A Blast From The Past

 I've been a bit negligent in posting to Our Blog lately and decided to share a Joanna's writeup from one of her races last winter for your enjoyment.

Had a super fun time at both the Gunflint Mail Run Feb. 8th and the Midnight Run the following weekend racing with Rita Wehselers 2nd team!!! I could only find photos from the Gunflint Mail Run:) Been too busy to post anything until now but as most everyone knows by now, I sadly had to sell out my racing kennel this last spring which was absolutely heartbreaking... been a tough time adjusting as both my dad and I miss our dogs terribly. So I was thrilled when Rita offered to let me run a 2nd team for her this year since she has a lot of young dogs that had never raced before so enough for two teams!!! YES yes yes!!! To be able to run dogs again, be on a sled again after the previous winter of no sled running and no races with the best team I have ever had and never got to race them once, was heartbreaking and would have helped with closure, so this offer was a Godsend Rita thank you!!!! I knew it would not be the same as running/racing with my own dogs... dogs I have raised from pups, and their parents, and their parents parents ect... you can't get that back, that bond and sense of accomplishment with doing well with your own dogs and winning/placing well with them, but this is the next best thing and since she had bought 3 adults and 2 pups from us I would get to see and maybe run some of my former dogs!!!

I drive over to her kennel once a week starting later fall after we had moved back to Grand Marais from our resort in Canada. Getting on sleds again was such a blast!!! And while Rita and I have been friends and fellow competitors for many years, getting to know each other better has just been so much fun and I know she feels the same!!! I am so thankful she entrusted her dogs with me to race, and had the thought to ask me to do this at all!!!! It has been very healing for my heart:)

Just a short recap of each race... Of the 10 dogs I ran at Gunflint, only the two leaders, 5 yr old Laska (the only former dog of mine on my team, two of my other former dogs were on Rita's team) and 7 yr old Saber, (who isn't a pace setter but solid, keeps up and really stepped up this year when we needed another leader for my team:) were the only two dogs on the team who had raced before! Unfortunately Laska got sore with a re-injury from punchy trail on the lake and stopped driving as hard around the time Rita caught and passed us with her speedy team7 or 8 miles in! I told her not to catch us too soon lol!! Laska was holding back when the speed got too fast, putting her tail up on the downhills so had to slow down a bit though she still drove on the flats and up hill. We were in 3rd place after the first leg. Dropping her at Trail Center was a blow to the speed of the team with putting slower Raven up front. He did good with first time head on passing ect... but just was slower and wanted to drift left on the lake coming back...we got way off course and were slower wallowing in the soft snow:) They were heading into the wrong bay thinking that lit up lodge was the finish line:) Got back on course and came in placing 5th having lost a few places on our 2nd leg:) Ah well that dog racing:) Overall great first race experience for these young dogs!! Rita had a smoking run placing first!!!!

On to Midnight Run in Marquette, MI the weekend after!!!! Dogs were cranked to race after Gunflint and with this being an 8 dog race I was able to get two dogs off of Rita's winning Gunflint team to add to my team, as well as a young leader she had saved back from Gunflint for her MNR team but then I needed a leader with Laska sidelined for the rest of the season. I was a bit nervous running a young leader with minimal lead experience and no race experience, knowing how the crows cheering and clanging cow bells as this race can unnerve shy, inexperienced dogs:) As soon as we took off I was like this team feels really good, powerful and fast:) I knew Rita's team had a good chance at 1-3 position but didn't expect the same for my team. Hawk, my new leader, did outstanding!!! I was so impressed with him, he handled all the crowds ect and just kept driving, very powerful and setting a fast pace, with Saber being the steady force who taught him commands with all the turns in the woods:) He came out a command leader;) We were bib number 116 and passed a ton of teams to be the 7th team into the Chatham checkpoint, putting us in 3rd place!!!! I did have a headlamp issue, and this story is an absolute miracle!!!! I use my rechargeable Alpine headlamp on the 2nd highest setting which lasts roughly 30 miles before it blinks twice and then goes dead. The first leg is about 46 miles. So in the fun, narrow, winding, curvy trail in the woods it blinked and I quickly got my other headlamp out, a Princeton Tec. Before teh start of the race Rita had asked if I was good for double A batteries for my headlamp... I had brought new, but old, batteries as back up and she said well lets buy new so we don't have to worry... well, we forgot:) So at the start I just put in what I had, should have put in the alkaline ones but thought well I might as well use these lithium ones, they are brighter:) Shortly, and I mean shortly, after I had switched headlamps and had it on the 2nd highest setting like usual, it blinked!!!! OMG!!!!! I am like 16 miles still from the checkpoint, its no where near daylight and overcast and snowing lightly otherwise might have had some moonlight.... I quickly put it on the dimmest setting for the side lights, not the center, the ones I use when doing chores at night.... hoping it would last a bit longer... it blinked again!!!!! Which means it could go dead any second!!!! Yikes!!!! I have never been scared before out running dogs at night but that was a bit frightening to have no back up light at all should this headlamp burn out... have to see the trail, see the directional arrows ect.. having too good of a run to stop and wait for another team to come up on me, see if I could borrow a spare in an emergency... ugh!!! Awful feeling!!! NOW I see why some people always carry 3 headlamps!!!!! As everyone knows.... lithium batteries don't go dim like alkaline do, they die suddenly!!!!! I immediately prayed to the only One who could help me!!! "Heavenly Father, please make these batteries last until I get to the checkpoint!!! Thank you for always being with me, that you care about the littlest details of our lives, for the safety of me and my team, thank you that your word says you will be a light to our path, I need that to be literally right now:)" I just kept praying and declaring my light would last and thanking God for being with us and helping us!!!! That light lasted the whole way in!!! Even though I could barely see with my goggles and glasses so fogged up by then I felt blind lol, I still had barely enough light to see:) My leaders could probably barely see being farthest from my headlamp, especially in the field coming into the checkpoint... it was good practice for them to feel and smell trail to follow and I was giving verbal commands too to help keep them on trail... but it was an absolute miracle and I thank God for keeping my batteries going!!!! Never have I been so relieved to get to a checkpoint and lights!!! lol!!!!!!! Three headlamps from on!!! lol or for sure NEW new batteries lol!!!! I did have to drop one awesome yearling male from the team at the checkpoint due to minor shoulder soreness but we ended up amazingly placing 3rd with 7 dogs!!! I know a few other faster teams behind us would have beat us if they hadn't had to load a dog on the 2nd leg:) But we managed to hold onto 3rd so Rita was over the moon not only winning the race but having her kennel take 1st and 3rd:) So happy for her she has worked her butt off this year training up two 16 dog teams this fall, then two 10 or 12 dog teams on sleds and has more then put in her time on the trail training up a great group of young dogs this year!!!! Congrats Rita and thanks again for letting me have fun running and racing your dogs and thanks to my team for a super fun ride!!!! Congrats to Joann Fortier for her awesome 2nd place finish!!! I am pretty proud of my sweet former dogs Viper and Cyclone on Rita's team and Maverick, Iceman and Slider on Joann's team!!!! The Top Gun litter is out of my leader Nikita and Fortier's leader Poppy:)

Next up is Beargrease!!!!

A follow up to this post is that Joanna came in second place at the Beargrease race just behind Rita who won it. Two dogs from Joanna's kennel were on the winning team.