City Life

You’ve probably heard by now, but life isn’t fair. Neither is city life for a sled team.

I follow the rules of the city. I have only two dogs when I need four to compete in the sport I love. I clean up after my dogs. I don’t take them into the city parks (none of which allow dogs). I walk everyday on hard concrete past open parks full of soft grass. Just following the rules. The city has lots of rules. In return for following the rules, the city has very little to offer my dogs and I.

Near by is a state park, which “allows” dog sledding. However, the trail is never groomed and “never will be”. In a race, we can complete 4 miles in twenty to thirty minutes. In practice, we never even get close. Today it took us over an hour to do 3 miles. We spend every hour of practice at this park trudging through deep snow. The hikers and snowshoers the park is preserving this area for usually stick to about a mile loop on a 4-mile trail. Most of the trail remains untouched, because the few people that do venture beyond the 1-mile loop have no idea where the trail is. We do. We are out there every chance we get. We know that trail so well we can find it in the dark.

Would it really hurt the hikers and snowshoers if someone ran a snowmobile or something around occasionally to pack it down a bit? The snow will still be there, just as deep as before and will still blow over with drifts for them to frolic through.

We do have options. We can run on bike trails and risk crossing roads. We can also run on snowmobile trails and risk being hit by one flying around a bend. We could also buy our own land and make our own trails, but to find the land at an affordable price would mean leaving the city.

Maybe we should leave the city. The city is not warm and welcoming to dogs. It is even less so for mushers. I don’t fit in with city life. Let’s face it my idea of “green” transportation is a little different than the hybrid cars the city folk are talking about.

So why am I telling you all this? I have all the snow I could possibly want this year, but I still can’t get in enough practice to prepare for our next race.

Musher Gets Cold Feet

I submitted an entry into my first mid-distance race. In March, the team and I will be skijoring 10 to 20 miles. To prepare for the event the three of us went out skiing yesterday. We put on a total of 13 miles, for the day.

A skijoring race presents a few problems for someone like myself:

1. I can’t ski down hills…which means we might have the worst time ever because I’ll be pealing myself up out of the snow a million times. This constant falling and getting back up will not win us any world records and may mean we take too long to finish.
2. As we discovered yesterday my ski boots suck. My feet were instantly wet and while my skiing activity kept my feet warm for most of the run, my feet were freezing by time we were done. I literally had cold feet.
3. I am a slow skier. If the dogs do not pull, we will not be getting anywhere fast.
4. If my dogs do pull, I may have the same problems I have when I go down hill.
5. It is raining now and my snow to practice on is at risk.

If only I have two more dogs, we could run it with a sled.

The good news is Flurry will be done with her antibiotics before the race and she should be back to 100%. I did not notice any stiff joints, sore legs, or favored paws, yesterday.

For now to prepare for the race I am going to try to water proof my boots (I’m not spending money on new equipment for my least preferred dog powered event). Hopefully my boots will finish drying out today and I can get to work at this task.

Second, I am going to stop walking with the dogs. I do not want them too used to our usual slow pace. Our walks have been great and they both really stick by me, but I want lean, mean, running machines for a mid distance even, so I do not have to work as hard the whole race. Therefore, instead of walking I will jog with them, if I can (this rain might make it too icy to jog).

Wish us luck!