Arrowhead VII

Monday morning at 7:00, I’ll start my seventh Arrowhead Ultra, my seventh attempt to ride my fatbike down the 135 miles of snowmobile trail across northern Minnesota from International Falls to Tower.

Sundogs just after the start of the 2019 Arrowhead

So far I’ve finished the race each time I’ve started, with times ranging from 19.5 hours in 2015 to 29 hours in 2014. My best placing was my first year, when we rode in the polar vortex and I wound up in 7th place.

The forecast (as of Saturday night) looks increasingly good, with highs near 25° on Monday afternoon and lows near 0° at the start and then overnight — which likely means actual air temps near -10°’ when we hit the low swampy areas. Those temperatures are very manageable and should mean the trail will be hard and fast.

This year — after a very busy few months at work and much less riding than I’d like — I’m in less good physical shape than I’d like, although I rode well at the Tuscobia 160 a month ago. I’m primarily gunning for another finish and I’ll be happy to go under 24 hours.

If you want to see how I am doing, check Trackleaders, a cool free service that uses GPS data to plot some (but not all) of us on a map of the course!

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