Saturday, December 8, 2012

Mushers' Meeting

The first sprint race of the season is here.

Are we ready? 

As ready as we'll ever be.  We don't have as many miles under our paws as I would have liked for this, but ya gotta start somewhere.
I am also not entered in the skijouring class which makes me sad, but I don't have a dog ready to run two 4 miles back to back as would have to happen.... actually I'll be completely honest, I don't think I'm ready to ski the 4 miles myself!

The race this weekend is for bragging rights, a trophy and all for fun. 
I am not in the top 3 for the 4 dog open class that I've entered and although I'm not saying we don't have fast dogs.. we do... but we have a Sibe on our team which slows us down just enough for the other faster Alaskans to rip past us on the trail.
I can't wait to have my two fast babies ski trained to enter the skijour class and see what we can really do... soon enough.

I will admit it publicly... I'm not a huge fan of sprint racing with the sled.
My heart beats a mile a minute.
I get caught up in the rush of getting the dogs hooked up just moments before being called to the starting chute... dogs ramped up and screaming loudly to be let loose.
The take off..... the speed... the feeling of not being in control at all for that brief moment as you find your 'sled legs'
I don't breath up until that point.

The scariest part of today is the fact that we have yet been on our sprint sled this year. In fact the dogs have not trained without any weight in the sled up to this point... which means... we are going to FLY today.
I just hope I can make corners without flipping my weigh nothing sled.

And I do LOVE LOVE the adrenaline rush that is brought on by all this, I just think perhaps it is our lack of experience in racing as a team and having others pass us on the trail that make me feel as if my stomach is in knots.  Well I guess as I stated earlier... ya gotta start somewhere.

So, I've completely gone off topic from what this blog was originally titled.

I may not 'love' the sprinting of the sled but I do love the meeting of the mushers.
My favorite part of the weekend is Friday night.. walking into the room and seeing familiar faces that you have not seen since last year.

The people in this 'world' are the most laid back friendly people I know and I'm always left feeling like we have known each other for years and that no time has passed since we last saw each other.
Everyone is eager to share their tips and tricks and I always walk away having learned something new.

Perhaps all the time we spend hanging out with our fur kids has rubbed off on us somehow... 

.....or maybe we just learn from our dogs better than others.

Well... I'm off to get ready for the races! 

Happy trails everyone!

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