IditaProject Forum

great pics boo thank syou so much! fish head stew! oh my god! sounds horrible hahaha, bet the dogs love it! lolly has just pinched wolfes raw chicken wing snack from under his nose! he was kinda licking it to death! haha we are preping the truck for an earlie start tomorow too, ems has packed the personals (i like that one) and iev got to put the rig on the truck, check the harnesses are all there etc etc heehee. funny thing is kirra loves to help almost like she is keepin and eye out that her musher is putting in everythign her team needs haah

Licking it to death....that is HILARIOUS....maybe she got annoyed!!! Hope you have a fantastic race and everyone stays safe. Looking forward to a wonderful account written here on your return. When is Ems joining us on-line? This forum (and the YQ race site) are what Rach and Jerry check into online up there. Between training runs every other day, getting the stuff for the sleds and gear ready, and working on the dogs, they have a nice routine that includes wonderful full-blown meals, sitting back and discussing stuff with Joe and being connected to the outside world via internet and REAL cell phone service. I can't say enough nice things about who and where they are staying this year. The training on the dogs has been amazing.....they are, to quote Timmy, "A well-oiled machine." But a cute, well-oiled team, as you can see. Fun to see so many youngsters becoming superstars and even passing my personal favorites, like Jovi. Timmy is the maestro and since he knows the Caribous like the back of his hand, fire scars or no, they run a different segment of trails every run.....so good for the dogs and the humans. Three teams chasing the maestro on the snowmachine....I LOVE it!!!!! And I think the heavy training schedule is forcing some physical therapy on that ankle....ya' know, what doesn't kill you makes you stronger....and even tho it hurts 24/7, it looks amazing (considering the injury) and with time and use, it should be fully functional. For only 8 months ago, it looks really good. My brother ALSO had a 4-wheeler accident with twisted muscle and bone, and large segments of muscle died and never filled in, so he has grooves where it is missing.....3 years out, it still looks worse than Timmy's. And both of them had amazing surgeons, so I'm really hopeful for Timmy's prognosis. He'll always be aware of it, but such is life. The list of what hurts just gets longer as we age, so we might as well live life hard...'cuz it is all going to hurt, even if we don't do anything, huh? Somewhere I read a quote about not wanting to leave a well-preserved corpse, end with a beat-up, banged up body and be able to say at the end of life, "Wow, what a wild ride!"

thanks boo! i love racing this time of year as its often colder here, and with the quest then he irod going on i feel like im part of a huge mushing family, everyone talking races dogs etc etc. its fun packing up the truck, getting ready, the dogs have just been fed and have got full tummies. it woul dbe gerat to be able to have some snow, i havnt had a race on it in the uk yet! but tonight is surposed to be very cold here, dropping to -6c in the county which means we'll be down to -7-8C at the pub as its always colder down here by the river.

hey boo are those neos on your feet? how do they work for you? we have got a couple pairs of mindel soldens each. they are rated to -39c warm and toasty, not that we ever need anything to go down quite that cold but on a cold morning or at a cold race in the damp cold we get here they are fantastic.

is that the caribou hills that rach and jon are training in with timmy? what an opportunity in itself to be running with JR !!!...so what do you recon...top 20 finish? for rach!

we are rooting for her here!!!! go rach-runyan go

p.s. think ems is going to finaly get on in a mo!

This is a great time of the year....LOVE IT!!! Yes, those are Neos, and I wouldn't own any other boot. I've been standing around at minus 40 without chemical hand warmers in them and been toasty as can be. Part of what I love is they have great traction, but aren't heavy, and you can really feel things....runners, truck running boards, etc. while wearing them. I wear either Merrell quilted short mocs or tennis shoes inside them. Rach loves Lobbens (elf boots) in them, but I don't have a need to spend for them, since I have a system that works for me. If I was running distance, I'd get taller inside gear, like Lobbens, to keep more of the lower leg covered. Inside the Neos, that go almost to the knee.

Yep, Caribou Hills.....Joe is running every day, regardless of weather. (By that, I mean put on the running shoes and go out the door and run, without dogs.) I was actually thinking I'll put them in my top twenty, maybe even top ten. Timmy is really honest and critical of dogs and he says the magnitude of this team versus the 2006 team is twice as good, and really evenly matched, which is another quality that is hard to get....part of that magic carpet thing.....team is only as good as the slowest dog.....but there aren't any bad gears in this machine. And some of the good gears are going to have to stay on the truck----she has 23 great dogs from which to select 16. Yeah, GO RACH-RUNYAN GO....!!!! JR---that's what I lettered on his wristies......

