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The 2008 Can-Am 250 Race (page 2)
© 2008 Jaye Foucher 
Start to Portage
I was really dreading that first leg of the race this year. The forecast was for anywhere from 5-12" of snow to fall that day and evening, and the memory of last year's 11-12 hour slog to Portage in fresh snow was weighing on my mind. And, well, it went pretty much the same as last year. We did it faster than we did it the year before at least, but it was a long, slow 10 hour run with snow driving in my face the entire time. The trail was soft and occasionally the dogs and sled would slide into these huge holes that I assume were made by a snowmachine that sort of "fell off" the trail in those sections. The wooded areas tended to be filled with big moguls and I worried a lot about wrist and shoulder injuries. I really held my dogs back that day, as their footing was so uneven and quite often one would step into a big hole or off the trail and stumble. Visibility was practically nil at times, particularly after dark when I could barely even make out my leaders in the light of the headlamp through the driving snow. What fun is mushing through beautiful woods and wilderness when you can't see a thing? 
There were times out there that I questioned my sanity in entering this race again. I wasn't having any fun. I thought about quitting. I thought about taking next year off to build up a faster team so maybe it wouldn't take 10 hours to get to Portage the next time I ran this race! But after awhile I got back into the "distance mushing mentality" and accepted the fact that we weren't going to cruise along at our normal 9-10 mph pace as we had been doing in training lately; which of course I knew we weren't going to be averaging on this race, but knowing that and getting used to the slower pace are two different things. And eventually we did get to Portage. Wet, tired, hungry, and extremely thankful that the longest run of the Can-Am was over and done with. Maja hadn't done all that well after about the first ten or fifteen miles of the race. She wasn't necklining or holding us back, or even really limping much, but she wasn't pulling either. I knew I had to drop her at the checkpoint. I felt really sad about dropping her as I knew that at 8.5 years old this was likely her last racing season and her last distance race. I wanted her to finish one more Can-Am - kind of like retiring with a bang! I briefly thought about taking her the rest of the way, even if she wasn't pulling, but then I mentally shook myself and told myself that SHE didn't realize that this was her last race, and she probably wouldn't care even if she did. After all, dogs don't think like we do. All she knew was that her foot hurt and she didn't want to run on it. So pulling into Portage I told the vets I'd be dropping a dog and why. All the other dogs were doing great though, and after caring for the team I gathered up my gear and headed inside. I spent most of my 5 hour break at Portage drying gear with a blowdryer. They don't have any heaters or any other facilities with which to dry your gear, and everything I had was either damp or downright soaked or somewhere in between. I knew this would be the case and had wisely shipped out a blowdryer in my checkpoint bag. I didn't imagine it would take that long to dry things, but in fact it did. I managed to lay down for about 1/2 hour and doze off, but then had to get up to start preparing to leave again. Portage to Rocky Brook We left the checkpoint just slightly before I had intended to - apparantly I'm getting better at calculating how long it takes to get things done! Last year I was always later than I'd wanted to be leaving checkpoints, but this year I was either on time or early. The dogs got up pretty enthusaiastically and were slamming in harness to leave the checkpoint. We headed off about 2 am. Temps were good - not too cold but not warm either - and it wasn't even snowing at the time. For awhile the dogs were pretty perky and kept up a nice pace. Within the first hour or two we caught up to Ashley Simpson, who had left the checkpoint about 10 minutes before me, and we wound up somewhat running together for quite awhile. After hardly seeing any other teams for most of the Can-Am last year it was really nice this year to not feel so alone out there. It lightly snowed off and on, and the wind picked up. The wind gusts were pretty fierce sometimes and although they didn't bother me in the least, since it wasn't bitterly cold, the gusts did almost bring the dogteam to a standstill a few times as the dogs fought to push against the wind. With about 20 to 25 miles left to go to the checkpoint the dogs started to really get blah. Oddly, a few other racers told me their dogteams did the same thing in the same spot. The team slowed to a crawl. Ashley was in front of us and after I stopped to snack I never did catch up with her again. Tristan suddenly didn't want to lead anymore, so I took him out and put Weyekin up there. That didn't work, so I tried Matsi. Still no luck. I started to get frustrated as the dogs just wanted to dive in snowbanks and stop at every spot that teams before us had snacked in. Aaargh! Running out of leader options to try, I decided what the hell: I'm going to try Kadee up in lead. She's been having confidence issues (as in lack of) this winter and hadn't been doing all that well either in lead or in team, but since the starting line of the race she'd been doing great. So up next to Magik she went, and as I hooked her up I gave her a pep talk: "Ok, Kadee, I really really need you right now. I need you to be the great leader you've always been. And I promise you, if you can get this team moving and get us into that checkpoint you can sleep inside for a whole week!" Must have worked, because as we took off down the trail I had my "old" Kadee back!! She put her head down, her tail down, and went to work leading that team. I was absolutely thrilled. I hadn't seen her look like that up front since sometime last fall. I made the decision on that last section of trail that the dogteam needed an extra hour of rest at Rocky Brook than I'd planned, just to get them perked up again. I was discouraged at how we were doing and knew the extra hour would put us further behind my planned schedule, but I knew I had to do what was best for the dogs and I hoped a little extra rest would make a difference in the next leg. At the time I thought there was still one racer behind me - I didn't realize until later that he had scratched back at Portage and that I was now the last in line. When we finally pulled into Rocky Brook I was surprised (and happy) to discover that I wasn't all that far behind a few of the other racers. Just goes to show that when I think I'm having a bad run, maybe I'm really not... either that or everyone else is travelling a similar speed. The usual checkpoint routine was made more enjoyable by doing it in daylight and - FINALLY - clear skies: unhook tugs, dog boots off, give the dogs a piece of meat, soak the kibble, treat any foot issues, massage and wrap wrists, kisses pats and praise for a good job done, feed dogs the kibble/water mixture, put straw down, organize my sledbag and get all that irritating snow out of the bottom, throw trash away, pack up stuff to be sent back in my checkpoint bins, grab my stuff to go inside and, at last, go get a cup of coffee and some food. Yum: this checkpoint had the best lasagna! It almost was as good as my family's lasagna. I had 3 pieces. Ok, I couldn't quite finish the 3rd piece as my eyes were bigger than my stomach, but I tried my best. After that I went in search of a bed (seeing as how I hadn't slept at Portage) and got a few hours of sleep. I woke up on my own just slightly before I had asked for a wake-up call/knock from the volunteers and headed back to the food trailer to get some more coffee. I checked the stats board to see how other mushers were doing, as I like to see how my friends at the front of the pack are doing during the race and who's in to what checkpoints. I realized we already had 5 people who had scratched at that point, and I asked, "What place to they pay to in this race?" I've never paid attention before - after all I don't have a competive team (yet!) so it doesn't affect me. Anyway someone told me they paid to 12th place and I calculated we only needed 5 more mushers to scratch and then all I had to do was finish to be "in the money". Hmmm, and we're only at Rocky Brook - it's a distinct possibility that 5 more could scratch by the finish line. I went out to pull off wristwraps and see how the dogs were doing. As I was working my way through the dogs I heard someone say, "Hey, that's the wrong direction" and I looked up to see Lev coming back into the checkpoint. He'd left quite a few hours earlier, shortly after I'd arrived in the checkpoint. Uh, oh, he must have had troubles out there. I thought maybe he came back in to give his team more rest and then would continue on, but no, he was scratching. Only 4 more to go... « Previous Page Continued on Next Page » More Race Photos » | |
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