2010 Iditarod Rookie Meeting

The rookie meeting for this years race was held on the weekend of December 5th/6th in Achorage. There were 24 of us rookie types there, with a wide range of backgrounds. Some newbys with few years of racing experience (like me) all the way to my friend Dan Kaduce, who could write a book or two on the subject. Dave Decaro has been handling for Jeff King for a few years and also knows more than I'll ever know about training and racing dogs. I was really happy to see my friend Colleen Robertia there. She is a talented and driven gal with some great dogs; most, if not all, rescued or demoted from professional kennels. Michelle Phillips is another gal who is as tough and competitive as they get. I'm sure she'll be vying for the Rookie of the Year! There were two guys from Scottland, Newton from Jamaica, and guy from Ontario, and the rest of us yanks from all over the states (even Chicago). The scottsmen are leasing teams from Dean Osmar and Rick Swingley and Newton is training with Lance Mackey. These kennels are as good as they get; and yes, there is a slight twinge of envy and/or jealousy. But! I dig my mutts big time and we're going to have a great time.



The first day of the meeting was held at the Millenium Hotel, the headquarters of Iditarod in Anchorage. We heard from Mark Norman (the race marshal), Dr. Stu Nelson (head race veterinarian), Dee Dee Jonrowe, and Lance Mackey among others. They talked about dog care, race logistics, equipment, race strategy and more; more than we could mentally digest actually.



The second day was spent at Martin Buser's in Big Lake, about 1.5 hours north of Anchorage (if you don't know, Martin buser has raced in 25 Iditarods, has won 4 times, and still has the fastest recorded time). Martin shared really great information on equipment, feeding, dog care, training techniques, trail conditions, and the overwhelming topic of how to pack your drop bags. 'Drop bags' are large sacks of everything we need between the start and the finish of the race. We'll have 20 checkpoints before reaching Nome, with each checkpoint supplied with 3 drop bags, straw and fuel for our cookers (to heat water and make a soup for the dogs - their main meals..... more on feeding later). Our drop bags have to be packed and finished in Febuary, when they will be taken away and that's that. No changing. We better have enough food, dog snacks, dog booties, people food, hand warmers, batteries, veterinary supplies, underwear, socks, runner plastic etc etc etc etc etc.... you get the idea, in each of those bags for each of the checkpoints. So it's a bit stressful, especially for a rookie, to figure out exactly what and how much to put in. Oh, and you can't bring the food back; that stays in the villages. They do their best to get our gear and non-food items back to us. So premium kibble is running a little over $1/lb. Shipping is close to $1/lb. So this makes drop bag planning a sporting operation!







Dog talk between Emil and Martin. Notice the exercise wheel in the puppy pen.

In the afternoon, Pat, a search and rescue dude from Nome came in to talk about some tricky sections on the coastal portions of the route. Specifically, he talked about the section between White Moutain and Safety. Now, I've been watching the Iditarod for a few years, and I have some good friends who routinely run the Iditarod, but I really had no appreciation of this section of trail. The media is always camped out at the Happy River Steps, or the Dalzel Gorge, or the Burn; places where you see mushers crash and burn, I'm sure to the delight of some camera man who just flew in on a helicopter. Why don't they talk about the BLOW HOLE!? Probably because the media can't get there when it's bad. Scared the crap out of me. There's a little mountain range between White Moutain and Safety, with a nook between the hills. A high pressure can develope on the inland portion and a low pressure over the Norton Sound. Well, you know what happens with that; can just blow a gasket through that little nook, like over 100 mph winds. Pat had stories of people losing their snow machines to the wind. I mean, the machine was blown over and out to sea. My eyes opened a little wider at that story. So, I think they wanted to scare us a little so that we wouldn't 'go for it'. I'm not sure who they think is going to 'go for it,' but it certainly won't be me. My goal is not to be Rookie of the Year. My goal is to finish with happy musher and happy dogs (ok, and preferrably not in last place). To my mom and dad, if you read this, it will be ok. We will have weather reports in White Mountain. We will know when not to go. I will not be blown out to sea.



So in a nutshell, the rookie meeting made the race real for me. It gave me the steps I need to take to get organized. It also gave me both the fear of god and even more respect for the race than I already had.








Martin's new house. I wonder what his day job is? And, it's so far from the dogs...... retirement or just more dog handlers?

A Small Fish in a Small Pond

I don't know how or why, but this little fish made it on 'mushing.tv'. Maybe it's just a small pond. Benedikt Beich, who handled for and ran Aaron Burmeisters (Iditarod musher) dogs in the Yukon Quest and the Iditarod, asked if he could interview me. 'Sure, what the heck.'

So check it out: www.mushing.tv

It's surreal to see yourself on the screen!

Speed Bumps

Where the heck have I been? It's been a while since adding to the blog, so I'll try to be better about keeping up. Things get a little crazy though!

So we've had a couple of speed bumps during the last few weeks. Running dogs and racing have taught me two invaluable lessons though, 1: patience and 2: obstacles are to be figured out, not allowed to dominate the situation.

Speed bump number 1: tweeked my back, dang. This sport seems to be done in the prone position most of the time. You bend over the pet dogs, bend over to feed dogs, bend over to check on dogs, bend over to bootie dogs, bend over to scoop poop... you get the idea. So I had to rest a little, a bit of ice, and the following (especially drinking more water):

It seems that everyone in this sport has a bad back. I just need to work smarter, not harder. I'm one of those 'strong back, weak mind' sometimes. So I'm coming up with little tricks around the yard to make things easier and not dependent on me bending over.

I'm doing much better now, almost normal. Back to training dogs. Also back on the 4 wheel. We haven't received any new snow since that storm a month or so ago and the ground is starting to show.

