Chester is officially an inside/outside/pet/sled dog. He’s a great guy. Whenever he wants to, he slips his collar and jumps the fence. He usually does this when I go out for a mush. I’ve been running him as a loose leader and he does great.

Other updates– the StinkyPups finished the Chatanika 100 in 15 hours and 45 min. They were very tired. I’m already planning for next year. The key is to get out there and train. My dogs are used to running 40 miles with little breaks, but they weren’t used to camping out and running another 41 miles — (the 100 miles race was really 81 miles).

The line up for the race was:

• Decker & Frankie
• Storm & Red (I dropped Red after 40 miles)
• Simba & Rattles
• Asa & Higgs
• Pumpkin & Monkey (Monkey got really sick– she’s okay now)
• Roo & Nicky

Leaders were:

• Red (ha ha ha– only for the first 5 minutes)
• Storm
• Roo
• Nicky
• Decker
• Frankie

Both Red and Monkey got to ride in the sled for a little bit, not at the same time.

Here’s some thoughts for me for next years race:

• Bring more Heat (for cooking)
• Train them for camping trips
• Bring a thermos (my socked water bottle instantly froze– and it wasn’t even cold out)
• Figure out a hydration system for me and the dogs

8:30am on the morning of the race we put the dogs in the truck and drove to the race start, the Valley Cafe in Pleasant Valley. I had twelve dogs in the truck; two of them, Rena and Foxtail, were my neighbor’s. I was somewhat nervous about running 12 dogs because I’ve only been running 10 dogs at a time and 12 dogs means extra power.

At 9:45 the bib draw started. The bib draw is draw to see who goes first. I drew #18 and I wanted to go last, so I switched with #31. The race began at 11:10am (this is when #1 left); Since I was last, I left at 12:10pm.

I knew from the start that my dogs were not performing well. So much for being worried about running 12 dogs. My dogs were moving slowly– but things were okay. I passed two teams and then stopped to fix a tangle. I let the two teams pass me, and from then on my run was a disaster. 4 miles into the run Higgs had diarrhea. 10 miles into the run Higgs was vomiting and had diarrhea. Since the first part of the race occurred near the trails by my house, I thought of mushing home to drop off Higgs. I’m not sure why I didn’t chose this option. Instead I decided to continue on and that I’d drop Higgs at the 27 mile road crossing. I mistakenly thought that it would take me the same amount of time to get home as it would be to get to the road crossing. Furthermore, I knew I was lagging behind and didn’t want the people waiting for me at the road crossing to have to wait for me and wonder where the hell I was.

My team usually travels around 10 miles an hour. I turned on the GPS to see how fast we were going and we were traveling at a rate of 6 miles an hour. Ugh! This was going to be a long day. We traveled along well known trails and I needed to turn my team around several times because the dogs wanted to go their “usual” route and not where I told them to go. I stopped the sled every 10 minutes or so to fix a tangle or to switch dog positions. One of the problems was that Foxtail, my neighbor’s dog, was a total maniac and he overpowered my dogs– which created many tangles. I tried a zillion leader combinations (Duke & Frankie; Duke & Rena; Duke & Chez; Rena & Chez; Rena & Frankie; Rena & Levi; Levi & Frankie; Levi & Chez; Levi & Duke)– but my leaders weren’t leading well or keeping the line tight. Double Ugh!!!

A little while before I reached the road crossing, while I was on the river, I passed a section of open water. This was a little nerve-racking because there was a huge hole in the river and the trail was only 10 feet away from the moving water. When I reached the road crossing I asked if I could drop Higgs. It was an “illegal drop” and could cost me the race (i.e., be disqualified), but it didn’t matter– I wasn’t here to win :) In fact, if Greg had been at the road crossing, instead of taking Scully to the vet, I would have scratched right there. I even considered just mushing home, but stupidly, I continued on for another 5 hours of tangles, slowness, and more tangles. I reached Angle Creek at around 8:30pm and Greg was waiting for us. It took us over 8 hours to run 50 miles. Note, the fasted team ran 50 miles in around 4 hours! All of my dogs were exhausted, except for Foxhound who wanted to run with a “real” team. There was no way I was going to continue the race, and anyway, I was disqualified because I had a 15 minute penalty for dropping off Higgs and I needed to arrive at Angle Creek before 8pm.

We fed and souped the dogs, hung out for a while until all of the other mushers left Angle Creek and packed up the StinkyPups. While we were bringing the dogs to the truck I heard a cough. I realized why my dogs weren’t performing well– they were all sick with kennel cough. This made sense. The previous week I had taken my neighbor’s dog for a test run. Two of these dogs were recently pulled from the pound, which means they were probably sick.

We headed home, picked up Higgs at the Pleasant Valley Store, and arrived home at around 12:30am. We put all of the StinkyPups away, checked their feet, gave them rubs and kisses and went to bed.

