?
No big deal with the Susitna 100. Over the years I've skied, mushed my dog team, ski-jored, snowmobiled, paddled, boated and fished all over this area. It's my second home and I love the place. I know a bunch of the folks that live year-round on the "fringe of society" in this area. 25, 50, to 100 or more miles from the nearest road. Funny thing is, I'm friends with a lot of them ... so I guess that makes me a "fringe member of society" myself!
What's next?
The winter is still young! I'm psyched to be long distance fit from all this training for the Su 100. So I have a number of trips planned in Southcentral Alaska and one or two in Western Alaska. Western Alaska is great spring skiing. You can ski for hundreds of miles on the trails that connect villages. Gotta keep working off items on my "gotta do" Alaskan adventure list! I'll get back to Masters racing sometime. But life is short and you need to follow your heart. If you heart beats the loudest
when you think about skiing in wild and remote parts of Alaska that you've never been to ... well, that's what you should be doing. And I am.
