On Her Own Two Feet

“You’re not gonna make it,” Shawn remembers Bill, the co-director, telling her the

morning of March 26th, 2013.

She hung up the phone, stunned. Looking around the small village of White Mountain,

Alaska, Shawn’s stubbornness kicked in. I need to prove him wrong. She already completed 920

miles, with only 70 remaining, failure wasn’t an option.

Standing at 5’8” and 150 pounds, Shawn is lean. A self-admitted sweet tooth, she

counters cookies with training. Shawn started running 5Ks as a child with her father. In middle

school and high school she ran cross-country, but never excelled at the mid-distance races. It

was after Shawn completed her first marathon in college, that she found a love for long distance

running. Now, she and her husband Tony spend their time running and caring for their three

dogs.

The Iditarod Trail Invitational (ITI) covers nearly 1000 miles from Willow, Alaska to

Nome. If this route sounds familiar, you’ve probably heard of the Iditarod, conventionally run

with mushers and their dogs. Averaging over 100 miles a day, the best finish in eight to ten days,

sledding under a beautiful wooden arch through a throng of fans. The ITI takes the dogs out of

the equation.

Since Merchant created the race in 2002, only 52 runners have made it to Nome in the 30

day, 23 hour, 59 minute cutoff. None have been women. The website warns, “This race is not

for everyone. A mistake at the wrong time and place in the Alaskan winter wilderness could cost

you fingers and toes or even your life. At times the only possible rescue will be self-rescue. For

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those who do not agree with this philosophy,… there are other races out there which will cater to

your needs.”

At 2 p.m., February 24th, Shawn and Tony waited at the start line with 17 other racers.

Buckling their harnesses, attached to their supply sleds, they were their own musher and dog

team. Only eight of the 19 would be going the full 990 miles to Nome. The rest would stop in

McGrath, after only 350 miles. Shawn intended to finish in Nome and become the first woman

to officially complete the ITI.

Katharina Merchant, Bill’s wife, yelled, “Go!”, and they took off. Shawn and Tony

settled into the middle of the pack, but by early evening they saw no one. On the trail, there are

22 official checkpoints, an average of forty miles apart. As the darkness closed in on the couple,

they were more than twenty miles from a stop. Bundled in their jackets and specialized running

shoes, they shined their headlamps on the snowy trail ahead of them. Behind them their sleds

left small indents in the snow that filled with new flakes falling from the sky.

Growing tired of highly facilitated races,

they welcomed the freedom. For years they

searched for harder races throughout the Pacific

Northwest and Alaska. They ran individual races

spanning hundreds of miles through forests and up

mountains. Running a trail marked only by small reflectors or stakes across Alaska, the ITI was

the “tough” race they sought. When they reached McGrath, Tony would return home by plane,

and Shawn would continue alone to Nome.

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At midnight, Shawn and Tony reached their goal of forty miles. The ITI requires a racer

to average a minimum 30 miles a day. Setting up camp for the night, they removed two red

military-grade sleeping bags from the sleds. Wrapping

them in a waterproof sleeve, they crawled inside their

respective bags, and slept. From the outside, two red

lumps sat on the side of a small, snow covered trail.

Waking up five hours later, Shawn and Tony

pulled on their socks, hats, shoes, and gloves before crawling out of their sleeping bags. Packing

up their supplies and reorganizing their sleds takes an hour. Fitting with the race specifications,

each participant is required to tow sixty pounds of supplies to be self-sufficient on the trail. They

can only restock food in the small villages. The sky blue sled, a Paris 4foot Sledaboggan, at first

glance appears to be no more than that owned by the neighborhood kids racing down the hill on a

snowy day. However, its plastic shell is made of thick high density polyethylene, a product that

has proved its worth in many icy locations ranging from the Canadian Rockies to the South Pole.

The sleeping bag enters the sled first. Next, food (about ten pounds) is stacked in the sled.

Shawn’s staple items include Famous Amos cookies, Reese’s Peanut Butter cups, Hershey bars

and jerky. Not the healthiest foods, but high-energy and require no cooking. Finally, extra

footwear: boots, waders, snowshoes, Microspikes, extra socks, and chaps for the wind. With

their hefty sleds reorganized, Shawn and Tony found their way back onto the trail on their way to

a principle checkpoint, Rainy Pass, 142 miles away.

