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The 2008 Beargrease Marathon Race - Part 2
© 2008 Jaye Foucher 
And we're off. God, the dogs were insane. Here comes the corner. Crouch down to
lower my center of gravity, be ready for it, lean into the corner. Next thing I know
I'm hitting the ground hard. My first thought was, "Oh shit, how embarrassing - I
must look like an amateur," shortly followed by, "Ok, grab the hook and sink it...wait,
why is my dogteam running off and I'm not being dragged?"
Then there's a race volunteer leaping the snowfence and yelling at me, "Come on, we have to go catch your team!" I jumped to my feet, shot one last look at my GPS and extra necklines laying on the snow behind me, decided someone else could pick them up later, and still holding the piece of handlebar that had broken off the sled I began running after the other guy and my team. I had a brief hilarious thought that perhaps I should hold the handlebar up like I was still behind an imaginary dogteam and smile to amuse the many spectators I was running past, but as I was contemplating that idea the race volunteer turned around and yelled, "Run faster!" Come on, buddy, I have asthma and I can barely manage to run at all. In fact, by that time I was having serious trouble getting any air in my lungs and ran out of steam. I yelled after him, "I can't run, I have asthma!" Fine excuse I'm sure he thought, but I just don't have that kind of lung power. After walking a few steps to catch my breath I started jogging along the race trail again, a little slower this time. Luckily the team hadn't gotten very far before they stopped. At first I thought the volunteer had caught up to them, but later some spectators told me, "Your team was so amazing! We saw them coming and waved our arms and yelled 'STOP!' and they just stopped right there and waited for you!" I know that isn't likely the scenario, that the more probable one is the snowhook fell out just at that moment and sunk into the ground to stop the team, but I didn't want to spoil their little fantasy about my well behaved dogs. The volunteer said, "Ok, are you ready to go now?" I looked at him as if he was nuts and said, "There's no handlebar on this sled - I can't drive it. I need a replacement sled." I knew that the rules said if your sled was totally trashed on the trail you could replace it, as long as the race officials deemed it necessary. How much more necessary could it be than this? But the race volunteer was acting frantic and exclaimed I had to move the team out of the way of the racer that was going to be coming up behind me any moment. There was a wider section of trail up ahead where it would be better to be stopped. Without a handlebar on the sled and minimal snow on that section of trail, I knew I wouldn't have enough control of the team or sled so I yelled over the yelping and howling of the dogteam, "Unhook most of the tugs first!" I stood on the brake while he quickly unhooked a bunch of tuglines, then he yelled, "Hurry up, move the team!" I took the snowhook out of the ground and even without most of the tugs hooked up the dogs were still flying up that slight hill. I felt like I had no control, no steering power, so I finally just sat down on my drag mat while hanging on to the rear of the sled for dear life. At the top of the hill I sunk my snowhook again, and the volunteer and I worked to move the team and sled off to the side of the trail. We got some of the spectators there to hold onto the tuglines to hold the team against the snowfence, and some other dog musher's handler who happened to be standing there leaped the fence to hold my leaders. Although it felt as if this entire fiasco, from losing the team to catching them, had taken at least 10 minutes, in reality it all happened in less than 3 minutes because Musher #4 still hadn't passed me! But just seconds after moving my dogteam out of the way the team behind me appeared and went by. | |
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