Training CHRISMAS DAY?

WOW Rachel wanted to train on Christmas day. SO I said sure. We went down to the track in Anchorage and Rachel ran two teams. There was 4-6 inches of fresh powder down there so we ran a couple of short runs. Leanne and Rachel rode together so Leanne could have a look at the dogs. The dogs looked great and it was well worth our effort to go down there and do that. We do not want to leave the dogs too long without training while travelling. Have to keep the training up. These different trails and runs are good for the dogs also. It gets them on the road and doing something different than what they get at home and this is good.
Unfortunately this season will only see Leanne able to race Rachel's team here. With the different schedule it puts Junior mushing out but we are here to give the dogs needed racing experience. That means someone should race them. This leaves Leanne to do this. Leann is Game to do it so that is what we will do. There is a Junior race that is held on the 2nd of Jan. But we need to be back on the third. Rachel does not want to run this cause it would put her late for school.
I do not want Rachel missing school on the way home on this trip. We have another planned and that is to go down to Grande PRairie to race. This is our goal and that race is Jan. 7-8th. I would rather have Rachel leave school a bit early on Friday the 6th to make this trip to the starting line the morning of the 7th. This will be a great trip for her and I and she will be able to race a great race trail down there in Grande PRairie. We shall see how that goes

Hope all had a good christmas.

Twas the night before Christmas

we made it to Anchorage where they have more snow than I ever imagined. The biggest problem is too much snow. The trails are not groomed yet and some trails are closed for this reason. we will be racing and training here. Not as much as we wanted too as the race we usually do on the 26th is no more. we do have a chance to race and that is the 31st and Jan. 1st but then we must hit the road to get Rachel home back to school. This was easy when she was younger but now she cannot miss any class. It makes it difficult for her and I. it means more night travel and less sleep on the way.

I still am planning a trip to Grande Prairie and will leave after school on the sixth of Jan. That will be a good trip. we are back here in Anchorage for the Junior worlds in Feb. Rachel is the defending champion in that race.

The trip has meant good training for dogs as far as riding in the truck goes it makes it good to be here no matter the amount of actual racing we do.
We will train the dogs a couple days after Christmas and then we will take the kids skiing and get ready for the racing at the end of Dec.

Talk soon to update
MErry christmas and Happy new year ot all.

NORTH TO ALASKA

Some new sponsors are now on board. Minconsult is now on-line and we are very happy to have him as a sponsor. Thanks Tim.
Here we are in Alaska. Got here on Tuesday. We are staying in Tok with some good friends. Today we trained dogs on a new training trail. Rachel ran two eight dog teams today and the trail was tough. Wide and boring for the dogs. Surface was sort of soft. Both of Rachel's teams ran good and train again tomorrow. Another pair of six miles. Dogs are ready to race, but no racing here at the moment. We are trying to organize and pick some races but the weather has been really mild West of here toward Anchorage. This is a weather pending trip.
We looked at a race in Grande Prairie Alberta as well. We would get home for Rachel to go to school the third to the 6th, leave after school and get her to the starting line by 9 a.m. on the morning of the 7th. Ya I know what you are thinking but we have done it before and it was not problem to do it. Just need the right drivers to come along to keep us moving south east. There is a great race there that we could not make last year. This year will be much better if we can make it.
So far for Alaska we have races on the 31st of Dec. and the 1st of Jan. So after the races we have to leave and drive home so Rachel could be at school on the 3rd of Jan. Some miles to be covered. This is the problem with races being so far spread out. More miles on the truck than on the dog teams.
Leanne and Rachel also have been very busy making polymer clay Jewelry (neck laces, ear rings luggage tags, nurses name tags and zipper pulls) and selling them to help raise her own money to help pay for some of the expenses. Problem is I hear that it isn't much fun anymore because they have so many orders to fill. LOL. very nice stuff and it sure helps out to get us to the races. If anyone is interested they are welcome to drop Leanne a line.
Leelalily@hotmail.com Give her your requests for orders or to see pictures. Talk to everyone again soon. Tomorrow we train dogs and then start heading for Anchorage. We will stay Christmas there with some good friends. Hit some races and then head home then south.