At 4 a.m. on March first, after five days of running, Shawn and Tony left Puntilla Lake,

closing in on the Rainy Pass checkpoint. Under the dancing Northern Lights, the duo headed for

the Pass. Before the sun rose, the weather began to deteriorate. The wind started to blow,

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spinning the snow like that of a shaken snow globe. The two continued forward on the trail

through a narrow tunnel of Evergreen trees. Coming up a hill, Shawn thought, this doesn’t feel

right.

Completing the qualifying leg of the race in 2012, she was somewhat familiar with the

route leading to McGrath. Keeping her doubts to herself, she and Tony remained on the path,

enduring the snow and wind beating down on them. Maybe, Shawn rationalized, she was

confused. After all, a year had passed. Shawn tried to assure herself that they were headed in the

right direction.

A dark smudge emerged on the trail, running towards the couple. As the smudge got

closer, Shawn realized it was fellow participant, Howard Cook, or “Cookie.” Cookie, also

unsure of the route, looked closer at the trail markers and discovered they were not on the correct

path. Lost, but in the security of a group, they decided they could figure out the way by simply

back-tracking and periodically checking any break in the woods for an outlet to the true trail.

Donning snowshoes, they left the safety of the path and explored the untouched, powdery snow

for a new route.

Beneath the undisturbed snow, lay hidden tree wells, gaps in the snow which can become

very deep. Shawn left the trail to check a potential way out. Suddenly, she fell. Sliding down,

one snowshoe desperately pawed for solid ground, while the other remained pinned. Shawn

looked up and realized that during the tumble she ended up slanted, as if she sat in a reclining

chair with snow packed in around her waist. She clawed with her hands at the snow but at the

angle she fell, the digging became futile. She called for Tony. Carefully, he snowshoed over,

grabbed her arm and yanked her out using his full weight for leverage. She laughed and shook

the scary moment off; internally she worried. What if she had been alone?

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The slip shook the group’s confidence. Exasperated, they finally decided to use the

rudimentary GPS system packed in the sled for guidance. They realized they were in a valley

running parallel to that of the Iditarod trail, but the two trails never connected. Somewhere,

under the distraction of the Northern lights, or the ensuing storm, they took a wrong turn. They

retraced their steps back to the correct trail. Cookie’s feet, severely blistered from his

snowshoes, cost him the race. He stopped in McGrath. For Shawn, the day long detour meant

one day off the clock on the race to Nome.

March 4th Shawn and Tony reached Nikolai, some fifty miles from McGrath. A villager

divulged an important race detail: the two other women in the race made it to McGrath, but they

abandoned their plans to continue to Nome. Loreen Hewitt, trying to keep up with her husband

Tim, had been pushed beyond her limits. The other woman, Ann, also in too bad of condition to

continue, dropped out. Shawn looked at Tony, a silent moment passing between them. She had

to continue on. She was the only woman in the race now.

Training since the qualifier, the couple practiced towing sleds around their home in

Anchorage, Alaska. At least once a month, they ran 100 mile races lasting just a weekend.

Waking at 4:50 a.m. five times a week, they put thousands of miles on their feet in hopes to be

ready for the Iditarod. But nothing can prepare you for every challenge thrown your way. Even

with all the candy, chocolate, and free meals from locals, Shawn was down ten pounds in just the

nine days on the trail. Her pants which fit tightly in Knik, already felt loose in the waist. When,

the couple finally made it to McGrath, as the leaders of the race left, they decided to spend a day

and a half together recovering.

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At dinner, Shawn listened to fellow runner, Klauss, who had travelled from Austria, talk

strategy. With intense blue eyes, and a scraggly beard, the European embraced the ITI as a

vacation to the wilderness, a break from his desk job as a tech guy. Finally, she got up for a beer,

she could not listen to the “itinerary” for another second. Thoughts of Tony’s departure and the

remaining 700 miles consumed her mind.

With Tony on a plane to Anchorage, Shawn set out towards the next checkpoint, Takotna.

The mushers who started on March 2nd, began to overtake the runners, leaving a sure path. On

clear days, Shawn could see for miles. But, Shawn moved a little slower without Tony. Until

McGrath, the two kept a steady pace of 3.5 miles per hour. Now alone, and with 350 miles on

her legs, the pace slowed to 2.5 mph. Looking around her, she saw nothing but snow and endless

expanses of wilderness. It was March 6, the eleventh day on the trail.

