2016

Sarah’s 2016 Copper Basin 300

Sarah · January 15, 2016 ·

Before I talk about the race itself, I’d like to talk about my dogs that made my race what it was. They defined my Copper Basin race and everything they accomplished was an absolute marvel. We were not the fastest team out there but I guarantee we were one of the youngest of not the youngest. Besides my two 5 year olds, Madori and Bud, the average age of the 10 other dogs on my team was 22 months as in they were not even two years old. In that light, I think that makes everything we did miraculous. Regardless of how we placed, I believed I was driving champions. Now, for some info on my team.

Coda, 2 year old, neutered male If you had told me back in the fall of 2013 that Coda, a hellion of a pup would be leading my team in the Copper Basin 300 I would have laughed in your face unapologetically. You see, Coda was a terrible puppy. He picked fights with everyone: older dogs, younger dogs, dogs twice his size — it didn’t matter. He got his ass kicked on more than one occasion but this didn’t seem to stop him. What finally did? A trip to the vet. In May of 2015, tired of his perpetually grumpy attitude, we had Coda, as we as his brother Bensen, neutered. It completely morphed Coda. Within a few months he had gone from being a hell raiser to one of the sweetest dogs in the kennel. Instead of picking fights and trying to size himself up to other dogs, he spent his time trying to befriend as many people as possible. To be honest, Coda has stepped up more and more as the season progressed. This race, he led approximately 150 miles in lead. He took commands flawlessly and at the one instance of overflow he charged fearlessly through. His performance was more than great — it was outstanding. He was always on his feet ready to go and really thrived up front. I am so happy to see how much this dog has grown and especially love how close he and I have come. In 2013 I was ready to give Coda away I found him so obnoxious but today I don’t think I would trade him for all the money in the world.

Madori with a big grin on her face. Sled dogs love their job!

Madori, 5 year old, female Madori was the oldest and most reliable dogs on my team. When the going got tough, Madori got going — she helped rally the team behind her endless enthusiasm. On hills, she pulled unbelievably hard and her work ethic really rubbed off on her teammates. I was really impressed with how hard Midori worked and loved that I knew I always had a reliable leader and her. As my oldest and most experienced dog, I really relied on her. As a dog who is frequently had problems with muscles in her back end she also relied on me. I checkpoints are usually spent 10 to 15 minutes working on her back to make sure to alleviate any stiffness, soreness, or tightness. I was really happy to see Midori finish and to finish so strongly and so smoothly. After the race, I quickly made an appointment with the dog chiropractor because if anybody deserves a professional work down, it was her.

Dolly screaming with excitement before a fall training run.

Dolly, 2 years old, female Dolly was one of my most consistent younger dogs. She is an exceptional leader and ran about 50 miles in lead. She ran a lot and lead during the summer because she is so reliable so throughout the season I have really tried to give her a break from being upfront. Whenever I needed her, there she was. Whenever we stopped, and I told the team that it was time to get going, she was one of the loudest most eager dogs. As a smaller female, she doesn’t take much food and so by comparison she was a little bit pickier than the rest of my dogs. But when she needed to eat, she did. I was really impressed with her camping skills and I’m excited about taking her on Iditarod with me this year. She had a really great performance during this race and I was really pleased by how eager, determined, happy, and tough she was throughout this race – which was her first.

Varden the sled dog with her tongue hanging out during fall sled dog training

Varden, 2 year old, female I think Varden was one of my biggest surprises on this race. It’s not that she has an impressed me during training, it’s just that she brought so much extra oomph to the team during race mode. I haven’t really seen her ever give this extra sort of effort before. Like her sister Dolly, she was very eager. Without a doubt I would say that she and Midori were kind of the team cheerleaders. Once Varden got barking and jumping the rest of the team had to follow suit. Martin ran in both swing and whell throughout the race and was. Happy to be in either position. She did a really great job eating whatever I put down in front of her. All in all, Varden went from being a dog I really hadn’t considered for my Iditarod team to one that I don’t think I would dare leave behind.

