Good news in the sprint mushing circles

  The Anchorage Daily news reports on How the fur Rondy sprint races are bursting with prize money from businesses while the iditorod  has lost some money.  This means that for the first time in many many yrs. the sprint races are pursed high. The long distance race such as the iditorod usually sucks all the money up. I know here in the Yukon the businesses  money goes to the Yukon Quest. Why not it is an international race with lots of exposure for a sponsor. There doesn't seem to be much left for any other style of racing.  It is easy to understand as the Quest  races need a tremendous amount of revenue. 

   The Yukon doesn't have a sprint race to speak of. I mean as far as a open championship. It has happened but dies. I have been involved in the Rendezvous dog races starting again. The trouble is the interest, funding and people to put on a race of that magnitude doesn't exist with such a small population. Maybe a sprint race in the Yukon may be worth while sometime in the future.  

   Today we are getting some snow and the trail was groomed it is becoming very flat now. This week involves picking through the dogs. Putting the fastest for Six miles together and putting the fastest over four miles together. Then Ben and Rachel will put some faster runs on them to prepare for the races in the new year. It is coming soon. We start thinking of our first races sometime in July. It is crazy how much you can think about training dogs when you enjoy it so much. The dogs are looking good. runs have reached over 20 mph. The average is down. This is what is important is the average. You have to train the dogs to maintain a high average. This is what we work on now. Earlier would have been better. The trail just hasn't been great for more speed than what we have been training at now. The hope is to push the average up to eighteen to nineteen mph. Ben and Rachel will then see who cannot make that speed over a particular racing distance. 

  Try and find the link for the information on the fur Rondy from sled dog central. I tried to post the link but doesn't seem to work. It is a good article making me feel that there may be a small revival for sprint mushing in Alaska.  GREAT NEWS

Another training day

 Hi all. Ben and Rachel were out again with the dogs. Rachel ran one of Ben's teams while Ben ran his second team behind her on the training loop. These teams are the teams that spent yesterday off from training. Rachel then ran two of her teams for intravals training. This type of training is stop and go hard in nature. It helps to increase speed in a team. I don't think she will get the team much closer to being ready than they are now.  The teams are looking good. Ben may have a injured dog in his team. The injury comes from an injury that happened last year. Hopefully  that dog will be OK. We will take Christmas and Boxing day off. No training will happen then. Merry Christmas and will talk to you all on boxing day.

 

the cold weather broke

   Yesterday the cold weather gave us a break. Rachel trained two of her teams. They were ready to go I can tell you that. A little too much time off during the cold period. It was nice to see them run and they did excellent. Top speed is climbing up and the average speed throughout the run looks better all the time. Ben did not run as he was gone being social at a friends house. 

 It is getting so close to the racing season. The dog truck was back in the shop with some problems. I just wanted to add a by-pass filter.  The filter needed a return line into the oil pan. We all attempted to put the plug into the oil pan while the pan was still in the truck. I opted for this option because the cost related to pulling the engine out to get at removing the oil pan. The welder attempted the to weld the plug in but it leaked. Then he attempted to weld in further the heat from the welder burned out the oil pan gasket and we had to pull the engine anyway. IT was not low on the stress level. I just got the truck back yesterday. It has been put together beautifully by Bernie. It was also quit a bit quieter when I picked it up. After 200 clicks the noise is back. Oh well we will figure that out too down the road. 

  Rachel and Ben will train today again and we will take some time off for Christmas and will soon be on our way to the first races of the season. The worming needs to be done again and the nails clipped on the dogs well before the first race. Things are going pretty smoothly right now. 

  I will keep in touch with everyone.

Back at the kennel

  Hello everyone. I finally am back. I didn't get many reports while I was gone. I did write a couple more blogs but they did not publish proper.  Rachel and Ben have been running dogs up until last Thurs. The weather decided to drop to a point that is beyond our cut off of minus 25 Celsius These temperatures for a cut off are laughable for longer distance mushers. Their dogs have to get use to moving at these temperatures and beyond. For sprint dogs it is just too hard on them to take them out and run the speeds they go at temperatures this cold.

  We have found a Handler from Germany. I should say he found us through a friend. I haven't met him yet but have talked to him. This is a good thing for us. The help will be very much needed and appreciated  by us here. The plan is still to go race. What is needed now is to put the racing teams together for some runs to see who is fast enough for race speeds. It had snowed here more than a week ago and the trails are nice and flat. It will be good enough for some speed training. 

