Meet the Team: Pilgrim

Meet this handsome man, Pilgrim.

This guy is full of energy and has an insatiable drive to run. 

He thoroughly enjoys getting loved on, but sometimes it's difficult to actually give him attention. He gets himself worked up into such an excited tizzy that he can't sit still and must get as close to you as possible. He jumps on you, runs around in circles, jumps up and down off his house. 

Oh how I long to simply give him a hug without the worry of getting scratched or bruised from his thrilled frenzy.

I bought Pilgrim from Middy Johnson, the musher I worked for out in Unalakleet back in 2011-2012. He was two years old when I moved out to UNK for the season. When one of my leaders was injured, I was forced to find a new one. In comes Pilgrim. I cycled through the other dogs in my team to see who had a natural ability to lead. Pilgrim was who I discovered. He was nowhere near perfect; had a lot of maturing to do, but he turned out to be my go to guy.

My parents came out for visit to Unalakleet and I took them mushing. I'm in the sled with Bravo (who you met last year) as a wee pup, my dad is on the runners, and there's Pilgrim in lead!

Pilgrim was one of my leaders for my first mid distance sled dog race, the Portage 200 that ran from Unalakleet to Kaltag and back.

End of the Portage 200 with my main man, Pilgrim!
We placed 2nd out of 5

He did such a great job that season he ended up running lead for Pat Moon in the 2012 Iditarod.

I can't even begin to explain how proud I was of Pilgrim :D

Seeing him leading the team down the chute in Willow made my heart soar!

Photo by: Sam Towarak
This is a photo of Pilgrim in lead from the ceremonial start of Iditarod in Anchorage, 2012
Recognize Tucker behind him?? :)

Now that we've been training for a month now, I've been working Pilgrim back into the leader position. I have been so proud of him and the growth he's had since I ran him in Unalakleet. He follows my commands extremely well, keeps the team moving forward when passing distractions or other teams, keeps the team lined out when we are at a stand still, has the enthusiasm to keep everybody upbeat and ready for more, and much more. A number of these skills he struggled with when I ran him 3 years ago. Now that he's 5 years old, his maturity is definitely starting to show.

I am beyond thrilled that Pilgrim came back to me and is a part of my team now.

 I just love this guy to pieces!

4 Months

Has it really been 4 months since my little cuties were brought into this world??

Yes it has!

That's right, Cosmo's pups are 4 months old today :D

So enough with the words, here are the photos:

(next to their photos from when they were smaller)

First, here's a few pics when they were wee little babes:

Just look at those little plugs! 

Here they are now:

Nadalie

(Nuh-doll-ee)

*She looks exactly like Cosmo*

See?! Just like her momma

Gamba

(Gahm-bah)

*Bat ears!*

Quintessence

aka Quint

*This boy is going to be BIG! Hard to tell in this photo, but he has monster paws. Plus he's already huge compared to all his siblings.*

Radoux

(Ra (as in 'rat')-doo

*He's a little guy, but he is solid. He's going to pack quite the punch in that smaller body.*

Allier

(Al-lee-air)

*The most photogenic dog ever. I have SO many great pics of her. She'll just sit and pose all day long.*

Cooper

*The ear gets me!*

Group Pic (the best I could do, very hard getting them all to sit still)

I have so much fun with these guys!

Puppies!

Cosmo and Felon's pups are now almost 5 weeks old, so I finally thought it time to announce their names!

The theme I chose for my first litter of puppies was one that honored my family's business back in California that has all to do with WINE!

HelwigWinery.com ... check it out (yes, shameless plug)


Now I decided not to go with the obvious; so no, my pups are not named Zin, Merlot, or Syrah. These are all extremely cute names, but I wanted to go with something more original and unique (and to show off how 'wine sophisticated' I am ... HA! I'm totally kidding)

The theme of my incredibly awesome and adorable litter is: Cooperages, aka wine barrel makers.

Fun Fact for your day: a 'cooper' is a person who makes or repairs wooden casks or barrels.


I picked out the names awhile ago, but since Cosmo's genes are pretty strong and all 6 are a spitting image of her it took until now before the pups actually started growing into their unique looks and markings.

So without further ado, here are my named puppies! (with proper pronunciation where needed)

 

Nadalie
(Nuh-doll-ee)

Female

 

 

Gamba

(Gahm-bah)

Male

 

 

Quintessence

aka 'Quint'

Male

 

 

Radoux

(Ra (as in 'rat')-doo)

Male

 

 

Allier

(Al-lee-air)

Female

 

 

Cooper

Male

Meet the Team: Cosmo (and future puppies!)

