ASK THE MUSHER Vol 10: Mitch Seavey

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Re: ASK THE MUSHER Vol 10: Mitch Seavey (12/10 thru 12/16)

Postby tanglefoot » Thu Dec 11, 2008 1:07 am

hi mitch and danny,

firstly thanks so much for comming on the board, and a huge well done for winning the sweepstakes! i mush dogs and live in the UK, i was following the race via the internet and live on the webcasts and radio coverage and the signal cut out just as you crossed the line....so i rang the nome police dept to get the results, they were amazed to get a call from the UK!

anyway, with the current trend heading towards running the quest and the iditarod, would you consider doing both inthe same year?

do you think it does help doing one long distance race towards training for another?

you mentioned the dogs booties in the second iditarod, how did the feet hold up in the first race when you only used one bootie?

how did you get started in running dogs?

im sure there will be more questions but as you guys are training away at the moment i'll leave it at that.

many thanks for your time guys!

matt and the team
Believe in your dog team and your dog team will believe in you. – Frank Turner
TANGLEFOOT SLED DOG RACING TEAM
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Re: ASK THE MUSHER Vol 10: Mitch Seavey (12/10 thru 12/16)

Postby fladogfan » Thu Dec 11, 2008 3:36 am

Hi Mitch and Danny,
Add my thanks to the list for taking time from a busy schedule to answer our questions.

Would you give us your views on the use of the GPS on the sleds? We've heard all the sleds will have it this year.

I remember Tangles reporting of his call to Nome police, this is a diverse group of Iditanuts and we get info any way we can. :lol:

Congratulations on your winning the AAS, and wise move with the winnings.
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Re: ASK THE MUSHER Vol 10: Mitch Seavey (12/10 thru 12/16)

Postby SuldalsXpressen » Thu Dec 11, 2008 4:16 am

Thank you so much for being with us, Seaveys!!

Questions for Mitch:

1. You are a very fast finisher. Sometimes it seems that had the race been 50miles longer you would have won. What decides when you put your team in that special fast gear?
2. You won the race back in 2004. What was special about that year's team or race, why did you win that year?
3.I'm also curious to know if you think differently now compared to earlier years when it comes to what quality you look for in your Iditarod team of dogs? Do you sometimes choose dogs after what the weather forcast says (for instance if the forcast predicts a storm in 6-7 days, or if it predicts cold, clear weather).


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Re: ASK THE MUSHER Vol 10: Mitch Seavey (12/10 thru 12/16)

Postby mitchseavey » Thu Dec 11, 2008 12:32 pm

good morning all. called my dad again, he's currently going 10.4 mph behind 13 dogs. the call lasted about 20 seconds before his hand froze, so i'm going to have to answer the questions i can, and i'll wait on the rest until he gets back. ds

What is your favorite food on the trail?
My mom makes a gourp out of ground up dried fruit, almonds, oatmeal, etc. then she puts is empty yogurt containers. we can eat it without taking our mitts off while were moving by almost "drinking" it out of the containers. at the checkpoints, his favorite meal is pancakes with way too much butter and syrup rolled up with bacon in the middle.

How about your Dogs'?
I think every dog has a different favorite food. Payton likes red salmon, Eagle and Dreyfus prefer turkey skins, and Ditka has a thing for the liver mix. So we have to ship it all out there. Probably the single favorite is actually the Blackwood dog food. If we only get one food, that's what we carry.

Danny: Are you going to ride the trail again on the Snow Mobile?
Not sure yet, actually just finished fixing my machine this week from the last Iditarod. Dallas was riding it, and he's quite a bit better on a dog team than a snowmachine. I think he took out 3 spruce trees, one large ice chunk, and a stump of uncertain species with my skis and struts.
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Re: ASK THE MUSHER Vol 10: Mitch Seavey (12/10 thru 12/16)

Postby mitchseavey » Thu Dec 11, 2008 12:48 pm

with the current trend heading towards running the quest and the iditarod, would you consider doing both in the same year?
We've discussed this option at length since Lance pulled it off. It's always tempting to try and copy what's working for someone else. However, Lance's dogs are quite a bit different than ours, so what's good for him may actually be a detriment for us. For now, we're sticking to the Iditarod.

do you think it does help doing one long distance race towards training for another?
certainly it helps conditioning wise, but at the cost of speed. our strength is speed, and we feel than running two thousand mile races that close would slow them down.

you mentioned the dogs booties in the second iditarod, how did the feet hold up in the first race when you only used one bootie?
they were running almost purebred siberians (who's feet are tougher), and averaging only 45 miles a day. my grandfather says they didn't have any trouble, but they didn't really even know what websplits were. they did put bag balm on their feet, but foot care was one of the big things we had to convince my grandfather to do when he started racing again.

how did you get started in running dogs?
my grandparents listened to Sergeant Preston of the Yukon, and decided they were coming to Alaska to run dogs. He got dogs from Joe Redington Sr. in 1963, and we've had dogs ever since.
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Re: ASK THE MUSHER Vol 10: Mitch Seavey (12/10 thru 12/16)

Postby mitchseavey » Thu Dec 11, 2008 12:55 pm

Would you give us your views on the use of the GPS on the sleds?
We've been pushing for the GPSs for several years now. Any competitive implications are minor, and certainly not an advantage to anyone. They are the first real improvement in race coverage since the internet, and we think the benefits to the fans far outweigh any downsides. I spoke at length with the company last year, and the plan is to have much more info available this year: overlapping run rest charts, average speed, how long they've currently been running, all kinds of cool stuff that would really help make the iditarod a "spectator sport."
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Re: ASK THE MUSHER Vol 10: Mitch Seavey (12/10 thru 12/16)

Postby txbennett » Thu Dec 11, 2008 1:11 pm

Hi Mitch and Danny, thanks for joining us.

