Iditarod Countdown
This newsletter will be a shorter version,I will let the pictures speak for themselfes. Too many things to do and very little time left to do them. One more week on March the 3rd, we will go to Anchorage and finally on March the 6th it is: IDITAROD TIME. We are at our training grounds in Paxson, conditions are great here, although the Denali Highway is pretty skinny in some sections. The wind once again belew the snow away. While Anchorage and the south experiences temperatures up to 40 degrees during the last days things did not melt much at all here. The downfall of the nice warm weather is, that a creek next door to the cabin has decided to overflow into the dogyard. Pretty soon we will run short on " non flooded " doghouses and I can forsee my bed becoming even more crowded with dogs. Klaus and Tamara from Australia where here and Klaus was my running partner in the Denali Doubles. THis is a new innovative race , founded by Jeff King. 2 Mushers, 20 dogs and in our case 2 sleds permanently mounted together. As usual with new things, they force you to think outside the box. I wish I would have come up with the double sled design a long time ago, as this is the ideal way to run a large team , still have control and be able to teach someone else at the same time. Needless to say, I am now using the 19 foot long monstersled on daily training runs. Matt and me just got back from a 250 mile run up and down the Denali Highway. With that the team has run half a Quest during the last week. Right now still all 23 dogs, plus 1, are in training. The plus 1 is a stray I picked up along the way in Cantwell. Joking aside, Number 24 is a Cougar a wonderful leader I leased from Dean Osmar right after the Denali Doubles who fits right in my team. It will be a tough choice of who to leave behind. Of the 24 only 16 dogs can make the team. As this years Yukon Quest showed, change is in the air. Hans Gatt is the new Champion once again. And he did it in style. He has beaten my 1 year old record by an astonishing 24 hrs. But he was not the only one to do so, the whole top 6 of Lance Mackey, Hugh Neff, Zack Steer, Ken Anderson and Sonny Lindner all ran new record times. I think this is a sign of what is going to come in Iditarod. That makes choosing my team tough. There are several great older dogs, who have been to Nome many times, but they are just that, older and thus, less speedy dogs. Hans and Co have shown that it is not only possible to rest short, but also to maintain very fast runtimes at the same time. At this time I really have no idea how to decide, as usual, life is a gamble. I know I would really regret not having Nemo or Popcorn in a big snowstorm along the coast. But I know I will also really regret having to ride my brake for days on end on a fast trail to keep them in the team. And a fast trail it might be, as interior Alaska has not much snow, and experienced way warm temperatures on top of that. I will roll the dice the day before the start..... and train the gang till than, right now alone, as Matt hurt his back, not quite plan A this close to race time. I hope many of you will have fun enjoying the " show" we put on. As usual it can be best followed on www.iditarod.com and even better if you sign up for the live GPS Tracker to see what we are all doing out there. Enjoy the ride, I know I do.... SebastianSab
