ASK THE MUSHER Vol 8: Dee Dee Jonrowe

[DeeDee]

Good Morning- Interesting questions from Norway, it will be interesting to see what the differences between Lance's impressions and mine, He was just born when I started racing. We use to run more squared shaped dogs, they had big deep chests and trotted all day. Us distance drivers tried to make sure they stayed trotting nearly afraid to let them lope. The good breeders were really the rondy drivers. The joke use to be they started the Iditarod for the bad sprint teams. It is appropiate to note that most of the great Iditarod dogs today were from those record setting rondy teams. Martin researched those lines and developed his line from that. Mine have their roots in Roxy, and her father's lines. The very best way to test structure and endurance in your breeding program is to compete and compete ALOT. From the dogs that excell you develope your next breeding. My complete program took a leap forward when I raced the Alpirod in Europe for 4 years. When Eglia joined the circut over here distance drivers tried to put alot of different hound crosses on the trail and soon saw the problems they had in cold windy weather. A few years of warm races delayed the relavation but soon the stormy years returned and those of us with the husky coated dogs saw why our dogs were the real "artic" breed, or had least had arctic breed backgrounds. I actually believe the dogs on the Iditarod trail today are the absolutely greatest athletes that have ever been in the sport. If the purses were there and we were able to financially make sense of doing so, our Iditarod dogs would win the major sprint races trained appropiately. I would like to show that with my bloodline but I spend so much time training for distance I don't have enough hours in the day.
Weather- I like nice 10 F to -20F. I must say I enjoy the sunny warm days for a nice afternoon break but the dogs run fast around zero and colder and I LIKE SPEED.
Now I think I have forgotten your other question. Oh well I will post this and then see.

[DeeDee]

What would I like to change about the my lifestyle, because actually that is what the Iditarod is to me and love it with a passion. I have spent 30 years of life out there. This month I will be 55 so it is over half of my life and I feel blessed I must add that I am still out there and able to be competitive. God has been good to me, shepharding me though all sorts of obstacles that have tried to keep me OFF the trail. Anyways I am wandering. I would , in my dreams, return to host families. It is not realistic especially with the number of competitors today but it was such a special thing. I love the distances between checkpoints the more time we can be alone the better I like it. I love time alone with my dogs. When we did away with Farewell Lake as a checkpoint and went directly from Rohn River to Nikolai we thought it way so very far. It became the template for other such runs that have followed like the run accross the interior from Ophir to Iditarod. Oh how I love this adventure. And because i do I need to get into the day and get ready to feed. Today we will run from Martin's kennel home giving the dogs a nice medium distance destination run. the reward HOME at the end of trail.

[Di*]

Hope you have a good run today DeeDee Holler to Martin that we'd like him on here next!

It is so fun hearing you talk DeeDee what a plethora of info you are! Very interesting about your idea of the Idit dogs being successful at sprint as well!

Would you ever consider running the Quest? or the Quest AND Iditarod in the same year?

[klmobile]

Hi Dee Dee
Thanks for sharing so much with us.
I was lucky enough to hear about the Iditarod before the first race was run and have followed it as much as possible ever since.
The Internet has been great for the fans especially this site that John and all the kids at the BssD have worked so hard on.
I have 2 questions.

What is your favorite Race besides the Iditarod?

How has the Internet effected "The Race" for you?

Thanks for all the years of fun and excitement you have given me and my family.
kevin

[boo]

Dee Dee....I'm Rachael Scdoris's handler. You came and spoke for chapel at Grace Christian just months after the terrible accident on the bridge---I was a teacher, one among many, who was impressed with your witness to the kids at our school. Anyway, I've always had one quite personal question rattling around in my head that has NEVER gone away and something you said in one of your answers here prompts me to ask it. You can opt to answer it...or not....but as a woman over 50, I'd really like to know from one who lived it.....you.

Here goes.....according to ADN and all the other press stories (and we all know sometimes they get it exactly right, sometimes they don't)....you had no inkling of your breast cancer until after the Mt. Marathon race....something about you felt really really bad...you didn't rebound like normal, something vague like that. I guess what I want to know, in hindsight, is DID you have any warning signs in your general health/energy level/metabolism leading up to that diagnosis. And WAS there a lump/lumps that had gone undetected? What specifically would you tell all of us to do to be proactive, having gone the long, hard route that you have gone? I would like to think we can all learn from your experience, so that is why I'm asking such an intensely personal question.

