The Don Bowers 200 was my first distance race since scratching from Iditarod in 2007!
A lot has changed in my life since that particular failure!
And then some things haven't really changed at all.
What should be understood about sled dogs is that they are life consuming! They take over and it is hard to find balance while in the midst of training, planning, and dreaming about racing them.
I feel that a lack of balance contributed greatly to my failure in Iditarod.
So, after 07' I took a hard look at everything about myself. Came to some hard conclusions and began to make changes. Some slow and some fast.
The fast easy ones had to do with the dogs. A new breeding program. A new training program. New housing system, kennel surface, feeding methods! From the ground up I restructured things! The easy part.
Personal changes were harder and are still on going.
But the Don Bowers was a jumping back in point.
I entered the race with 12 dogs- 2 adults and 10 eighteen month old puppies. We have had a fantastic training year and I expected to have nothing but a fun, easy run. We started with a simple plan. The puppies have speed to burn but one of the adults- the one I really need as a leader- surely doesn't. And the pups also have no deep muscle endurance memory yet. So the plan was to average 8mph and stop after the first 50 miles for a 4 hour rest, continue on to the halfway point, where we would take our mandatory 8 hr rest then run home the same way, 50 miles, 4 hour rest, 50 miles.
It was a great plan- if only I had stuck to it!
We made the first hundred miles a little faster than planed in 15hr 37min- had predicted 16 hours. PERFECT!
Took our 8hr rest- where I never slept! And headed home.
And that's where things went wrong!
Leaving the 8hr rest the dogs were stiff and grumpy. In the first 6 miles I was stopped 20 minutes untangling lines from dogs goofing off and not being serious. During that stretch, even when we were moving we were just barely crawling along. It took over an hour to do it!
I started to loose my temper and really had to focus in on being patien but it wasn't easy because I was so sleep deprived and felt I was looking at the same kind of dog behavior that forced my Iditarod scratches.
Of course I had been up for nearly 30 hours straight at that point so I surely wasn't making good decisions, nor clearly identifying what the real issues were in the team. But in anycase, at mile 6 they kicked it into gear and zoom zoom away we went.
There is a check point 30ish miles out from the halfway point and we made it there in exactly the same time as on our way up- despite all the early issues so I knew we were really rolling!
It turns out- though I didn't know it at the time- that short of those first 6 miles we would have likely had the fastest time of the race through that section! In any case, I totally miss read the strength of the team and decided that because the were running so well once they were warmed up we should skip stopping on the way back and just run straight through. My thought was that this would avoid another start like we hadwhen leaving the halfway point.
Many teams were doing this so I felt okay with it. Of course my team had never run that far and was 90% puppy!
Some cracks started to show up after about 35 miles but we worked through them, took a small water break and kept moving- flying actually, as they really hit a stride when the sun set and we started to pass teams that were camping beside the trail- physically they looked great!
Then we passed the spot where we camped on the way up! At about mile 60, just 40 shy of the finish! CRASH, BANG, POP, the wheels fell off! We skidded to a stop as 5 of the 9 pups slammed on the brakes refusing to go more than 30 yards beyond our old camp!
Can't push a rope! There was absolutely nothing wrong with them physically, in fact they were putting in far more effort pulling backwards against the 6 dogs in the front of the team than if they had just run forward!
I tried to continue forward for a long time thinking that if I could get them a few miles past that spot they would get back to work. Nope! We spent 3 hours and went just 2-3 miles! And I was forced to shut them down and camp for 6 hours! 9 hours wasted! And a bummed team! Everything I didn't want, plus the whole rest I was worried they wouldn't get back up again when I asked.
STRESS
Which turned out to be for nothing, because after the forced camp they sprang into gear and we ran the last 40 miles in just over 4 hours- a little under 10mph and faster than we trained to race. It was great finish!
So those are the details of the runs, but what they mean is yet to come! Look for part 3 in a day or two!
