Fall training, October 2009
Hello from the Yukon!Well, it has been a few months since my last newsletter. I remember writing while enjoying a beautiful sunset in the „Baltrum Priel „ during a sailing trip with my dad on the north sea. This past summer I took some time off to spend with my family back in Germany which was very nice. Needless to say I had to eat all of those German dishes I was craving for a long time, and gained a few pounds.
After getting back to the Yukon in August, I have had many visitors stop by the kennel. The BBQ pit has gotten its fair share of use, so did the old VW Training Cart. While the main team was still on the glacier, my dog running abilities were somewhat limited, with only 10 old geezers at home. Hooking up Paula, Eagle, Circle, Skipper and Co , was like walking 10 dogs on a long leash. Still a lot of fun. Several film and photo crews did little stories about me; I am looking forward to see those results over this upcoming winter. I took my time to think a bit about the future, as with the past winters race results I had reached the goal I had set for myself, when I started racing: I wanted to win one of the 2 big races, either Quest or Iditarod. Reaching that goal has left a bit of a void, and I am wondering on what is coming next. As a first step this has led me to reduce the number of dogs in the kennel substantially. 
In April I had 123 dogs around, now there are 51 dogs left, of which a few more are spoken for and some who do not even belong to me ( more about that below ). This sure makes training nice and easy. 2 Teams and everybody has been out. Reducing the kennel size was not an easy decision at all. And boy I quickly became an expert in dog shipping and the associated paperwork. The worst countries to deal with for that matter are most certainly the UK followed closely by Norway ( thanks Scott and Bonnie for all your help with that one ) Most of the active running dogs stayed within North America, but some of the old geezers like Herring went to Germany for retirement. I already have people waiting for some of the other ones, like Saffron who will go to Kodiak Island. Before that happens, she is going to see the trail to Nome one more time. 
This brings me to the upcoming race plans. I have the support of a few great Sponsors, First Mate Pet food helping with dog food, 10squaredracing with Equipment and a few companies like Spezialmaschinenbau Reichenbach with some cash. I am signed up for Iditarod. But you will look in the Quest entry list without success, as I am not going to sign up, despite the peer pressure I have been getting. I do not like running the race to Whitehorse, as 30 miles before the finish line, I have to pass my homebound trails. That is hard on the dogs head and could be quite the negative experience. I am going to miss being out there, that is for sure. Generally I have the opinion, that the best training for racing is racing. This year though I have to be a bit more careful, of which races I enter, as I do not have that many dogs to choose from. I am training 24 dogs, same number as in the past years, but there is no B team to draw dogs from this time. The longer races are suited better for my slow and steady training, so I plan on only entering 300 Milers. There is the Copper Basin 300, Kusko 300, Denali Doubles ( a new race Jeff King is putting on ) and the Quest 300 to pick from. Right now I have made no final decision on which one to run. Hopefully after Iditarod I will be able to go to the Kobuk 440 as a season ender again, as I really enjoyed that race in 2008. 
The team is largely comprised of the same dogs as last season. Minus Ricky and Herring. For that I have substituted with leasing a few proven dogs. Grumpy Kavik, who belongs to Richie Beattie, is back, he ran with me in 2008. I yet have to see that dog tired. Than I leased 4 dogs from Jon Little, Coyote, Solomon, Solo and Antelope. All 5 dogs fit right in the team. Once again I have 20 males and only 2 females ( Skunk and Saffron ). On the reserve bench are the old man Moose and youngster Dozer. So in all 24 dogs. I like what I am seeing in this team, all dogs look solid. I have done the first 50 milers on the ATV, but training is challenging. There is not much snow around and even my unusual training spots like Aishihik and Paxson are snowless. There is snow close to Whitehorse at Fish Lake, but the trails are very limited there, before Fish Lake freezes sometime in December. On the other hand, with no Yukon Quest I have a whole extra month to prepare and am not worried about mileage at this point. 
Over the last few weeks I also had the honor of being a guest speaker at a few Mushing Symposiums. Speaking about dogs isn't very difficult for me. (Here one of his speeches from over an hour). One trip took me to New Hampshire, where I met a lot of great mushing folks. I wish I would have stayed a bit longer to go exploring the East Coast. It has become an annual ritual to drive to Fairbanks to the Mushing Symposium. On the way up, driving at night, I almost hit a bear sitting in the middle of the road. Needless to say my traveling speed was close to warp speed and I only saw it in the last second. After a quick trip to Paxson where I readied the dog lot for the winter, I made it back to Whitehorse safe and sound. Next on the agenda is a short fllming for the 2010 Winter Olympics, which will take me to Dawson. City. Dogs in tow, we will do some training up there to see the King Solomon´s Dome and the gold fields in the fall time. Well, I keep this one short, happy trails to everybody
Sebastian
Sab