Although I am a fan of many spectator sports, I already think the Iditarod is the very best Internet spectator sport -- by far. Ten to fourteen days, or more, is great for us spectators to become totally addicted and absolutely enthralled. With the enhancement of the GPSs, it will only get better and better.

:D :D :D

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Re: ASK THE MUSHER Vol 10: Mitch Seavey (12/10 thru 12/16)

Postby CynCyn37 » Thu Dec 11, 2008 2:11 pm

mitchseavey wrote:good morning all. called my dad again, he's currently going 10.4 mph behind 13 dogs. the call lasted about 20 seconds before his hand froze, so i'm going to have to answer the questions i can, and i'll wait on the rest until he gets back. ds

What is your favorite food on the trail?
My mom makes a gourp out of ground up dried fruit, almonds, oatmeal, etc. then she puts is empty yogurt containers. we can eat it without taking our mitts off while were moving by almost "drinking" it out of the containers. at the checkpoints, his favorite meal is pancakes with way too much butter and syrup rolled up with bacon in the middle.

How about your Dogs'?
I think every dog has a different favorite food. Payton likes red salmon, Eagle and Dreyfus prefer turkey skins, and Ditka has a thing for the liver mix. So we have to ship it all out there. Probably the single favorite is actually the Blackwood dog food. If we only get one food, that's what we carry.

Danny: Are you going to ride the trail again on the Snow Mobile?
Not sure yet, actually just finished fixing my machine this week from the last Iditarod. Dallas was riding it, and he's quite a bit better on a dog team than a snowmachine. I think he took out 3 spruce trees, one large ice chunk, and a stump of uncertain species with my skis and struts.


The gourp sounds really good. Care to share the recipe?

Glad to know your machine is fixed. Dallas's driving sounds like mine!! Thanks for sharing.
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Re: ASK THE MUSHER Vol 10: Mitch Seavey (12/10 thru 12/16)

Postby emwcee » Thu Dec 11, 2008 2:54 pm

Hi Mitch,

I have a couple more questions:

1. What other races do you run, besides the Iditarod, if any? Which ones are your favorites, and why?

2. How did the All Alaska Sweepstakes differ from the Iditarod? What did you like better about it? What aspects did you not care for?

Thanks so much.

Marcia (a.k.a. emwcee)
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Re: ASK THE MUSHER Vol 10: Mitch Seavey (12/10 thru 12/16)

Postby Heidi » Thu Dec 11, 2008 7:56 pm

Hi Mitch & Danny,

So glad you guys are joining us in the forum. :D

I found the following 8-minute interview with Mitch online:



For those who have dial-up and can't watch this, here's some key things Mitch said about the AAS:

"It was the most fun I've ever had, I think, on a race, it was really neat. I enjoyed it immensely."

[Here the interviewer, Mushing Magazine publisher, Greg Sellentin, laughs and says something about winning doesn't hurt either. Mitch laughs.]

"Winning is great. The atmosphere...the people of Nome were so into it, so much more than the Iditarod. It was their race, they had done it, financed it, and to an extent, put in all the trail work. So the people in Nome were really into it. And then my team; I had so much confidence in that team though it was a smaller team. It's just fun running a really nice dogteam. Even if you don't win, that's fun - when it just goes well, they run well and they do their job... And then having the pit crew out there was awesome...they can do your chores and you get a little more sleep than you normally would - it was just a nice race..."

Mitch, congrats on the Sweepstakes win! :D Looking back now on the Sweepstakes, do you have anything to add to what you said above? The atmosphere was the best thing about that race? On a sort of related note, would you say the Iditarod has gotten too big and perhaps lost some of the "atmosphere"? How many dog teams would you like to see as the max for the Iditarod?

[Later Mitch talks about drug testing for the mushers in the Iditarod]

"I'm one of the advocates that the Iditarod do more to enforce their drug policy because I can't imagine, I can't cite any details, but I can't imagine that you're going to have 96 or 100 teams out there and nobody's using anything, ya know, stronger than caffeine to stay awake; so I think there is some of that in the sport. My disappointment is that it's spelled out in the rules, it's there but they don't test...so therefore they don't know if anybody's violating anything... It'd be the only major sport I can think of that doesn't have that these days...so yes, staying awake's a big deal."

How do you think this issue would be best addressed? Mandatory drug testing for all the racers right before the race? Random testing of a few?

I saw your kennel's 2008 WildRide show the first time you performed it back in May in Anchorage. What are your plans for the summer of 2009?

Thanks! :)
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