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| With Jana and Adidas in lead the team takes a short break after a long steep hill. |
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| The team headed down a big hill while training with the four wheeler this winter. |
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| Out enjoying the new abundance of snow! |
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| The 6 month old pups play in the new snow with the dog yard in the back ground. |
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| Sparta wants just five more minutes of sleep before heading down the trail, while her younger less experienced sister Pirate is up early and ready to go. Perhaps Pirate is expecting another snack. |
Racing season is upon us here at the kennel with our first race of the season less than a week away. This Saturday we will be running the
Solstice 100 in Two Rivers, Alaska. The race starts at Pleasant Valley store at
11am and runs 50 miles to Angel Creek Lodge where teams will take a mandatory 4
hour layover and then run 50 miles back to Pleasant Valley store finishing some
time late in the night. We ran this race last year as a rookie team, finishing
in 9th place. The solstice is a fun race and the dogs and I are
eagerly awaiting its start. You can keep track of our teams progress by going to www.trdma.com
or by visiting the Two Rivers Dog Mushers page on Facebook.
Our second race of the season is the Top of The World 350,
which runs from Tok, Alaska to Eagle, Alaska and back to Tok. The TOTW starts
on December 27th a mere five days after the Solstice 100. The TOTW
is a brand new race, and will consist of 35 teams, you can learn more about the
race by visiting their website www.topoftheworld350.com
you can also keep track of our
teams progress and that of other mushers by visiting their website and facebook
page during the race. This is going to be the longest race that I have ever
run, and I am looking forward to it and all the challenges it will bring. I am
very excited to be apart of the first running of this race as it majorly
envolves my home town Eagle. I grew up in Eagle and that is where I got my
start in mushing 17 years ago. I still have a few dogs left from my days in
Eagle, but they are older now and will be cheering the team on from home
outside of Fairbanks instead of joining us on the trail, they will be missed while we are out there.
I have to apologize for the large amounts of time that have
been passing between blog posts, but a lack of internet has definetly played a
mojor roll in that. I have been
extremely busy training dogs, we have been running at least 4 if not 5 or 6
days a week. Using the other days to catch up on chores around the house such
as firewood, hauling water, cutting up meat snacks for the dogs, general kennel maintenance
and that all ways dreaded chore of running errands in town.
The team is doing excellent this year. They are strong,
healthy and ready for the race season. We have been doing a lot of hill
training in preparation for the Top of The World 350 which will cross over 3
summits two times each. I am very pleased with the dogs, so far they have
tackled every hill we have come across with enthusiasm and power. Luckily we have
escaped the training season with out any major injuries or mishaps that would
have taken a dog out of training for the season in order to recover.
Our biggest challenge this season is the lack of snow we
have had and also a few days here and there of extreme cold, as I write this
the temperature outside is currently -46f. A few days ago we were blessed with
a winter storm that came through dropping about 18 inches of fresh snow on us
and making the trail systems wonderful. We went from having hardly enough snow
to even call it winter to plenty of snow to safely run just about any trail around.
We have been doing a lot of runs in the 30 and 40 mile
range, and even a 70 mile run in the white mountains. We have just a few short
runs and a long 60 mile run planned before we start racing Saturday. I have posted a few pictures above of some of our training runs including some from
our trips to the white mountains this season, I am sorry some of them are a little dark, we are down to less than 4 hours of daylight per day now, and what little light we currently get isn't even that bright.
Merry Christmas and happy trails from everyone here at Boundary Sled Dog Kennel.
