DianneF wrote:Kristy and Allie? Is it just coincidence or does he name all his dogs after other mushers?
Hah! I didn't realise that!
He mentions Suzy in the transcription below (Suzy Rogan?) and Jeffrey. I don't know any musher named Jeffrey.
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This is the vid from the shelter cabin:
Nic in the shelter cabin last night/this morning.
He's eating hot rice (?) out of a foil packet with what appears to be a stick? Oh, it's a broken piece of lathe.
Nic-at-cabin3.JPG
N: "We're not exactly going to speed we were at the start of the race. But they're fueling up at every fuel stop. They're eating better than I've ever seen them. Every time I stop and make them a meal, they just devour everything i have.
Stu Nelson, the head vet was "Are they eating?"
And I was "I'll be with you in a minute - first, watch this:"
I fed them a 5 gallon bucket and another 30 lbs of fat and beef and stuff like that.
Q: And that's translating to their performance, clearly.
N: I'm scared to overfeed too. Stu Nelson asking if they're eating - I think I overdid it. They were a little bit lethargic there for a bit.
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Then there's vid of him in a white wind parker working on the team outside the cabin and it's BLOWING like crazy. The dogs have their jackets on and are looking alert and interested. All you can see is Nic's nose poking out of his ruff - he's all hunched up in the wind that is blowing CONTINUOUSLY like a freight train.
He's got them in the lee of the cabin - which is only about 12x12 - so the whole team doesn't really fit behind it - putting down straw for them and they're digging in it and turning around to make it "just so" as dogs do. You can see the cabin in these shots below.
Nic-at-cabin.JPG
Nic-at-cabin2.JPG
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Q: This late in the game, does it concern you that you had to send your lead dog home?
[he was going to drop Allie at Unk, since she wouldn't get to rest, but had carried LD Kristy all the way from Old Woman and thought she'd be better for being carried and the rest in Unk, but it looks like dropped Kristy when he went through Shak]
N: I feel good that the reason I have good lead dogs is I bred the right female and the right males. They all have led at some point - maybe not in the race, but in training definitely. So I get to learn more about my dog team by not having Kristy. So in a way, it's a good learning experience for me and for the ones that haven't done any end of race leading.
Q: did it affect you coming across the ice?
N: Just leaving there [Shak]. I shouldnt' have put Suzy up there, she was messing around a little bit. Jeffrey was going for it. But that guy, he keeps taking off his booties every time I stop for five minutes, the booties are gone - that's kind of annoying. But I guess he likes to have them off as fast as he can. I think he likes to eat the ice on them. But one less to do for me.
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Video is cropped to the next section:
N: There's nothing more satisfying than pitch black behind you. No headlamps.
Q: do you not own a spoon?
N: I use everything. A piece of wood...
Q: Adds to the taste?
N: Yes, more fiber, I can gnaw on it if I want. Maybe I should take a piece off it and put it in my missing filling.
Q: I asked Phil here (other camera guy/driver) if he noticed anything odd about the trail markers and he said "yes, I noticed someone had been writing on them".
N: Yes, that was me. <laughs> They're messages to my fellow mushers - friendly stuff. Jim Lanier wrote a song and sang it at various mushing banquets. It goes "Sixteen dogs and you get another day older and deeper in debt" - so that's one of the things I wrote on those things. And "Hi Monica Zappa, thanks for giving me that food at..." I almost left some dog food behind at Ophir and was yelling "Can someone give me that bag?" and Monica ran over with them. "Thank you!" Hopefully it's a good way into the run where those trail markers are, so hopefully someone that's tired will get a kick out of it, and it brightens their day somewhat.
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Video is cropped to the next section:
Q: Last question - everybody that I've run into - save for you - is exhausted when they come into check points. And every time we run ito you, you seem pretty upbeat and don't seem tired. Are you tired, or just ...?
N: I'm tired, but I don't work behind the dogs so much, I just sit on the sled. Ski-pole once in a while, maybe I'll kick a little bit... but not much. My back hurts already, I don't need to be wearing myself out. And if I save my energy and just keep taking care of the dogs at the checkpoints, we go faster.
Q: What are you going to have to do to maintain this lead?
N: I don't know, because I've never done it. But this year, the races I've done - that's what I've wondered, how am I going to keep it togehter and not let these guys catch up, and I just keep doing my thing and the lead grows. So we'll see if this keeps happening here. Be nice if it did.
But Mitch and Joar, they know how to push. And the others, they're a little further back, but you can't count them out. You can't count out Ray - he's got a good looking dog team - I don't know how many he's got left.
<... thinks for a minute...>
I guess I could look at this piece of paper.... oh, he's got 13 dogs, Mitch has 11... JOar has 13... I'm down to 11... oh, Travis has come in with 12 dogs. Linwood's got 13. Ramey Smyth... now that's a guy I love. At the end of the race, he can really turn it on, and he's got 13 dogs and he pulled into Unk at 10:50... that's a way back... I don't know what time I pulled into there but it was in the morning.... yeah? late morning? early afternoon? I don't know.
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