A few day ago my run was, to put mildly, a disaster. I didn’t have a good day to begin with. I woke up on the wrong side of the bed, and in one of those funks that you just can’t seem to shake. So I decided to drive into town and be productive. We were out of meat for the dogs, so I decided that I would go to the feed store and pick up what we needed. I decided that I would get 500 pounds of chicken, 500 pounds of turkey skin, and 500 pounds of beef. I wanted to have a lot and be able to choose back at the kennel what to feed and when.
Different foods are better for different occasions. Beef is a good fatty meal for cold weather and the dogs always love it. Often, we will use it to broth the dogs — meaning that we will put 5 pounds of beef in a bucket and let it thaw and add water. Then we will feed this mixture to the dogs so that they will stay hydrated.
Chicken doesn’t have as much fat to it as beef, but it is cheaper and is great for snacking as it has a high water content. Turkey skins are fatty and are good for a snack along the trail or when it gets very cold out. The last couple of days temperatures have been ranging from about -10 to -25 so it is important that we have a good quality source of fat for the dogs.
On a normal day, we will feed about a pound to a pound and a half of meat per dog. The amount varies based on the temperature and how much the dogs are running. We don’t want to feed too much if they are running too far or if it is warm because The extra protein and fat can actually cause problems in the dogs if their bodies aren’t using it all.
So I picked up the 1500 pounds of meat and also decided to get 10 new harnesses. I feel like I buy more dog harnesses than any other musher. I don’t know why but we seem to go through them quickly. The dogs may bite them but more often than not they tear or just get worn out. I need to get better at learning how to sew so we can start repairing our broken harnesses but I guess that is going to be a summertime project.
So then I got home, and decided that even though it was getting dark I was going to hook up a Team. Now, what are the biggest problems I seem to have that when I am in a funk and not having the best day Is that I tend to make bad decisions. This of course, results in a snowball effect. And then, my bad day spirals out of control.
My bad decision wasn’t hooking up dogs, it was just my ability to choose what dogs
Bs what team I was going to run. Rather than stick with a tried-and-true combination, I decided that I would go out on a limb and try milliliters new swing dogs and have no back ups in my team.I left the yard with Tamere and Coda In lead.
Now, Coda is a young dog who hasn’t done much leading. Tamere, on the other hand is a tried-and-true Iditarod veteran. Her problem, however, is that she is a little princess. Yesterday, it was cold out. Tamere had spent the last two days sleeping inside because she loves to cuddle and I was trying to be nice to her.
Big mistake.
We didn’t even leave the yard before I had my first problem. Tamere, probably grumpy about leaving her warm palace started fighting with Coda, who happens to be her son. I got that sorted out, pulled my hook and left the yard only to find out that my big fat dog Max, had decided to chase after me.
I had hooked this team up to a different Sled thinking that anything had to be better than the sledI went out with that didn’t have the foot boards on it. Boy, was I wrong! This sled was extremely light, and very Squirrley. As we careened down the hill out of our yard, Max chasing after us, the sled was much lighter and more flexible then anything I’d been on recently and my boot was getting stuck between the break bar and the bed of the sled: not good.
As I tried to pull my foot out, I tipped. I somehow managed to grab the snow hook while getting drug down the trail, Max now nipping at my ankles, perhaps trying to stop me, and jam the snow hook into the snow. The team came to an abrupt halt.
I hadn’t even gone 100 yards and I had already wiped out once. The team was amped, pulling hard against my set hook. I shook myself off and got ready to go again, sending Max back home with Justin who had run after the team when he had noticed that Max was chasing us. But as I was getting ready to leave, Travis came zooming by me with his 18 dog tea and our neighbor in tow, yelling about how the trail had been plowed in. Great, I thought to myself, just great.
With no other choice, I pulled my hook and head forward down the trail. My sled continued to bounce down the trail like a pinball off of snowbanks and trees as I tried my best to steer it. It didn’t matter that I had a 50 pound block of chicken inside my Sled acting as weight, the thing may as well have been empty. I managed to stay upright and felt as though I had some control over the team as we merged off of our out trail and onto the main trail that goes alongside the Parks Highway. Still, I noticed that my brake was not as effective as it should’ve been and I struggled with keeping the team at a comfortable speed. As I got anxious, the dogs got more rowdy. That’s what happens, when you run dogs. They play off of your fear and off of your anxiety. That is why it is always important to project control and confidence. Easier said than done.
As I continued down the trail I told myself that I was going to have a great run, building up my confidence and doing my best to project it. I settled in to the pace of the dogs and got them under control at a nice steady pace. But, unfortunately it doesn’t last for long. Tamere does not want to run today and she makes it abundantly clear in every way possible. She turns the team around, she deliberately ignores commands, and the more I try to assert my role as team leader the more she gives me the middle finger. Now, Tamere and I have a long history of not getting along together. It’s why, I don’t usually run her. But, unfortunately for Tamere, she has been demoted and will not be on Travis’s race team this year. So although she pines for Travis, the love of her life, she is stuck with me. And she isn’t very shy about telling me how much she hates it. This is why I was determined to run her. But I digress.
The trail continued to deteriorate and I quickly Found the large snow berms that had been plowed onto the trail that Travis had shouted about while running past. They were Frozen solid and hard to steer around but equally difficult to try and go over. At one point,Tamere decided that she thought the correct trail to take, due to all the berms, was the Parks Highway. And for a few terrifying second I thought I was going to be running down the road.
Fortunately, Travis had alerted Wyatt to the deteriorating trail conditions.Wyatt had driven out in his car to come lend me a hand in getting around the berms. He helped me get my team back on the trail and then out of a good sense of judgment decided to stay and watch how the team faired.
We did not fair well. I tipped the sled once. No biggie, I got it up right. Then, my goal was to take the team onto a lake where we hadn’t been before. Tamere used this opportunity to show how much she wanted to go home by turning the entire team around. I was having none of it. I kept trying to line her out. I would get her back in front of the sled pointed in the direction we needed to go, only to have her turn back around as soon as I got to the sled.
Now dripping with sweat, I was growing frustrated. The thing about dog mushing is, the dogs are never supposed to be in charge. So here I was out on the trail with this leader who didn’t want to listen and no real alternative as to who to put upfront. To make matters worse, I didn’t have great control over my sled. The break wasn’t digging in enough and my snow hook ropes were too long. This resulted in a very frustrating pattern. Either I would get the team going and then the snow hooks would bounce out of my sled, catching on the trail the whole team would come to abrupt stop or I would set my snow hook and then have to awkwardly reach behind me to get it out of the snow.
I really was mad at myself because as much as I preach about setting yourself up for success and the importance of doing it in dog mushing, I had done everything but. In my haste to get out on the trail and put my bad day behind me, I had forgotten the basics. That’s why they are the basics I’ve told myself since: if the basics aren’t done properly then your run is going to inevitably deteriorate into a shit show, which mine had.
In the end, I cut the run short. I was miserable and I needed to regroup. It’s not something I’ll be able to do on race day, and I’m keenly aware of that, but sometimes you just have to listen to your gut.
So, the next day it was all about doing everything right. Checking and double-checking and making sure all the basics were covered. It was all about getting back on the horse, and going back at it.
I went out with Travis, Justin and Wyatt. We all had clean runs. We had fun. We ran dogs and came back and played Uno. We went to bed happy and succesful, waiting for tomorrow so we could do it all again.