I've wondered the same thing about Lance's cancer. Of course smoking or tobacco use was probably a factor in his case, but he still has lots of relatives that still smoke like chimneys and have not been diagnosed with cancer....let alone at such a young age. Anyway, has very little to do with the dogs, but there ya' go.....

[Moose]

Not directly anything to do with the dogs, Boo, except that you're asking this question of the best dog woman there is. So I guess it's tangentially related!

[finnmarkToday]

Hi Dee Dee and thanks for giving time to us at this forum.

Doing the IR more than once is there one year you think of as special
And why is that run special

[DeeDee]

Good Evening- It was an absolutely GRAND day. Turns out Martin and Sean (not sure I am spelling his name right) were getting ready to train as well when we drove up so we ended up pulling out with 4, 16-dog teams. Mike and I followed Martin on his home trail and for the first time this season I got to follow that famous blue Northern Outfitter's parka with all the colorful sponsor patches. Put a huge smile on my face and definitly got my head into the game for the season. Mike and I had really good runs with it starting to snow really hard about 1/2 hour before we reached home. Enough of the trail report time to answer questions.
Most special race - I think one of my most moving races was 1997 just 4 mons after the fatal car accident the we were in. That winter was very very hard. Mike was not even able to walk on his own until a few weeks before the start and I was not able to use my left shoulder. It had frozen from the seat belt injury. I trained small teams from the time I was alowed to return to the sled until about 2 weeks before the start. Roxy had been amazing helping me get the team together. I was no longer scared about anything happening to me I had already been very very close to not surviving and had watched my grandmother died next to me, the only thing that made me hate for the start to happen was being away from Mike. I was afraid he might not be alive if I let him out of my sight. I did not expect to be very competitive but I needed to get away from disfunction that has defined my winter. I was noticably weaker having lost a section of my intestine when it ruptured and unable to eat for awhile. Thanks to Roxy the dogs were very well trained and responded to me great. I love that lady. By my 24 hour layover I was running in the 30's and left with from Takotna with the smallest team in the race, 10 dogs. I remember Susan interviewing me and asking me as I was hooking up how it felt to have the smallest team and be down to 10 dogs not even half way thru the race. I smiled and told her it was all I could handle all winter, and the dogs did not miss the other 6. By the Yukon other teams were falling off and my 10 dogs were getting much stronger. I went from running in the 30's to 5th place at Eagle Island. By the time I traveled the coast I was safely in 4th with no threat from behind and I could give the dogs 6 hrs rest at every village. I traveled in my own bubble working out things with God, watching my grandmother singing in the heavenly choir I was seeing in the northern clouds. I cried, and cried, and prayed , and prayed trying to make sence of what had happened to us and all the time traveling in 4th place with my solid 10 dog team. It was one of the best races of my life. I have since that time, had similar experiences healing from chemothearpy but that race was amazing and I will forever be grateful for the friends that pulled together to make it possible.
Favorite Race Other Than Iditarod. - I really loved the John Beargrease marathon, when it was a 500 miler in Jan. The North Shore trail is so beautiful and that time of year there was warmth in the sun. That is not the case in Alaska in Jan and Feb. The people of northern Minn are so real. They are friendly were always happy to see us, and seem to relate to the same things that makes me love living in Alaska. It was expensive to get there from here but it was sure worth it. I would have to say it would be a tie between that and the Alpirod. I think it is because i love traveling to new places by dog team. For that reason I would have to include the Kobuk 440. Now that is a survival test at a graduate course level. I use to be scared of the wind blowing out of Shatoolik until I raced up there in a storm, Shaktoolik was a breeze compared to the Kotzebue area. I felt like I was one of the first explorers opening up the Arctic by dog team when I was on that race and I love every min. of it. That level of gut-level survival traveling gave me such a feeling of being alive, like I was firing on all cylinders. It was WONDERFUL.
Internet Effect- Well it has exposed us to a greater fan base and has provided a way to get all the races statistics easily. Use to be only the serious racers had all those numbers and we would crunch them in our heads over coffee kind of like playing a game of chess. We would spend many a night huddled around the woodstove trying to decide what competitors were planning to do and how we could be counter play that move. A dear friend Ron Tucker, who just died of cancer last month was particularily good at that and I loved to sit like a little girl listening to tails from her past at his table throwing "what-if" situations at him and listening to his keen mind work. Now more people do this by themselves just them and their very impersonal computer. The social part of it has been removed. I miss that. I guess I also have to admitt that this has provided a way for "too much" coaching in the checkpoints to happen as well. That really changes the nature of our event. We are suppose to do this with our dogs and our own skills however many or few they are. That was the way they traveled in the early days.I am always striving to be as good as Scotty Allen and Ironman Johnson the legends of the early days. The Internet might work to take that raw adventure out of it. That would be a shame. It should not be available to the competition during the race only the fans.
Ouest and Iditarod Same Year - YES I would love to. I think the Quest trail might provide that unspoiled racing experience that I so love, but I just would not be able to chose not to be on the Iditarod trail is I could safely be there. So yes I very badly want to do both and do them the same year sometime very soon.
I think I got them all covered. I will check back in the morning and let you know the plan for the day.

