On the Other Side of Iditarod

My life these days goes like this:

I wake up and check the standings or the Iditarod tracker, whichever I can get to load first. Then there is one of three inevitable reactions: relief, worry or certainty.

R E L I E F
Relief happens when I see Travis makes it to the checkpoint and his run time looks good. It happened a lot in the first part of the race. Mostly, I worried about our friends. Honestly I never really worried about Travis’ ability to get through on dirt or ice or non-existent trail.

Our first time hanging out Travis put me in the basket of his sled and proceeded to mush down the road in his neighborhood. We skated along on ice and gravel for a quarter mile before he told the dogs to “Gee” and we seamlessly hopped a snow bank that was taller than me. For the next hour I saw lead dogs do things I never even thought were possible.

In the fall of 2011 we went out on a dog run on the four wheeler only to have a river we cross rapidly rise during the time we’d been out on the trail camping. I had no idea what we would do. He looked at it for a minute. We considered other options: there were none. We doggy paddled across. I had no idea sled dogs could even do things like this. He never even batted an eye. He’s got an unbelievable gift with dogs. When he says jump, they say how high.

We’ve also been running on junk gear for so long that stuff breaking is actually expected and doesn’t phase us. or a long time we were completely unprepared and never even carried a repair kit. Quick fixes became our specialty! No drag mat? Grab some spruce boughs! Stanchion breaks? Get some alders or a trail marker. Oh? The runner became disconnected from the sled?…hmmm well….I’ve got this extra tug line and a zip tie? You think we can tie it through the bolt hole and limp it in? … Shoot… this isn’t working Sarah….Oh…Lets add a couple more tugs… Yeah, Yeah. This will do….

Still, It’s almost impossible not to worry about someone who is 500 miles in the middle of nowhere in the freezing cold….

W O R R Y
I worry when he sits for too long or the tracker doesn’t update right. His tracker seems to have had issues, frustrating for those watching it closely waiting for it to scoot forward a millimeter at a time. Sometimes it seems to register slow movement that may or may not be forward progress. When I see this I think, “Has he had to load a dog?” or “Is the tracker not working?” I usually go with the tracker and am proven right when he doesn’t drop a dog at the next checkpoint.

It’s hard to worry too much about Travis. I find I worry mostly about how feels he is doing. He puts a lot of pressure on himself to do well because he knows what his team is capable of and what he is capable. I know, with certain fact, that he will win this race one day. Not this go round, and probably not the next either, but it’s coming somewhere down the line. Iditarod is a tricky puzzle to figure out; we’re still learning what all the pieces even are.

Still, as much as I say I don’t worry, I find myself living on his schedule. I watch the #48 tracker move down the trail, trying to keep my eyes open just a little longer. Sometimes he stops and rests, sometimes he keeps going.

Before he left he gave me a roadmap to understand all of his stops — a basic outline of his run/rest schedule. I haven’t looked at it since Sunday right before he left. I’m pretty sure he hasn’t either.

“Just run them!” I told him. “Run when you should run. Rest when you should rest.” Still, schedules can help tired mushers make better decisions later in the race… Unfortunately, we aren’t really schedule people. Just ask our families… we’re always showing up to late!

C E R T A I N T Y
Certainty is what I feel most of the time. Anyone who knows Travis or has spent much time with him would understand this. There is, quite frankly, no one I’m more confident in out there. Travis shines with dogs. He excels outdoors. He is eternally optimistic. And his faith in himself and his dogs never seems to waiver. He is the poster-child for a can-do attitude. On the trail, as in life, that’s a major assist — when your tired, it’s easy to get down on yourself out there. If you get down, your dogs get down. Confidence is key.

More importantly, Travis really believes he was born to do this. He likes to tell the story of how he used to push a laundry basket around the house when he was a kid yelling “hike! Hike! Hike!” and pretending to be an Iditarod musher. When he was a young kid Martin Buser came to Seward and stayed at his friends B&B. Travis went to his friends and kept Buser up til midnight asking questions about the Iditarod, dogs, and training before Martin finally said he had to go to bed. This year, before the start, it was Martin asking Travis questions:

“Any problems you can think of with driving a trailer sled?” Buser said.
“No, drives great.” Travis responded.
“Think about it…” Buser replied.
Travis couldn’t come up with anything.
“Side hills,” Buser pointed out. Side hills are exactly what they sound like. It’s when the trail goes on the side of hill and the trail isn’t level. I hate them; they can sometimes be very tricky to negotiate and sometimes your sled will tip over. When you’re lucky you only roll once. Buser then kindly took another few minutes to talk with Travis about how he might overcome this problem –- Buser, I’m pretty sure, is always in teaching mode.

Because Travis has confidence in himself, his dogs have confidence in him. In the Copper Basin 300 this year he did two back to back 80 mile runs on 3 hours of rest. They got to the end of the race, and the team was lunging to keep going. Believe me, they turned heads. I wouldn’t be surprised if he made a similar move at some point.

Regardless of where the team finishes this year, it’s a huge accomplishment, especially on a year where we’ve taken on a lot and had a lot to overcome.

I don’t find myself asking “where will he finish?” instead I find myself asking “I wonder what has he learned?”

– Sarah

p.s. Travis left Galena at 4:30pm. It’s about a 6 hour run to Nulato which he will almost certainly do straight through….