Shawn passed through multiple checkpoints alone. Klauss, like a distant shadow, ran

hours behind. At resting points in this stretch, Shawn slept in cabins along the trail. At night

Klauss saw Shawn at these stops and during these brief times together, they shared chocolate and

encouragement to keep moving forward.

Shawn loved the independence of being on the trail. Back in Anchorage, she worked as

a paralegal at a law firm. Working long hours in an

office, and constantly answering to her bosses, made her

weary. Now for a month, cellphone-less and in the

middle of Alaska, Shawn felt liberated. She ate, slept

and ran exactly when she wanted. Klauss expressed the

same joy of ditching his cellphone for a month and

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being alone with his thoughts. The stress of the office could be put on hold during the ITI, when

the only worries were physical.

However, with the freedom of the trail, came an overwhelming solitude, still she did not

miss the office. Trivial thoughts ran rampant in Shawn’s mind. For a few days, she became

obsessed with photographing the little boots the dogs wear to protect their feet. The tiny

footwear come in all colors and when they fall off the dog’s paw, they are a bright spot on the

white, snowy trail. Sometimes, she cried.

On March 10, Shawn reached Iditarod, a small village checkpoint named for the race.

Prepared to camp, she started to look for a good place to pass the night. Suddenly, a door to a

musher cabin opened.

“Want to join us for dinner”?

Of course Shawn wanted to join them. Eating freeze-dried meals, jerky and chocolate by

herself for the last two days was far from ideal. By rule, the runners are not allowed to enter

musher cabins along the trail unless explicitly invited in. To Shawn, the mushers were near

celebrity status. Some mushers, like Dany Seavey, are “Iditarod Royalty,” generations of

Seavey’s are champions. Movies are even made about the mushers, like the Disney classic,

Balto. The Iditarod started in 1925, when a team of dogs sprinted to Nome to bring a lifesaving

serum for diphtheria to the isolated town. Since 1973, teams now race the 1000 mile Iditarod

trail to commemorate the original heroes.

The mushers and the runners did not always get along. Since Bill took over the ITI in

2002, he worked hard every year to change the relations between the mushers and the runners.

At first, the mushers hated the runners and thought they were weird. Thirteen years later, the

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runners have been accepted into the Iditarod culture, earning their spot in an elite groups of

adventurers.

Now, with Shawn, the mushers ate and talked, routinely leaving conversation to check

on their dogs outside. Hardly resting, they only stayed at the checkpoints long enough to let their

dogs refresh. As Shawn prepared to sleep for a few hours, the mushers invited another runner in:

Klauss. Elated, Shawn greeted her friend. They talked about the upcoming sections of the trail.

For the next 200 miles the race followed the Yukon River with no cabins for shelter.

Although Shawn typically ran hours ahead of Klauss, the two agreed doing the Yukon

portion of the trail together made sense. Neither wanted to pass three nights alone on the banks

of the giant river. In Anvik, the last checkpoint before the Yukon stretch, Shawn and Klauss

reconvened. The Yukon was frozen solid, and the pair ran on top of the ice sheet for the majority

of the stretch. In below freezing temperatures, with the wind cutting through the air, this section

of the race is difficult. On some of the warmer days, Shawn ran in a long sleeve shirt, hat,

gloves, and her running leggings. But on the Yukon, she bundled up. Over her base layer, she

wore a thick black coat and a neck warmer pulled up to her nose. As Shawn and Klauss slowly

checked off mile after mile, Shawn’s neck warmer began to get icy from her breath and snot.

The newly formed ice scratched at her cheeks, rubbing them raw. Frustrated, Shawn rummaged

through her sled for duct tape. Ripping off strips a few inches long, she carefully stuck them to

one cheek, across the bridge of her nose, and to the

other. After pressing it down, she pulled her neck

warmer back up. Now the ice flakes stuck to the

fabric instead of her cheeks.

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At last, on March 18th, Klauss and Shawn finished the Yukon portion and separated

once again on the way to Kaltag, 652 miles into the race. By now, all the mushers and their dog

teams had finished in Nome, running under the beautiful, wooden arch to celebrate their

accomplishment. Tim Hewitt, the first finisher on foot, was only miles away.

