In early September, I pay avid attention to the forecast. When the overnight temperature drops below 50 degrees, it's time to start fall training. This fall, we were especially antsy, as we signed up to run the Beargrease Sled Dog Marathon, a 380-mile race that starts in Duluth, runs up the North Shore to the Gunflint Trail and back to Duluth. This is 200 miles more than we've ever run for a race, so preparation is everything.
When I say "we," I am including my husband, Matt. We learned a little something about mushing while working one winter at YMCA Camp Menogyn on the Gunflint Trail. Several years later, we adopted a team of free sled dogs where we lived in Wisconsin and spent our winters running them around cornfields. After helping friends at a race, and trying a short race ourselves, we were hooked, and long-story short, we moved away from the farm belt to run in the boreal forest and now have 26 Alaskan huskies that love running over everything else, except maybe eating.
Mushing is a lot of things, one of which is that it's a lifestyle. Our life revolves around our dogs. There are daily dog chores, scooping, feeding and the required attention (ear-scratching, belly rubs, fur-stroking, and if they aren't too smelly, kisses). In the fall, we start with short runs—5-6 miles day, gradually working up to 20 or 30 mile runs in November and increasing into December, until the dogs are in good enough condition for their first race (this year it will be the Gunflint Mail Run on Jan. 3-4).
For now, every dog in the kennel trains. Each day we run either team Buddha (one of our leaders), or team Beezus (Buddha's brother). The teams alternate days, which means every dog is running every other day. Most of our dogs are two or three years old. We don't know who will make the race team, though we have a pretty good idea. But there are some rising stars. After each run, we talk about who did well, who was the MVP that day. Next month, I will introduce you to some of them.
Going into November, we will increase our mileage and keep track of each day's run in a spreadsheet. This way we can compare how we are doing this year compared with previous years and make sure we hit our training targets. I will sew 400 booties for the dogs to wear this winter. We'll order vast quantities of raw meat and chop it into daily rations. We'll assess our winter gear and our headlamps and make sure we have what we need to make it through another racing season.
I sometimes feel we give up a lot of to live with 26 canines out our back door—vacations for one (it is difficult to find a housesitter for 26 dogs). Certainly we trade time we could be spending on other hobbies (long canoe trips, rock-climbing, dance, and art have all but disappeared from my life since we began mushing). In my mind, we trade cable TV and new clothes to pay for dog food.
But the dogs give us so much.
This morning, we finished hitching up 12 dogs just as it was light enough to turn off my head lamp. By the time we reached a high ridgeline several miles into the run, the sun was cresting the hills beyond, creating a sliver of silver about the clouds. The tamaracks picked up the glow, and in their peak of fall color, blazed gold along the road side and adjacent to the marsh. The grass that grows from the wetlands along the trail, held last night's frost and as the sun rose further, the icy tips shimmered like millions of glass shards flung across the land. Not a bad way to spend each morning.
Sometimes we run into the sunset. Sometimes I take pleasure in simply watching one leader, Nancy, run the trail with ears erect, looking straight ahead, as if there must be a moose around every corner. Sometimes we listen to them howl, all together as a chorus with tenors and altos and marvel at how they can all stop at once as if on cue.
Sometimes we join in their choir.
When I say "we," I am including my husband, Matt. We learned a little something about mushing while working one winter at YMCA Camp Menogyn on the Gunflint Trail. Several years later, we adopted a team of free sled dogs where we lived in Wisconsin and spent our winters running them around cornfields. After helping friends at a race, and trying a short race ourselves, we were hooked, and long-story short, we moved away from the farm belt to run in the boreal forest and now have 26 Alaskan huskies that love running over everything else, except maybe eating.
Mushing is a lot of things, one of which is that it's a lifestyle. Our life revolves around our dogs. There are daily dog chores, scooping, feeding and the required attention (ear-scratching, belly rubs, fur-stroking, and if they aren't too smelly, kisses). In the fall, we start with short runs—5-6 miles day, gradually working up to 20 or 30 mile runs in November and increasing into December, until the dogs are in good enough condition for their first race (this year it will be the Gunflint Mail Run on Jan. 3-4).
For now, every dog in the kennel trains. Each day we run either team Buddha (one of our leaders), or team Beezus (Buddha's brother). The teams alternate days, which means every dog is running every other day. Most of our dogs are two or three years old. We don't know who will make the race team, though we have a pretty good idea. But there are some rising stars. After each run, we talk about who did well, who was the MVP that day. Next month, I will introduce you to some of them.
Going into November, we will increase our mileage and keep track of each day's run in a spreadsheet. This way we can compare how we are doing this year compared with previous years and make sure we hit our training targets. I will sew 400 booties for the dogs to wear this winter. We'll order vast quantities of raw meat and chop it into daily rations. We'll assess our winter gear and our headlamps and make sure we have what we need to make it through another racing season.
I sometimes feel we give up a lot of to live with 26 canines out our back door—vacations for one (it is difficult to find a housesitter for 26 dogs). Certainly we trade time we could be spending on other hobbies (long canoe trips, rock-climbing, dance, and art have all but disappeared from my life since we began mushing). In my mind, we trade cable TV and new clothes to pay for dog food.
But the dogs give us so much.
This morning, we finished hitching up 12 dogs just as it was light enough to turn off my head lamp. By the time we reached a high ridgeline several miles into the run, the sun was cresting the hills beyond, creating a sliver of silver about the clouds. The tamaracks picked up the glow, and in their peak of fall color, blazed gold along the road side and adjacent to the marsh. The grass that grows from the wetlands along the trail, held last night's frost and as the sun rose further, the icy tips shimmered like millions of glass shards flung across the land. Not a bad way to spend each morning.
Sometimes we run into the sunset. Sometimes I take pleasure in simply watching one leader, Nancy, run the trail with ears erect, looking straight ahead, as if there must be a moose around every corner. Sometimes we listen to them howl, all together as a chorus with tenors and altos and marvel at how they can all stop at once as if on cue.
Sometimes we join in their choir.