Meet this adorable little girl:

After buying a number of my dogs, I realized that I needed to start growing my team while spending less money. How do you grow a sled dog team without having to buy dogs? Puppies!! :)

The only thing is the females I own have not proven themselves to be breedable dogs. I knew I had to buy one more dog: a female leader who has proven herself in distance races, has experience being a mother, and has good bloodlines.

In comes Cosmo!

I bought this spitfire of a girl from Michelle Phillips, an Iditarod and Yukon Quest musher whom I admire and got to know a bit when she ran the Paul Johnson 450 in Unalakleet while I ran the Portage 200 back in 2012.

After emailing back and forth a bit about Cosmo I decided to go for it, and boy am I happy with this girl! She is incredibly sweet (although can get a little snappy with other female dogs), a fantastic leader, has a great attitude, and loooooves to run. She even ran and finished the 2013 Yukon Quest with Michelle's husband.

Michelle brought Cosmo with her when she came to Alaska for Iditarod, so I have only had Cosmo a couple months. She has proven herself already though!

I ran her in my team for the Two Rivers 200; and while I did not have her in lead for most of the race since we really just met each other, she was awesome!

I've run her numerous times in lead during training and she is a solid leader and quite the little energizer bunny :)


Cosmo came into heat during my race, so not long after returning home Cosmo and a lucky boy had a little "fun".

A dog's gestation period is only 2 months (nice, eh?), so Cosmo is due in a few days!

Puppy pen has been put together:

I found cheap chain-link fence panels and my dad helped me set them up when he was in town for board meetings.

However, a gate was not included. So I built one:

Whelping box has been built:

And we are ready for puppies!

I'm currently coming up with potential names, but I know I will be going with some kind of wine theme in honor of my family's business :)

Yaayyy puppies!! :D

Two Rivers 200

 

It's time to finally sit down and report on my last race of the season before I forget everything about it!


So here goes:

In the beginning of March I completed my first Iditarod qualifying race, the Two Rivers 200 up near Fairbanks, AK. Woohoo!!

Going into it I was pretty nervous. I was so incredibly grateful to have my brother (Scott) and sister-in-law (Toni) along for the ride. They flew up to Alaska from California not only to be my handlers for the race, but to be my moral support as well and help calm me down when the nerves got too much to handle.

My support crew and I on our way up to Fairbanks

The quote for the weekend was "You're fine." Growing up, no matter how physically hurt I was (I could have had a broken leg, blood gushing out of my eye sockets, and a torn off limb) my brother would just stand over me and say quite nonchalantly, "You're fine." A frustrating statement as a child when I was hurt and crying, but surprisingly calming as an adult when I know the statement's meaning has changed from "Don't be such a sissy and stop crying" to "Hey, you got this and I'm here to help you." The beautiful transformation of sibling love at it's finest.

Anyways, we loaded up my sled, gear, and dogs into my trailer and headed up to Two Rivers Lodge outside of Fairbanks on Thursday for the bib number draw that night. I drew number 9 for my starting position out of a line-up of 22 mushers.

We then headed to North Pole, AK just south of Fairbanks to stay with my friend, Mary Swanson. She was such an amazing hostess and all three of us were extremely grateful for her hospitality!

The next morning we headed out early to the race start at Chatanika Lodge.

I was a bit of a nervous wreck. I've run one other 200 mile race before, but it was on familiar trail in a very relaxed setting when I was running dogs out of Unalakleet, AK back in 2012. This was completely new territory for me. New trail, new mushers, and the only people I knew were the ones I had along with me ... and they knew nothing about mushing, lol.

Keeping busy.
Rechecking my drop bags for each checkpoint along the trail.



Scott was my official pooper-scooper :)

At that point I was just ready to get on the trail. I knew once I was out there with my dogs, away from all the people and craziness that ensues at the start of a sled dog race, I'd begin to relax and the nerves would disappear.




                     Ajax and Cleo patiently waiting to get started.           Toni was manning the sled, Scott was in

                                                                                                             charge of keeping the dogs lined out

                                                                                                                      while I hooked dogs up.

Sure enough, once I was in the start chute my nerves were already ebbing away knowing in just one minute I'd be alone on the trail with my furry friends. The count down began and when they yelled "GO!" I took off with my team and my nerves were gone. It was then just me and my dogs on another one of our adventures.