Back to the training. Welcome to winter of 2011/2012

Well Rachel was hard at it all summer long. Rachel and the dogs ran together all summer. Did not hook up dogs in harness. Rather Rachel ran the dogs in our kennel loose. The dogs all follow her on the four wheeler. This means that Rachel can take them for a six mile run if she wants too. That is what she did. Ran them up to six miles. Rachel ran them lots. Too bad we never kept a journal on the miles that the dogs accumulated during their summer runs.
In all my time around dogs and dog training I never have scene dogs in such great shape. We free ran before. I have scene dogs in as good shape at the beginning of the season but never like this. We fed meat all year as well. Rachel also ran them lots of 4 and 6 mile runs. These dogs look better now than they did at the end of last season.
My philosophy with free running is exercise the same muscle you would use for sprint/speed mushing. There is only one way to do this Okay maybe two ways. One is to swim them in water. the other way is to let them run. But only free as you cannot be hooking up the dogs to a four wheeler and have them pull hard in the heat of summer. Sure way to teach dogs to slow down. That is all it does is make them work hard enough to get hot.
When you look at the dogs they look right. the form is right, the muscle development looks right. They run nice at the end of summer and after they get put back into harness. Rachel did her second run on her sled. When she went on that run I told her to let the dogs run just easy. Then find out how fast she is going. This is to find the basic pace of the team. You need to know this to be able to help train the team. The basic pace was right around 19 mph. That is what her teams basic pace was. Normally this speed would be 16.5-18 mph. I could not believe it. This is great news but we need to keep this speed up in the team. I am very happy to have learned this.
We are now getting ready to leave again to go to Alaska. We will race as many races as we can and Leanne will also race Rachel's dog team to keep it sharp while there is opportunity to do so.

I am not home at the moment so I keep in touch via email or text. Rachel trained today but was not sure about the trail. It was snowing and blowing. She went out and ran two teams in this kind of condition and did well. Thanks for your help Matt.

We need to also thank all the sponsors that came on board again.

Thanks to Ernie and Kim Doble. They are the owners of Supreme Diesel in Sexsmith alberta. They are really great people and enjoy visiting when I can.
Also thanks to Nigel stubbins at Paint en place. Nigel has to be the longest participating sponsor we have ever had. He has been with us for years to help us get to races Thanks again to Nigel for another year of sponsoring.
We hope to get Arctic backhoe. and a few more businesses in town.

We are excited to be back on the road . The dog truck is just about on the truck. IT won' t be long and it will be ready to go again for another year. So exciting to get the dogs on the road again. Rachel will be training primarily for the Arctic Winter games.
I will try and keep up to what is going on this season. Last year I had website and blog problems. Until next time
DK

Junior North american championships

After the world Championships in Anchorage we did very little prep for the North Americans. When we go to races we take 16 dogs with us. The idea is this. When the dogs on the truck are raced then the others that are not raced should train the same distance. Reason: So they all have the same conditioning and miles on them. This way no one gets out of shape and behind. This doesn't happen enough. IT is hard to do for one dog driver. It is necessary and I will tell you why it is.
WHen we went to Fairbanks for the Junior North Americans in Fairbanks Rachel had an option to race in two classes the six and the four dog classes. When this happens it actually weakens each team to a certain amount. Rachel picked out each team. I was not in agreement but Let her do it anyhow.
In order to build a good four dog team she dipped into her world championship team. She had one leader in standing heat that should not have ran. She also had a cough going around in the kennel. This left out two leaders one in heat and one with an exceptionally bad cough. Her four dog team had two dogs on it from her world championship team. Then to replace these dogs on her six dog team she made some rather unusual choices but that is okay. We go race to see how various dogs perform then we learn and do not repeat the mistake.
There was a total of three of out best yearlings left out to sit and two really good older sisters that should have run. One young male that Rachel figured could not make the miles. This dog needs to be trained to do this or sold. Not sitting on the truck all the time.

Day one came and Rachel ran very conservative on her first day. Which was awesome. The trail there goes down hill for quite a ways mile or more. You need to slow the team down while going down that hill. OR the dogs go slow coming up the hill. This you do not want. On day one she was in the lead by a few seconds in the four dog. In the six dog she was third by 26 seconds in the six dog race. Both teams in the six dog race are very competitive. So she had to be right on the money with her plan. She was she was sitting perfect on day one.

Day two her had was forced. She had to push harder in the six dog the four dog she just had to speed up a bit. In the six dog race she had to be in contention for the last day. that meant she had to push them a little harder to be in the running. These six dog teams were within seconds of each other. after day two she lengthened her lead in the four dog race and she was first on the second day in the six dog but just by seconds. I new then that she didn't have the team she needed to dominate at the North Americans. SHe might of even had dogs in the team to drop for day three. I asked she said no.

Day three came along and the miles on the days run is increased. Longer runs hotter days as the race went on and the trails were not good. SHe was in a good position in the four dog race and I said to her just run them and see how they do. each day in the four dog she made her lead bigger and bigger. The six dog race she was not in a good position. She was leading the race so she went out first and her competitors got to go after her and catch her. Rachel was also racing her team into a loop that her team was not familiar with. So they will slow down in there for sure. she had leader problems the leader in Standing heat did not want to perform. The older dog she put in was jumping off into the snow and a different team do just wasn't a big help all week end.

Rachel blew away the competition in the four dog race by minutes. Rachel was second in the six dog and lost first by only 10 seconds over three days of racing. . It could have been different and it will next time. The only thing that could happen that is great about all this racing is that there is learning going on during all this. I know there is.

