Sports

A Juneau physician is blazing a trail in the world of competitive ultra-cycling.

Dr. Janice Sheufelt was half of a two-person team that finished the Race Across America last Saturday in record time for their division.

She and California cyclist Joel Sothern completed the 3,000-mile bicycle race from Oceanside, California to Annapolis, Maryland in six days, 21 hours and 48 minutes. Not only is that a record for the mixed gender, 50-59 year old category, but good enough for second among all two-person teams in this year’s race.

Sheufelt calls Race Across America “the ultimate bicycle race challenge.”

“Once the clock starts, it doesn’t stop,” she says. “So, you just have to get to Annapolis as soon as possible.”

Sheufelt and Sothern – who called themselves the Flying J’s – alternated one-hour shifts on the bike throughout the cross-country trek. The route goes from southern California, through parts of Arizona, Utah, Colorado, Kansas, Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, West Virginia, Pennsylvania and Maryland.

Challenges along the way included lack of sleep, bad weather, and hilly terrain.

“Kansas was hard with some cross winds, and we had a bad thunderstorm. Once we crossed the Mississippi and got into some rolling hills it got harder, and then the Appalachians were extremely challenging,” Sheufelt says. “The roads are just so steep. All the way up, almost to the finish line, we had really steep hills that surprised me how hard they were.”

Sheufelt says Sothern emailed her last fall to see if she’d be interested in doing the race with him. They’d never met before, but he’d seen some of her ultra-marathon times and thought she’d make a good partner.

“He’s done a number of RAAm’s before,” she says. “He did a four-person team, he’s done a couple of two person teams. He likes to set records for the various categories, and so that was his goal was to set a record this year, which we did do.”

Racers are organized by the average age of team members. Sheufelt is 46; Sothern is 55, putting their average age at 50 and a half. So, they competed in the 50-59 age group.

The Flying J’s used an eleven-person support crew that included some of Sheufelt’s co-workers at the Southeast Alaska Regional Health Consortium, as well as her husband, James, and daughter, Megan. She says they contributed to the record-setting run just as much as she and Sothern.

“Just this intense bonding experience with this group of people working together, that was by far the best part of the race,” she says.

While Sheufelt has done shorter bicycle races for years, she just did her first ultra-marathon in 2011 – the Furnace Creek 508 in California, which she won.

She trains year-round in Juneau by riding a training bike in her garage.

“I know there are lots of people in Juneau who ride through the winter, but I’m not that tough,” Sheufelt says with a laugh. “So, I just train indoors until about mid-April. What I do is I normally take a couple of trips down south to California during the winter to get some outdoor riding in.”

Juneau’s Cycle Alaska bike shop sponsored the Flying J’s. Sheufelt says she may try to do a solo Race Across America one day, but needs some time to rest and bask in the glow of her record-setting trip.

A 45-day  public comment period is open on a halibut catch sharing plan for Southeast and the Central Gulf of Alaska.

The plan was recommended by the North Pacific Fishery Management Council last fall and the public comment period is part of the process for implementing new federal regulations. Rachel Baker is a fishery management specialist with NOAA Fisheries in Alaska.

“It will change the annual process of allocating halibut between the charter and commercial fisheries in Southeast and Southcentral Alaska,” she says. “It will establish allocations for each sector and then specify methods for setting harvest restrictions for charter anglers.”

The proposed system would allocate a percentage of the combined charter and commercial catch to the charter fleet, with the overall amount set each year by the International Pacific Halibut Commission.

To keep the charter catch at allocation levels, the North Pacific council is expected to annually recommend charter fleet management measures as well as bag and size limits. The plan would replace the guideline harvest level system currently in place for the charter fleet.

Baker says the catch share plan also creates a system for the commercial halibut fleet to transfer individual fishing quota, or IFQs, to the charter fleet, under what’s called the Guided Angler Fish program.

“It’s a voluntary program. No one is required to use the guided angler fish program. It’s just intended to give IFQ permit holders and charter permit holders some flexibility when charter harvest limits are something less than what’s in place for unguided anglers,” she says.