My 12 dog race team line-up included: Ajax, Tucker, Cleo, Flurry, Charlie, Nuka, Bravo, Bluto, Flounder, Kaze, Libby, and Cosmo. (3 of the dogs belong to Kristin, and a few of them I have not introduced yet in my blog).

All my dogs were ecstatic to get going, especially since our training runs for the previous 1 1/2 months were running circles on the same icy trail over and over and over again. It was a warm winter with not much snow and too much rain, so trails were lacking. Fairbanks however had snow and great trail conditions.

There were three checkpoints along the trail where we could choose where to spend our mandatory 10 hours of rest: Start at Chatanika Lodge -> Two Rivers Lodge -> Pleasant Valley Store -> Angel Creek Lodge -> then finished back at Pleasant Valley Store.

The first leg was close to 50 miles and was the more difficult part of the trail. Lots of hills. Straight out of the chute we started climbing and we gained elevation quickly. Once we reached the ridge, it was a series of hills. Since snow was lacking in the Big Lake area, we didn't have many hills to train on. I took this first leg fairly slow since my dogs weren't used to that kind of running this winter.

About 8 miles from the Two Rivers Lodge checkpoint, Flounder started having issues. He wasn't acting himself and I had already decided that I would drop him from the team and pass him off to Scott and Toni to take care for the duration of the race. I slowed the team down even more for him, but it wasn't enough. Around 6 miles from the end of the first leg, Flounder collapsed on me. I panicked, I have never had a dog collapse on me before. I quickly stopped to help him. He was simply exhausted and his breathing was irregular. I immediately put him in my sled (not the easiest feat for a 5'1" frame with a 70 lb dog) and continued on our way as fast as we could to get him to a vet at the checkpoint.

When I arrived at the checkpoint I was greeted by cheers from my "pit crew"! Oh how I loved having my brother and sister-in-law there :) They helped guide my team to where I'd be resting them for a few hours and I began bedding down my dogs while a vet came to look over Flounder.

They were certain he had Atrial Fibrillation (an irregular heartbeat) which made it difficult for his heart to circulate oxygen and blood efficiently. He was of course left in the care of Scott and Toni for the duration of the race and a vet appointment was set once we returned home for further tests. The appointment confirmed that he in fact has A-Fib, and that sadly means he can no longer be a performance sled dog - I am heart broken to say the least :*(


I rested my dogs around 4 hours at the first checkpoint and was back out on the trail around 11:30 pm. It was a chilly night (hovering around -15 F dipping down to -25 F at some points on the trail) and my dogs loved it! They were cruising!

That next section of trail from Two Rivers Lodge to Pleasant Valley Store was clocked at 65 miles. My dogs hadn't run 65 miles straight this year, so I stopped every 20 miles to give them a snack and let them rest a few minutes. I was taking my time. I wasn't running to win. I was running to gain experience and to prove to the Iditarod committee that I could take care of my dogs and finish with a happy, healthy team.

After my second time of stopping to snack the dogs (around mile 44), I suddenly found myself at the second checkpoint! I was extremely confused (didn't help that it was 4:45 am and I had been up all night long). I thought I missed some trail. Turns out the trail crew made a mistake and the 65 mile trail was reduced to 44 miles. I could have finished that leg a lot faster if I had known that! My dogs can run 44 miles without stopping to snack easy-peasy! Oh well, like I said, I wasn't running to be competitive.

The problem with that mistake in trail marking was Scott and Toni weren't expecting me in at the checkpoint until between 8:00-9:00 am. I was in 3-4 hours early! Part of their responsibilities as handlers was to bring me my drop bags to each checkpoint before I arrived (which contained food for both me and dogs and gear I needed). They were still sleeping back in North Pole! Fortunately, we made friends along the trail :)

I met and ran with a man named Alan on the trail during the first leg of the race. We had a lot of fun and we were both there to just enjoy running our dogs on new trails. We ran together with headlamps off for a short awhile just watching the northern lights dance above us. It was nice to share it with someone. While Alan and I were out on the trail running together, unbeknownst to us, Scott and Toni were apparently making friends with his wife, Tanjala, at the checkpoint.

Once Alan and I were back out on the trail from the first checkpoint, Tanjala was going to head straight to Pleasant Valley Store and sleep in her truck to wait for Alan. She offered to take my drop bag for Scott and Toni so they could head straight to North Pole to get some sleep. Boy was I grateful for that!! My bag was already there and I didn't have to wait for it to arrive with Scott and Toni when they showed up at 8:00 am.

