We’ve made it to February, which usually means two more solid months of mushing (if we’re lucky) before spring takes hold. Time is flying by, probably because we haven’t been hit with major snowstorms all winter. About half a foot has fallen today, though, so there’s still hope for the remainder of the season.
Sagan had her first hookups, first with a small team (all the girls!) and then with the active 6-dog team. I’ve never run a string with seven before. It’s been fun and challenging during these first short runs together. Our first time out was flawless and immediately got me thinking about an 8-dog team instead of focusing on just six.
Thankfully, the proceeding runs knocked me back to reality. Every dog adds a level of complexity and a new potential point of failure for the team. There’s another set of paws to booty or tangle in lines. There’s another mouth to bite a neckline or their running mate. There’s more length on the gangline to turn around at dead-ends. There’s more power to consider when holding the team back. Since I’m training and caring for these dogs alone, a team of six is plenty to focus on for the foreseeable future.
That said, I’ll definitely continue running Sagan with the big team for short runs. At the end of this month, I’ll add Hopper in as well, but we’ll keep things easy going. As for the main team, our sights are set on Tug Hill next weekend. We managed to get a very cold (-7°F), seven mile run in at the Winona trails, so the dogs should be ready for the race. I have my usual pre-sprint race anxiety to deal with, but I’ll get over it. The goal isn’t to win, I just want clean runs and happy dogs.
Tug Hill will be the conclusion of our races for this season. I would’ve liked to get the dogs more experience, but the northeast is an increasingly tricky place to run dogs. With Knox and Denali slowing down and new pups to train up, this season didn’t get us quite as far as I had hoped. Still, three races is better than zero. We probably won’t reach my goal of 500 miles, but we’re already 75 miles beyond what we ran all of last season. By this time next year, we will hopefully be preparing to compete in the Can-Am Crown 30. We’re well on our way.