Public comment closes August 12. The National Marine Fisheries Service will use the public comments to compile a final rule.  If it’s implemented, the allocation plan could be in place for the 2014 season.

Comments can be submitted electronically, by mail at P.O. Box 21668, Juneau, AK 99802-1668; or by fax at 907-586-7557.

Comments should be addressed to Glenn Merrill, Assistant Regional Administrator, Sustainable Fisheries Division, Alaska Region NMFS, Attn: Ellen Sebastian, and identified by FDMS Docket Number NOAA-NMFS-2011-0180.

 

 

 

 

 

Long-time retailer and a Nugget Mall anchor tenant is moving to Mendenhall Mall.

Nugget Alaska Outfitters will take over the space most recently occupied by Gottschalks.

NAO managing partner Ron Flint says the move will increase store space from 11-thousand square feet to more than 15-thousand.

The new store also will have an external entrance; NAO now has access only through Nugget Mall.

Flint says he’s especially looking forward to greater warehouse space and a more efficient shoe area.  He says he doesn’t expect to add many hard goods to his inventory.

“Right now it’s taking us a long time to get merchandise into stock and it’s partly because our back rooms and storage areas are so jammed up and just too tight. So this creates some inefficiencies,” he says.  “We’re going to add at least a thousand square feet on the sales floor. At some times, especially in the winter, the racks get pretty close together in here and hard to get around, so hopefully it will help alleviate some of that.”

Flint says the renovation is already underway, and he expects to make the move toward the end of September, when his Nugget Mall lease comes up.  He has signed a five-year lease with Mendenhall Mall with an option to extend.

Loveless/Tollefson Properties of Bellevue, Washington owns Nugget Mall.  Ted Tollefson says he just found out last week that NAO will be moving out.

“We’ll be talking to national tenants.  We have a couple of options and I don’t know which one it will end up being,” Tollefson says.

Two national chain stores Petco and Office Max moved into Nugget Mall last year.

Flint is the son of the late Bill Flint, who started Nugget Department Store in 1974. It downsized to the Nugget Men’s Store after national chain store Lamonts moved into Juneau. Lamonts went bankrupt, reorganized then sold to Gottschalks. That chain moved to the JC Penny space in Mendenhall Mall, but went bankrupt and closed in 2009.  The space has been empty since.

In the meantime, NAO has continued to add more outdoor clothing and gear for the family. Though it’s not a cooperative, Flint calls it the “Southeast Alaska version of REI.”

The Juneau Planning Commission could reconsider its vote to reject a conditional use permit for a new boat launch and parking area at Statter Harbor – but if it doesn’t, a frustrated Docks and Harbors Board is looking at its options.

The board held a special meeting Thursday night  to discuss the problem.

A week ago, city officials were cutting the ceremonial ribbon to celebrate completion of the first phase of the Statter Harbor Master Plan.   The night before, the Planning Commission had voted 4 to 1 to reject the second phase.

“Docks and harbors was as surprised as anybody,” said CBJ Port Director Carl Uchytil.

He hopes the commission will take another look at the project and vote to approve the conditional use permit.

“You know it’s had a 4 and a half year NEPA environmental assessment review and it is the right size for the community,” Uchytil said.  “It is optimally sized and this is what the regulatory agencies will allow us to build.”

The second phase of the Statter Harbor Master Plan calls for a two-lane boat launch and 179 onsite parking spaces for vehicles and trailers.

One impediment comes from neighboring Auke Bay Towers.  Condominium owners object to the plan and say it overestimates the need for parking. They’re concerned the uplands will become a boat storage area, though that’s not intended.   They also worry about the environmental impact to Bay Creek, construction noise, and lights from the boat ramp, among other things.  Uchityl has met with legal counsel for Auke Bay Towers homeowners to discuss their concerns.

But homeowners’ biggest concern is property values. They believe their condos will go down in value once work on the project begins.

At this point, the Planning Commission holds the key to the project.  It meets next week and could bring up the original vote, which was taken on an evening when three members were absent and one recused himself from the vote.  Only chairman Mike Satre voted for the permit then called for reconsideration.

