2000 Miles in one month
As I have gotten many e-mails asking about how the races went, I thought I better sit down and start writing, at least a brief overview. Sometime during the spring, I will hopefully find the time and write down each race day by day as I did last year.
At the beginning it was not really planned that I run the Quest and Iditarod. I signed up for the Iditarod, because I thought I could not do the Quest timing-wise. The closer time came in January, the less I could convince myself to withdraw and the more I thought about really running both, but mostly kept that thought to myself. There were enough dogs in training to run both and the chance to ever have 2 teams again would not come so soon, I realized that. The big test was the Copper Basin in January, to which Jocelyne and I were supposed to go, but almost did not make it due to staff problems. I, stubborn as usual, ended up going and Roland deciding on the spot to drive the second team. Both teams finished great in 7th and 9th spot with 11 dogs. From then on I knew running both 1000 Milers would be doable, as long as I kept my act together. Unfortunately February is our busiest time of the year and the week before the Quest all dogs were out and all our resources maxed out, I worked in the office till 10.30 of the morning of the Quest Start, not exactly the best way to prepare for a race.
I started the Quest sick, with a flu and in Pelly I had a pretty high fever. It took me a while to work myself into the racing rhythm but eventually got it. Unexpectedly I ran within sight of the front of the pack, usually about 2 to 3 hrs behind the leaders. That was not only a great feeling but I also learned a lot. The front of the pack was really tight with 7 teams within such a short time period. Some mushers like William and Gerry opted for short runs and short rests, while others like Hugh and Lance did longer runs and longer rests, same as me. The trail this year was great, so was the weather. If anything, it was too warm. We definitely did not freeze like hell on the Yukon. It was a pleasant night run on the 40 Mile and with the full moon during the race; a lot of those runs were very memorable. In Eagle we had above freezing temperatures, pretty unheard of. The problem with the heat was that my feet rotted away in the bunny boots I was wearing and if it would not have been for Lance Mackey loaning me his mukluks, I would have had a serious problem on my way to Dawson. The trail to Slavens was some bare ice with no markers on it - nowhere to put them - so we all seemed to have gone different ways.
Dogwise I had some real problems with them in the beginning, a lot of sore wrists and even shoulders. Some must have been there from before the race while they ran tours. It took a lot of patience and massaging to work them through it and after dropping Jack in Pelly and Franky in Scroggy, I managed to keep the other 12 together till the end. That came not without a serious setback in Circle, where my dogs a caught a bug and had diarrhea and were vomiting. I tried to leave the checkpoint but had to turn around, a tough decision which almost made me scratch, but I waited it out and left the checkpoint with the red lantern, not quite my plan A.
They slowly picked it up again along the Birch Creek; I hate that winding thing, especially with the soft trail this year. Leaving Central I had a great run over Eagle Summit, one of the nicest I have ever had, which made me skip Mile 101 dogdrop, but that in return made for a slow long run over to Angel Creek. Not too sure I would do that again, but at least I got rid of the red lantern that way. At 9.a.m. I finished on Friday morning in Fairbanks with 12 dogs in 9th place. It was a weird Quest that way, with only 12 teams finishing. Over all I had a great race and definitely liked it a lot more than the year before. I was very happy with my team, most of the way I ran leaders in lead who I almost never ran in lead before, like little Marmot and Wondar leading me into Dawson.
Well, the half way mark was reached and I had serious doubts about another 1000 Miles, but thankfully not much time to think about it. After the Quest banquet we drove to Tok to meet Wayne and exchange dogs. Here I made another decision which was risky, but in hindsight the right one. I decided to take 9 of my 12 Quest Finishers for the Iditarod, than 9 new dogs from the kennel, which gave me 2 spares. After a lot of packing and repacking we were on our way to Anchorage. Here we met up with Candy and Arny our hosts for the next days. They lived horribly far out from Anchorage, almost 100 Miles, but their place was great, I just had to keep myself from thinking about all the gasmoney we were burning with having to drive to Anchorage almost each day. We could let the dogs run loose, which I like a lot, and Tang was even allowed inside.My head was still in racing mode this time, I never even once checked my e-mails, a first for me. The EKG for the dogs, it is mandatory, revealed that Brownie’s kidneys are not functioning 100% anymore, but he would still be fit to go. An age thing, not surprising with most of my team being 8 and 9 years old. The vet check also went fine, of course. They were on different days and we always had to make the trek to town. Somewhere we got bad gas and the truck ran real bad...., but always got us there.
