We landed in the super 8 Anchorage the first night. Got to bed at 2a.m. Up early to look after the dogs and track down our billets. Evan and Debra Summers. Daughters Morgan and Hanna. Nice place and we settled right in. Great people. We stayed here on the thursday rested the dogs and made them a good early supper.
The final training runs at home prior to the trip left Rachel in need of a older leader to come with here to lead her team. Not the best choice but the only one that she had considering the age of her young leaders. Rachel's younger leaders were not ready to race with so many obstacles here in Anchorage. We did do our best to peak the team and get them ready for the Worlds by laying off and running less and less distance.
First day of the WOrlds Rachel ran Dini her old leader. Leader is about nine and ready to retire a while ago. She ran this leader in her Arctic Winter Games team last year. She raced for three gold metals. Still this dog is ready to retire. It was Dini Overtime. On lead Single point dog was Gypsy. Then on wheel was Slick and a yearling called Rusty.
The first day of competition brought warm weather but a great hard fast trail. Some new snow. near zero c. some cool wind out of the North was blowing. Rachel Left the chute in 7th position and was running 5 dogs. She came back with a 3rd place finish but had lots of trouble with the young dogs laying down at the tunnels and the bridges stopping the team. Not much time separates first from fifth. 1st 20.59 2d 20.37 3rd 20.35 4th 20.47. 5th. 20.52 Very close race. Second day Rachel has the same problem even after taking the troubled dogs to the tunnels and walking them through the tunnels until they felt better about being there. She slipped to fourth. She was very disappointed. Her old leader is barely keeping up if at all but at least she is going in the right direction. Day two. 1 st 18.07 2nd 19.23 3rd 19.30 and Rachel ran it in 19.44 with all her problems. She is trying to figure out what to do. Her overall time is 40.31 3rd is 40.05 2nd is 40 even 1st is 39.06. She can still move up.
Ben in the seven dog did fantastic. was third on the first day. 28.32 1st was 27.00 2nd was 27.47 . Today Ben was first with a time of 27.22 and first overall with a time of 54.47 second is 55.09 3rd is 100.09 Some good racing here at the world's as expected. It is a dog race so you never know what could happen so we will see tomorrow the final day of the race.
Ben and Rachel worked their butts off this year training through thick and thin. The third day should show this by the toughness of their teams. If anyone was on the xbox instead of training will regret it on the third day. So I will let everyone know what happens on day three sometime after the race.
It is very exciting to watch and to see Ben and Rachel reap the rewards from a job well done. Talk to you all later.
1 comment:
Hey, way to go guys. We are impressed. Congrats Rachel and Ben.
Always you can only do your best, and that is great.
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