The dogs were super. Because we just got our dog truck, we have not been able to go on very long one-way mushes this year, or to remote sites (we’ll do more next year). So, most of the mushing has been from home, on the trail system south of Chena Hot Springs Road. We geared up for the race with a new sled (all wood, made by Mike King of Salcha), a cooker (it burns methanol, and is what all the mushers use), some snow shoes (required gear for races), and of course a few new items from Apocalypse Design in Fairbanks (musher’s mittens and “toasties” for keeping your hands out of the wind while gripping the sled handle). I bought some bunny boots, too, which is what most mushers wear. They have the advantage of being waterproof, so if you get wet you can still stay warm. Their disadvantages are that they’re heavy and not too comfortable.

The 100-milers started after the 200-milers. Ilana attended the musher’s meeting Thursday night (I was out of town and returned later that night) and drew bib #3, out of 6 (but only 5 started). The start is at the Chatanika Lodge on the Steese Highway, NE of Fairbanks. I was quickly passed by teams #4 and #5 on the trail, so was the last musher for most of the day. It was a beautiful day with lots of sunshine and temperatures in the low 30s.

The trail went over three hills. Where we live, the only nearby hill on our side of the road is called Jenny M., which we’ve taken on many, many training runs (crossing the road is difficult and somewhat dangerous). These hills were much longer. Because Duke and Higgs were in a fight and injured each other, I had a team of 10 that was not as strong or fast as usual. Duke is a strong fast leader, and Higgs is a great puller who we usually put in wheel or elsewhere towards the back.

Darla and Levi were in the lead. Very experienced dogs, but not that fast. Levi felt the urge to pee or poop at every 5-10 miles, which stopped the team and was very distracting. Darla is more talented, and can take care of business on the run. Levi and Darla were lead dogs in a finishing Yukon Quest team. Evidently they’re getting a little forgetful in their old age, and can’t always tell a “gee” from a “haw.” Buckwheat and Pumpkin were second. Pumpkin tends not to pull all that much, but does pretty well at running in the front. Buckwheat is a Quest finisher who loves to lope, but is towards the end of his career so not too fast. In swing were Bandit and Sugar. Bandit has the same Quest pedigree as Buckwheat, and pulls well. He had a major health problem just 5 days before (an eye abcess), but it was looking healed and the vet said he should be OK as long as he looks and acts healthy. Sugar is a new dog from the pound who used to work at a tourist operation. She’s a good puller, but seems to have limited bladder capacity so must pee every few miles.

Red and Storm were next. Storm is a skijor dog from the pound who should be very good next year. She doesn’t have that many team miles, though, so wasn’t up for the full 100. She crabs (leans to the left) when she runs (we’ll try a ManMatt harness next, to see if it helps) and tends to make her back paws bleed from scraping on her front paws. Red is a Second Chance League dog (http://members.petfinder.org/~AK17/index.php), and also shows great promise but has very few training miles. I dropped both dogs at the 40-mile mark road crossing, which was the plan, because I didn’t want to risk damage to them by pushing the full 100 miles.

Monkey and Stubby were in wheel (they are often in swing, but I don’t like to put larger dogs in wheel on longer trips because of the pressure from the x-back harnesses on the dog’s hips). Monkey has limited airway due to her de-barking (*not* recommended), and seemed a little overheated during the day, and didn’t pull much. In the evening, though, she was fine and pulled well.

For the race, I went over the three hills, the last of which was Iowa Dome with a 4.5 mile all uphill section. Pretty slow going, with me running next to the sled or pedalling a lot of the way. Lots of great views! From the top of Iowa, it was down then flat for 15 miles to the CHSR crossing at the 40-mile mark. I passed 3 teams (all 200-milers) camping along the way, so was briefly not the last musher! Shortly after the road crossing at 6:45 pm, I camped for 2-1/2 hours for fish, soup, more fish and an hour or so nap + digestion. This was the first time the younger dogs (Stubby, Monkey, and Pumpkin) ever camped. Pumpkin didn’t know what to do– she wouldn’t take a nap, so I curled up on her blanket and she lay on top of me. When it was time to go again, I bootied everyone (8 dog sat this point – we skipped most booties during the day since it was so warm), and we took off at 9:30 pm.

We passed a few more campers (of the ones I passed earlier, one scratched and the other two had already passed me while I was camped).They subsequently passed me. My team averaged about 7 MPH overall during the race, which is not too bad but not as fast as most other teams (winning teams were averaging about 12 MPH). The night-time mushing was very nice. It helped that it was cooler, and also that we were on fairly flat trails and rivers the dogs had seen before. I took several short breaks, but otherwise pushed through to the end at about 4:20 am. I thought I was going to be earlier, but got a little lost on the trail (I thought I was on the wrong trail, following the 200-mile route, and turned around and took detours to get to the endpoint) and ended up putting in an extra 5+ miles.

The dogs ran very well, and at a steady pace. Pumpkin started getting tangled when we were losing the trail and trying to find an alternate route (turning around, taking sharp turns, etc.), but there were no other problems. The team was definitely tired, and spent all day Saturday resting. We gave them extra dinner and breakfast, and a little massage to help ease the muscle pain.

For dogs to run 100 miles in well under 24 hours is amazing to me. Our dogs are solid muscle, with great heart and lungs. It’s up to the musher to decide on breaks, and when to move dogs’ positions or take them out of the race. Otherwise, left alone, the dogs would happily run and run and run.