The musher’s Banquet was overwhelming with I do not know how many people. The speeches went on forever. I had a young kid named Benjamin as an Iditarider on my restart and he was a cool kid, so I let him drive the team with me standing on the runners behind him, while John drove the drag sled. What a show the ceremonial start is, It’s truly amazing to see all the different outfits and people.. Libby Riddels helped us to get to the starting line and I really enjoyed meeting her. The team ran like, sorry, shit though, and I quickly realized that with never driving this team in this combination once and mixing the Quest dogs with the under trained dogs from home would create a serious challenge. They were not a team, they were a bunch of individual dogs minding their own business.
On race day I was, according to John, in a bad mood. Could be as I really needed to get away from the hustle and bustle and be out on the trail by myself. That was not very easy on the Iditarod with many parties along the trail, and planes and helicopters all over. I opted for not stopping in Yentna and Skwentna, a big mistake in hindsight as that put me on a bad daytime running schedule and camping in peace and quite was next to impossible. On my way to Finger Lake, first 2 skiplanes circled over my campspot, obviously filming the scene and a little later a helicopter coming down amazingly close. The dogs got spooked. So much for a quality rest.
Also, same as early in the Quest, my team was in a bad shape. I had 3 dogs with sore shoulders, Eagle, Otto, and Chuma, as well as Paws with sore wrists. That was not good at all. Eagles shoulder was untreatable and I ended up dropping here in Finger Lake together with Cola who had an achilles injury. That left me with 14 dogs including 2 with sore shoulders. Not a good start with a real bad trail about to come. I used Algyval by the gallon and heatpacks with shoulder blankets non-stop and again spend most of my time massaging instead of sleeping. The Happy River Steps were not as bad as I anticipated, but thereafter the trail after was worse with deep sugar snow holes that swallowed the whole team. Running in about 70th position did not help. The trail was incredibly chewed up. In Rainy Pass I rested till daylight and the Gorge was worse than I thought, mostly because I was running so far in the back of the pack. My sled once fell upside down in open water, I had to let go, a first for me. It took me a long time to get it out of that darn Creek. Most of my contents being wet were something I should become used to during this race.
In Rohn my team was a disaster from being banged around on the trail so much. Again I had all my wristwraps and shoulder blankets in use. Worse of I got parked on the straw from Hans Gatt, and his team had a virus that I quickly found out leaving Rohn, All my 6 non-Quest dogs had diarrhea right away. At least not the whole team this time and I knew better how to deal with it, due to my experience in the Quest. The combination of Lomotal and Metronidisol (however you spell that) works well. The run over the burn was again worse that I expected, I broke my sled in several places. The worst one was one of the stanchions breaking totally.
I used my ski poles to fix that, something which should get me till the end of the race, as I had no spare sled. It was over 40°F outside and we were running though ankle deep water for long stretches. If there was no ankle deep water, there was no snow at all till we hit Buffalo Camp, a great rest spot with a wall tent frame set up by some hunters. I think I had my best sleep of the whole race here. From here to Nikolai I had the first pleasant run of my Iditarod. Finally, I was also on good timing, with resting in the day and running in the evening and night. The sore wrists and shoulders were mainly gone; I seem to have learned how to deal with those.
Algyval and a lot of massaging definitely do the trick to keep those dogs in the race. Some of the dogs still had loose stools, but gained their appetites back. I had sent only enough stuff to Takotna to do my 24 hr layover, so I knew that leaving Nikolai I most likely will have to do a long push though McGrath to Takotna. The team ran well and after arriving in McGrath and seeing how busy it was there, I gladly left for Takotna, What I did not know, was that we had to climb some big hill before getting there, but it was one of my most beautiful runs in the whole race and we made very good time.
Takotna was indeed heaven, a quiet, very well organized checkpoint with really great food. That lifted my spirits. Markus and M.G. the vets were also super great to deal with and very helpful. Thanks to them and their advice all 14 dogs could stay in my team and thanks M.G. for your vet wrap course....... What I did not think about was that with arriving here on a perfect schedule, at 23.00, I would have to leave on a very bad schedule, right at midnight again, exactly the time I usually avoid to run in. Also I should have read a bit more about the trail and what to expect, because I had no clue what to expect on the trail.
