"TAKING
ONE FOR THE TEAM"
by David Epstein
September
is a watershed month up here in Alaska. First
of all, it normally rains a lot (forgive me for the pun).
It's also the true transition month from what's left of summer to winter.
By the end of September, we've normally had our first hard freeze and the
leaves are all but gone from the trees. You
may be left with the impression that there is not much to look forward to when
September hits, but it ain't necessarily so.
The weekend after Labor Day provides a lot of excitement and enjoyment in
the form of the Klondike "Trail of '98" International Road Relay race.
THE
HISTORY OF THE TAILDRAGGERS
Since
1995 I have been involved in the Klondike Relay, a 10-person, 110-mile run from
Skagway, Alaska, to Whitehorse, Yukon Territory. While run mostly on the highways linking these two communities, the
course very roughly parallels the storied Chilkoot Trail traversed by
the 1898 gold rush stampeders. I
love this race. You get to be part of a team. You get to see old friends from
the Yukon and other parts of Alaska. You get to run through some beautiful
country. The Klondike is one of the
increasingly few major events that does not support a cause - save for tourism
in the two endpoint communities, perhaps. As
such, I consider it an event "for the love of the sport".
Ah, for the heady days of 1995! Back then, I still thought I could do all the things I did when I was 19. Thus without a care, I focused on doing really dumb stuff like running in my cross trainers. Hence the stress fractures and pulled muscles. But I was much more mentally resilient back then and didn't let the manifold training errors get me down. After all, there were races to be run! Especially that one in the Yukon that we kept hearing about. My friend Bob Wedemeier was the one that brought the issue to the fore, as he normally does. In the spring of 1995, Bob said, "Let's do the Klondike Relay and Lost Lake this year". I hobbled up on my crutches and proclaimed, "I'm with you, pal!" Thus was the die cast. And it wasn't long before other FAA employees from the Alaskan Region jumped on the bandwagon, enabling us to put together a team called, appropriately enough, the Taildraggers. We weren't exceptionally fast - and still aren't! We commissioned a local insurance agent cum artist to design and produce a suitable team t-shirt, and it was a real crowd pleaser. It had a rendition of a J-3 Cub on the front with human legs protruding underneath, running past a sign which pointed toward YXY (the airport location ID for Whitehorse, YT), all under a golden “Taildraggers” banner, which to this day evokes thoughts of the old Indiana Jones movie posters. At least, that’s my impression!
Wife Sara displaying the Taildraggers' 1995 team t-shirt