Interview: Alexandera Houchin on Her Colorado Trail Race Win(s), Ultra-Endurance Motivations, & Identity

Alexandera Houchin is a racer who isn't afraid to break the mold. While many racers are maximizing gear range and contemplating efficiency for maximum mechanical gains, Alexandera relies on pure grit and force of will to battle through difficult physical, mental, emotional, and logistical conditions for days on end, racing ultra-endurance events like the Tour Divide. Just last month, Alexandera won the Colorado Trail Race for the third time in a row, finishing the 527-mile, 70,000' gain course in 6 days, 2 hours, and 33 minutes and setting a new southbound women's speed record in the process.

This year's Colorado Trail Race was extraordinarily rainy, with descriptions of soggy gear, extreme mental depletion, and trench foot making it obvious why this year saw even more attrition than usual. Still, Alexandera pushed forward through from where things were hard to where they were even harder, and just kept moving forward until she ultimately crossed the line sleep-deprived, depleted, and intensely thankful.

I caught up with Alexandera to learn more about how she does it.

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First off, Alexandera, who are you and what do you do? And also, where are you right now?

All right. My name is Alexandra Houchin. I am a citizen of the Fond Du Lac band of the Lake Superior Chippewa, and I race mountain bikes and ultra endurance mountain bike races. And I'm currently located somewhere in the center of Nebraska. I'm on my way back home after the Colorado trail race, back up to Minnesota.

Congratulations on crushing at the Colorado Trail Race. I know you set a record and I’d like to hear about that, but first, how did you get into that type of racing?

Well, thank you, first off. It was such a hard, fun race. Let's see, I used to be a Jimmy Johns bike delivery girl, long story. Then, I became a bike messenger and then I started bike touring. And then what happened is, I got super lonely bike touring. I just started signing up for races, these ultra endurance races, because I wanted to meet people. I mostly had no idea that I was competitive until I signed up for a race and I wanted to win. But yeah, it just started out as bike touring and loneliness and I wanted friends and I was like, "Well, these people might be my friends."

What's your favorite part of racing? What keeps you doing it?

Well, I don't know. I feel like the answer to that question changes all the time. If I try to think back to what got me started, even in the bike touring stuff or whatnot, it was like I wanted my very first bike tour to see how much weight I could lose. I've always struggled with my weight, my body image, and it always teetered this weird line between hoping that I would get skinny, but also loving the freedom that comes with bike touring and all the other stuff that comes with being vulnerable and having people, meeting new people in different places.

So that's all how it started, body stuff and trying to come to peace and to terms with the body that I had. And now it's definitely changed a ton since I started doing this stuff. I've really come to find racing as a ceremony and that kind of changes meaning with every race and every time I do something different, but it's about going into a race open to whatever might happen, not being tied to the outcome or expectations of what might happen, but just being open to learning whatever lessons and going to whatever places in your mind that you travel to.

Thinking back on your career and talking about how you see it as kind of a ceremony and you're learning things every race, are there any kind of pivotal moments at bike races that you can remember?

I think one of the most pivotal moments for me happened when I realized that I could win the 2019 Tour Divide. I accidentally won the Tour Divide in 2018. I mean, I wasn't going into it thinking I would win. I was more so going into it hoping I would just finish, because I'd toured the Divide before, and then I tried to race it in an individual time trial, but that didn't go well. But there are a few pretty pivotal moments that happened in 2019 where I kind of came to terms with that I was going to win the women's 2019 Tour Divide on my single speed. Win the women's overall. And I felt a really big moment, not only for me, but I really feel connected to my tribal community. And I also really feel connected to riders who don't look like bike racers. So it kind of felt like a win for all of us.

Do you think you'll race the Tour Divide again at some point or are you moving on to focus on other goals?

Well, that's a really good question, because I think about it and it's kind of one of the paramount bike packing races. It's really beautiful. It's a really beautiful route. It's a really long route. I mean, that's a long time to stay in race mindset. Definitely the race itself has changed a lot over the last eight or 10 years that I've been aware of it or riding it, and my style of riding has changed quite a bit. I really identify with riding trail a lot more than I identify with riding long gravel roads. So I don't know. I think I want to, but I also really don't love cars and I really love riding trails and I really love getting away from society and being in the woods.

I'm stoked to see whatever you end up doing in the future, whether that's Tour Divide or not. Moving on to the Colorado Trail Race, what was your experience like that race? How did your race go?