   I hope this cold weather breaks soon. It is nice when you can get some runs on the dogs prior to Christmas holidays. If you can then you can take Christmas off with no runs at all. The weather is cold enough to bring dogs in. We bring them in to travel kennels that are located in the feed shack. The "feed shack" is a small building that has a wood stove in it and is heated. We keep enough dog food in the building to mix food for a week at a time. The meat is brought in the "feed shack ' to thaw out so we can mix it easier. It saves bringing dog food into the house which we have done for many years.

    With weather like this there is nothing to do but feed the dogs and add straw to their houses. Everyone here did an excellent job while I was gone.  I am very happy to be back home and back near the kennel.  talk to you later

Training held over until Monday

  Hi The weather did n0t cooperate for Ben and Rachel on Sunday. It was too cold to train safely. Ben was home on Monday. Ben was able to train one of his six dog teams four miles and trained his second team an interval. Ben said that all the dogs ran good. Ben had a leader not want to lead early in the year. Ben laid him off by putting him farther back in the team for several runs. Ben put him back in lead and he did great. That was good news. 

  Rachel had no complaints about her run. Rachel is training a new female leader named Honey and she is doing very well. Rachel ran one team intervals today. Leanne ran Rachel's other team for a four mile run today. all training is up to date

  I got contacted by a friend that was wondering if we needed a handler this winter. A handler is someone that spends the winter with our family and helps handle dogs. I said sure as long as he will work out. We will need him to travel to races with us. He will also need to train dogs for us and help with what ever he can around the yard. I haven't met him but will when I arrive back home. Let's hope that he works out for the season. That would be great !   

  I will be talking to Ben and Rachel soon to see what their training plans are. I am not sure what we will plan yet. It will be up to how the dogs looked in the last training run. Talk to you all later

More on Saturday's training

  Hi. I got a call from Ben.  To ask what ski-doo he should  use. His bravo or my ski-doo. Ben and Rachel will use my ski-doo for training tonight.  Rachel and Ben are alone tonight and have to drive a ski-doo for each other. Just in case they come around a corner and run into someone. I asked how the run went. Rachel said her run was awesome and told me that they ran super fast today! I asked if they got tired and she said no. Ben was equally impressed by his run. Ben ran a leader that had been giving him trouble three weeks ago. Ben put him in lead and he did fantastic

  Ben and Rachel got one team each run today. Tomorrow they have to run a team each again. I will keep in touch from home and keep everyone informed

Saturday training

  Hi all. I have been Talking to Ben and Rachel over the phone. I am still away from the kennel. Ben and Rachel are going to do  intravels today. This can be quite grueling for the dogs. If it is done wrong it can have negative consequence's. I learned how to do intravels as an athlete my self. Over the years by trial and error we have learned how to apply this training to sled dogs.

  Rachel and Ben report a decent trail at home now. I think they received a couple of inches since I have been gone. The trail is fairly flat. This is a good time to start some intravel training. This kind of training is a benefit to the speed of the dogs. It allows them to open up in speed and stretch out while running. It works on anaerobic training. This is training the muscle without adequate oxygen. Continued training allows the muscle to perform better and longer with less than adequate oxygen. In Human training the human body does not have the ability to take in enough oxygen to provide the muscles at a high rate of use. Example is while the human body is sprinting.  The body learns how to cope and recover with the proper training. 

  This kind of training does wonders for speed and  response training in dogs. It helps the dogs to react to Q's that are giving while racing for asking for speed or increase of speed.  There are two ways to do it. You are able to do this training with a static rest or a moving rest. To start off we will be doing intravels with a static rest. The distance you run and the amount of rest is a formula that you will figure for your team at a given time of the year. The better shape the team is in the farther they will have the ability to run at high speed before a rest. Condition also results in a shorter rest. Or shorter recovery time. It really is up to the trainer to see how their team looks. This is why it can be detrimental to the team if you push them to fast and hard before they are ready. If you pay any attention to your dogs you will see if you did too much.  Dogs can also run faster, harder than a human can. Human training is just a guide line. 

  I will report back and see how the dogs did today after I talk to Ben and Rachel.  

Long distance coach

  Hi.  Yesterday Leanne thought that she would train Rachel's team for her. She asked Rachel if it would be okay. The answer was no!  Rachel would not let her touch her Leaders there was no way! Leanne quickly backed down and left the training up to Rachel.

