Chapter 13
Steph
The wind found them somewhere around hour three.
It came off the ridge to the west, not hard, not the kind that stopped you in your tracks, but persistent enough to matter.
Steph felt it against the exposed strip of skin on her cheekbone.
The temperature had been dropping steadily since full dark, and the wind made the drop feel sharper than a thermometer would suggest.
“Hold up,” she said, coming to a stop. “I want to grab my vest.”
He nodded his agreement. “Got cold fast.”
“Way fast. You have another layer to put on? A puffy jacket, maybe?”
“Jacket and a fleece vest. I think I might need both of them.”
They spent a few minutes getting into their packs. She pulled out her insulated vest and added it underneath her outer layer. She added a pair of mittens over her gloves, adjusting her thumbhole shirt so the sleeves stretched over both, with the mittens sitting on top.
She glanced over at Jack, and he looked ready to go.
They moved through a section of open road where the trees fell back from both sides and the wind had more room to work. She tucked her chin and kept her breathing even.
The temperature at this level was manageable.
Uncomfortable if you stopped moving, fine if you didn’t.
She was glad to have the wool layer next to her skin, especially since she’d become a little sweaty from exertion.
She’d stay warm, whereas if she were wearing something like cotton, she might not.
Steph had trained in worse and raced in worse, and she knew the difference between conditions that were hard and conditions that were dangerous.
This was hard. Hard was fine.
She reached under her jacket and pulled out the bag of dried mangoes she’d tucked against her torso. Still soft, still pliable from her body heat. She held the bag toward Jack without looking at him.
“Thanks.” He took a few pieces, and they walked on. “Seen any good movies lately?” he asked.
Steph cringed at the question. Was that some kind of pickup line?
“I don’t go to the movies too often. Sometimes, but not often.” She paused a few moments before adding, “There’s a theater in town. My friend is the cofounder. I make sure to go to everything she puts on.”
“Oh, sure. I know the place. On the west end of Grand, right?”
“Right. Have you gone?”
He shook his head. “Not yet. I should. They have a Christmas play happening, right?”
“Right. Next weekend. She’s doing another play in a nearby town this weekend. It’s a musical, which is different from what she usually does, but she offered to help.”
“Do you like musicals?” he asked.
“Some, I guess. When I do go to the movies or watch them on streaming, I usually pick an action movie.”
She refused to admit that she also loved rom-coms. There was something about their silliness and the way the romance always worked out that she found satisfying.
It didn’t matter that they all followed the same basic premise, and she knew how they were going to end before they started.
She still loved how they tugged at her heart and made her smile.
“Action movies are my go-to too. Give me a good action or adventure movie anytime. The cheesier the better. And let me tell you, I’ve seen some cheesy ones over the years.” He chuckled.
Jack’s voice took on an animated quality as he described some of his favorite movies. She had seen most of them and was able to add her own comments and opinions.
As he spoke, his usually deep timbre rose an octave with his growing excitement, and he began to ramble a bit. She had noticed that trait before. For Jack Swisher, excitement and rambling seemed to go hand in hand.
When there was a pause in the conversation, she asked, “What’s the longest distance race you’ve done?”
“Lots of 50K ski races. And, um, I did a multiday expedition in Norway. That was pretty amazing.”
“Anything like The Frozen Divide before?”
“Well . . . yeah. The expedition— ”
“Did you camp at night?”
“Lodging was part of it.”
“In a tent?”
“More like dorm rooms.”
She turned this over in her mind as she wondered if the combination of the expedition and his skiing experience was what was used to qualify him for The Frozen Divide 100. It wasn’t much, but maybe it was enough.
He seemed to be holding up fine. Of course, they’d only been out there for a few hours. There was a big difference between three hours in the cold and fifty.
“So you haven’t done an ultramarathon where you’ve been forced to stay awake for over twenty-four hours?”
“Not yet. But I figure with this training and a few more overnights, I’ll have a good idea what to expect.”
“You will,” she agreed. “But at the same time, you won’t. You really don’t understand sleep deprivation until it happens. Hallucinations and lapses in time during an ultra are common.”
“I’ve read about that.”