This year was pretty epic. I recently decided to leave my desk job and stuff and spend more time and energy creating a little more intention in the racing aspect of my life. So this year, my partner and I went out to Colorado for what we called altitude training camp and just... we hiked a ton of mountains. We climbed a couple 14ers and just hiked a lot to get used to the altitude. And then we spent two weeks touring from Durango to Denver - the start of the race was at Waterton Canyon in Denver this year. So I was able to put a lot more intention into preparing for the race. Usually, I jet from Minnesota and die in the altitude. This year, I still died in the altitude, but maybe I was a little more prepared for it. I don't know. But this year was the wettest year I've ever raced the Colorado Trail Race, so that brought a whole new set of challenges... I mean, I guess that I was prepared for, but it's just really exhausting when you're racing in full rain gear and you're saturated just about all day. There a huge was a huge DNF rate this year due to the weather I think, just because it is so hard to stay motivated to put your wet clothes back on every morning.

When you're out there for that long, what’s going through your mind?

I think there's a progression of things that happen. Usually what I experience on the first day of the race is a lot of self doubt. And no matter how much I prepare, no matter how much I know about the race or the race course, I'm constantly comparing myself to the other riders and I start to question, who the f*ck do I think I am even out here trying to race these people? Everybody's so much stronger and cooler and whatever than me. In that first day of the race, I really experience a lot of self doubt. This year, like five miles into the race, I got a stick in my spokes and broke three spokes right away. And I only brought one extra spoke. So dealing with mechanical right away, I was like, who do I think I am? What do I think I'm doing?

And then as the race goes on, that insecurity kind of fades away because you can't really think about that. You just have to think about going forward. You can't really compare yourself to other people because we all have different strengths and different weaknesses. And as the race goes on, I start comparing myself less to other people and start getting into that flow state of having my ride and starting to feel like I'm really getting into the groove of things.

Then, towards the end of the race, I generally start pushing the sleep deprivation part of it and I start to sleep quite a bit less. And then my mind starts to go to really different places. By the end of the race, I was just crying, feeling a lot of love and gratitude for my life and for the people that are in my life. But you go to all these really crazy places. I definitely went to really, really bright places of light and love and really dark places of darkness and loneliness and kind of everywhere in between.

Yeah. I can imagine. Does it feel like you're racing against other people when you're out in those dark places, dealing with your own stuff? Or is that more just you versus you?

I mean, I definitely have a sense of racing other people, but not in the sense of wanting to beat them, but more so channeling their strength - like, they're doing this, I can do this, and kind of feeling like we're in it together. I kind of forget about winning in those moments or racing in those moments, but I use the other people around me as strength and hope to keep going forward. I think that's it.

When do you realize you can win a race like that? Do you know you could win from the start? Did you know you were leading?

I was aware that I was not leading the women's race for the first couple days. This year was one of the most exciting women's fields I've raced in, in one of these ultras. Super strong lineup of women competitors, so I was pretty stoked about that, kind of nervous, kind of excited. I know that I've won the last two Colorado Trail Race Grand Departs before this and was really intent on defending my title, for just showing up to the challenge to show that I take it really seriously.

So I wanted to win for that reason of just defending it, being like, "Yeah, I earned this and I want to keep earning it," but I was not sure if I was going to win the race at all until I crossed the finish line this year. The second place woman, Ana, had just won the Tour Divide this year. And even though it was her first time racing this race, once I decided to take the lead, I really, really fought to keep that lead and she was right on my tail between 45 minutes to two hours behind me for almost the entire race. It was really intense.

And you're racing on a single speed. Why? And do you always race on a single speed?

That's a really good question. I kind of tend to give lots of different answers to why I race on a single speed. But I think at the end of the day, it comes down to a parallel between me accepting the body that I have and me using this tool as an extension of myself, which is my single speed. It means a lot to me to study the course and to choose my gear ratio and to set my bike up as simple as it can be, and then really the only tool or advantage I have is my body. And it just reveals the amount of training and intention I put into the race and I feel super connected to the bike and to the terrain more so than when I ride my geared bikes.

I mostly race on a single speed. For all the races that I really care about, I race a single speed. I do try to show up to gravel races, mostly as training. I really don't excel in short one-day races or two-day races. I really start to shine when it's four or five days or more. So I try to race on geared bikes sometimes, but I don't really know how to ride it. And geared bikes tend to hurt my knees more than my single speed does, and I think that's just because I'm riding around and I don't know how to do it.

What about the hiking boots? Are you hiking a lot in these races? I noticed you switched back to hiking boots, I think, after bike shoes at some previous races.

Yeah. I've been trying to find a good pair of shoes that works on the bike and works for walking, because I do walk a lot during these races. I think for the Colorado Trail, I don't know, roughly a hundred miles of it is walking for me. And I'm the queen of comfort. I just am a little baby when it comes to being more uncomfortable than I have to be. So I like wearing shoes that have good ankle support and feel comfortable on the bottom and that have space for my feet to swell, because my feet definitely swell a lot.

