Sitting on an ATV for three hours when its 15 degrees, going 10 mph, is a cold endeavor. The dogs are warm; they’re running. But Matt and I are cold. I even pulled out my full winter parka for the night’s run, but down insulation and fur trim aren’t keeping my motionless body warm.
Looking ahead to competing in the Beargrease, I have to wonder if it’s not the dogs that need so much training; they are born to run. But what about me? What if I can’t stay warm enough riding on the sled runners for three days? How will I keep myself from falling asleep? What will I think about for all those hours?
Clearly the human needs training.
This night, when we set out, there is fresh snow—about three inches, and enough to give the road’s surface a cushion for the dogs’ paws. When we turn from the road onto a narrow, grass-covered trail, we see fresh wolf tracks in the snow. A lone wolf it appears. The leaders of the night, Beezus and Judy Blume, move to the left side of the trail to check out where this wolf is headed—“Hey someone has broken trail for us,” they seem to think. Several miles later we see somewhat smaller, evenly spaced tracks—too big for fox, too small for wolf, perhaps a lynx? And then later still, oddly shaped tracks; upon closer look, boots. Someone must have been looking for deer—it was deer hunting opener after all.
We amuse ourselves following tracks and then a rabbit leaps out in front of the leaders, zig-zagging back and forth on the trail ahead of them. There is a burst of energy from the team. Ahead, just above the trees, a light so bright emerges that I think it must be a head light, or a cabin, but it’s the moon. It’s the night after the full moon, and it rises even higher, casting the snow in a pale glow.
Meanwhile, my right foot is going numb. We should have eaten dinner before the run, and I make a mental note to do so next time. Without fuel in my body, I can’t stay warm. And then I wonder what I will eat on the Beargrease trail to keep myself fueled. In the past, it hasn’t been a huge issue—usually a Snickers would do for a 3 to 4-hour run. I simply waited to fuel up at the checkpoints. I may need to be more deliberate now about eating. I recently heard of one musher who stopped at McDonald’s and bought 100 hamburgers from the dollar menu before a long race and used those to stay energized.
Finally, I tell Matt to drive—I will run behind the ATV to warm up. He slows down to a pace I can keep up with, and as I trudge along beside the team, the dogs keep looking back—“How strange, the human is running.” As we near the bottom of a hill, I start to slow down and the team surges on ahead. “Hey,” I yell to Matt, but he doesn’t hear me over the drone of the ATV, and besides, we never stop on hills, because we’ve learned from Beargrease veterans that when you are on the return trip to Duluth, almost 300 miles into the race, somewhere around Heartbreak Hill near Finland, your dogs may want to stop, and what you never, ever want to let them do is stop on a hill, because they might just give up—just lie down and flat out quit. At that point, there might be nothing the musher can do to get them to keep going, and the musher might be too exhausted to do much anyway, and at a certain point, if your dogs think they are done, you don’t have the heart to tell them they are not done. Ideally, we train them to love running up hills, and if all goes well, they won’t want to stop; they will want to run forever.
So, we don’t stop on hills, or we are surely toast.
I think about this as Matt goes on with the team and the ATV, and I continue trudging in my Sorel boots, watching the taillights of the ATV get dimmer in the distance, feeling the black night swallow me up. I flash my headlight at him. He doesn’t stop. I keep trudging.
Finally, the team crests the hill, and the ATV slows. Matt gives them a break and eventually I catch up, huffing on the cold bite of air swooshing in and out of my lungs.
Yeah, we need to work on training the human.
In the next few weeks, we will practice camping with our dogs—run for a few hours, bed them down for a while and then run back. Our youngest dogs haven’t yet camped, and this is crucial for race checkpoints. Race veterans, like Judy Blume, who have done the Beargrease multiple times, and the 1,000-mile Iditarod, know that when you get into a checkpoint, you eat and you sleep—because in a few hours, you get up and you keep going. Meanwhile, I’ll be running up hills in all my winter gear to get in shape, and testing foods that keep me warm when it’s impossibly cold (hot cocoa laced with butter anyone?).
