About two weeks prior to Eagle Cap, I finally got some camping runs on the team. We'd gotten a few long runs on (about 70 miles), but the camping had been hard. There has always been an invitation for me to go up to my friend Wendy and Steve's in MT and I was excited to finally get a weekend off to drive up for some training.
Earlier in the season I'd attempted to go, but a broken trailer axle stopped me before I'd even gotten an hour from home!
Needless to say, I was a little worried about the trailer axle even on this trip but my dad and older brother's repairs held...the entire season in fact.
We got up there late on Friday night, and the plan was for me and Steve to run a 30, rest a few hours and run another 30 before a third 30 mile run on Sunday - when I needed to drive home.
The trail was snowplowed from their driveway for the first five miles or so. The dogs moved fast and I was on the drag a lot. Then we came to the loop, which was not groomed at all. I was kind of disappointed becase we'd broken trail all December, but Steve was kind enough to break trail for us and we had a nice ride down once the loop came back onto the road.
The dogs bedded down on the line, but we realized it was going to be rough on the plowed, icy road to go a second time so at about 9pm we loaded up the dogs and went to the trailhead.
Here the trail was snowmobile groomed and we had a nice run in the dark. It was a lot of fun. Steve did the loop once but I went twice to get the miles and it was so nice and cold - the dogs had a lot of fun and I did too!
I'd planned to get up early to run on Sunday, but I slept in and we got out about 10am. Again, I ran twice and since Legolas had a sore wrist, I actually left him and Razz single led. I was pretty impressed with Razz, since he's not my main leader, that he stepped up and led single.
Coming off of the camping, I decided to get one more camping trip in on our trails. The dogs were a little confused when I turned them away from the truck and bedded them down, but they figured out what we were doing once the food came out! Then they bedded down and I snuggled into my sleeping bag with Summer and waited for 3 hours.
They left the campsite as if they hadn't run before! It was a decent run out to our turn around and then they really flew back - not sure if it was because of all the night smells or that they were just feeling really good.
And that pretty much wrapped up our Eagle Cap training. We had over 1500 miles on at that point - and the goal I'd set was 1200; so I was stoked with my little 9-dog team!
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