After my dogs got another 4 1/2 hour rest, we suited up and headed back out to the third checkpoint, Angel Creek Lodge.

Putting booties on my dogs before taking off for Angel Creek Lodge.

It was a great run. Sun was shining and the dogs were looking great.



However, about 5 miles from Angel Creek Lodge we come up to a small creek with overflow. Now Ajax is an incredible leader, but on occasion he will decide he doesn't want to do something and he is stubborn as a mule. He did NOT want to cross that overflow. We started heading towards it and at the last second, he turned around and bee-lined it backwards. !! I had a tangled mess on my hands. Even when I was able to get them mostly untangled, I could not get him to move forward. I tried replacing him with other leaders, but they all were still following his suit and refusing to cross the creek.

I was figuring out a way to get them across when another musher passed by with her team and without hesitation she stopped her team, hopped on my sled and I walked my dogs across while she steered my sled. Phew! I love the camaraderie in the mushing community. Mushers are always willing to lend a hand when a fellow musher is in trouble or having difficulties, even while being competitive in a race.

After thanking the musher profusely, we continued on our way. Ajax and I weren't on speaking terms for a bit, and he was out of lead for a little while. We made up at the third checkpoint however :)

Once I reached Angel Creek lodge, I only had 1 1/2 hours of mandatory rest left. However, I knew my dogs needed more time than that, so we stayed about 3 hours, making my total rest time 11 1/2 hours.

The trail to the finish was the same trail going into Angel Creek Lodge. So yes, we had to cross the creek with overflow again. I was hoping I could keep the team going fast enough so that Ajax wouldn't know what hit him until we were already crossing the creek, but that smart little bugger was on to me!

He did the same exact thing going out as he did on the way in: he back tracked straight into the team. Sigh. I was ready to unhook my snow hook holding my sled in place and drag the team across knowing full well I'd have a tangled ball of dogs and gangline once we reached the other side when a musher came up behind me. Just like the previous musher who helped me get across the first time, without hesitation he stopped his dogs, ran up to my leaders and walked them across while I steered my sled. Again, I couldn't have been more grateful. After making sure his team made it across the creek without problem, we continued on our way to the finish.

When leaving the third checkpoint, it was a bit hard for the dogs. They were tired and not entirely enthused to be getting up and running so soon after stopping. After a few miles and working out the kinks and tiredness though they were once again cruising! A good portion of this run I had to keep my foot on the drag mat to slow them down even! I was impressed.

We pulled up to the finish line at Pleasant Valley Store around 9:00 pm and all my dogs were still raring to go! I was so happy and proud of all of them :D

 

Scott and Toni were right there at the finish line waiting for me. After a few celebratory hugs we got the team fed and bedded down into the trailer for a nice long sleep.


It was a fantastic run to say the least. I'll admit there were a few times I thought to myself "Why am I doing this again?" These thoughts came to me at times like at 4:00 am when I was quite tired and starting to get tunnel vision, or when I was going about 20 mph downhill because the snow was too soft and deep for my brake or drag mat to be of any use while dodging trees and missing them by mere centimeters. At the end of it all though I was very proud of myself and my dogs and will gladly do it all again!

Thanks Scott and Toni for all your support!!

Meet the Team: Flurry

This is Flurry:

This girl is one of the sweetest dogs you will ever meet. She is the ultimate lover and craves affection which she never seems to get enough of.

Often times when I try to put booties on her feet for a run, she rolls over onto her back with her paws up in the air hoping for a belly rub in the process.

She aims to please, because she knows if she's a good girl she gets even more lovin' from me :)


Flurry is one of the five dogs I bought from Kelley Griffin. She is on the younger side at 3 1/2 years old and is a leader in training. She is a fantastic leader, but only when she's got the energy for it. Once we start getting into the longer runs (35+ miles), her enthusiasm and fortitude seem to falter. In the beginning of the run she buckles down, pulls like no other, and listens for my commands. As she starts to get a little tired, she starts to lose her confidence. She will still follow my commands, but with less oomph in her step. On occasion, she will decide when she's done being a leader for the day by just throwing herself off to the side of the trail and plopping herself down ... while the rest of the team is still running. Oops. I try to take her out of lead before that happens though.

