Thursday, February 24, 2011
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
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.
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
Darren
Tuesday, February 8, 2011
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.
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.
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