Once again we like to thank all our sponsors for all their help. We now have 11000 km on the truck since starting out in Dec. With out our sponsors we could not make it to these championship races. Thanks again

We now run two more championships one is the adult race of Champions where we will take Rachel's team to train in the race. Leanne will run them for Rachel. Then we come back to race the Tok junior race of champions. We look forward to this.

Rachel is the new Junior World Champion in the five dog class

She did it. We had been waiting. Problems every year at the worlds. Dogs that would stop at bridges or tunnels. SO many obstacles. Rachel was a rookie to this race at one time so the dogs were too. They learned together.
We had been gone to Anchorage over the Christmas holidays. Rachel was able to race the dogs twice and Leanne once. SO it was more experience for the dogs that had trouble on the Junior World Championship trail 2010. Rachel had said that she was able to find a team of six or more that does not have trouble on the trail. She needs five for the Worlds to race with. How do you pick out the best of sixteen ? Just base your team on the ones that do not have troubles or what other criteria do you choose?
Rachel made that decision on her own of course. She mentioned that she would leave out the ones that do not like the heat. The ones the heat bothers the most in other words. That makes more than enough sense to me as it is usually warm in Anchorage. If it isn't when we get there you can almost be sure that it will be in a few minutes of race time. Rachel has two males in particular that are very susceptible to the heat. They just work the hardest. That is another way at looking at the dogs. It usually is the dogs that work the hardest that over heat the most. She left out viking and Ace. Two great males that would speed her team up quite a bit I think. Rachel would agree. Viking starts to look good in stride when the team is going 19 mph so he has lots of speed in him. He hates to start though. He came to us this way. Ace is just a great dog. works so hard and is extremely fast. But gets hot and hits the wall. Then he won't eat or drink after day one or after day two etc.. He would probably do okay but would not be happy with what happened and he would not enjoy what he was doing next time.
SO the team is picked and we make it back to Anchorage for the Junior Worlds. The race starts on a Fri. continues on till Sun.
Day One.

four inches of fresh snow. easy to wax the sled for but tough going on the dogs anyway. We quickly start clipping hair off the dogs feet in hopes that we do not ball up on day one and cause any feet damage. I asked Rachel if she wanted me to put foot cream on the dogs feet right away before they ran. She said no. I used to do this in hopes that snow would not stick in their feet and that would cause less troubles later on. Rachel not being familiar with using this cream refused the idea. So we ran with clipped feet. I told Rachel I know it will be hard but do your best to slow down the dogs. Real slow so that they do not get tired on the way home. This is the challenge on a day like that. IF the team goes out way to fast they have trouble coming home. They really suffer for the extra speed on the way out. It is just too fast and it wears them out on the way out. When you do this the time you think you made up on the way out by going fast just gets lost on the way home. Just doesn't work at all. Rachel uses a GPS to let her know what is going on when she is training. It helps her feel the speed that she should be going and then checks in with the facts of the GPS.
When I am talking to Rachel about speed. We talk about how fast per mile in minutes and seconds. When I tell her to go out slow that may be a 3 minute five second mile. Then the second mile could be three minutes. so at two miles on her Gps her time would say six minutes and five seconds and so on. With faster and faster miles on the way home. I had no idea her team could do it as fast as they did it in. I knew it was possible but not when asked to do it by Rachel at any given time. SHe has so much control with her team.
Rachel's time on the first day was slow as expected but the dogs looked really fresh coming in to the finish line. She finished in 19:51 seconds or so. This is a slow run but she finished ahead of second by almost a minute. The success to this day was simply having a clean run. The dogs went around without any troubles This sets up the last two days with the hope to push them fast. If you do not have to worry about mistakes by leaders then you can focus more on speed. Sometimes this puts Rachel in a bad spot because second place could be a second behind her or even faster so while she was unsure of her team on day one the last two days mean she has to catch up. So successful day.
We had cut feet to look after and that went well they healed up fast. the next morning it was a nice temp again 10-12 below C. Trail was better because the trail groomers worked on it during the night. I made up a six mile schedule for her to follow. we were hoping for a 18 minute run or so on the second day. Rachel had another clean run and ran the six miles in 18:50 she dropped a minute off her time easy. Dogs looked good again. I then asked her how the dogs looded and felt on the way home. she said they were find. we looked after feet and got them fed early. at three or so.

