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Click here for more info...  Iditarod is almost here! In fact by the time you are reading this I am sure I may already be on the trail. I can't believe how fast Feb went! As some of you may already know the Klondike 300 that I was suppose to run in Jan. was postponed due to rain. (Two weeks earlier it was -50!) The conditions deteriorated so much with up to a foot of overflow on the rivers that the race was postponed three weeks until it cooled off and everything refroze and there was even some new snow to cover up all the ice. The race went very well. I ran 14 dogs and finish 5th place. The weather channel said temps were going to be zero to 20 above for the race, so I was all excited to finally run in some good weather (Knik 200 was -50). But of course when does the weather channel ever get it right?! I would have been happy to get a high of zero. Instead it was -10 to -20 the whole race. Oh well at least the trail was in excellent condition. The race ended up being run on the same weekend and same trail as the Iron Dog snowmachine race (it is a 1500 mile race to Nome and then on to Fairbanks). Because of that at our halfway point we had to stay an additional 3 hours so all the snowmachines were past before we hit the trail again. Good idea! Those guys are going over 100 miles an hour at times, I would just as soon not see them with my dog team. Everything went safely and the extra rest is always a bonus. I finished with 11 of my 14 dogs. Three of them I dropped due to sore muscles and they got a plane ride back to the finish. All are doing well now. With the Klondike being so late that really put a tight schedule for getting my Iditarod food drop done. I got home late on a Thursday night and my food drop was due on the following Mon. I managed to get part of it done before I left for the race but I still had plenty to do to finish it up. With 19 checkpoints and over 1800 pounds of food there is a lot to do. Each checkpoint I send out a variety of dry kibble, meat (beef, horse, fish, tripe, chicken, & pork), fats (turkey skins, beef fat, lamb), supplements, booties, vet supplies (muscle liniments, foot ointments, etc.), liver ice snacks, rice, dry clothes & food for me, runner plastic for the sled, batteries for my headlight & mp3 player, & other miscellaneous items. Everything is cut, wrapped, weighed, & sorted into the various checkpoint bags. It is a very big chore. My house always looks like a hurricane came through when I am done. Hurricane food drop can sometimes leave quite the aftermath. : Once the food drop was all done and delivered to the Iditarod so they can start flying it all out I have just been concentrating on running my dogs. All the dogs passed their EKGs and blood work. That is a requirement that every dog has done before they can run the race. Right now I am not sure which dogs I will be running at the start. I have 20 that I am running but some of them I will not take due to past injuries this year or not enough miles on them. I may have to lease a dog as I am thinking I will only have 15 of those 20 ready to go. I am not sure yet, I just have to see how this next week goes. If I do have to lease a dog I have already talked to Ken Anderson (my neighbor and fellow competitor) and I can get a dog from him. The last time I had to lease a dog from Ken was in 05 and that ended up being my highest finish at 8th place! I even ended up beating Ken with his own dog! Ken was 4th in last years Iditarod so he has really good dogs. These last few weeks have been a blur getting ready. It seems like I have been eating, breathing, & dreaming Iditarod. That is all I have been thinking about. Do I have everything I need, how am I going to run the first part of the race, how long will I rest & where, I wonder what the weather will be like (I hope it won't be too cold….like -50), what am I going to do different, is my sled ready, what dogs and I going to take, and the list goes on and on. Everything I need to get me and the dogs down the trail for the next 10 days has to be either in my sled or in my food drop bag. This year the Iditarod will have a tracking device on every mushers sled. Last year was a trial with only 20 mushers carrying one (I carried one) but this year it is a requirement that all mushers carry a tracker. If you want to follow the race with the trackers just go to Iditarodinsider.com and sign up. It should be fun. I guess they tell speed, temp, altitude, and more. A few other websites you might follow are cabelasiditarod.com and jjkeller.com/Iditarod. Thank you all so much for your support and for keeping me in your prayers! I really do appreciate it very much! I know that is what helps get me down the trail knowing you are out there cheering me on. Thank you!! 09 Iditarod team roster: Kuling, Slurp, Spider, Grace, Tetsa, Mariah, Montana, Aztec, Cobra, Muncho, Toad, Phoenix, Ferrari, Jaguar, Rusty, Gojo, Dixie, Borax, Annette, & Charger.
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