GoRachaelGo®...Bo, thanks for this thread....

Best of luck to Rach...we will be with you the whole way, in spirit. (you do know the ® is a joke...not a joke per say, but in fun...)

daniel...tsfr

Split my gut laughing .. Boo .. a huge thank you !!!!! GREAT report, photos, insider insights into the art and science of Sled dog competition preparation and logistics, teamwork and humorous antics keeping spirits uplifted prepping drop bags!
ROFHOWLING @ TSFR's and your Fishhead song lyrics .. Hope Discovery locked and loaded your unique choral crooning onto film.

GoTeamR&RGo !!!!! GoTeamBooGo!!!!

Article about Iditarod prep with Timmy.....and some descriptions of the accident this summer....eewww.
Iditarod iron man's streak up in smoke

TIM OSMAR: Peninsula musher broke his ankle fighting a fire and won't run for first time in 23 years.

By KEVIN KLOTT
kklott@adn.com | kklott@adn.com
Published: February 18th, 2008 01:43 AM

BOB HALLINEN / Anchorage Daily News /

Musher Tim Osmar talks with Jerry Scdoris after a training run with his daughter Rachael and Joe Runyan. Joe Runyan will be traveling with legally blind musher Rachael Scdoris using Tim Osmar's team in the 2008 Iditarod Sled Dog Race.

CARIBOU HILLS -- All hell is breaking loose outside, but Tim Osmar, a commercial fisherman and musher who grew up here in the wildest reaches of the Kenai Peninsula, will not budge until paramedics arrive. Less than a mile from his log cabin is the wildfire that has torched thousands of rugged acres of dry grass and beetle-killed spruce trees on this corner of the Kenai for the last two days. But Osmar just lies inside on his sofa in agonizing pain, smelling smoke and knowing the fire is creeping closer to his two-story cabin. Every now and then, Osmar glances at his right ankle; it's dangling at a 45 degree angle, throbbing like it's ready to fall off, the bones shattered.

It's 3:30 in the morning on June 21, the longest day of the year and the longest day of Osmar's life. Though he skirted a state trooper roadblock three hours ago to save his family's cabins, that move ultimately would leave him injured and prevent him from doing the two things that make him Tim Osmar: fishing for salmon and racing sled dogs.

The sun is rising in the northeast, but the smoke is so thick -- and it's light nearly 24 hours a day -- it's hard to notice. As Osmar rests inside, he listens to his handler and his daughter's boyfriend dousing the cabin outside with water pumped from a nearby spring. The water is keeping the cabin that is protecting Osmar from going up in flames.

About 30 minutes ago, Osmar helped them fight the fire that was buffered by his dog lot. Thinking of his dad's cabin next door, he hopped on the left running board of his four-wheeler and drove with buckets filled with water. Racing against time, Osmar navigated quickly in near-zero visibility. But Osmar could tell he was veering off the road and headed for a gully. He tried steering the machine but turned too fast. Losing control, he sailed into an abyss of smoke and landed awkwardly on his ankle in the middle of the dirt road. He tried sprinting toward his runaway machine and fell flat on his face.

"What the (explicit)?" he said. "How come I can't run?"

The fire roared so loudly, nobody could hear his cry for help, so he crawled 60 feet to his idling four-wheeler. He sat on the vehicle for a half hour, inhaling smoke and wondering if this was a bad dream. His body shivered -- he was going into shock -- so he puttered home.

In his cabin now and lying on the sofa, Osmar calls his wife, Tawny, who's at fish camp more than 50 miles away in Kasilof, and tells her the news. She hangs up and dials his dad, Dean Osmar, to tell him his cabin is OK but his son's foot is severely broken. With Dean on his way from Kasilof, his immobilized son waits patiently for hours inside the two-story cabin built from the spruce trees that once stood on the property, replaying the last several hours in his mind.

"What are you doing?" Tawny said as he left fish camp hours ago after evacuating dozens of their sled dogs from the cabin.

"I have to go back," he replied. "The house was still standing. I have to save it."

"Take someone with you," Tawny pleaded.

With his prized Iditarod bibs and trophies hanging on the wall and his ankle shattered, all Osmar could think about was the likely end of his 22-year ironman streak of racing the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race.

Osmar has been an Iditarod staple since his 1985 rookie year. He's placed in the top-10 ten times and has never scratched. No other musher has accomplished that feat except five-time champion Rick Swenson, who finished the race 28 times between 1976 and 2005 when he scratched. Swenson sat out the 1997 race in a rules dispute with officials.