   Rachel has a English short hair pointer cross as a leader (Slick). He has worked very well in the past and Rachel has raced him in her main team. We had a talk about that dog and thought he may be getting sour on lead and that switching him into the team would be a good idea. The problem that Rachel was having was who would replace as a leader. There were two girls that Rachel was thinking may lead. We got the dogs from Harris English in Fort Nelson last year (Honey and Sweaty). They have the right head set and are great workers in the team but are quite small. 

  Rachel has done very good with small dogs. I always say that her dogs are too small but she has great success with her smaller dogs. I think that she would do much better with bigger dogs in her team. I have not heard any more about what was going on back home.  When I hear I Will l notify everyone about what is going on.  bye 4 now

Some snow and some good runs

Today Ben and Rachel ran a team of six each after school. Ben ran Finder, Willow Team and Rachel ran the Nadie, Overtime team. The teams ran four miles each.  There were no problems reported from Ben or Rachel.  I asked them which comment would fit their team. HOLY SHIT ARE THEY EVER GOING FAST. or HOLY SHIT THIS TEAM IS RUNNING LIKE CRAP. Both Ben and Rachel said it was the first comment that fit the description of their team best. So both were happy with the teams performance.

  Leanne went out with the ski-doo and the drag to drag the training trail. The drag pushes snow while the snowmobile pulls it.  She said that she stopped to take the snow off the drag. When she started to pull the drag again she felt a tug and then it got easy to pull. She thought wow it is easy to pull with the snow is taken off. She went all the way around the trail and didn't realize that the drag wasn't even behind the ski-doo. She was driving along the trail and noticed something on the trail. She looked ahead and  wondered what the heck is that on the trail. IT was the drag sitting where it had broke off the ski-doo. LOL.  Oh well that is how you learn about draggin the trail. I think that the ski-doo needs a new rear view mirror.

  The trail will be flatter with less dips and holes in the surface. This means that Ben and Rachel can start to really speed their teams up and it isn't a moment too soon. The dogs have to be going much faster than they are if they want to be competitive in the early races.  The speed training on the flat trails help that allot to speed the dogs up.  Everyone did a great job today and if they keep it up the teams will be hard to beat.

  That's all 4 now.

long distance reporting

  Hello. I am unable to report on Ben and Rachel and their training . I am away from home for awhile for medical treatment. I will be in touch as I get reports from home. 

bye 4 now

TRAINING ON and ON

  Ben and Rachel have been very busy.  Two teams went on fri. One of Ben's teams and one of Rachel's teams. It is very difficult to run all four teams after school.  It works out that B + R can run two teams per night after school. The dogs all get run just not on the same night. Fri. was dance night for Ben and Rachel. After the dance they both had a sleep over at a friends house. Today they are both tired but just got finished running two teams each. 

  Rachel is having some leader trouble and is outside working on that issue. All the dogs are run watered and ready for food. 

   We are trying a new formula for watering this year. It is developed by a Vet and the dogs love the taste of it. I don't know what the physical benefits are if any. I just know that they like to drink it and getting water in the dogs can be half the battle. 

   I leave tomorrow so I will leave a long list of reminders for Ben and Rachel. Things that they can do to keep the training positive and to get it done. I won't be here to give orders. HA,ha.  I will do my best to keep everyone informed while I am gone.

  Talk to ya later 

more training

  The dogs had some more days off. We had a family meeting on Weds because we were in need to discuss up coming races.  This year the race in Fort. Nelson is held later. This means that the race after in Taylor is a week later. This brings us passed any holidays that the kids would have.

  Ben is in high school. He says it is too difficult for him to miss that much school. He would like to go but right now Ben  is struggling with his decision whether to go or stay. Or go and race Ft. Nelson and take the bus back home so he is home before his exams.Rachel on the other hand gets homework that she is able to do on the road. If she misses time it is not as difficult as when Ben misses it.

  Rachel has come up with a solution. Rachel would run all the dog teams! the four six and eight dog classes.  Rachel named her dog team out loud on the spot. I asked her if she would feel safe with eight. She said it is only two more dogs than six Dad. I asked her what would happen if she got them all tangled up in a race. She simply said that the girls all listen to her really good and she will carry two snow hooks. It is a goal to run eight dogs now.  I imagine that she will try and lwork her best toward that.

  SO far I  would have to say good for her. I  would be concerned with her safety. I also know how much control she has with the sled dogs. 

  I am unable to sit and blog for very long due to my back pain. Please check back again soon Thanks for checking in