On those longer runs when I notice she is wavering in lead, I move her into the swing position (the dogs right behind the leaders) and her confidence is right back up with the spring back in her step. When she decides to throw herself off the trail and lie down mid stride, that's when she gets put in wheel (the dogs right in front of the sled). For a leader, that is kind of like a "time out".

*Side note: I once had to do that with Ajax (my absolute solid leader). On the second day of the Aurora 50/50 he decided he didn't really want to lead anymore. So like Flurry, he dove to the side of the trail to lie down; then just sat there looking at me all proud like. He was instantly put in the wheel position. He stayed there for about 10 miles until I needed my solid leader back. He was quite keen on getting back up front and was extra careful to follow my commands the rest of the race. Wheel was his "time out" for not behaving like a leader should and he was going to make sure he didn't end up back there again.

Back to Flurry ...

Flurry in lead

... I have every confidence that Flurry will be my future solid leader. Time and maturity will only serve her well. For now, I just make sure being a leader continues to be fun for her and to not push her beyond her limit before she is ready to be pushed.

Meet the Team: Nuka

Meet Nuka

 

Now this little girl may just be one of the cutest dogs around!

Nuka is a bit of a nervous-Nelly, but once she warms up to you she loves attention. When I first brought her to her new home, Nuka was a bit of a mess. All the new dogs, new smells, new dog house, new surroundings - it was a bit much for her. She paced and whined and squealed and barked, but after about a week she started to calm down a bit. It wasn't until about a month in however that I felt she finally settled in to her new home and friends.

Like my long legged friend, Bravo, Nuka is young. Barely 2 years old. She has more training than Bravo because like Ajax, Bluto, and Flounder, Nuka comes from Kelley Griffin's kennel. She started training when she was about 6 months old. However, Nuka is much smaller (about half the size of Bravo), and therefore has a bit harder time keeping up.

Nuka is the one who ended up in my sled the last 15 miles of the Knik 100. Along with having to move faster to keep up since she's smaller, she also doesn't quite know how to pace herself yet; so she works her little butt off and completely poops herself out.


Right now I run Nuka as a team dog, but Kelley and Ed said she has a lot of potential to be a lead dog. Now that she's getting more comfortable with me and life here at Bacon's Acres, I'm going to start running her in swing and begin to nurture her leader potential.

The Aurora 50/50 & Knik 100

Alright, so I wasn't quick enough to blog about the Aurora 50/50 before the Knik 100, so I'm going to roll them out in one post.

Both races were a great learning experience for me. More like training runs, really.

The start of the Aurora 50/50, day 1
Photo credit: Katherine Updegraff (Kristin's sister)

So here's a list of a few things I learned through each race:

1. Dogs will be dogs.

Training runs for my team and I had gone on almost hitch free. Sure we ran into a few snags here and there: a dog gets tangled in the lines; a dog tries to defecate while running without much success and stops the entire team. For the majority of the time though, my dogs run (and run forward at that).

The Aurora 50/50 though? Well, those runs were the exception.

Now if it were just isolated to the second day of the race I would chalk it up to them being tired and not as enthusiastic to run another 52 miles, but this happened both days.

Leaders didn’t want to lead causing major tangles and headaches. Dogs were more interested in smelling all the other dogs' urine … and of course we can’t just leave that smell there, we must cover it up with our own. A few dogs decided they wanted to just stop by throwing themselves to the side and laying down, causing more tangles and headaches.

It was a frustrating two days of running to say the least. What was most frustrating however is that the dogs who caused most of the problems were my experienced race veterans. Sigh.

I definitely learned to be patient though and to keep my cool. If I were to let it get to me and get all worked up about it, it would only made the situation worse.

2. The view is spectacular.

When I finally remind myself to peel my eyes away from my dogs’ wiggling butts and flopping ears and take a look at my surroundings, I’m always in awe. We saw some new trails and whether we were traveling through a winding birch forest, traversing a snowy swamp, or climbing up a hill; the sun shining, cloudy, sunrise/sunset, or snowing: God’s creation is absolutely breathtaking.

     3. Mushing in warm temperatures is not very fun for dogs and human alike.

It was WARM during both races, 28 to 32 degrees. Dogs can easily overheat (so we stopped often to let them cool off and eat snow), trail conditions become very soft and difficult to travel on, and things are slow going. Plus side is, I get lots of exercise by helping the dogs push the sled :)

-       4. How to pack a dog in a sled.

