But, fortunately, I get to re-live the season here with ya'll! So without further ado, here's the first installment of the Eagle Cap Extreme 2016...
This year I had 16 dogs in training which gave me the luxury of having some choice in the dogs I ran and a larger buffer available for giving young or injured dogs time off. We needed it...trail conditions were challenging, to say the least. At first our sled runs were extremely slow - like 5mph - as we broke trail out...and back...since it continued to snow and snow. It was a great experience for the puppies (the "true" yearlings: Falcon, Eagle, Owl and Bea) to work hard but the lack of base caused small injuries to arise (wrists, sore shoulders/hips). Once the groomer came, though, it didn't get better. In one week we had everything from slush to breaking through more fresh snow to a hard and fast trail to punchy, slow slogs in the rain.
With such conditions, I doubted Eagle Cap would be the hard and fast trail it's been for the past years and I figured I'd take extra young dogs to see what stuff they were made of. I also took two of the puppies - Falcon and Bea - who had not had such strong training runs as the other two but had improved tremendously with the 100 mile camping trip (for pictures of our camping and training be sure to check out our facebook page).
So the team would be a nice mix: Sweetwater, Belle, Rowdy, Summer, Razz and Frost - who'd finished before - and Jingle, Saxon, Achilles, Odysseus, Bea and Falcon. I was nervous to be leaving my main leaders, Legolas and Urchin behind but there are moments when you've got to let the younger dogs step up and grow into their positions.
Going to Joseph, Oregon, is like going on vacation - everyone makes you feel so comfortable and this year we shared a cabin with Jessie Royer and Alea Robinson. It was nice to relax and talk dogs with Jessie a bit...especially to hear about her free-dropping of the dogs.
Of course, at the vet check, it's like a reunion - getting to see folks you've not seen in a year and, of course, spending time educating the kids who came out to see the sled dogs! But the highlight this year was finally getting to meet a mushing friend from Wisconsin - Carlleen. We've messaged back and forth a bit over the years and she was racing the 32 mile pot race, so I finally got to meet her!
The race started mid-day on Thursday and I had no idea who I would put in lead until I started hooking up dogs. You know how sometimes inspiration just comes to you? Well, I won't say it was inspiration but I just couldn't decide who to put together because I wanted to let new, young dogs lead out of the excitement of the start. I ended up with Bella and Achilles - who had never run lead together and Achilles had never been in a race before.
For an instant, when they said "Go" I thought the dogs wouldn't go past the crowd (Bella can be shy at the worst times!) but they took off and led nicely...until it came time to pass. Bella is afraid of other teams and Achilles, who's a hard-headed dog when he knows what to do, had never seen another dog team before. When other's passed us we were fine, but passing Jennifer was rather ugly.
One of the things I worked on this leg was to relax, even though I was running back and forth with other teams. I like to be out there alone with the team and just go along but when you have other teams who move differently up and down the mountains there's courtesy involved...fortunately most distance team drivers are very laid back about passing and running together. Despite my leader's lack of experience, I don't think we caused any issues and they settled into a nice pace over the soft trail. The snow caused us to lose most of the booties, which made for an easy camp at Ollokot when I took off a total of 4 booties!
A triumph of the first leg was that the dogs ate their first snack (which they never eat) and still devoured their first meal (like they always do). All of them, including the puppies, lay right down to sleep without any barking or chewing. It's one of the times I feel really proud of my dogs - when we come into the first checkpoint where there's a lot of commotion, typically, and they just go to sleep like they've been trained...without a fuss. It's a good thing they rested, because I'd decided to run the first half of the race like we'd done in training...100 miles with 1 and 1/2 hour rest.
So the team would be a nice mix: Sweetwater, Belle, Rowdy, Summer, Razz and Frost - who'd finished before - and Jingle, Saxon, Achilles, Odysseus, Bea and Falcon. I was nervous to be leaving my main leaders, Legolas and Urchin behind but there are moments when you've got to let the younger dogs step up and grow into their positions.
Going to Joseph, Oregon, is like going on vacation - everyone makes you feel so comfortable and this year we shared a cabin with Jessie Royer and Alea Robinson. It was nice to relax and talk dogs with Jessie a bit...especially to hear about her free-dropping of the dogs.
Of course, at the vet check, it's like a reunion - getting to see folks you've not seen in a year and, of course, spending time educating the kids who came out to see the sled dogs! But the highlight this year was finally getting to meet a mushing friend from Wisconsin - Carlleen. We've messaged back and forth a bit over the years and she was racing the 32 mile pot race, so I finally got to meet her!
The race started mid-day on Thursday and I had no idea who I would put in lead until I started hooking up dogs. You know how sometimes inspiration just comes to you? Well, I won't say it was inspiration but I just couldn't decide who to put together because I wanted to let new, young dogs lead out of the excitement of the start. I ended up with Bella and Achilles - who had never run lead together and Achilles had never been in a race before.
For an instant, when they said "Go" I thought the dogs wouldn't go past the crowd (Bella can be shy at the worst times!) but they took off and led nicely...until it came time to pass. Bella is afraid of other teams and Achilles, who's a hard-headed dog when he knows what to do, had never seen another dog team before. When other's passed us we were fine, but passing Jennifer was rather ugly.
One of the things I worked on this leg was to relax, even though I was running back and forth with other teams. I like to be out there alone with the team and just go along but when you have other teams who move differently up and down the mountains there's courtesy involved...fortunately most distance team drivers are very laid back about passing and running together. Despite my leader's lack of experience, I don't think we caused any issues and they settled into a nice pace over the soft trail. The snow caused us to lose most of the booties, which made for an easy camp at Ollokot when I took off a total of 4 booties!
A triumph of the first leg was that the dogs ate their first snack (which they never eat) and still devoured their first meal (like they always do). All of them, including the puppies, lay right down to sleep without any barking or chewing. It's one of the times I feel really proud of my dogs - when we come into the first checkpoint where there's a lot of commotion, typically, and they just go to sleep like they've been trained...without a fuss. It's a good thing they rested, because I'd decided to run the first half of the race like we'd done in training...100 miles with 1 and 1/2 hour rest.
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