“Reading about it isn’t the same.” Her tone held more of a snap to it than she intended. She cleared her throat. “A hundred-mile race might take an intermediate runner twenty-four to thirty hours, and that’s moving almost continuously with little rest and probably no sleep. It’s a lot.”
“It sounds like it. You’ve done how many hundred-mile races?”
“Several. My first had a thirty-five-hour cutoff, and I finished in thirty-four hours and forty-five minutes. That was a summer run. I didn’t truly sleep during the entire time, though I’ll admit there were stretches of the run that I have no idea how I got to where I was.
One minute I was running easily through a flat, forested section, and the next I was climbing an open hill with no memory of the transition between the two. ”
“Scary.”
“A little.” She laughed. “Not nearly as weird as the time I found a cat on the trail that kept disappearing into the trees. Soon there were two cats. Then three. They stayed with me until I caught up with another runner.”
“Make-believe cats?”
“Yep. Hallucinations. That was a good lesson for me to use a pacer when it’s allowed. Having someone running alongside you helps keep you present and focused. Helps keep the imaginary cats away.”
“But pacers aren’t allowed at The Frozen Divide.”
“Right. Sometimes racers will team up. But that’s not terribly common. With a fifty-five-hour cutoff, you need to expect to be out there alone for most of it, and your mind could definitely play tricks on you.”
“Do you stop and sleep?”
“Yeah. Lots of the runners set up their tents and try to sleep. It helps, but it’s still pretty rough. Not like being home in your own bed.”
He was quiet for a moment. “How’d you find the race?”
She considered how much to say. They were moving through the dark, with the wind at their cheeks and several hours of miles between them and the parking lot, and there wasn’t much point in being cagey about something that was public record anyway, thanks to an interview she’d done last year.
“When I first heard about it, I thought it sounded completely insane,” she said.
“Subzero temperatures. Wind. Snow that goes from fast and firm to soft and soul-sucking. No pacers. Aid stations so far apart they barely count.” She paused.
“Sounded like a total pain cave. Which is exactly how I knew I had to do it.”
“That tracks.” He chuckled. She liked the sound of it. Not like he was teasing her, but as if he was agreeing with her.
“I’ve always loved winter events. My club makes a point of meeting every Wednesday year-round. In six years, we’ve never missed a week. I’ve missed a few when I was out of town, but someone always keeps it going and picks up the slack for me.”
“That’s great.”
“But I’ve noticed for organized winter running events, there aren’t a lot of them. The ski world has them, but running and fat bike events are limited.”
“But The Frozen Divide does it all.”
“They do. And I wanted to support that.” She reached for another piece of mango. “And I wanted to see what I was made of. I did the thirteen-mile course the first year. Out and back. Still tough because of the conditions, but doable.”
“How’d you do?”
She paused to chew, thinking back over that first event.
“Finished in under two and a half hours.” She tried to keep the pride out of her voice but knew she failed.
It had been a big deal when she did it, and it still was.
“It was a total shock. I went in just wanting to finish, and I finished faster than I planned.”
“What’d you do next?”
“The twenty-eight-mile the following year. Another good showing. That’s when I started thinking about the 100.
” She was quiet for a few strides. “To qualify, you have to prove you can handle the conditions. Race directors don’t just let anyone in.
” She tried to keep the snark out of her tone but knew she failed.
She cleared her throat. “So, I started looking for winter ultras that would build my resume. Found a 30K in Idaho. Did that. Then a 50K in Alaska. Went back to Idaho for a 60K.”
She didn’t add the obvious—that being an almost-Olympian in a winter endurance sport had apparently been a sufficient qualification for some people.
He didn’t say anything. She had the distinct sense he understood exactly what she hadn’t said.
“They let me into the 100 after that,” she continued. “The first year, I didn’t make the cutoff at the first checkpoint. DNF.”
“What happened?”
“I wasn’t prepared for running through the night. Simple as that. I knew about it, I’d trained for it, but knowing and doing are different things.” She gestured vaguely at the dark around them. “Same reason I’m out here.”
“And last year?”
“Finished. Barely.” She kept her voice even. It was the truth, and there was no reason to dress it up. “Came in with twenty-three minutes to spare on the cutoff.”
The wind gusted briefly, and she adjusted her pace into it, leaning slightly forward.