Athena during Fall Training 2015-2016 sled dog racing season

Athena, 15 months, female At the start of the race, I was definitely worried about how young Athena was. There were times when should stop pulling and get distracted. I talked to her and she’d start pulling again. If you’d asked me at the second checkpoint if I thought she’d finish, I would have said probably not. But Athena has a heart of a champion and she definitely proved me wrong. Despite her age, the further we went the stronger that she became. Even though my team got a little sick, and I knew Athena wasn’t feeling the best, she was always eager not only to pull, but also to eat. At the start of the race I had determined that taking such a young dog on Iditarod might be fool hardy. Her performance on this race however, definitely has me reconsidering. I will be keeping a close eye on the stellar little lady in the weeks to come because she shines exceptionally bright on this particular race. I am extremely proud of how well she did on her first race.

Lena, 1.5 year old, female At the kennel, Linda is one of those small meek females who might be easy to overlook. I had real doubts about taking her but her brothers who I had really consider taking, both came up a little sore when it was time to load dogs so I took Lena. To say she did great would be an understatement. Lena was a dog I never really worried about – which is very surprising considering how young she is. This really surprised me. She had an effortless gate, A voracious appetite, and a love of running that I would’ve expected to see in a much older more experienced dog. Although she definitely got tired a time or two, she always kept working. She had a great attitude and part of the reason I decided to add so much extra rest to my race was because of how hard-working she and my other 15 month old dogs were: I wanted the race to stay fun. Lena is another dog who will definitely be contending for a spot on my Iditarod team. I was really happy with how well she did. She surprised me, and to be honest, I think she surprised herself. Well done, Lena!

Crazy, 15 months, female I was really on the fence with crazy for the early part of fall training. She was kind of a pain in the butt. She frequently got tangled, ended up on the wrong side of the gangline, and loved to lean into her partner – traits that are pretty annoying when you are out on the trail. Midway through the fall however, things seemed to click. Her gate really smooth out and she started pulling harder. When she ended up on the wrong side of the game line, talking to her quickly remedied the situation and she would talk back under. Crazy did not feel well on this race. She ended up pretty dehydrated coming into the second checkpoint. The vet said I should probably drop her but given that I was taking a six hour layover I delayed the decision. I got three solid waterings into her. By the time we we’re ready to go, she was much more hydrated and the vet said that they thought she could make the 40 mile run without difficulty. She worked her butt off. Although Quiet and meek, crazies power could really be felt throughout the team. I was really happy with how well she ate and how hard she worked. The vets were really impressed with how she bounced back and gave me some pretty big compliments on my vet care – stuff that is always really nice to hear. Crazy did well. At times I considered putting her in lead, but never did. I will probably be going to work with her upfront in the next few weeks as another potential leader for when I’m out on the trail. She had a very strong performance and I was really happy with how she did. Hoover, 2 years old, female Gosh. Hoover had a great performance. But man, was she annoying. Hoover seemed to get tangled or wrap herself up at any available opportunity. I frequently had to stop because somehow she would manage to get her legs through her partners harness, or wrapped around the neckline, or who knows what else. I’ve never seen a more awkward dog. Despite that, she was extraordinarily hard working. During the toughest runs she ran and swing right behind the leaders and help the team Summit the big hills that we had to climb. She was definitely the strength of the team, especially once I dropped Bud. All in all I was really happy with her performance, but in the coming weeks we are definitely going to have to work on her ability to stay detangled because it is going to be a long 1000 miles to Nome if she keeps getting herself wrapped up.

