This account is not just a story about seeking beauty, overcoming setbacks and uncovering hidden strength - it’s a journey into the benevolent heart of the coldest, loneliest trail.Īvailable on Amazon in paperback and eBook. Instead, she pedaled across waterlogged ice, repeating her mantra of “one day at a time.”

By the time Jill lined up at the start, she was ready to chuck her dream into the barely-frozen lake. Even the existence of the trail remained in question - throughout the winter, Alaska experienced unprecedented heat waves and snow melt that threatened to render the Iditarod Trail impassable. Fitness, however, remained elusive as ambitious preparations left a wake of failures, sickness and injury. Ever since, she dreamed about the chiming of ice crystals at thirty below zero, black spruce shadows in the moonlight, the ethereal dance of the Northern Lights, and a journey that could take her deeper into this transcendental world - the thousand-mile race to Nome.Īfter ten years of dreaming, she finally made the leap in 2016. After a hundred miles, her first race only scratched the surface of the historic trail that spans a vast and frozen wilderness. Jill is one of those “accidental athletes” who stumbled into endurance racing shortly after she moved to Alaska in 2005. “Into the North Wind” chronicles Jill Homer’s record-breaking bicycle ride across Alaska on the Iditarod Trail.

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