last day. Day three. Rachel now has a big lead on the second place team. I was told that the track Record in Anchorage for the junior mushers was 18 minutes and seven seconds. that is for five dogs six miles. So I asked Rachel if she could race them and see if she could break the record. I drew up a record pace on a piece of paper. We put it on her sled handle bar so she could think about it and give it her best shot. The day before I had talked with the trail groomers and they were pretty sure that this last day would produce a really fast trail. Rachel Leanne and I got prepared to break the track record for the Junior six mile.
I wrote out what I thought was near impossible schedule to adhere to. Rachel saw it I don't think that she had any doubt that her team could do this? Okay then I thought go for it. Rachel left the starting line first and her time was posted on the timing tower for us to watch. She took off and had a great start. No problems. There is a ski doo that leaves quite a bit ahead of the dog teams to sweep the trail. He drives around the six mile trail in front of the first team. So he was just ahead of Rachel. When he cam into the finish line I asked if he saw Rachel and he said ya she was right behind him and that her team was catching up with him. He said he was going well over 25 mph. I knew then that she was having a great run. I looked down the trail to see her coming in. Where you can see the team to the finish line is about thirty seconds. I looked at the time and looked at her and thought it looked like she had the record. She pushed the dogs across the finish line and immediately stopped. Immediately her leader started to crap. Rachel said that her lead dog had to go crap a couple miles after starting. This is very difficult to deal with as the dog always looks like it will stop . If it does and you are not ready you get a pile up really fast. I could not believe she noticed and kept the dog going as fast as she was around the track. This is not an easy task for the musher or the dog. She finished her last day with a time of 17:49 . NEW track record. the last record was 18:08. Rachel said that the team that she ran would run that course under 17 minutes and would likely run it in 16 minutes and change. I believe that. It could happen only in perfect conditions.
It was nice to see Rachel get rewarded for hard work. She really went at this hard to get it figured out so she could race there. LIke I said she wanted to race not just hope they made it around without a problem. Congratulations Rachel.

We leave next week for Fairbanks to race the Junior North American Championships. Then a couple of trips to Tok Alaska. then the season is over already. IT goes quick.

We have good friends there that you can't thank enough for having us at their house. It is very nice to have that when we are there. Such a a big difference to have friends on the race circuit. It is makes it more fun that is for sure.

Junior World Champion.

Stay tuned if you are waiting for a report. I am in the process of writing it up.

Darren

WHERE HAVE I BEEN?????

Well if you all need to know? I will tell you where I have been. Sorry I can't believe that it has been that long since I talked last. Unreal. Totally. UNreal. AS my Northern Tutchone friend would say. to catch you up, I will write a few lines. We have been training Training and more training. There just was nothing near by to go race. SO we stayed at home to trained. It is such a shame not to be able to take them out and race them more often.
I think the Race they have out at annie lake yukon was the only race left in the territory for us to go and race. We don't go there because the distance is not what we train. It was a ten mile trail over some very very rough stuff. So we do not take a chance in racing this race for fear of injuring the dogs.
I am now on the Yukon Quest Trail helping out Hans Gatt. He is racing again some good dogs from our kennel His partner Suzie also is racing some of our dogs. She raced the 300 mile race and I was to pick up her dogs and take them back to whitehorse. I was asked to go further north into dawson city where the Yukon Quest has a 36 hour layover. From here they are half way to the finish of the 1000 mile race. My Truck is in the shop getting worked on because of a wheel bearing problem. Once this is fixed and Hans Gatt is on his way I will come back to Whitehorse and prepare to leave to the Junior worlds in Anchorage.
This is Rachels time to race and I am hoping she wins this race in Anchorage. So lets hope it works out for her this year. We Will keep you posted as time goes by.

Alaska

We are home now from trip number one. What a trip. Love it there in Anchorage and love our family there that looks after us. Lots of fun to visit them. Last Friday was Rachel's race day. She ran in the five dog race and it was extremely hot. SHe won her race but some of the dogs got over heated in the heat. She did her best but One of our biggest dog got hot. Rachel won two races out of two. Perfect record so far.
Leanne ran day one of her races on Sat. She ran the four dog race and the six dog race class. Her first race was the four dog class and she got tangled up while racing and had to stop to untangle the dogs. This was all it took to move leanne into Seventh place finish on the day. IT was a very bad situation for her. New dog in a new situation. Still dogs not going through the tunnels and over the bridges. Man it just never ends learning how to race them there. Leanne's six dog team was all female team and was really small in size. They were very small for leaders and the last four dogs were not that big either. But they were very fast. Yes they went very fast. Leanne was tied for second on the first day of competition. This is excellent position considering the field was very very competitive. On Leannes Sat. Race it was also very warm.
Sat. night there was a tremendous wind that blew 100 mph down the mountains and into town. Needless to say one night of winds like that with higher temps wiped out the race trail. Sundays races were cancelled so no races on Sun. Not good for us when we drove so far to be able to race. Our training while there wasn't the greatest this time around. We missed training mid week last week. Even Ben came out of retirement to race here. It was a great trip with many good runs and great races.
Now we stay home again and get ready for the Junior races coming up later in the season.

Junior northamerican
Junior worlds
Tok junior championships.

Busy yr to come.