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Norwil

Pat's Call from the Yukon
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I decided that the race to Nome has no free lunches. And what I mean by that is, we have to work for every mile we're getting. Shaktoolik to Koyuk, across Norton Sound: it was 58 miles and it was soft, beautiful, and hard work. The sun rose early; beautiful blue sky day. Zero degrees and a 20 mile-an-hour wind coming out of the north — right into my face.

Eleven hours later I was in Koyuk, completely exhausted. I figured, you know, 58 miles, and it was flat, and I mean bone flat, I figured, oh, I can knock this thing out in about nine, seven hours. No way. I was on and off the bike the entire day. I could ride, and then I'd have to walk; I'd ride, and then I'd have to walk. The trail was constantly punchy. As soon as the Norman Vaughn Serum Run caught up to me, with their, I don't know, maybe 10 dog teams and about 15-20 snowmobile entourage, they pretty much just wiped out whatever platform I was riding on and I was pretty much just relegated to walk.

"No free lunch, once again. But it's Koyuk and I'm heading to Elim first thing in the morning; first thing in the morning for me is about 2am...."

And I walked, and then I got on the bike and I rode. I walked and I rode. And it was a long, beautiful day, of a lot of work. No free lunch, once again. But it's Koyuk and I'm heading to Elim first thing in the morning; first thing in the morning for me is about 2am. Elim is 48 miles from here, and then Elim to Golovin is another 40 miles, and I'm hoping to get in an 88-mile day. We'll see if it happens, I was hoping to get to Elim today, but of course I didn't, I got to Koyuk.

And I'm staying in the Koyuk gymnasium, like normal. The villages are just awesome. These guys just open their doors and the schools are open to us: showers, laundry, yeah, it's great. It's totally great. We couldn't do it without these guys' support. The district has just been outstanding, really helpful. The other thing is, there's no way I could do this race, or do this ride, or do this suffer-fest, if the weather was 20 degrees colder — it would just be too much. It was probably 25-30 below with the windchill today. If it was 20 below zero, and then you throw in a 20 mile-an-hour wind, I would have turned, headed back to Shak and got on a plane and gone home. It would have just been too much. It was already just... it was cold enough.

I worked my butt off all day and I never really sweated at all. Everything that came out of me was instantly evaporated by the cold weather. This is no free lunch trip.

Mike Curiak is still out in front, Jon Kirschke is 2nd, Greg Blackwell's in 3rd, and John Stamstad is behind me in 5th. He's in Unalakleet, headed to Shaktoolik. Behind that, I had no idea where anybody else is at.

I'm kind of right in the middle of the Colonel Norman Vaughn Serum Run, sled dog trip to Nome. So I'm trying to break free of these guys. They're wonderful people, but I'm getting slowed down by what they're doing to the trail. So I'm going to make a big push tomorrow and see if I can't get to Golovin. And I'll give you a call when I get to Golovin.

—Pat Norwil, MountainZone.com Correspondent

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