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The 2010 Can-Am 250 Race
When I signed up for the Can-Am 250 in August of 2009, I did so with the realization that I may not actually make it to the starting line. Over half of my training pool for the season were young, inexperienced dogs - 9 of them yearlings; and of those yearlings only 2 were a full year old at the beginning of the season.
© 2010 Jaye Foucher As the season progressed, dogs were removed from the training pool for various reasons: too young & not ready, injuries that required extended rest, pregnancy. By December only 3 yearlings remained running with the race team: the two oldest (Lightning and Thunder) and one male that had turned a year old in October: Nukilik. Once we hit snow Nukilik was still able to keep up with the team but he was pretty exhausted after the longer runs so he wasn't chosen to run in the races leading up to Can-Am. Still, I kept him training with the race team when we weren't racing. Three weeks before Can-Am the team ran L'Odyssee Appalachienne in Quebec and we came off that race with both Thunder and Viktor sporting shoulder injuries. One week before Can-Am it was evident that Thunder couldn't make the Can-Am team as his shoulder wasn't fully healed. But meanwhile, in those last few weeks leading up to Can-Am Nukilik was suddenly able to do the longer runs with the team without looking completely wiped out at the end. So at the last minute I decided to put him in the team. I expected he would get as far as the 1st or 2nd checkpoint and then need to be dropped, as he had never gone more than 45 miles in a training run and had absolutely no race or checkpoint experience whatsoever, unlike the other dogs on the team. Nukilik's father Matsi was in a similar boat. Matsi had been pretty badly injured just before Christmas in a fight with Quinn and up until just 2 weeks before Can-Am had been still suffering pain in his leg where the scar tissue was healing. He had missed all prior races and I hadn't expected him to make the Can-Am team at all. But in the weeks prior to Can-Am he finally was able to do the longer training runs without any signs of pain during or after the runs, so I decided to put him on the Can-Am team and see how far he could make it. Both Nukilik and Matsi had 500 less miles on them than any other dog on the team. Even with the addition of those two to the team I still only had 11 dogs starting the race. The 10 days leading up to the race had been difficult ones for me: I had an enormous project launching for one of my clients at work, and as a result was working until 11 pm most nights and up again at 5 or 6 am. Then I had a litter due just days before leaving and lost sleep two nights in a row because of the whelping. So by the morning of the race I was already sleep deprived. And nursing a constantly upset stomach, as my doctor had me on a 10 day course of Prednisone to treat a flare-up of my asthma. The weather for race weekend was predicted to be downright balmy: highs in the upper 30's or low 40's during the days, lows in the 20's at night. Just days before the race I had to change a lot of my planned trail snacks for the dogs to something that would be better suited for warmer temps and wouldn't be disgustingly messy when defrosted. At the drivers meeting the night before the race we were informed that the trail was well packed and fast, that some of the trail to Portage had been rerouted to be on snowmobile trail and was now shorter, and that the last portion of the race trail which normally involved huge hills (including one we racers nicknamed "The Wall") had also been rerouted. I left the driver's meeting elated that all the parts I considered the worst were now gone! Plus for once it wasn't going to snow the night before or the first day of the race so we weren't going to be slogging thru 6-12" of fresh powder. Yeehaw! A hard and fast Can-Am trail for a change! Continued on Next Page » More Race Photos » | |
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