Nic in WHite Mtn:
"I've got two yearlings on the team, and knowing that they were going over Golovin for the first time in their lives, I didn't want any stress on them, and even helping on the sled behind can be stressful to a dog, so I just kind of sat there, and let them do their thing.
And when we approached Golovin, I gave them the command that says 'this is *not* a checkpoint' - I told them <stern voice> "Don't get excited. We're not stopping". They know what that means, they didn't even try to move in, which is really awesome, and they went right through Golovin and all the way here without questioning it.
That's one of the things that made me not even think about chasing Joar all the way here last night, because, you know, puppies.
We didn't really have that much of a chance to catch up, after I red-lined the engine looking for the trail. This was constructive for next year.
Q: Did you realise he hadn't even stopped?
N: Oh yeah, because... well, I pulled into Elim and he was not there. So I knew he'd come all the way over here - probably with a big smile on his face the whole way because he knew I was going to stop.
Congratulations to him for being here when he got here. There's still a lot of trail, but he's going to have a new truck.
[hah! They cut out the comment Nic made about how it was good because Joar's current truck was a piece of crap. So glad we got to hear the whole interview (albeit hard to hear) on Tegan's FB live feed.]
There's more, but you can hear it yourself on Tegan's FB feed - it was this first part which I had trouble catching.
* * *
Mitch in WHite Mtn:
Seems in good spirits.
Well, the whole race has been a kind of a spiral. Um, I trained for a whole different kind of race and with this slow trail, no matter how much rest you had, you could only go so fast, and we just slowed down and slowed down - and I don't think we're going to go any faster until they get a couple of weeks off. So they feel good and they're rested, but they're in that slow trail speed.
Something that's missed is that when the dogs try to go fast on a punchy trail, the trail is deceptive and it drops out from under them, so they become really tentative, so matter how good they feel, they're only going to go so fast, for fear of falling into a hole. That's probably a good thing.
So yes, they have a little more rest on board - it didn't convert to any extra speed, but with a small team you have to make sure you go that way, and keep the ones that I have...
...
I'm competitive because that's the name of the game, but I don't have a bad day or a good day over stuff like that. It is what it is. I'm very happy. I'm pleased with the team - they gave me everything... I obviously made a few mistakes, but I don't think I let them down either... Not the kind of mistakes where you kick yourself afterwards and say 'why do I keep doing that?', but mistakes where you have to make a decision and sometimes it's the right one and sometimes it's not.
Posted: Tue Mar 13, 2018 1:48 pm