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The 2008 Beargrease Marathon Race - Part 2
Pre-Race
© 2008 Jaye Foucher The Opening Ceremonies were held in a very large sports bar located in Downtown Duluth, on a street where there are a lot of other restaurants and bars. I felt like I was back to the days of clubbing on Lansdowne Street in Boston, only this time I had a truck full of sleddogs waiting for me outside instead of a sports car. Very odd feeling. We weren't in the bar for more than a few minutes before I bumped into Blake and Jen Freking from Manitou Crossings Kennel. The Frekings were both signed up to do the Iditarod in only about 5 weeks time and we chatted a little about that as well as about the upcoming race. We found the Ingersons and Matt Carstens and their whole crew over on the other side of the bar shortly before they started the actual ceremony. We exchanged horror stories about the trip - I have to say their truck's transmission failure on the way out definately beat my window being stuck down. I turned to Anastasia and said, "See, I told you it could have been worse!" "Trip's not over yet," she replied. Good point. At the Opening Ceremonies they swear the mushers in as official mail carriers. The Beargrease race honors the life of John Beargrease, a Native American who delivered mail by dogteam along the shores of Lake Superior in the early 1900's. To commemorate this, all mushers in the race are required to carry a mailbag containing "Trail Mail" for half of the race, then that mail is taken by the US Postal Service from there and continues to its final destination. After we took our official oaths (which I have to admit I felt silly doing, rather than honored) they handed out our bibs which had already been randomly assigned. They began with Bib #30 and worked their way backwards. Based on how we signed up I knew I would be one of the first 15 mushers out of the starting chute, so when they got to Bib #15 I started to pay closer attention. As the bib numbers got smaller and smaller with my name still not having been called, I started to realize I was going to be pretty close to the front of the pack. Bib #10 went to someone else. Bib #7, my name still wasn't called. Bib #5. Bib #4. "Oh shit, please don't let me be the first musher out!" Finally, my name was called: Bib #3, the second musher out of the chute (#1 is an honorary number). At least I wasn't first. 
Saturday morning was our vet check followed by the musher meeting in the afternoon. They allow and encourage spectators to come to the vet checks, which are held in the parking lot of the same sports bar where the Opening Ceremonies were held, so there were quite a few people walking around with cameras, asking questions and patting the dogs. All the dogs passed the checks without problems. We had a few hours to kill before the meeting so Fayth, Anastasia and I went out for lunch.
Before and after the drivers meeting the mushers were all asked to autograph hundreds of Beargrease posters which would then be sold to fans the next day. Had I known about this previously I might have shown up a little earlier. I signed as many as I could before the meeting, then spent about a half hour after the meeting finishing. They really make you feel a bit like a rock star at this race! After that we followed Ward Wallin back to his home in Two Harbors, where we were staying for the remainder of our time in MN. We settled in, fed the dogs, chopped up some fish snacks for the race, got all the bins and the truck organized and ready for the next 3 days, then spent the remainder of the evening chatting with our hosts and their friends and family. | |
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