Penny I was surprised by Penny. She started off strong and ran in lead and did very well upfront running for about 150 miles as a leader with Madori. I put her in wheel when she wasn’t upfront and for the most part I was really pleased with how she did. She had a very smooth gait. Or energy level, more than any other dog and my team, really seemed to wax and wane. I haven’t really been able to determine why that was, if it’s just because she’s young and this was her first real race experience. Unlike the rest of the dogs in our kennel, she ran a lot less this summer because she ended up needing stitches in one of her legs after somehow managing to cut her wrist badly open. I honestly don’t know if this it was a contributing factor to her fatigue or not but every other dog was consistently run throughout the summer. Despite feeling tired, Penny was always willing to get up and run. She always held her tight tug and ate well for the most part. At home, she’s generally one of the loudest most eager dogs I have. It was surprising to me that on this particular race, she was fairly quiet. She ate OK but not as well as she normally does at home. I’m going to watch her carefully in the weeks to come she had been a real sure but for my Iditarod team but I will be monitoring her closely to see how she recovers, how she eats, and how she performs on the rest of the races we have slated for the season. Pippa, 15 months, female The smallest dog on my team, Pippa was one of the dogs I was most eager to see finish. Unfortunately, due to a wrist injury, I ended up having to drop her at the last checkpoint. She was a huge part of the reason we traveled a little slower. This was her first season training and her very first race, like many of my dogs, and I wanted it to be a very positive experience. She did have quite the miles that from the other dogs and my team did so like Penny, she got a little tired at times. It was a fantastic eater and did really well running in wheel. I think her age, and her maturity of sort of knocked her out of contention for my Iditarod team though if I do end up taking her I won’t be disappointed. She is a fun, Peppy little dog to have around and always seems to make me laugh. Last year, she spent the first 10 weeks of her life living inside she was the only dog in her litter. Despite not finishing, I was really proud of Pippa and how hard she worked. Check, 15 months, male Check was one of those dogs I thought for sure would finish. His body, however, had other plans. Check ended up getting pretty sick and had a lot of diarrhea – enough that he wasn’t really able to maintain a good level of hydration and I dropped him out of an over abundance of caution. I think he’s going to make my Iditarod team regardless so I didn’t want to push him and force him into having a bad racing experience. For their first race, it’s always very important that the dogs have fun and come off of it feeling good. While Check was in the team,he had a strong drive and really helped propel the team up the big hills. He’s a fun dog to watch because of his smooth trot. I expect some really big things out of him in the years to come. He made it about 150 miles into the race and I was happy with that. I was really excited about his great attitude and his willingness to get up and go. If it had been up to him, he would’ve stayed on the team. But that is why, we as mushers, are in charge and not the dogs.

Bud, 5 years old, male But is known at our kennel as the tour dog. He is one of the strongest pulling, hardest working, best eating dogs in our entire kennel. The problem is, but doesn’t have a lazy bone and him and, unfortunately to really succeed as a distance dog, he needs to work a little less hard. But had a phenomenal race despite not finishing yet again. On the truly vertical pitches going over top dome, Bud was the reason we made it up at all. That dog, knows how to work. In the summer, we joke that you don’t need any dog and your team but Bud because he can pull an 800 pound cart and 9 people by himself. Once again, blood work himself too hard and ended up with a slight shoulder injury. I am hoping we can sort Bud out and figure out a way so that he can become a true race dog because he really adds a lot to the team. He has a flawless gate, a great appetite, and a fun happy-go-lucky attitude. Even though you didn’t finish Bud, I really appreciate your hard work. I’m not sure we would’ve made it to the summit if we hadn’t had you working so damn hard. In review. This team finished in 37th place with a total time of 57 hours and 7 minutes. Given their age and inexperience, we think this was very successful. In the following posts, we will write a recap on Justin and Wyatt’s team. I am also working on a blog post about the race itself, not just the dogs!

If you are able, please consider donating to my Iditarod fundraiser: www.crowdrise.com/sarahstokeys2016idt/fundraiser/sarahstokey

getting ready for copper basin

Sarah · January 8, 2016 ·

Getting ready for race day always seems to take longer than expected. To be fair, I’m one of those people who thinks that their is always more time to be had then there really is. We have 3 teams going to the Copper so outfitting ourselves with the necessary stuff has been quite the process.

First there is the getting the kibble ready and bagging that. Then chopping meat and bagging that too. And finally, fat. Fat is an essential component of a sled dog diet, especially during times of heavy training or racing.

We straw dog boxes. My truck is getting an oil change. We dry dog coats. We get our gear ready: snowshoes, cooker, ax , sleeping bag.

I order booties because we don’t have enough large or small and a friend is delivering them tonight. We go through sleds and gangline and check everything once and then check it again.

You can never be too careful.

We trim nails and go over dogs making sure that our rosters are all set. Dog jackets. Pecker protectors. Dog bowls.

We have lists of things to do and thing to pack. Then we have lists of our lists.

