John Craft had raced in Ironman triathlons before, but this was something quite different.

Swimming past a melting glacier, taking a hand tram across a surging creek and carrying bear spray are not the norm in Ironman events.

But they are in the AlaskaMan Extreme Triathlon, a 143-mile race across the 49th state from Seward to Girdwood with more than 11,000 feet of elevation gain through the rugged Chugach Mountains.

Last month, Craft, 45 and an 11-year Bend resident, finished eighth out of 116 finishers in the grueling race, which included a 2.6-mile swim in Resurrection Bay, a 113-mile road bike ride, and a 27.5-mile trail run through the mountains to the finish at Mount Alyeska. The run alone featured 6,700 feet of elevation gain, including about 4,000 feet in the last 10 miles.

The AlaskaMan is part of the relatively new XTri World Tour, which includes similar triathlons in Scotland, Switzerland, Norway, Sweden, Slovakia and Canada.

Craft — who has competed in seven Ironmans and has finished as high as third in his age group — said AlaskaMan was his most difficult Ironman-distance race yet. His final time in the July 20 race was 13 hours, 38 minutes, 16 seconds, and the winning time was 11:33:06. (Typical Ironman triathlons include a 2.4-mile swim, a 112-mile bike ride and a 26.2-mile run.)

“The cold didn’t slow me down that much,” Craft said. “For me, the run is what makes this course pretty much the hardest race I’ve ever done. It’s singletrack that you’re either constantly going up or down.”

Craft was raised in Anchorage, Alaska’s largest city, so he was familiar with the terrain of the AlaskaMan, as well as the weather. Weatherwise, Craft said, the racers had to deal with about 25 miles of thick fog during the bike ride, but after that the sun came out and the temperature rose to 75 degrees with little wind.

The swim was interesting, Craft noted, because typically swimming is not allowed in Resurrection Bay near the city of Seward, a part of that bay often filled with commercial fishing boats, cruise ships and tour boats.

“It’s a pretty crowded area,” Craft said. “So it’s kind of cool you’re swimming in a place where normally you’re not allowed to. They (race officials) got permission. We started at 4:45 a.m.”

Race organizers told swimmers that the water was about 55 degrees, Craft said, but he added that it felt colder than that. Swimmers donned wet suits, neoprene caps and swim booties. About 2 miles into the swim, racers swam past a waterfall that was cascading straight down from a glacier.

“My watch said 46 degrees (water temperature),” Craft said. “That was the coldest I’ve felt in a swim in a long time. But at least 2 miles in we were warmed up.”

Almost as cold as the swim was the transition from the bay to the bike. Craft’s wife, Lori, was there to help him during the transitions. He put on arm warmers and said he spent about five minutes wrestling with the tight spandex to change into his bike gear.

During the bike-to-run transition he had to make sure he had bear spray and was warned to watch out for both bears and moose.

At mile 7, racers rode a hand tram to cross a creek along the Winner Creek Trail. The hand tram includes a metal cage in which riders stand while getting pulled across the creek by volunteers using a rope-and-pulley system.

After that, the run only got more challenging. One 6-mile section, Craft noted, included an 18 percent grade uphill and an 18 percent grade downhill.

“For me, that was the hardest part, because at that point my quads were shot and I could not run the downhill,” Craft said. “Uphill was run-slash-power hiking. It was runnable, but it was hard. I had to walk and power hike a ton of that. My mindset went more to just finish and have fun by that point.”

During the last portions of the run, slogging up and down trails near the Alyeska ski resort, Craft took the time to appreciate the beauty of the mountains and take in the views, he recalled. He needed nearly seven hours to complete the run portion of the race.

Craft — who has two teenage boys with Lori and works for Bend-La Pine Schools offering instructional support for classroom iPads — said he would think about racing the AlaskaMan again.

“I was two hours slower than I think I could have gone,” he said. “For me, it’s an easy trip to make. I’d consider doing it again. My eighth place was really because there’s not a lot of competition at the top. There’s a lot of people who are just doing the race to do the race.

“But this race just takes Ironman racing, and just makes it REALLY hard.”

— Reporter: 541-383-0318,

mmorical@bendbulletin.com