I used to clip in, but now for these long races, I get hot spots on my feet. And when I'm descending, I move my feet. Sometimes I'm on my heel. Sometimes I'm in the middle of my foot. Sometimes I'm the ball of my foot or all sorts of different places. So I just really like to be comfortable. Like I said, I've been trying shoes. I want a shoe that's semi-rigid for pedaling, because otherwise I tend to think that my achilles start to feel fatigued if I don't have a rigid enough shoe. But if it's too rigid, then the hike-a-bike is super uncomfortable. So I've been looking, trying all sorts of different shoes and I still haven't found the perfect one.

The Goldilocks shoe.

I know. It's like they're too hard or they're too soft.

It seems like these races are more about just the mental survival and being willing to keep pushing yourself rather than about gaining this slight mechanical edge or whatever in shorter races. Is that kind of an accurate thing to say?

Yeah, I think so. And I think that's demonstrated through my riding of a single speed. I mean, especially in the Colorado Trail Race, there's a few road detours where road bikes or geared bikes definitely have an advantage, but just the going up and going down and just moving forward I think... but I try to just keep moving forward.

Looking forward, so now that you're done with Colorado Trail, what's your next move?

Right now, we're headed back - my partner and I grow food on the Fond Du Lac reservation. So now it's wild rice harvest season so we have a bunch of farm work and harvest work to do within the next month. But I'm looking to do the Arizona Trail Race this fall. I'm undecided whether I want to go northbound or southbound though. So I'm still trying to think about what expectations I have for myself and what I want to try to accomplish this year. But I'll be out on the Arizona Trail.

Have you done that before, the AZT?

Yeah, last year was the first time I completed the whole 800-mile route. I had gotten injured a week before the race. I had a fall while rock climbing and sprained my ankle, but still decided to go out, maybe against my better judgment. But I ended up meeting my current boyfriend and what it started out as a bike race, but turned into the longest, best first date of my entire life.

And you guys are now traveling in a camper together?

Yeah, now we live in our truck together and go all around the country, racing bikes. It's pretty sick. So I ended doing the AZT, but we definitely stopped racing at about four days in and took in the sights and had picnics. And so it was definitely not a clean race effort, definitely not a race effort. It took me 15 days, but I was falling in love, so...

That's adorable.

It was pretty cute.

I'm also curious about the connection you've talked about with your identity as Native American. What does that mean? And how does that relate to you pushing yourself through these bike races?

Yeah, I think about that a lot. I think about my identity as a Native person and my identity as a woman and as a bike rider and all these other different hats that I wear. And I've spent a lot of time thinking about how to hold space as a native woman in contemporary society and kind of feeling this pull, do I stay in my travel community and work there, or do I keep doing what I love, which is riding my mountain bike and racing my mountain bike? And how am I being a good Indian? I thought about that a lot.

But I think ultimately the conclusion I came to was that I found ceremony - the ceremony that I find in bike racing and the way that I approach bike racing and racing these ultras is not unlike me going to other ceremonies in my tribal community, whether it's like our sweat lodge or our big drum or other ceremonies that we have. I go into it kind of with the same mindset and intention and realize that as a contemporary Native, I can have contemporary ceremony while racing my bike just because things change and times have changed, and this is how I can find a way to incorporate my indigeneity into non-indigenous spaces. I think it's really important for me to show up and do that, whether or not anybody ever gets to see it or anybody else ever notices it. It's a relationship I have with myself and my ancestors and all of my non-human relatives in these places.

So I just think it's really become a way for me to indigenize contemporary society, by being able to go out to these races in these places and have ceremony and just exist, even if I'm not really saying or doing anything huge.

You're doing it, and it seems like it's working out. It seems like the representation is also important too. So it's rad to hear that.

Yeah. It's really important to me. I mean, so many things that I talk about and care about have historically been like, "Oh, that happened in the past or that happened a long time ago," but my community and other Native communities are still dealing with a lot of this stuff. Just by being out there and using whatever platform I gained to talk about the Native experience in America today is important.

Is there anything else you’d like us to know about you?

I do want to mention I have started, with two of my good friends, a women's media website. We're working on increasing representation of women’s voices from some of these races and the greater bike community. We’re using bike media largely created by women for everyone. It’s called the Town Bicycle. Which is part of reclaiming that idea of the 'town bicycle, everybody's had a ride', but we're saying it's the town bicycle where everybody can come ride. And we’re just working on more race coverage of the women’s field, and highlighting more women's voices, and the voices of those who maybe have not been invited to speak about their bike experience. It's just the three of us, my friend Katie Strempke and my friend Eszter Horanyi, two other badass bitches. And yeah, we're just starting from the ground up. We have really no idea what we're doing, but we are doing something.

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Alexandera doesn't use social media so she's more of an enigma online than many bike racers, but she has a personal website here and you can check out Town Bicycle here. Find Alexandera at the top of the results sheet at a variety of ultra-endurance bike events, or somewhere out on the open trails.

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