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Editor's Deskby Randy Carris |
This is a very busy time for everyone in the mushing community. Most people's race season is winding down. The Iditarod got off and running this past weekend and some people are scrambling to fit in one or two more races before spring. Others are planning a camping trip with the dogs into the wilderness; a great time to relax and bod with the dogs. Some of you will be starting to train the newest crop of puppies, giving them some fun times to whet their appetites. These chaotic tangles of fur, lines, and exuberance can be challenging and a lot of fun too. Once again I would like the thank the souls who stayed up late to get us submissions for this issue. Randy Carris | ||||||||||||||||||||||
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Question of the IssueThe last question was: |
We didn't get any responses to the last question, so we'll hold this one over for next time to give everyone a chance to weigh in. | ||||||||||||||||||||||
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Please send us your answers to this question. Send them to qoti@redpawfeed.com. | |||||||||||||||||||||||
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Windy Creekby Ken Anderson and Gwen Holdmann of Windy Creek Kennel in Fox, Alaska www.windycreekkennel.com |
February 18th, 2005 Well, the dust has settled for the moment. We've had a very busy week, to say the least. I'd like to give a big thanks to Julie for the updates while we were wrapped up with travel and races. After the Wyoming race got over in Park City we took one day to relax (actually ski) with Gwen and my parents. I hadn't skied in about 10 years and the black diamond runs never seemed so steep. Gwen had warned me to take it easy, as she has no interest in running the Iditarod in my place if I should get hurt. Temptation did take over though and I had to try at least one double black diamond. With my thighs burning but my weak knee still in tact, it felt good to have made it through that run, even if I did snowplow the whole way. Knowing the Iditarod food drops were due in one week, and with the ever- lingering threat of a breakdown possible on the 3000 miles of road ahead of us, I was pretty anxious to get back on the road. A few hundred miles into the trip the truck started acting up again. In desperation, I was just telling myself that it was the high altitude that was causing the truck to lurch and buck, but just before the border I decided to pull into a shop in Great Falls and see what was wrong. Sure enough, the injection pump was out (again) and it would be another two days until we would be back on the road. Luckily it was still under warranty. This put us dangerously close to the food drop deadline of the 14th. I figured if the rest of the trip went without a hitch and we drove straight through, we would have about 36 hours to get the drops done once we arrived in Fairbanks. Usually it takes 3-5 days. Again, Julie came through for us, and her and Todd started the preliminary work of cutting up the 600 pounds of raw meat into bite-size pieces. They also bagged up about 600 pounds of dry food in 12, 10, and 8 pound packages, as well as sorting through 1000 dog booties. Gwen had flown up the day we left Park City and she was preparing my personal food while trying to catch up at her job out at Chena. BTW, the ice hotel is up and running (see www.chenahotsprings.com). Unfortunately there was no snow anywhere within 100 miles of Great Falls to run the dogs. The dogs seemed to be getting more and more rowdy with each passing day. After two long days in Great Falls we hit the road. Just as we pulled back onto the interstate and got up to cruising speed I saw one of my trailer tires come rolling by us, sailing down into a gully after bouncing clear over the guard fence!! Luckily I have a tandem axel trailer and we were able to limp back into Great Falls on 3 tires for another half-day of repairs. Now the stress level was getting high. This would mean we would have to drive virtually non-stop the next 2500 miles in two-and-a-half days, and not be able to run the dogs anywhere along the way. Katy was a big help, taking over driving when I would get too tired to stay awake. Usually that was around 1 or 2 in the morning. She would drive for a few hours to give me enough nap-time to be able to get back at it. From Great Falls on, we didn't have any more truck troubles or dog issues. The dogs were rowdy but they'd always listen when they were called. We let all 36 dogs loose when we stop and have done it this way for years. This is a great way to let the dogs stretch tired muscles and be able to pee and poop more easily than if they were tied to the side of the truck. However, every once in a while one of them gets a wild idea and decides to wander off. Usually every year we have a jailbreak that takes a while to sort out. The first year I made the 2000-mile drive to the Canadian Championships in Yellowknife my main leader, Chase, got loose and wouldn't let me catch him (man's best friend). I spent 2 days in the middle of nowhere trying to coax, trap, and snare the little brat. In the end I had to have some tranquilizers sent south from Watson Lake, Yukon (30 miles north of me) with a trucker. I warned the doctor that these huskies are excellent athletes and take an abnormally large amount of tranquilizer to sedate them completely. He informed me that he was sending enough Valium to knock out half of Watson Lake!! After putting the whole bottle of pills in a hunk of meat and seeing him gulp it down, it only had the effect of confusing him just enough to where I could finally catch him in a snare. The only real break we took along the way was for a quick dip in the Liard Hot Springs; a