Some say next month's Last Great Race won't be the same without Osmar.

"It's been a tough year for the Osmars," said Chas St. George, Iditarod's public relations director. "We're going to miss him out there. But Tim knows how to get back up and into the game. I know he'll be back in the (2009) Iditarod."

'CRAWL TO NOME'

Since Tim Osmar was an infant, growing up here in the Caribou Hills at the end of Oil Well Road, his life has revolved around fishing, sled dogs and caring for his family. He makes his living doing what his dad has done for decades. Each summer Tim, 40, sells salmon his crew nets in Cook Inlet, then spends most of his earnings on his dogs to prepare for the 1,100-mile Iditarod his dad won in 1984. "That's all I've ever done," said Osmar in his cabin on a chilly evening in January. "I've worked every day of my life, but never had a job."

The time is 5 p.m. Normally, Osmar would be outside at this hour, tending to chores in the dog lot. But he is still recovering from that ugly four-wheeler accident. Two of his smaller cabins were destroyed, along with a slew of other cabins and homes in the area during the Caribou Hills fire that cost roughly $6 million to fight. Though his main cabin and his dad's cabin avoided fire damage, the painful and slow-to-heal injury slowed him during commercial fishing season.

But with the help of his four children, the fishing business rolled on. He was able to bark orders from the stern of his setnet skiff while standing on an ankle that had shattered into 30 pieces. "Our fishing season wasn't good anyway," Osmar said.

His Iditarod season turned out even worse.

Replacing Osmar for this Iditarod is 1989 winner Joe Runyan, who was hired to take over for Osmar as young musher Rachael Scdoris' visual guide. The Bend, Ore., woman is legally blind and has been training with Runyan here in the Caribou Hills, with Osmar blazing their trails on a snowmachine. A still-hobbling Osmar can't picture himself guiding her from Anchorage to Nome.

"I could probably crawl to Nome," he admitted. "But if I'm helping someone else, that's just too much."

Jerry Scdoris, Rachael's father, said he was pleasantly surprised when Runyan offered to replace Osmar, whose life took another tragic turn late in the year. In December, Osmar lost his stepmother, Sarah Armstrong, 46, in an automobile accident on the Sterling Highway.

"It's been a hard year for the Osmar family," said Jerry Scdoris. "That's the understatement of the year."

'CASUALTY OF WAR'

Osmar is lying on his sofa now, waiting for help while he rides out the pain. He hadn't hurt this badly since he broke his nose ice skating as a child. Paramedics arrive at 5 a.m., five hours after his group dodged state troopers and rode four-wheelers down Oil Well Road with flames roaring on each side, and two-and-a-half grueling hours after he spilled off his machine. At the hospital in Soldotna, doctors drill a rod through his heel to his shin to keep his ankle together.

"It looked like my foot was falling off," Osmar said. "It was the most painful thing you would ever want."

In hindsight, he would be training today to run his 23rd straight Iditarod on March 1 had he worn motorcycle boots instead of Croc sandals on that fateful morning on summer solstice. "That was probably my biggest mistake, not taking the time to change shoes," he said. "Crocs aren't good for forest fighting. But we had to do some fast moving.

"There was a forest fire, man -- gotta save the dogs first, and once everything is under control, sneak back and save the house. Casualty of war; I broke my ankle."

But at least he's got a cabin in which to recuperate.

Boo, just wanted to say thank you for the pic's of the food drop and the updates ...I loved them..sorry it's taken so long ...have been right out straight with FAN prep, can't begin to imagine what Rachael and all the other mushers are going through ....I only raced Sprint, so only had to pack for 2 days, and no food drops. We fed and watered right out of the dog truck.

THANKS BOO, YOU ROCK

Boo, McGraw and Taft look ALOT like 3 dogs my handler bought from a musher friend in Maine.....cool....

Ya, I cracked up picturing you all singing the fish head song too!!!!! What is it about dogs and yucky smells? We used fish oil, bought out of Canada, easier to transport and buy too!!!!! Our treats were raw liver chunks for that extra energy We also used a 3 meat mix, chicken, beef, and liver, and the meat cost less than the kibble, bought out of Canada too...well, back then.....27 cents a LB for the meat and 32 cents a LB for the kibble....

Go Rachael Go.....Go Joe Go.....top 20 for sure.....I'd just LOVE it if they made top 10.....I'd be Happy Dancing all over the place