Speed bump number 2: Mr. Snake, who was doing fantastic, had a seizure during a run. Seizures in dogs aren't an unusual thing at all, but one should not (and cannot) take a dog to Iditarod that may have a seizure. He's quite fine and just wants to get back to training; but he will have to go back to my friend Bob who runs recreationally. He'll probably never have another one again! So the biggest, strongest dog gets to go on semi-holiday, even though I'm sure he'd prefer to work for a living. Dang.

Speed bump number 3: The first race of the season, The Sheep Mountain 150, was cancelled due to lack of snow. I suppose the lack of snow is more disconcerting to me than the race being cancelled (it's Alaska in December, we're suppose to have snow); but the race cancellation is a bummer also. I was going to run the 2 year olds, just as a series of training runs. But we will just have to arrange some camping trips in the White Mtns to teach the punks how to rest and camp between runs.

None of the speed bumps are serious. My path is still in the same direction, and I'm sure I'll have many bumps along the way and will certainly have some big speed bumps in the race! Now I'm just back to training for the next race, which is the Copper Basin 300. This is a very, very tough race. I'm looking forward to the challenge.

Have Sled, Will Travel

Fairbanks received a good size dump of snow almost a week ago, and my trails have just barely enough to switch to a sled. You need a good base of snow in order for the snow hook to take hold and the team can be stopped; especially when there are two road crossings like I have to deal with.

There are 2 great advantages to the sled over the 4-wheel. It's quiet, and the dogs have to work a bit more honestly. So instead of me just throttling along at 9 mph and the dogs either pulling, or coasting; they have to pull to get me up the hill. The dogs also love the sled (I guess that's a third advantage). I think they like the freedom of being able to find a groove a bit more than with the big, heavy 4-wheeler going exactly 9 mph all the time. They like to put on the power sometimes, then back off other times. One of the leaders will perk up her ears and everyone is right there with her; they have more fun with this sort of flexibility.

The disadvantage of the sled is that I can't take a 12 dog team out. I can control the team very easily with the 4 wheeler, thus at the road crossings I'm not worried. 12 dogs on a sled with low snow would be a disaster. So I've broken the 24 dogs into 3 teams of 8. Each team has at least one adult leader and at least one 2 yr-old leader. Then the rest of the dogs are evenly divied up based on age and size. An 8 dog team is still a bear to get out of the yard right now.... I work up a sweat, no matter how cold it is. The trail is very bumpy, narrow and windy and those little buggers are worked up into a frenzy when it's time to take off.

I've included a short video of the dogs running at the 25 mile turn around, just to show the sled and the scenery on a beautiful, crisp (around 20 below 0 deg F) day of training.

The Two Year Olds.... and Snake

A little scheduling snaffoo allowed only one team to run today, so I thought I better run the 2 yr olds. They take more miles to get fit, compared to adults, so just need more miles on them before a race. This also means that my leaders were 2 year olds. I was hoping for minimal requirements for any decisions to be made up front, no loose dogs, and no other dog teams. Well, we had one loose dog, 2 dogs on leash that we had to pass, and a couple of gee/haw options. Venus and Grumpy did great.

It also snowed like craze today! Inches and inches. Most of the run was unbroken trail, much deeper snow than in the pictures. It was also going up hill. This was hard work for the dogs so I just took it slow.

Grumpy and Venus at a rest stop, half way through a long run (32 miles). The dogs popped the brake on the 4-wheel right after I took this and just about ran me over.

My swing dogs, Kaligan and Kora (both part of the K litter). Kaligan's hogging her side to get at some snow cones.

This is Snake and Kaltag. Snake is a brother of Beaver, Sadie and Pepsi (he's an adult, either 4 or 5 years old). I'm trying him out. He's a big strong dog and has a lot to say during stops.

Kaltag is ready to go!

Weasley and Kobuk.

Wizard (brother of Weasely) and Kiana (more K dogs).

Muggles (brother of Wizard and Weasley) and Diamond in wheel.

And we're off...

Training on the Pipeline

Thought I'd share a little Alaskan trivia by showing you what the pipeline looks like:

We're on the pipeline service road, and the pipeline must be buried over on the right. This runs along a ridge, about 1500' feet above the valley where we start. It's snowing just lightly and about 18 degrees - warm for Alaska and the dogs, perfect for the human.

Nikki feels good and is rolling around in the snow. That's a happy dog.

A short break for the dogs at the half-way point in the run. They're looking great and Venus is wondering why I'm stalling.

Judy Currier's dog Weasley. Now that's a good looking dog!

Here's a short video of us going back down to the valley on an old mining road. I'm trying to keep the 4-whell from going into a washed out gully while holding the camera. The dogs always know when the musher isn't paying attention; they keep looking back, wondering when I'm going to get back to work. This team has most of the 2 year olds, 8 of them. They look great and ran strong the entire run.

Dog of the Day - Kora

Kora may be the smallest dog on the team; it's a close race for smallest shrimp with Venus. She may weigh 35 pounds..... after a big meal, a really big meal.

Kora is one of the 'K' litter that I bought from Dean Osmar; she is two years old. She has also turned out to be a fine leader. I put her up front with Reeses (also in the picture) and it is pure finesse. They are both light, athletic little dogs. A very nimble front end.

I was a little surprised to see Kora take to lead so easily. Her personality isn't a 'take charge' one. She's a bit submissive; a very gentle little dog. But when she's in lead, she never looks back, never questions anything, and never seems to get tired. Just goes forward constantly, with gusto.

She's made the A team so far due to her enthusiasm and her abilities as a leader and cheer leader. She may not be a powerful dog physically, but she will always help the team get up and go forward! She's also a fun dog to have on the team. Always smiling, always happy to be there, and very affectionate.