natural hot spring maintained for public use by the Canadian Park Service. The swim felt really good but it was hard to stay awake after that. Right around the hot springs we saw several herds of buffalo. It was so awesome to see them walk right next to our truck, completely unafraid of the vehicles around them. When we rolled into town we went to work right away cutting up more meat and gathering all the necessary supplies. We pulled another all-nighter, desperately trying to get the drops done in time. As it turned out we arrived an hour before closing time but still had 3 hours of work to do. Thankfully, they were working late that night and the terminal stayed open for us. In the end, I sent out a total of 2057 pounds of dry food, horse meat, beaver, liver, turkey skins, lamb sausages, salmon, hot dogs, corn oil, booties, people food, spare gloves, socks, underwear, neck warmers, and long johns, headlamp batteries, runner plastic, insoles, disposable cameras, vet supplies, and dog blankets. What a relief it is to have that done!!!!! I say the dust has settled but really it hasn't. With the dogs having sat for about 10 days, I've been hitting the trails every day trying to put some long miles on the team to get them ready for the rigors of the race ahead. We've run every day the last three days for about 50 miles per day. At the same time I am training another pool of dogs short and fast for the upcoming sprint races this spring after Iditarod. Each type of training has its appeals. I love the exhilaration of running a sprint team wide open, hitting speeds of 20 miles per hour for 15-20 miles. I also enjoy the solitude and physical challenge of the longer runs. Most people specialize but I enjoy it all. The trick, of course, is to figure out how to do both styles successfully. It will take the sprint team a while to gain their legs and get used to running at top speed; however, I can already see the Iditarod team start to develop their own focus. I'm trying to hold the Iditarod dogs a lot slower now than in training for the stage races. The first run we did the team wanted to drive and lope the whole way. By their third run though they're already settling into an easy trot right at the start of the run. I think the major mistake of last year was to let the dogs run too fast at the start of the race, which was a definite departure from my normal style. This year I am going to use the opposite strategy- slow and steady. I will make up the time by shaving a little bit of rest. However, running slower takes less out of the dogs, which means they should eat better because they won't be so exhausted in the checkpoints, and they should be less prone to injury and need less rest. I have a young team, with the average age only being about 3 years old, but right now they look very healthy and focused. I think this year will hold lots of surprises for us. Hopefully they'll be good ones... Take Care, | ||||||||||||||||||||||
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Freight Dogsby Linda Fredericksen |
Gone Sledding
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Dancing Bear InuitBy Tina Portman
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We are new mushers. Barry Salovaara and I started mushing with two semi-trained five-year olds and four one-year old littermates. As I always say at this point, thank goodness Linda told us about Mushing Boot Camp. Jamie Nelson and Ann Stead wrestled us and our pack into a semblance of a proper team. Our six Inuit are big (60 up to 90 pounds our big boy), with thick neck ruffs, and sturdy legs and feet. We live on a lake in cottage country north of Toronto, Ontario. | ||||||||||||||||||||||
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When we go for runs - well, okay, after the first few hundred yards, "trots" would be a more accurate term - we treat them as we would a winter walk, or a ski. We know we're not going anywhere fast, so we relax and enjoy the ride. They are an excuse to get out into the crisp, sunny winter days, or the nights when the full moon lights the lake and the forest trails. We take the dogs through former ski trails in the woods by our house, onto the lake, around islands, along the winding, hilly, paved road from town, and along gravel roads past other people's cottages. We are becoming known. Now when we meet people in town, we identify ourselves as "the ones with the sled dogs on Kawagama Lake." "Oh!" they usually say, with recognition. Then they tell us about a friend who has seen us on the lake, or who has watched us run past on Wolf Circle or they themselves have whizzed by us on a snowmobile. | ||||||||||||||||||||||
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We seem to have just the right number of dogs - not too many to be overwhelming and not too few to bother - for cottagers to feel comfortable giving into their curiosity and visiting our yard. We have often looked out the kitchen window to see one or two people or an entire family watching our dogs through the chain link fence. The dogs make no sound. We have taken little boys and girls for short rides in the winter. We've discovered that they talk about their dogsled rides for months after they return to their city homes. One teenaged girl from Buffalo, New York, who visited the lake last summer, walked one of our dogs with us. (This was before we got our cart). We had told her about the history of the Inuit dog, and on the walk she laughed and said "I feel like I'm on Discovery channel!" | ||||||||||||||||||||||
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When friends come to visit, we start out with two adults on a sled pulled by four dogs, and two adults on a sled pulled by two. The two dogs are game and pull well. After a kilometre, when we reach the trailhead so I'm sure our guest won't get lost, I get off the overloaded sled and leave him to mush on alone. Last time our guest, who was from Kansas, was close to 200 pounds and I am - ahem - about 150. |
