Iditarod 2014

Day One of Iditarod 42

Sarah · March 3, 2014 ·

It’s 8:00am on the first morning of Iditarod 42 and we are beginning to see different strategies once again emerge. I still haven’t been able to get my insider subscription to work so I’m currently relying on just the standings published by ITC at this time.

Martin Buser, Nicolas Petite, Mike Williams Jr. all currently sit in Rainy Pass this morning. I imagine they will rest here a few hours and then head out on the trail. It seems these mushers are doing an adaptation of Martin’s strategy last year of “rush to the front” but are choosing to add a little more rest.

Kelly Maxiner has currently pushed out of Rainy Pass and is en route to Rohn. He may opt to 24 there, once he gets there before trekking over “The Burn” but I imagine he will continue further along. Like Travis, Nick Petite, and Jeff King, Kelly Maxiner has a sled caboose (like Travis). It’s been reported that he has only been running 12 of his 16 dogs due to the hard fast conditions so even though he has rested little, his dogs have been getting rest.

The hard trail allows those traveling with dogs in their sled to maintain good, fast speeds despite having fewer dogs in the line. Petite, who probably has at least 1 or 2 dogs in his trailer was only a minute slower than Buser. Buser, who does not have a caboose, may have still had a dog in the sled – it just is a much tighter fit.

Unlike Petite, Buser, and Maxiner, Travis is running a more traditional schedule. We knew going into this race that the danger of this hard, fast trail would be that it is very tempting to go too fast and run too far. Combined with the warm weather, this can really sap a lot out of a dog team. But that energy drain, if it is seen, won’t be seen until several days into the race

Martin has definitely learned from last year. His team has performed consistently winning every mid-distance race they have been entered in. Translating that into an Iditarod win, however, presents its own unique challenges. Still Martin has the knowledge, skill, and talent as a dog man. I am not sure what to expect of him this year. His 17th place finish last year did not surprise me; I would be equally surprised if he hadn’t learned from it and refined his strategy.

Petite, who (I believe) only has 7 returning veterans from last years 6th place team, has had the consistent training. This guy was always out on the trail. Talking to Petite early in the season, he had a unique race strategy lined out for Iditarod 42. I’ll be interested to see how and if he chooses to execute it – but I wouldn’t be surprised. He likes to shake things up. He has one of the dogs we bred and raised, Levi, running on his team this year. His brother Wrangler, is running with Travis. Both are probably the youngest dogs on these mushers team, a nod to their talent.

So what is Travis doing?. He is taking his time, building up rest. This is going to be a trail that wears dogs down. The hard fast icy trail combined with the long stretches of snowless trail predicted later on in the race are going to be rough on teams. Wrist injuries will take lots of dogs out of the race. Taking extra rest now will pay off later. It is a tried and true method that has been proven year after year to yield good, reliable results…however only time will tell!

The Other Half of Iditarod

Sarah · November 20, 2013 ·

Without saying, there is obviously a lot that goes into Iditarod. But, what exactly does it entail? For this kennel, what Iditarod has meant this year is lots of time apart. The realities of training a competitive distance dog team mean that you need to log lots and lots of training miles.

How many miles?

Well, different mushers have different strategies and that “special number” is something that many mushers actually like to keep “under-wraps.” Why? I have no idea…perhaps they think it is their “special” formula for success… But The reality is that most competitive teams have somewhere between 3,000-5,000 miles on their dogs before the start of the race. Of course, like everything, there are exceptions: older dogs who have travelled to Nome several times before often don’t require as much training as dogs who have only done the race once or twice. Still, miles are important

And miles, ultimately, means time apart — especially when our home base is Seward. There is a reason we are the only year-round kennel in this town: it’s because there are no trails. In the winter, when we have snow (which we don’t at the moment), we are able to put about 20 miles on the dogs by running out to Kenai Fjords National Park and back…in order to train the dogs, we often have to do at least a 60 mile run meaning we do the whole course 3 times. Because we run out to the Park and then back, we actually will cover the same trail approximately 6 times on one run. An

This however gets very repetitive and the dogs often grow “sour.” Just imagine how you would feel if you had to run a marathon on a highschool track. It might be ok the first time. The next time you might get a little bored. By the 6th or 7th time, no matter how much you love to run, you are inevitably going to ask: why am I doing this?

We want to keep our dogs attitudes up and our own attitudes. So this year, Travis has been training all over the state. Most of the time, he is Knik, Alaska mushing with friend Wade Marrs. Together, they also travelled north to the Denali Highway where they did a series of camping trips.

But where exactly does this leave me?

Stuck at home.

With only myself and Travis currently working with the dogs, it means that I get to take care of the next generation of our kennel. We had several litters of puppies this year because our goal is ultimately to field two competitive Iditarod teams. So far, even though being at home means I cannot train, I have had a blast working with our puppies who are going to be the heart and soul of our kennel in the coming years. Still, I will admit it is definitely tough staying at home. There a lot of work involved in the day to day running of a kennel; but more importantly, I just miss Travis. But, it’s all for the greater good… we are training to have a stellar season and being successful ultimately means we have to make certain sacrifices.

Wish us luck as we train. Have questions about Iditarod? Please, make sure to email us and we will post about them! If you enjoyed our post, please make sure you share it with your friends.

Travis has signed up for Iditarod 2014

Sarah · July 1, 2013 ·

It may be summer, but we are already preparing for Iditarod 2014. Saturday marked the first day of sign ups. Travis left our Seward tour business for a day to go and sign up while I manned the kennel and ran our summer dog sled tour.

We are more than thrilled with his performance this past year and are already working on putting together our team for next year. We are hoping that many of the challenges we faced in 2013 will not plague us — mainly flooding and warm weather.

Now that both the dogs and Travis have experience the trail once, we are hoping to compete. This past year, the goal was to familiarize both Travis and the dogs with what it takes to run the Iditarod. Believe me when I say, we learned a lot! From packing food drops to how to train, there are many things we plan on doing differently.

What did we learn?

Make a plan

Having a good plan for the race sets the tone — not only for the race but for training. The best way to train is to train the way you race, having a good plan early on will be key to our success this year.

Prepare Early

Figuring out what we need and learning to ASK FOR HELP will really improve our lives this year! Last year, we waited until the last minute to do our food drops. This was stressful and caused us to rush packing. Now that we’ve packed for Iditarod once, we have a pretty good idea of what we need and how much. We also have a much better idea of figuring out how much it will cost us and can better plan. As we really on our summer tours and our winter dog sled tours for all of our income, being able to financialy plan is key.

Fundraise

We are really excited to have the Breeze Inn located in Seward, Alaska on our side to help us plan some wonderful fundraisers. Last year, because of the flood, we actually had little time to prepare a fundraise. This year, the Breeze Inn has stepped in and will be hosting a few events to help us get to the starting line. We couldn’t be more excited! Want to help? We can always use items to donate at these events! Or you can sponsor us directly too!

Train. Train. Train.

Last fall, we were really held back due to the flood. While most teams began training mid September, we really couldn’t kick things in gear until mid November. Repairing our house and dog lot took a lot out of us physically and financially. We started off behind. This year, we are going to start fall training on time! In fact… our summer tours have allowed us the privilege of already starting! Every time we take the dogs out, we consider that a training run. It is AWESOME getting to work with the dogs day in and day out and see them grow in the sport!

We are really looking forward to another year of running dogs and chasing our dream of being the next Iditarod Champions!