Race Season Is Upon Us!

With Jana and Adidas in lead the team takes a
short break after a long steep hill. 

The team headed down a big hill while training with the four
wheeler this winter.

Out enjoying the new abundance of snow!

The 6 month old pups play in the new snow with the dog yard in the back ground. 

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 9^th 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 27^th 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.