It has been a fairly slow start to the 2025-2026 mushing season. As usual, inconsistent temperatures are to blame. We started out with some unseasonably cool temps in early September, but then warm on and off for the following weeks.
Despite only having a few training runs under us, I entered the 6-dog all breed class in our local Osceola Tug Hill Dryland Challenge on October 11th and 12th. (that’s a mouthful) It’s a super fun, hilly course that makes for a great early season rust buster. Plus, it’s only 20 minutes away.
The race was very predictable for us—and that’s exactly what I was aiming for. There were only two other teams signed up in the all breed class: Tabetha’s super-speedy border collies and Roy’s hounds, so I knew we were destined to take home third. My goal was for clean, controlled runs and tight tugs at the finish line. I’ll probably always run the 6-dog team with my heavy Fritz rig. Even though it likely adds a few seconds to our time, I rather have the ability to fully stop if I need to! (thankfully, we didn’t need to)
Day two temps were higher, so we ran a shortened course. They called the race after the rig teams, which was unfortunate, but absolutely the right call as temps climbed well above 50ºF.
The team was Hopper and Faye in lead, Kuiper and Blitz in team, and Atlas and Sagan in wheel. This isn’t our usual setup, so we needed some fine-tuning on day two. Blitz is a hard righty and was pushing into Kuiper on day one, so moving him over on day two definitely helped.
The team averaged 14.9 miles per hour both days, despite different course lengths and temperatures. Really love that consistency!