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We've been able to live where we do, close to dozens of other cottages, because the dogs only howl at supper and before runs. Occasionally they howl a greeting when we return from a trip into town. When we ask people, they say that they don't mind the suppertime howls - it reminds them it's time to eat. One fellow building a cottage near us last summer amused himself by telling his young carpenter that the howls were wolves on the point. It was a long time before the fellow tracked down our dogs. |
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Eventually, we will have to move. We are feeling under-dogged. We think "Wouldn't it be great to be able to have enough dogs for guests to each drive a team of two?" Or, to have enough dogs to overcome our latest problem. One of our females, who likes to push her leg through the chain link fence, somehow tore her front leg a week before we booked holidays for our first camping trip, leaving us a dog short for a loaded sled. |
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We love our quiet, tough, yet sometimes comical, Inuit dogs and for now we are lucky to have opportunities to share them and their history. When people come north to their cottage to escape their urban lives, they get a sense of the old wilderness through our dogs. |
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Training Log Data: GPSby Rob Lombard |
A couple issues ago I tried to get the Makin' Tracks audience to submit your training logs with hopes that I could provide a comparison of various training regiments that kennels go through. I got none so I have decided to be the brave one to give out my training log from this year. When it comes to equipment and gear, a notebook could be one of the most important things to have when it comes to evaluating your training results and comparing your accomplishments. It may be important to realize that I was not in the top 10 at the races that I competed in despite being 11th in one of the races. This year I competed in three short mid-distance races. The Solon Springs Empire race is 36 miles on Saturday and 36 miles on Sunday. This was the race that I was really trying to train for to finish in the top 10. Although I didn't accomplish that goal this year I think I may know why due to keeping such detailed logs using my GPS, along with some learning of not only the speed, distance, time etc but weight training and interval training. Let's get to the numbers that I kept track of. On each day of training I logged what the GPS would read. Those numbers were the total distance traveled, the maximum speed during the run, the time spent moving, the time spent resting, the average MPH moving, and the overall average MPH including moving and rest time. I think it is important to know the short comings of GPS in addition to the good. The GPS unit sometimes messes up the maximum speed and can be somewhat inaccurate due because, at times, the GPS would lose satellite tracking and then regain it again shortly after. What that does is confuse the GPS so the maximum speed would show 25 mph or 40 mph. Of course I knew that my team did not go that fast during the run. Because that data was off, I knew that the accuracy of the other data would be slightly skewed. The other thing that I am not totally sure of is if the GPS takes into account elevation changes. What I mean is that from latitude/longitude point A to lat/long point B would not be the same distance if a hill was in the middle of the two points versus a flat plane. Pythagorean’s theorem comes into mind here. So if that is the case then you are truly traveling quite a bit further than a GPS shows due to the elevation changes along your route. But the fact remains that it is the best tool for a baseline to measure milestones and training progression. So here it goes, what I am going to show you is the data that I have logged using the GPS in the form of graphs which tend to be easier for the mind to interpret vs. raw number data. The first graph here shows the progression of the total mileage from the start of my training through the middle of December. All the graphs will be based on that timeframe. As the temperatures started dropping below freezing and the runs became over an hour and a half long the batteries would not hold up for the entire run so data collection ceased. I may try to wire a D battery pack externally to the GPS to see if I can get the time to last in the cold weather so that data can continue throughout the temperatures. My goals again were to run 36 miles two days in a row at around 15 mph at Solon Springs, WI. In addition to the total miles ran per day this graph shows the overall mph average for each run. One important thing to note is that when you see a drop in mileage and speed, those times most likely indicate a warm spell when it was necessary to take more breaks and shorten the runs. I thought it was interesting that once the dogs hit the 15 mile mark they seemed to effortlessly increase to 20 plus miles and the overall speed stayed relatively the same. My goals were to increase mileage as quickly as possible with as minimal impact to speed as possible. I learned from the training and from looking at this graph that when I bumped up the mileage, the speed would drop from what was baseline at that time, which should be expected. Then as I attempted to stay at the new mileage for a while the speed would increase, mostly due to the fact that rest times would be reduced to near nothing prior to bumping up to the next mileage step.
