After powering his bicycle through deep Alaskan snow for seven days and 300 arduous miles, adventure cyclist Jay Petervary decided to withdraw from the Alaska Iditarod Invitational.

He’s already regretting his decision.

Petervary, 36, was the fastest rider in the first 350 miles of the race, which began north of Anchorage on Feb. 25 and finished in McGrath, Alaska. But Petervary was one of a handful of riders in the event who elected to push on in hopes of reaching Nome, Alaska, 1,100 miles from the starting line. He opted to call it quits in the village of Koyukuk after covering more than 600 miles of the race route. Petervary estimated that he pedaled 85 percent of the first 350 miles of the course, but less than 10 percent of the next 300 miles, where he averaged 3 mph.

“You keep getting smacked down after seven days of pushing the bicycle when you feel like you should be riding,” Petervary said. “It was getting old and it wasn’t much fun. In the future, I need to have a plan when I’m weak and vulnerable.”

For the first four days of the race, Petervary played a cat-and-mouse game with the rest of the field, sleeping at least six hours per night for the first three nights and then riding his specialized snow bicycle with extra-wide tires the final 140 miles nonstop. He finished the 350-mile race in three days, 14 hours, 20 minutes, more than six hours faster than the second-pace finisher.

“I passed all three guys ahead of me after the last checkpoint,” Petervary said. “They hadn’t slept and I had, so it was easier for me to get through the night. I was eating a lot and taking care of myself because I knew I was going to Nome.”

After a 24-hour layover in McGrath, Petervary continued on and trail conditions deteriorated quickly. Petervary encountered deep snow just outside the village of Ophir, at the beginning of a 200-mile stretch of the route to the village of Ruby. During the leg, riders had to carry all their own food and water and push bikes through snow.

For four days, Petervary pushed his bike, bivouacking outdoors at night.

“We knew it was a crux part, so we had our heads up,” Petervary said. “We figured at the Yukon River, once we reached Ruby, things would be good.”

Petervary was the first rider to depart from Ruby, expecting to find a firm, snow-covered surface. Within 20 minutes, he was pushing his bicycle again, spending two more days to reach the village of Galena as the snow ranged from ankle to knee deep while he battled stomach problems that left him weakened.

“It’s really, really hard to accept you’re moving at 2 miles per hour and sometimes making only 30 to 40 miles a day,” Petervary said. “The feeling of the ride never changes.”

In Galena, Petervary hoped that the arrival of the snowmobiles breaking trail for the Iditarod sled dog race would improve riding conditions, but that hope was dashed when heavy snow and 30-degree temperatures had him post-holing in knee-deep snow with his bicycle to the next village. At that point, Petervary said, his mental state was deteriorating, even though his body was still holding up.

“I felt everything there was to experience, and for the last two days I couldn’t help thinking, ‘How stupid is this?’ I couldn’t get myself out of that hump,” he said.

After pushing his bicycle for half an hour outside the village of Koyukuk, Petervary turned around and returned to the village, opting to withdraw from the race. Immediately after returning to Jackson, he regretted his decision and he already plans to return in 2010, the next time the race is held on the same course.

“I learned I need to make decisions in a different way and I need to have someone who’s going to be tough on me,” Petervary said. “As long as I’m not in a threat of any physical harm, even if it means waiting out weather or pushing my bike, that’s what I need to do. When you’ve been on the trail for two weeks and living outside in harsh conditions, you don’t make rational decisions.”

Though he didn’t make it all the way to Nome, Petervary said he took away plenty of positives from his second experience tackling the Alaska Iditarod Invitational. He was pleased with how his cold-weather gear performed, though the slower-than-expected pace meant he repeatedly ran out of fuel and was forced to make fires to heat his food.

He was warmly welcomed by residents of the tiny villages along the route and said his encounters with residents was an eye-opening experience. But he’s struggling to reconcile the decision he made when he was at his lowest, a choice he’ll be pondering until he returns to the starting line in two years.