We slowly conquered them all and left for Glennallen, Alaska around 11:00 this morning in two seperate trucks. Travis towing the 24 foot dog trailer and his 8 dog box. There is a lot of driving in the Copper Basin. His rig is the dog hauler. Dwayne and Travis will then take my truck, with dog kennels in the back, around the course to pick up dropped dogs.

We got to the race and had to go drop off our drop bags to get sent out to the different checkpoints. We go through vet checks. The vets tell us what they think of the dogs. They all look good but one of the dogs on my team is a little skinny. She is always skinny. Like that gangly 17 year old kid who eats and eat and eats but nothing sticks. The vets see it all the time. “No big deal, some dogs are just like that.”

The race and the people have Glennallen have been so welcoming so far. There was a great feast before the mushers meeting. The meeting basically goes over the trail and things that may be of concern. The trail is mostly dry – meaning hopefully we won’t have any open water to deal with. But it is quite icy.

Expect fast times for the top teams.

I have a pretty lowkey race plan. Again, I am only taking two adults (Madori and Bud) and the rest are puppies. I spent tonight getter ready, taking my first shower in almost a week, and trying to relax.

Outside our hotel room, other people are dropping dogs. They are noisy and I am looking forward to bed.

Here are the line ups:

Justin’s team

Flo Fergie

Mongoose Kurm

Teddy kip

Bruce Cuervo

Thunder Thor

Wrangler Marlow
Wyatts team

Granger gremlin

Cricket fidget

Zeus Tamere

Star shark

Havock aldawin

Ray Monroe

Sarah’s team

Penny Madori

Coda dolly

Lena Athena

Hoover Crazy

Pippa Varden

Check bud

Sleep is key. This post wasn’t edited but I figured it’d be better the share something then nothing.

Mushing Home – Part 3 of the Denali Highway Trip

Sarah · January 2, 2016 ·

This is the 3rd and final installment on a series of posts describing my 165 mile training trip o the Denali highway with fellow Iditarod musher, Wade Marrs. You can read part 1 and part 2 first but do not need to in order to enjoy this post.

It was hard to leave the warm hospitality of Alpine a Creek Lodge. They fed us some delicious biscuits and gravy and a few hours later some pasta and an Amazon salmon spread with crackers. I sat next to the wood stove and wrote about our adventure out and chit-chatted with the kind hearted snow machiners that had fed us breakfast the day before.

I’ll be the first to admit that I wasn’t exactly motivated to be on a fast schedule out of there. My dogs were a little tired and I had two that were sore. We planned on running the 65 miles straight back to the truck. My dogs longest run up to that point had been 50 miles. Mostly we’d been running 30s and 40s and doing lots of camping. I didn’t want to ask more of them at the end of the trip, knowing that we would be heading out into some gnarly winds, then necessary.

So I wrote my blog, ate lunch, watered dogs, and slowly got ready. I had a few repairs to do on my sled. One of snow hook lines had snapped on the previous run. Snow hooks serve as our anchors when we stop the team. I’d put on a spare rope I’d had in my sled that was close to the right length but was a few feet too long. I knew this at the time but I had one hook that worked great so if my back-up hook wasn’t perfect then quiet frankly whatever. If it became an issue, I knew I could always tip my sled over.

So Before we left I fixed my line and made careful to make it the right length. Too short or too long makes it difficult to stand on your sled while you pull it out of the snow. Not impossible to get around, but an annoyance I didn’t want to have to deal with.

I slowly put booties on my dogs, having to unravel each dog out of their tight Coul before doing so. I stood them up for a few second, put their booties on, and then they curled back up to hide from the wind. Normally when I booty a dog I have the booty I am going to put on in my hand and the others on the ground. That didn’t exactly work with all the wind so I held what I wasn’t using in one hand while bootying. After having tried this, it was so much more efficient than what I had been doing and I’m surprised at how long it took me to adopt something so simple.

Before we took off, I filled my cooler with water and kibble to make a wet meal for the dogs. Hydration is so important and windy conditions often cause more water loss so having a quick wetsnack really helps with their overall hydration.