The next graph concentrates on time, which many mushers use and base their training on much more than mileage. I didn't really go by time as much as mileage and speed this year but next year will concentrate more on time for sure. If next year I am training to do well at Solon Springs again, then I need to concentrate on a run that is a few minutes over two hours. So the question is, do you work up to two hour runs and then just concentrate on running for that long while increasing distance, or do work to get up to the 36 miles as soon as you can and try to run that distance faster and faster until you get down to just over two hours? I won't even attempt to answer that with the limited experience that I have. Notice that in the early training I rested as much as I ran and that the goal is to get the dogs to be able to run the 36 miles with no rest or breaks.
The last graph of my training is all about the speeds. There are three different speed numbers that are important to me that the GPS provides easily without any special calculations. They are the maximum speed of the run, which was the top speed the dogs ran. The moving average was very important to try to keep up because, once the goal of no resting is reached then the moving average would become the overall average. The overall average took the moving average, added the resting time, and calculated the average speed you would have been traveling at during the run if you had been moving the entire time. The overall average was the most important number to me as that is truly what the speed is during a race. I was starting to come on pretty good toward the middle of December approaching that moving speed of around 12-13 mph, but that did drop off on me, I think, due to a lack of enough weight training in early season with the 4-wheeler.
Now I imagine you may be curious how I performed during the race, or maybe not. Either way, here it is, LOL. Congratulations to John Hull for winning the race, and for that I will show you a comparison of his times to mine in this race. Keep in mind that the race trail was not hard packed nor extremely fast. Much of the trail this year was very soft and slow especially the first day. So this year 15 mph was not the winning speed but instead John ran the race the first day at a speed of 11.86 mph and day two was 13.33 mph. I ran the speeds that the team was used to running actually and wound up 16th out of 24 teams.
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Remember, this newsletter was created for you. We encourage your input on any sporting dog related topic. If you have tips, questions, or suggestions, please send them to us. Training Tips: training@redpawfeed.com Dog Health or Yard Maintenance: dogyard@redpawfeed.com Traveling with Dogs: traveling@redpawfeed.com Feeding Strategies: feed@redpawfeed.com Gear Reviews or Suggestions: gear@redpawfeed.com Question of the Issue, Either your answers to the current question or to pose a question: QOTI@redpawfeed.com Any other topics: editor@redpawfeed.com To subscribe to or unsubscribe from this newsletter, email your request to makintracks@redpawfeed.com | ||||||||||||||||||||||
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Making a Difference |
Makin' Tracks accepts advertising from non-profit groups that benefit dogs and dog sports. Please show your support by visiting the organizations below. If you would like to see your organization listed here, please contact editor@redpawfeed.com. | ||||||||||||||||||||||
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Midwest SkijorersA non profit organization that strives to promote dog sports and work to gain community trail access for other dog sport enthusiasts. Midwest Skijorers Club is committed to advancing the sport of skijoring in the Twin Cities and upper Midwest. We endeavor to develop and promote events and activities related to Skijoring. We seek to educate the public about the nature and benefits of skijoring for dogs and dog owners. We work with communities to expand trail access and improve trail safety. We assist beginning Skijorers with seminars and novice events so they may more fully enjoy this unique sport. | ||||||||||||||||||||||
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Adopt A Husky, Inc.
A Siberian Husky Rescue Serving
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What is Mush with P.R.I.D.E.? P.R.I.D.E. stands for Providing Responsible Information on a Dog's Environment. The relationship between sled dogs and humans is one of the oldest bonds of its kind. Modern sled dog owners are proud of their dogs as canine athletes that are bred and trained to do what they love: run as part of a team. Mush with P.R.I.D.E. supports the responsible care and humane treatment of all dogs and is dedicated to enhancing the care and treatment of sled dogs in their traditional and modern uses. | ||||||||||||||||||||||
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