This weekend we completed our second 200 mile race of the season. This time it was the Don Bowers Memorial Sled Dog Race. While this race is typically billed as a low keyed race that encourages mushers new to distance racing, a few challenging sections of trail made it a great learning experience for all of us. Due to open leads on the Big Su River the trail, for the second year, had to be rerouted through the woods. The "new" trail made for some spectacular crashes suffered by nearly every musher and thus, some great stories at the finishers' banquet. Most stories involved a very large rock, a corresponding tree, onto which some of us were launched, care of the rock. Most of the trail was great! All of the race personnel was fantastic and the scenery was unbelievable! That very bright moon made traveling both nights on the trail sureal. Although Friday and Saturday were both a bit too warm and made for some very soft trails and slow going it was beautiful, none the less.
The puppies did great! We ran very conservatively the first half of the race up to Joe May's cabin for our 8 hour layover. The dogs got lots of TLC at a campout for 4 hours at about 50 miles and more TLC and lots of rest during the 8 hours at Joe's. I decided to see how well the dogs would respond to only a 2 hour break for some food and water on the way home. After 2 hours they got off that straw and were screaming to go. Had to work to slow them down the whole way home. We finished the race in 7th place and only dropped one dog. Martin stayed behind at Joe's. He had a bit of a sore and swollen wrist from a training run the week before so I didn't want to push it.
The icing on the cake was winning the humanitarian award for best dog care! Every musher wants to be recognized for good dog care! Thank you Don Bowers race crew for noticing!
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