     

     Poor little Nuka. About 25 miles from the end of the Knik 100 Nuka stopped pulling. However, she

     was still running. I knew she was getting tired so I didn’t push her to pull, I just let her be and slowed

     the team down a bit. About 15 miles from the end she started neck lining (pulling on her neckline trying

     to stop). It was then I knew she was done. She was tired and did not want to keep going.

     I’ve never packed a dog in my sled before so I did sit and scratch my head for a bit figuring out how to

     get her in and secured. Thankfully, she’s one of my smallest dogs so a) I didn’t need to make as much

     room for her, and b) it didn’t add too much extra weight for the other dogs to pull.

     Nuka is a bit of a high-strung dog ... and a loud mouth. When I put her in the sled and she didn’t resist, I

     knew I had made the right decision. That didn’t keep her from telling me allllll about it the rest of the

     way to the finish line though. Barking, yelping, squealing … typical Nuka chatter.

     5. Dogs are entertaining.

     

     Okay, this isn't really something new I learned, just learned to appreciate more (especially when

     it's 7 in the morning, you've been up for over 24 hours, and you're tired and kind of cranky). As much

     as dogs can drive you crazy because let’s face it, dogs will be dogs; they are rather entertaining as well

     with all their differing personalities and quirks. 

     Something that consistently brought a smile to my face is how in sync Bluto and Flounder can be.

     Remember those two? My two big, twin brothers? I ran them in wheel together. Not only do they look

     exactly the same, but they also trot in sync! Too cute.

     I love watching Tucker (he’s the old man I introduced earlier this season) and Ajax run. They both have

     partly floppy ears that bounce up and down when they run. Sometimes their ears flop from side to side,

     while other times they flap up and down like wings and they're going to take off flying.

     Roosevelt (a dog of Kristin's I often run and who joined me on the Knik 100) always has a smile on his

     face. He is just such a happy dog who loves to run.

     6. Passing other teams is not always easy-peasy.

     In Unalakleet there weren't many other mushers around, so running dogs was much more solitary.

     Here in Big Lake, we come across quite a few teams on the training trails, but it's typically head

     on passing and my dogs are good at that.

     In the Aurora 50/50, I never came up from behind and passed a team, everyone else just passed me

     (yep, that happened) which my dogs are also good at.

     In the Knik 100 however, I ended up having to pass quite a few teams which proved a little more

     difficult for some of my dogs. Some teams my dogs were fine passing, while other teams

     they completely balked causing a huge mess. Sigh.

     At one point, we were on a more narrow trail and other teams had to sit and wait while I got my dogs

     untangled and moving forward again, eeek!

     

     So I learned how to untangle as quickly as possible; and I learned that I need to have Kristin help me

     practice with this new issue.

     7. The northern lights are spectacular.

Okay, so this one also isn’t new to me, but the intensity at which I saw them was. It was like nothing I have every seen before. 

Imagine a flash of lightening. It lights up the entire sky and for just a split second you can clearly see everything around you. Now imagine it as a burst of color.

It was quick. Just a few flashes, but for those brief moments it seemed the sky, the trees, the land, the entire world around me was lit up with an explosion of purples, greens and reds. Absolutely incredible. Words really cannot do it justice.

8. Bravo is an amazing dog.

Remember meeting Bravo? My leggy, inexperienced sled dog who was quite accident prone as a pup? Well let me tell you, he is surpassing all my expectations!

He was doing well enough that I decided to take him on the first day of the Aurora 50/50 and figured I'd leave him home the second day. He ended up doing so well I decided to give it a go and take him the next day of the race as well. He was tired by the end, but a few hours rest after getting home and he was bouncing around again.

I took him on the Knik 100 as well. We had practiced some camping here at the dog lot when we would come home from training runs (I'd throw out a little straw, give them meaty water, put ointment on their feet, and let them sit there for a while before putting them away - practice for the dogs and me). For the race, we had to camp at a checkpoint for 6 hours. I was a little unsure what Bravo would do with all the other dogs around, but he just curled up in his bed of straw and snuggled in for a nice long nap.

By the end of the Knik 100 he was pooped, but again, after a couple hour nap he was up and running around again.

I'm just so impressed with him and so incredibly proud of him! He's my super star :)

I learned a lot more than this short list during both races, but I figured I'd give you just a taste (plus I don't want this post to go on forever and ever).

Start of the Knik 100
Photo credit: Katherine Updegraff

I'm looking forward to my next race in Kasilof, the Tustumena 100, where I'll get to see some new trails, meet new mushers, and take on new challenges.