[DeeDee]

Forgot to address Boo's cancer question. Here is the deal the best I can remember. Sometime late Aug or early sept 2001 I felt an unusually dense lump. I thought it was nothing and I did not have time to try and ask because i wanted to train and I did NOT want to know anything was wrong. That was another difficult winter things in long term sponsorships were rumoured to be changing and I did not have an Iditarod Championship to shelter me . I thought if I could just win I could protect my kennel. These 2 sponsorships had actually defined the majority of my racing career. I ran everything I could in the 01-02 season: Knik 200,Kusko300, Tustameana 200, Iditarod and Kobuk 440. All the time the lump never went away and it was very easy to feel. I remember asking Mike what he thought like he was going to have ANY idea what to say. I was tired ALOT. I ended up in the Nome hospital at the end of the race on IV fluids for 2 days. Then off 2 weeks later to run the Kobuk 440. Oh yes, and at the drawing banquet one of those companies said it was indeed over, " No hard feelings but we are staying with Doug and have a good life". This after 15 years of working together. I felt I had plenty of stress to excuse the lack of energy I had. Finally June 2002 comes around, Mike is in Bristol Bay for 2 mons salmon fishing , and it is time for my anual exam. As I was about to leave the exam room I stopped and ask my dr about the lump. She was not concerned but being the good dr. she is she started the diagnostic process that revealed what we all know now was NOT a good result. In the meantime between the biopsy and the lab results I competed in a triathlon. I could not do the lake swim part because of the surgery site but a friend swam for me , and i came in very last in the mt biking and running. I knew i was not good but it seemed extraordinarily bad. I had run Mt Marathon the week before and also had a marginal preformance. Well the Monday after the tri on sat. i got the diagnosis. Things made more sense then. I hate what all I had to do for all the treatments. It trashed me. It has taken much longer than i thought it would to recover. If I had acted in the fall maybe it would not have advanced so much. Perhaps not so much chemo, maybe it would not have spead to my lymph system. Early detection is the key. Self exams are a very keen part of that. Just racing around in denial trying to literally run away from the lump did NOT serve me well. Probably speeded up the spreading all that circulation and all. Anyways enough on that but you get the idea.

[boo]

Thank you so much, Dee Dee. It is very telling and...

I thought it was nothing and I did not have time to try and ask because i wanted to train and I did NOT want to know anything was wrong.

....this statement really resonates....and should be a chilling warning to all of us. If we don't have time to get it checked out, how much more time and risk will be involved if it progresses? More drastic treatment and maybe not even a vital outcome can be the result. I'm SO thankful you had excellent treatment and that God spared your life.....you are such a huge inspiration! Thank you, thank you!!!! What you just told me is a much better kick in the pants than my sister-in-law nagging me! You made my night! Thank you so, so, so much! Glad you had such a phenomenal training run today....I'm jealous. We have no snow here YET and the forecast is nothing but inversion and the wrong jet stream for the next 10 days. Rough to do sled dog tours when the local ski hill has no snow. Some folks might pay to ride when we run with four-wheelers in the desert, but we don't do that with clients!!!! UGH! We need some of your white stuff and cold, cold, cold temps. Please send it on down....