Shawn became bored of listening to her music for hours on end, and switched to one of

her audiobooks. Usually level headed, the novel 1963 by Stephen King made her burst into

tears. She missed Tony, she was tired, she wanted to use a real bathroom instead of squatting off

the trail. It was here, in Kaltag, that Shawn experienced the worst homesickness she felt on the

trail. She missed her husband and dogs so badly she wanted to buy a plane ticket home.

Bill Merchant, Shawn and Klauss struggle to put the trail into perspective. Ultra-runners

are constantly asked why they return, why they do it. The notion of running hours on end, seems

crazy to a normal person. During the ITI, the hours are even more extreme; Shawn ran 12-20

hours a day before stopping. Merchant said most eloquently, “It is impossible to explain to

someone outside our circle…we go out every year to go inside ourselves to look for cracks. We

come back to see if we have fixed those cracks.” Shawn grappled with isolation and the absence

of her husband, but she knew she could never quit.

The clock ticked, a week and 300 miles remained. The next stop on the trail, Unakaleet,

represented a shift in terrain. The first 650 miles had been inland. The trail went through

valleys, forests, and alongside the Yukon River. From Unakaleet, the racers headed Northwest,

and towards the coast of the Bering Sea. The scenery transformed from green tunnels to endless

expanses of flat, icy coast. Bad weather meant no escape from the wind.

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Shawn emerged from the protection of the evergreens to face the open coast. A small

dyke, raised a few feet above the flat plain, continued to the horizon. All that could be seen of

Shawn under the hat, duct tape and hiked up

neck warmer, were her brown eyes and black

lashes that began to collect snowflakes. As the

sun set, Shawn could barely make out the

lights of Shaktoolik through the whirling snow.

Reaching the village late in the night, she

found the small school library where she

planned to rest, and was met with despair.

Due to construction, the building was closed to runners. Desperately, Shawn walked

around looking for any building that provided wind-cover. She prepared herself to spend the

night outside. Rounding a corner, a man name Roy Takak happened to see her. He invited her to

his home.

After she woke up, Shawn peeked in the mirror and gasped. Puffy and red from the duct

tape, she hardly recognized herself. When she sat down to breakfast with the family, Roy asked

Shawn if she was from a neighboring village. Her skin, swollen and discolored, resembled that

of a rugged, wintered local.

They did her one last kindness, they let her use their phone. Shawn called Tony, and told

him she was embarking on the most treacherous part of the race: crossing the frozen Bering Sea.

Shawn packed up her sled, and as she left, Klauss arrived. Roy invited him in, too.

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With Shaktoolik disappearing behind her, Shawn looked across the ice sheet of the

Bering Sea. Flat and white, the expanse is only

interrupted by “sastrugi”, lumps of snow resembling

a wave before it breaks. Even frozen over, the

Bering Sea still had waves.

Tony sat at home on the computer. He updated Facebook, called family and friends to fill them

in, and nervously waited. He thought he might

never see Shawn again. Just days before, two groups of mushers and their dogs blew so off

course on the frozen sea that they had to wait for rescue. What would happen to his wife running

by herself? She did not come close to the weight of a musher and team of dogs.

The couple met in an ultra-running club outside of Seattle, Washington in 2006 that

Shawn joined after her divorce. With this club, on a weekend excursion, she met Tony, an

experienced ultra-runner. They made a perfect match.

Shawn kept running, and looking ahead for the next trail marker as the sun set cast a

radiant pink and orange curtain on the sea. She thought about her hair. She really, really wanted

to straighten it in Nome. Her natural curls were in full force on the trail, and it would be nice to

have a picture with it sleek and smooth. Maybe she could use someone’s computer at the next

village to order a flatiron. The moon rose, Shawn saw her shadow on the ice, and when she

looked up she saw something else. Miles ahead, the lights of Koyuk twinkled, the next

checkpoint became visible.

Time wound down for Shawn as she headed for the next checkpoint. It was March 23rd,

day 28 on the trail. Reaching Elim, 870 miles from Nome, Shawn still needed to finish 120

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miles. The third man on foot finished on day 28. Only Shawn and Klauss remained on the trail.