Running though Ophir I rested in Don’s cabin on my way to Iditarod, a windy shack in the middle of nowhere. It started snowing and raining out there something which should stick with us for a long way. I stayed for 9 hrs, hoping it would get nicer out. The trail from there to Iditarod and then to Shageluk was a lot tougher than I anticipated and I ended up resting 9 miles before Shageluk because it simply got too hot to run. Then I pulled through 2 checkpoints to arrive late at night in Grayling, finally on my favourite running schedule again, but it was pissing rain. Here my schedule was a bit more aggressive than it had been and I ran to Eagle Island. There Popcorn developed a sore hind leg (I forgot the english word for the injury) and some others got little sorenesses again. I looked at the times and decided there was no point for me to push on to gain any places. At best I could get to 28th place and the financial gain of that would be next to nothing. I decided to make it my goal to deal with the injuries and try to get as many dogs to the finish as I could. The great thing about that is that I would rest longer, always between 8 and 9 hrs. The running distances they give you officially in the Iditarod are very off, and I learned not to believe them and simply look at the running times of the teams ahead of me, so I could expect what it takes me to the next checkpoints.
The run to Unalakleet was long and tough though, it would have taken me 10hrs if it would not have been for a one hour swimming lesson in some river before town. I got really wet, all my stuff got wet and Unalakleet was not very hospitable. There was no forced air heat to dry anything out. On my way out of Unalakleet I missed the main trail and got wet in some damn river again, but once you are wet already it does not bother you much anymore, but I knew I was in need of some serious drying out soon. Shaktoolik was a heaven, super nice people; I met Palmer Sagoonik a local hero who ran the race many times. They made great food for us and I got all my things dry again.
We did the run over the Norton Sound in a convoy of 4 teams that was very nice and reassuring. My team started to move, after all the rest they had. I stopped several times to stay with the group it was windy and snowing out, but the dogs got used to it quickly. Once Koyuk Icame into sight, I let the team run in there, we arrived in a full lope. That was nice. Here I rested again longer than I should have, but I wanted to get out of the heat of the day again and I got rewarded with a super nice and fast run to Elim. Most teams did this in 6.5 to 7 hrs, It took me 5.24. Of course resting 8 and 9 hrs is no winning strategy, but it makes for some very nice and fun runs.
In Elim I overslept. The checkpoint was very nice and I almost panicked when I left at 7.30 instead of the planned 3 a.m. I was worried to get caught in the heat of the day, but the dogs flew again and we made the run into White Mountain 2 hrs faster than I thought. Here all the pressure fell away from me. I milled around in the checkpoint. It was a picture perfect setting with the town nestled along the shore of a river and it was nice and hot in the afternoon sun. Here it finally dawned to me that I was really going to finish my 2000 Mile run of Whitehorse to Nome.
The dogs looked great and I could tell they picked up on my feelings. I decided to drop Chuma, who had sore wrists for most of the race and Gas who had a big fissure on his right hind foot. That had me leaving with 12 dogs, all perfectly healthy. Leaving White Mountain I had the run of my life. I had to ride my drag leaving the Checkpoint, because the dogs were again in a full lope, definitely not what I expected after 900 miles, or better after 1900 miles for 8 of those 12 dogs.
I rode the runners up the Topkok hills under moonlight and climbed into my sledbag going over the Topkok Flats, which were calm and not the blowhole as I was told it would be. I guess I got lucky here. When I arrived at the Safety Checkpoint, nobody was to be seen, I had to anchor my team, with both hooks, and go inside to find the checker and vet. They were sleeping and not expecting me for another 1.5 hrs. That was the nicest thing they could have said...
I climbed back onto my sled bag and enjoyed the ride into Nome. Before you get to Nome you have to climb one last hill and town spreads out in the distance, all the lights being tantalizing close. After zig zagging over a road for a few times, and the police car always escorting me, I heard the famous siren announce my arrival early in the morning, 6.27 to be exact. It brought tears to my eyes and I was not too sure if I really wanted this journey to end--2000 mostly wonderful miles it had been thanks to
Tang,
Wondar,
Herring,
Otto,
Marmot,
Coon,
Paws,
Libby
(did all 2000 Miles) as well as
Brownie,
Popcorn,
Nemo,
Neuro
(Iditarod finishers) and
Chevy,
Austin,
Piano,
Eagle
(Quest Finishers). I’ll be back.
Rudi