The mush back was mostly uneventful. At one point you go around a wide sweeping hill. When you look at the edge of the road you can see the tops of trees down far below its edge. I don’t think I realized how much I hated heights until, in my sleep deprived state, I felt as though we were getting closer and closer and oh my god closer to the edge. Of course, we were fine. I’ve learned through racing and other mushing trips that the more tired you become the more things become mind-over-matter. So instead of worry about something that had a 99.9% chance of getting swept off the road, I focused on the beautiful dog butts in front of me.

Wade waited for me at the bottom and we crossed a long bridge that spanned the Susitna river together. His team, older, more experienced and more miled up than my own, took off at an impressive clip in a fast steady trot. My team, with 7 dogs who this was their first season running, couldn’t keep up but I knew that asking them to was unrealistic. He had a seasoned veteran team. I had babies. Asking my dogs to keep up after going 100 miles with them would be like asking a T-ball team to go out and play a game against the Red Sox. So we travelled slower, but not much.

It was warm out for most of the run. At times I took my gloves off because I was too hot. At other times, my parka was wrapped tight around my face in an effort to prevent the wind from getting at me. When the wind came, my team would blow from one side of the road to the other. I couldn’t help but think it was like the wind we playing ping pong with us.

These heavy wind conditions only lasted a few miles but I was so happy with how Penny did leading. She drove into the wind and kept the team on track. Last year, she spent the winter skijoring with our friend Meret so this is her first full season mushing. She is going to be just like her mother, Fidget – an absolute super-star. At times the trail was soft and blown in and others it was hard and fast. The dogs and I enjoyed it all.

Halfway through the run, I started feeling how tired I was. The day we left for the highway, I’d only gotten about 5 hours of sleep the night before. That night (Wednesday), when we were supposed to be mushing, we ended up digging out the truck and getting unstuck. (If you haven’t, you can read about that in part 1.) Because of how long that took, we only got 3 hours of sleep. We took off and spent most of Thursday on the trail, arriving at Alpine Creek Lodge around 6:30am. Once settled in we slept for about 3 hours and then ate breakfast at the lodge, I wrote my second blog post, and we hung out with snow machiners. By the time we got back to the truck around 11:45pm, I had slept a grand total of 11 hours since that Tuesday or to put in better perspective during a 96 hour period I had only slept 11 hours.

Going down the trail, my fatigue began to hit me. The night before I had suffered from minor hallucinations — as my mind morphed pine trees into cabins, oil tanks, animals, and farm silos. I’d snapped back awake eventually but it was hard and took some serious effort. Mind over matter is infinitely harder when your mind is worn-out. But I preserved.

On this run, I decide that the best way to stay awake was to sing. Sure, watching my dogs was important, but my mind needed something more active to keep itself going. I belted out Adele for all the moose and caribou to hear. Apparently, they didn’t think much of my singing because they stayed off the trail. Good.

I did see a rabbit and a common murre. These are ocean dwelling birds that have blown inland due to strange weather patterns. They can’t survive away from he water so if you see one you are supposed to catch it. I stopped my team and went to pick it up but it was warm out and I didn’t have gloves on. I took one look at its long beak and, quite frankly, it’s grumpy attitude and rifled through my sled to pt some on. When I got my gloves on it had already taken off and was no longer on the trail.

One of the rules of dog mushing is to be very careful about walking away from your sled. If your team pulls your hook, they could take off and leave you in the dust. But my dogs had run a long way so I set both my hooks and decided that the life of this little bird was worth it. As soon as I stepped off the trail, I sunk up to my belly button. The bird darted further into the woods. So that was the end of that.

I felt bad leaving it behind, knowing it would most likely die, but wih a full string of 16 dogs in front of me who were now ready to run wallowing in waist deep snow to chase a pissed off bird seemed like a moronic idea.

So down the trail we continued. It seemed like no matter how far we travelled though, the truck wasn’t getting any closer. Time, it seemed, was moving excruciatingly slow. But the miles came and went. We passed a few teams who were just starting their runs.

At one point we passed the mythical parking lot where more trucks were, miraculously, more trucks and an enclosed trailer were parked. You’ve got to be freaking kidding me. I thought to myself. How the heck did they make it through those wind berms? Seeing the four trucks and trailer there made me laugh. Apparently it was just Wade and I who had all the back luck.