Tony updated Facebook, status after status about Shawn and her progress. Friends and family

posted encouragement, but Shawn could not see it. She passed by an abandoned fishing village,

the small wooden structures half collapsed, old fish drying racks still somewhat assembled along

the sides. To her right, fishing boats, rusted and gutted, leaned sideways in the frozen ice,

waiting for the tide to come back in.

Waking up in the early morning hours, Shawn took off for the penultimate stop: White

Mountain. It was day 29.

Shawn wanted to be done with this adventure. She ran a marathon and then some

each day for almost a month. Despite her progress, the

cold and isolation took a toll on her. A mile outside of

White Mountain, Shawn saw something that lifted her

heart. Pink and Yellow signs with blue writing that

read, “U Rock Shawn” lined the trail, greeting her as

she ran her final miles. Joanna Wassillie, a local who

created the signs, waited to take Shawn to her home.

Shawn stayed the night at Joanna’s house in White Mountain. The next morning, she

woke up on the thirtieth day, 70 miles from Nome. One checkpoint, Safety, stood between her

and the finish.

Borrowing Joanna’s phone, Shawn called Bill Merchant and told him her location. The

phone call that she says, “lit a fire under her butt.” He did not believe she would make it on

time. It was 7 a.m. In 36 hours, the race ended. As Shawn left White Mountain, Klauss pulled

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in. With a month’s worth of running at stake, the two found new motivation in the final miles to

keep running.

Shawn took off with a thank you to Joanna, a good-luck to Klauss and ran without pause.

As the hours dragged, Shawn stopped long enough to go

to the bathroom and write a quick reminder in the snow,

“Eat, pee, walk”. She didn’t have time for anything else.

No more photos and no more sleep until Nome. In the

middle of the night, when Shawn felt sleepy, she ripped

the duct tape off her cheeks fast, like a Band-aid, to

wake herself up.

This was not the first time Shawn covered extensive mileage in only a day or two’s time.

Every race leading up to the Iditarod consisted of 100 miles in 24 hours challenges, or 60 miles

in a day. These races are not tests of speed, but endurance. This is what she trained for, what she

lived for. If you ask Shawn why she runs the ITI, she will tell you it’s because she can eat all the

chocolate she wants and not get fat. But, for Shawn the best she can articulate is that the trail is

not a race, it is an experience. She is doing what she loves, and eating Snickers bars along the

way.

Shawn ran through the night. At about 6 a.m., after running through the night and into

starting the 31st day, Nome came into sightshe finally saw the finish. Two hours later, Shawn

ran onto the main street in Nome. RunningShe ran 70 miles in 23.5 hours,. Shawn’s overall

official time was 30 days, 12 hours, and 10 minutes, beating the cutoff by 12 hours. The first

woman to cross the line in Nome within the time limit. In the town she looked for the beautiful

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wooden arch to cross under, but it was nowhere to be found. Once the last musher crosseds, it

wasgets moved to a side street. Looking around for anyone, Shawn was met with empty streets.

She was alone, but she didn’t care. She had reached her goal.

*Klauss did not make the cutoff time in 2013, finishing 12 hours past the limit. He is

running the race this February, 2016, with the goal of finishing in time.

Source List:

Shawn McTaggart—phone, 11/1/15, 11/29/15, 11/30/15, 12/315, 12/8/15. Hand-written notes (available upon request). Contact info: 425.766.7446. shawnmctaggart@ymail.com

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Tony Covarrubias—phone, 11/15/15, 12/5/15. Hand-written notes (available upon request). Contact info: 907.982.7899

Katharina Merchant—phone, 12/7/15. Hand-written notes (available upon request). Contact info: 907.715.5336 katharinamerchant@yahoo.com

Bill Merchant—phone, 12/8/15. Hand-written notes (available upon request). Contact info: 435.635.7878

Klauss Schweinberger—email. 11/10/15-11/17/15 (email responses available upon request). klaus.schweinberger@itmcs.com

Carsten Tees—Facebook. 11/9/15.

www.adn.com provided information on Bill Merchant, previous races, before calling him

www.pbs.org provided information on the history of the Iditarod.

iditarodtrailinvitational.com provided information on the race participants, records, history, map, checkpoints, rules of the ITI.

www.iditarod.com provided information on the mushers and the dog sled history.

Iditarod.com/race provided information on the race route and the details of each checkpoint. The mileage between checkpoints and the environment of each stop.

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