The commission doesn’t have to bring it up.  If it decides to take a new vote, the original vote would be canceled and the new one would stand, according to Assistant City Attorney Amy Mead.

“If the vote for reconsideration passes, then the ball is in the Planning Commission’s court to decide where they want to take it next.  They could either put the question off, they could decide it again right then, they could open it back up for public participation, and ask for additional testimony or evidence.  They have a lot of options available to them,” Mead said.

If the Planning Commission’s rejection of the permit stands, Docks and Harbors could appeal the decision to the Juneau Assembly.

 

 

At 20-something, Josh Sundquist has already written a memoir.  It’s a national best seller with a title that implies some struggles:  Just Don’t Fall.

“We all have some sort of problem, some thing, some disability if you will. I happen to be missing one leg,” he said. “What are you missing?”

Sundquist lost his left leg to cancer when he was 9-years old.  He’s fallen a number of times since then,  but knows how to get up.

“I think we have a choice about the way we want to look at things,” he told an audience of  hundreds of Juneau middle and high school students and Hoonah High School at the Pillars of America luncheon, hosted by area Rotary Clubs.

His choice is to overcome his disability.  In fact, he said it’s because he’s an amputee that he’s gotten to do many things he never would have imagined when he had two legs.

“That’s not to say that  I wouldn’t prefer to have two legs, but that is to say now that I do have one leg, I’m happy to try to look for the good things that come out of this,” he said.

Sundquist uses forearm crutches to get around, but most of the time during his talk they hung from his arms as he stood perfectly balanced on his right leg.  Some of his speech sounded like a comedy routine as he regaled the audience with stories about living with his disability.

He says laughter has helped him deal with many of the issues that come up.

“I would suggest that if I can laugh about having one leg then maybe there are some daily annoyances, some problems in your life that you can laugh about as well,” he said.

Sundquist had a number of somber stories, too, like when he first tried hitting a baseball on one leg.  He was 10-years old.

Each time, he’d strike, lose the bat and fall down.  He was allowed to keep swinging, but on the ninth pitch, the little boy was in tears.

“I would not let my friends see me cry.  So I picked up my crutches again and started to march off the field,” he said.  “And this time my dad called out to me from behind the chain link fence.  He said, ‘You almost had that last one.’”

If the proverbial pin had dropped as he told the story it would have been heard in the silence of the room.

“My dad was my hero and I knew if he were up to bat, he would keep swinging.  So I went back over, took another swing, another strike, another and another. And finally on the 13^th pitch I felt the ball bounce off the bat.  I watched it roll up the infield. By the time it reached the short stop’s glove, my friend and designated runner named Tim was already on first base.”

When Sundquist was 16 years old, he started ski racing with the objective of making the U.S. Paralympic Ski Team.

It was at the training center in Colorado that he met Juneau’s Paralympian Joe Tompkins. He called him “Big Joe.”

“When you’re starting out in a new endeavor like that, whether it’s a goal, or some adversity you’re trying to overcome, there’s nothing more powerful than having a hero that you can look up to, somebody who’s has already traveled that path that you are pursuing,” he said.

Sundquist made the team and in 2006 competed in the Paralympics in Turino, Italy.  He described himself as a determined, but not decorated racer like Tompkins.

Joe Tompkins was in the audience for Sundquist’s speech.  Like the younger man, he has a story to tell about his paralysis.  After the speech, he said his advice to the audience would have been similar:

“One more swing, never give up.  There’s going to be trials and tribulations that you’re going to go through the rest of your life, and if you’re that young you just don’t ever give up,” Tompkins said.

As Sundquist closed out his speech, he put it this way:

“Keep swinging,” he said. “Those would be the last two words that I would leave with you this afternoon:  To keep swinging.”

 

 

 

“I didn’t set out to be the first openly gay athlete playing in a major American team sport,” National Basketball Association center Jason Collins writes in a Sports Illustrated essay posted Monday, “but since I am, I’m happy to start the conversation.”

 

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NBA’s Jason Collins Is First Active Player To Come Out As Gay