On Fear & Motivation: KattiJo’s Rookie Iditarod ’22

I. Fear

(Like all rookies, I assume) I felt nervous in the weeks and days leading up to the start of my first Iditarod. I doubted my own abilities, and those of my mostly inexperienced team. I stressed about how to dress and how to pack for two weeks of spring time weather fluctuations across 1,000 miles in Alaska. I wondered what would happen if I broke my sled. Could I engineer a fix by myself? How would I deal with extreme sleep deprivation? How would I fare physically through those notoriously tricky driving sections of The Happy River Steps? The Gorge? The Burn? Would I lose my team? How/would I be able to get them back? What injuries would they incur during our time apart? Could I fit more than one dog in my sled if I needed to load a couple instead of one? In short, I feared the unknown, and everything was unknown to me.

KattiJo leaving the official start line of Iditarod 2022

Sunny and warm in the hills between Elim and White Mountain

Cold morning sunrise on the way to Unalakleet

Going into the race, the advice I heard repeatedly was this: Once you leave the start line, all of the fear will fall away and you’ll simply be doing what you already know how to do – just running your dogs. Unfortunately that advice turned out to be wrong for me. The fear stayed with me throughout the entire race, riding my shoulder as an unwelcome passenger.

That is not to say that I didn’t have fun on the Iditarod. I absolutely did. And those scariest sections of trail that I feared most ended up being some of the most joyous and proudest moments of my race. Too bad the pride of tackling and surviving one intimidating section did not eradicate the fears I had about the upcoming sections! So the fear stayed…

Feeling pretty nervous running through the dreaded Farewell Burn… But at the same time, I find myself actually having fun!

I also smelled like fear. Did you know that “fear sweat” has its own distinct smell? Well it does, and I totally reeked. I couldn’t even stand the smell of myself! The fresh, wild, open air was my only salvation. The short sleeps in small, overheated checkpoint shelters added to my stench and I literally cursed myself at least once an hour for not packing a small thing of deodorant alongside my toothbrush and chap stick. I mostly forgave myself for being scared, generally speaking. I chalked it up to being a normal emotion, and well within the typical range for my ironically risk-averse personality. But now I also had to live with the retched smell of my fear all around me.

One reprieve from the fear came in those too short, although somehow very restful sleeps. I can only explain the lack of mushing nightmares in my dreams as my brain’s way of coping with the stress. Perhaps I was making up enough “worst case scenarios” in my waking hours that I didn’t need to come up with any more in sleep.

Getting ready for a nap in McGrath

From start to finish, no matter how many times you’ve run the Iditarod (I assume), there is a constant internal dialogue with oneself titled “Things I’ll Do Differently Next Time.” Obviously deodorant was at the top of my list. But the simple fact that I was even making a list for next time is noteworthy for any rookie. Although my clearest thought throughout most of the race was something like “Yes, I think I would do this race again; there is enough joy here. But I don’t know that I will, because there is also enough fear.”