On December 13th, I ran a 7 dog team in the Denali Dash. It was a 2 day 120-mile race with no dog drops. The hills on the Denali Hwy were crazy! We were climbing hills for miles...then would drop down just to climb so more. The last hill into Maclaren lodge was a steady climb for 10 miles! We were doing maybe 5 mph up those hills...but that was ok. I entered fully knowing it was for training. The dogs rested well, even though Dutchess, my main leader was in full blown heat. After a night of no rest for me (I spent the night on my sled to keep an eye on the dogs) and 2 full feedings plus a watering into my dogs, we set off at 11:30 the next morning. We finished the run in 20 hours, which was slow, but what I expected to do. The dogs ran steady on the return leg, and though I didn't do any extended rests on the leg back, I did stop a couple of times to change booties and to snack. We did the first leg in 10:51 and the return leg in 9:27. I was very proud of my pooches, as they picked up into a lope coming into Meier's Lake, the finish line.
Yesterday, December 27th, we ran in the Solstice 100. We ended up scratching from the race at Angel Creek, because we had to go through 2 open streams. The first wasn't so bad...it was Jenny M Creek that was (surprise!) open. The dogs are really good about going right through water...so it wasn't a big deal. It was the second open water that nailed us. We dropped off a steep bank into a big hole of water. A few dogs had to swim, then my sled came down and submerged. I would've been ok, but the sled stuck on the opposite bank, so I had to get off. My bibs were soaked all the way up my legs...and the dogs were just drenched. Normally this wouldn't be a big deal...but it was about -25 degrees. My sled became an iceberg (luckily I had things packed in bags), and the dogs developed ice hanging off of their coats. When I stopped to snack and redo booties, my wheel dogs were shivering so bad, I could barely get booties on. So I coated them and we kept going into Angel Creek. Unfortunately, about an hour before we were due to leave, all but 4 of my team were shivering, even though they were curled up in beds of straw and had their dogcoats on. I really wanted to keep going, as all that was left of the race was 31 miles of easy running from Angel Creek to Valley Center, which I've run so many times it would've been nothing to do. The thing was that I've NEVER seen my dogs shiver...especially with dogcoats on. Most of them still had ice hanging from their bellies...and I knew it was only going to get colder..they were saying -30 and there was a bit of a breeze. To top it off, I had already had to drop one dog for a swollen wrist, and another didn't eat or drink anything on the whole run. In fact, when I handled her to check feet and put on dogcoats, she was completely limp and stayed curled in a tight little ball (and she's a husky, not a pointer mix). She was dehydrated from not eating. So even though I didn't want to do it, I decided to scratch. My dogs were sooo happy to go to the truck! I know they would've went on, had I asked them...but I didn't think it was fair to them. Some didn't agree, but I'm the one who knows my dogs. Manny told me afterwards that if I hadn't scratched, he would've been upset because he saw how the dogs looked too, and they were miserable. This was just a fun race and was good training, even though we didn't go on to complete it. I'm very glad that people were very supportive, and though the marshall tried to talk me out of scratching, I appreciate the fact that he tried to keep me in instead of just saying, well, go ahead and scratch.
I'm happy to report that all of the dogs are eating and drinking well today. We are hoping that we can run the next 100 mile race out here in Two Rivers, which is scheduled for Jan. 17th, 2004. It all depends on if Manny's work allows him to take time off for it. Then comes the Hamburger Quest at the end of January, the Yukon Quest 250 on Feb. 14th and the Two Rivers 100/200 in March. Hopefully we'll get more training on the dogs and be able to compete in these upcoming events.
Stay tuned! And thanks for joining us in our sled dog adventures.
Tammi