And if we get enough snow, we’ll transition from the ATV to sleds, which is when the fun really begins.
Looking ahead to competing in the Beargrease, I have to wonder if it’s not the dogs that need so much training; they are born to run. But what about me? What if I can’t stay warm enough riding on the sled runners for three days? How will I keep myself from falling asleep? What will I think about for all those hours?
Clearly the human needs training.
This night, when we set out, there is fresh snow—about three inches, and enough to give the road’s surface a cushion for the dogs’ paws. When we turn from the road onto a narrow, grass-covered trail, we see fresh wolf tracks in the snow. A lone wolf it appears. The leaders of the night, Beezus and Judy Blume, move to the left side of the trail to check out where this wolf is headed—“Hey someone has broken trail for us,” they seem to think. Several miles later we see somewhat smaller, evenly spaced tracks—too big for fox, too small for wolf, perhaps a lynx? And then later still, oddly shaped tracks; upon closer look, boots. Someone must have been looking for deer—it was deer hunting opener after all.
We amuse ourselves following tracks and then a rabbit leaps out in front of the leaders, zig-zagging back and forth on the trail ahead of them. There is a burst of energy from the team. Ahead, just above the trees, a light so bright emerges that I think it must be a head light, or a cabin, but it’s the moon. It’s the night after the full moon, and it rises even higher, casting the snow in a pale glow.
Meanwhile, my right foot is going numb. We should have eaten dinner before the run, and I make a mental note to do so next time. Without fuel in my body, I can’t stay warm. And then I wonder what I will eat on the Beargrease trail to keep myself fueled. In the past, it hasn’t been a huge issue—usually a Snickers would do for a 3 to 4-hour run. I simply waited to fuel up at the checkpoints. I may need to be more deliberate now about eating. I recently heard of one musher who stopped at McDonald’s and bought 100 hamburgers from the dollar menu before a long race and used those to stay energized.
Finally, I tell Matt to drive—I will run behind the ATV to warm up. He slows down to a pace I can keep up with, and as I trudge along beside the team, the dogs keep looking back—“How strange, the human is running.” As we near the bottom of a hill, I start to slow down and the team surges on ahead. “Hey,” I yell to Matt, but he doesn’t hear me over the drone of the ATV, and besides, we never stop on hills, because we’ve learned from Beargrease veterans that when you are on the return trip to Duluth, almost 300 miles into the race, somewhere around Heartbreak Hill near Finland, your dogs may want to stop, and what you never, ever want to let them do is stop on a hill, because they might just give up—just lie down and flat out quit. At that point, there might be nothing the musher can do to get them to keep going, and the musher might be too exhausted to do much anyway, and at a certain point, if your dogs think they are done, you don’t have the heart to tell them they are not done. Ideally, we train them to love running up hills, and if all goes well, they won’t want to stop; they will want to run forever.
So, we don’t stop on hills, or we are surely toast.
I think about this as Matt goes on with the team and the ATV, and I continue trudging in my Sorel boots, watching the taillights of the ATV get dimmer in the distance, feeling the black night swallow me up. I flash my headlight at him. He doesn’t stop. I keep trudging.
Finally, the team crests the hill, and the ATV slows. Matt gives them a break and eventually I catch up, huffing on the cold bite of air swooshing in and out of my lungs.
Yeah, we need to work on training the human.
In the next few weeks, we will practice camping with our dogs—run for a few hours, bed them down for a while and then run back. Our youngest dogs haven’t yet camped, and this is crucial for race checkpoints. Race veterans, like Judy Blume, who have done the Beargrease multiple times, and the 1,000-mile Iditarod, know that when you get into a checkpoint, you eat and you sleep—because in a few hours, you get up and you keep going. Meanwhile, I’ll be running up hills in all my winter gear to get in shape, and testing foods that keep me warm when it’s impossibly cold (hot cocoa laced with butter anyone?).
And if we get enough snow, we’ll transition from the ATV to sleds, which is when the fun really begins.