Newsletter
We had a nicer run over to Tokotna but one dog began to cough and showed early signs of Aspiration Pneumonia. Darla who is 9 was not into the race anymore. She has run plenty and although she was not a detriment to the team I sent her home in Takotna. I chose to take a long break. If these issues were mental a long break after a short run should help. My goal was to make it to Ophir and take a 5-hour break and then head to cripple between 6 and 7am. We had a nice run up to Ophir however two more dogs were just keeping up and would not eat. The whole team pretty much refused their food. They would drink water but not eat. I went to sleep for two hours and then offered food again. Still very little interest. The temperature was – 46 F and they were loosing weight dramatically and at those temps they need lots of calories.
I could have moved on with nine dogs that were still working really hard and would have made it over to Cripple and then to Ruby and down the river. But they did not have the weight on them to sustain themselves all the way to Nome even if they all started to eat at the next checkpoint. Dogs very rarely put weight on in the Iditarod and it never happens when temperatures are as low as they were. My goal is not for me to cross the finish line in a certain place. My goal is to bring good-looking happy dogs across in a certain place. That was not going to happen so why push them any further. This decision did not come easy. I had to really put all things aside and look at what was in the dogs best interest. When you and your family care for and train a team for 8 months in preparation for the Iditarod and spend over $50,000 all the while wanting to succeed greatly, it is quite easy to be selfish and loose your focus. The good news was I had 10 dogs that had pushed through this. Seven of those dogs are 2 yrs old. Four of which were still leading. If I could figure out what caused this and how to be better prepared for Iditarod 2011 then we can build from this experience and be better in years to come.
What went wrong
After speaking with Veterinarians who have been on the Iditarod trail for many years, multiple time Champions and other perennial mushers I have narrowed it down to three things that could have caused this to happen. Or a combination of things, which is most likely. The three most likely causes in no particular order are:
- Food poisoning
- A bug that my team picked up just prior to the race or on the trail.
- A bug that my team picked up just prior to the race or on the trail
After identifying these with the help of others we plan to make the following changes:
- Package our dog food differently next year.
- Locate the dogs in Alaska long before the Iditarod start so they are exposed to the viruses that they will be around during the race.
- Do more racing with similar conditions prior to the Iditarod.
The cause I struggled with the most was number 3. We had 3,000 training miles going into the race. However it was pointed out to me that I would have been better off running fewer miles as long as half of them were race miles.
When you are in a race with a competitive goal or not, it is much different than just casually going down the same trails in training. This definitely affects the dogs. The more racing they do the easier it gets. Also running a race in the lower 48 with temps in the +30’s does not even resemble running in Alaska in the minus 40’s.
The most likely reason was a combination of either 1 and 3 or 2 and 3. What this means is I must do more racing in 2011 and some has to be in Alaska. This is an expensive but necessary ingredient to our success. But if another $15,000 on top of the $50,000 it cost last year will solve the problem, then that has to happen for us to move forward. As Lance Mackey said to me “It can happen to the best of us”. He too scratched from the Iditarod on his second try. He then took a year off from Iditarod and ran the Yukon Quest. In his 3rd Iditarod he finished 24th, his 4th - 7th, his 5th Iditarod he finished in 10th and then 4 straight victories. There is no mistake that a big part of his success has been in the amount of racing his kennel does.