Carol Seppilu competes on the ITI 350 trail

Before she ever learned about the Iditarod Trail Invitational, or ITI, Carol Seppilu had a dream that she was out on the Iditarod Trail near the Happy River Steps. “When I looked around, there were no dogs with me,” she said, “I was all alone and I was walking, and I didn’t understand what that dream meant until I did the ITI.”
Seppilu set out on the ITI on Sunday, February 22, leaving Knik around 2 p.m. As of press time Monday, she was on the move on the Yentna River, a few miles south of the confluence with the Kahiltna River.
Last year was Seppilu’s first time competing in the ITI, a grueling human powered cross-Alaskan extravaganza where participants follow the Iditarod Trail on bike, skis or on foot. That year, she competed in the ITI 150, walking from Knik near Anchorage to Puntilla Lake in the Alaska Range. She finished in three days, eight hours, and seven minutes, second of three finishers competing on foot.
This year, she set out on the ITI 350, where she aims to make it to McGrath in six days.
Seppilu didn’t start out wanting to compete in long-distance races. She had always envisioned mushing the Iditarod, but when she started running, it put her on the path to realize her dream of being on the Iditarod Trail. “When I started running, my goal was two miles,” she said. “I wanted to see how much farther I could go. When I could do eight miles, I could do a half marathon. If I could do a half marathon, I could do more.”
After a suicide attempt when she was 16-years-old, Seppilu recalled lying in the ICU and having a dream where she walked into a village and saw her great grandparents sitting in the snow, waving her over. They told her it was not her time yet. “They were talking in our native language, and they said, ‘It’s not your time. You’re going to do great things,’” she said. “I believe doing these endurance events, that’s what they were talking about.”
Seppilu started training for this year’s ITI in August, with what she calls “jogging-slash-walking.”
In November, she started putting on higher mileage, averaging 70 to 80 miles a week at the peak of her training. “I was out there running more in the beginning,” she said. “Then I turned it into a fast-walking type of training.”
While training, she takes strength from her ancestors. Seppilu said that this kind of long-distance walking is what her people did for survival, whether for hunting or traveling. “When I’m out there, I think about them a lot and what they went through,” she said.
Seppilu does better in cold weather than she does in warm weather, which she credits to her heritage. “I feel like it’s in my DNA, what I’m doing,” she said. “I have endurance because of my ancestors. I have the ability to be in cold weather.”
Being out on the trail is a mental game as well as physical. She knows there will be tough moments where she’ll want to be done, but she knows that she has the mental strength to keep going. “My life has been really difficult, and I’ve had to get through a lot of tough moments,” she said. “I think it works really well in endurance, I can get through a lot of things.”
Seppilu is supported in part by her Instagram followers, who she said will send her money to get lodging or food along the trail in checkpoints. She said that the ITI sponsored her entry fee, otherwise she would not have been able to afford to enter. She also has friends in the Nome area that help her out.
Seppilu isn’t focused on winning, although she said that would be great. And she does not view her racers as competition. “It feels like a community, like a family,” she said. “We look out for each other out there.”
To track Carol’s progress, head to ITIalaska.com.