Charlie's Weblog

Well as the title says there have been troubles with the new sled! While I have been running the teams Rich has been building the new sled and issues have arose.

Well, I'm back and I am going to try to do better about keeping up from now on. I'm in between 2 runs right now, warming up by the heater, having a snack and hot cup of tea. It's pretty cold out right now, 0 at my house but about 10 below where my run took me. And yes, I am training alone today. No Rich with me. His old reliable huge sled was in desperate need of new runners and so he decided to just build one of the new sleds we have been planning. Of course, he thought it would only take one day but guess what, we are into day 2 and it is still not done. Just because we are down one sled doesn't mean the dogs get time off so for 2 days I have been training all the dogs myself. Two runs a day across lots of thick freshly fallen snow and now it is REALLY cold. But guess what, I am doing it and it is even kind of fun. It is tiring and time consuming but the good part is that I don't have time to do any schoolwork. Too bad....

The runs have been going pretty good. I had to cut yesterdays run a little short because of the thick snow. We are trying to keep the dogs speed up and they just can't go that fast in the thick snow. The dogs easily get comfortable at a certain speed so we want to keep that comfort level a little faster. They have done a lot trailbreaking through thick snow lately and their speed is down a little so we are trying to pick it up. Today they ran at about 9 1/2 mph overall, still through thick snow. In some spots on the run we ran on the plowed road and they really seemed to pick it up then so I was pretty happy with that.

About running by myself. It is a lot different in some ways because I have always trained with my brother. Eventhough we can't have big conversations, you always know someone else is close by. Running alone is a little more challenging for me, maybe just different. I guess I feel good about it because I have to make all the decisions on my own and be totally responsible for whatever happens. I must be doing o.k. because the dogs have been coming home healthy and happy each time. I'm good when I get home, too, but usually hungry, thirsty and cold. But that's what running dogs is all about sometimes.

Time to go on the second run.

Training is going good and the puppies are ready to be named.

I just cleaned a box that I haven't touched since the Jr. Iditarod.

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