The one thing that can be tough about the highway is the mile markers. I couldn’t remember what mile we were parked at. I watched them slowly tick by: 116, 117, 118… On and on and on.

Finally, at mile 130 we made it to the truck. We loaded dogs and sleds and gear, prayed the truck would work, and miraculously left.

But we didn’t make it far. I had warned Wade that I was absolutely exhausted. I would do my best to talk to him and help him stay awake while he drove but not to judge me by what came out of my mouth.

We’d been in the car for about a half hour chatting and driving when I stopped making sense. We were talking about how fun the trip was when I launched into a tangent about how it was just as good as the movie.

“What movie?” Wade asked, slightly confused.

“Jurassic Park.”

“Oh.” There was a long silence. “Weren’t we talking about dog mushing?”

“I really liked Jurassic world.”

At this point, we realized that we both needed to sleep, found a pull off, and passed out in the truck for almost 7 hours. You have to be tired to sleep in a truck for that long because that is not a position humans are designed to sleep in. Wade got driving at some point and I continued to nonsensically mutter responses. At one point Wade was on the phone but I still had my eyes closed and responded to everything he said.

Then, out of nowhere, I popped up and said, as if it were perfectly normal, “ok my brain just reset. I’m good to go.”

And for the rest of the ride, I was. Now that my dogs are put away and this final installment has been written, I am going to go pass out.

A Special Focus On The Iditarod Vet Book

Sarah · December 30, 2015 ·

One of the things most new fans to dog sledding want to know is how are dogs are taken care of out on the trail by vets and how the logistics of so many dogs is managed. During Iditarod and other dog sled races, mushers must carry a vet book. In Iditarod, it is a mandatory piece of gear and mushers are required to have a vet sign it at every checkpoint to ensure the dogs have been examined.

Each dog on Iditarod is given its own unique identification tag. The identifcation tag is composed of two values, a number and a letter.The number refers to the musher. Each musher’s value is determined by their starting position. In 2015, Travis started 56th so each of his dogs had a “56” on their tag. Each dog is then individually assigned a letter. Each musher is given their own tags so we put our tags 56A, 56B, 56C, on each dog on Travis’ team.

photo courtesy of Dianne Johnson of thhe Iditarod Trail Committee

At the front of the vet book, each musher lists their dogs name and next to their dog writes down the letter of the tag that dog was given. Additionally, Iditarod takes down the name, tag of each dog, and their microchip number. This way dogs have two identifiers out on the trail: their microchip which can be scanned or their dog tag on their collar.

The vet book is an integral way for vets at different checkpoints to communicate what they see in a dog or in a particular dog team. It allows volunteers to quickly look up the name of a dropped dog and relay it to those back in Anchorage.

2015 Iditaods Travis Beals Vet Book. The starting 16 dogs.

travis beals 2015 iditarod vet book. the first page has each dog, their “letter”, and their age.

The vet book itself is rather small and is waterproof. Many mushers elect to tie it to their sled. If you do not have your vet book, you cannot continue down the trail. If you forget your vetbook at one checkpoint, you have to go back and get it — wasting valuable time.

We generally tie our vet books to our sleds so that we cannot lose them. It allows us to access them quickly and prevents the volunteer vets from accidently walking away with them.

Mushers are required to have a vet sign their vet book at each checkpoint. Mushers also have to sign the vet book. The vets may make notes or may simply put an “all good” or a smiley face. Common notes might be about dogs who were prescribed antibiotics.

The vet book is a valuable tool to help mushers and vets make sure that the dogs get the best possible care while out on the race.

This year in training, I am carrying my own “vet book” so that I can practice not losing it. For those who know me, they know my struggle. My book, however, is a bit different. I am using it to make notes about dogs on or directly after a run so that I can keep the best records possible on my team while training myself to hold onto the small yellow notebook. My notes are usually about when I fed or watered and the effects I’m seeing in my dogs. It’s something Aaron Burmeister mentioned casually at the rookie meeting so I figured I would give it a shot. If I’m going to practice carrying a notebook, I might as well make some notes!