The Doubles is Fin
Just a quick update because I know there are people still following the race, and as usual the race officals quit updating the website as soon as the front runner got in. We made it in in 15th place and only one hour over our the time we aimed to make it in by.
We’ve never done such a good job of sticking to our schedule in a long race, and it was tough at times. We took more rest than any other team, and several hours above the madatory rest, so we were in last place for much of the day, but we never gave up on focusing on the real reason for coming to this race: to train for Iditarod. Still we managed to “race” a little within the race, and as usual we made out last leg of the race the fast leg. We reeled in two teams in the final 5 miles of the race, and even got into a foot race with one team, and passed them, in “no man’s land” at the finish. We were really excited to have some action at the end of a long day, but also it was great to catch two teams that had left more than AN HOUR ahead of us at the last checkpoint.
We finished with 18 of the 20 dogs we starte wuth and they all did great, especially little Metto and Quigley: our two yearlings. Metoo even led several miles of the race on the first day. The only two dogs we dropped were Ghost and Screamer. Ghost was the pound dog we got in sumer and she really did fantastic for her first year of racing. Most rescues we get we don’t even race the first season to give them extra time to build muscle maturity, but Ghost has been exceptional so she raced 130 miles and then got dropped when she started looking tired. Screamer did great too, but got a sore wrist on the thn snow toward Paxson. It was less than a half an inch thick in some places.
overall the race experience was a lot of fun. We mushed under the northern lights the entire first night, saw a herd of 60 caribou the enxt day, and flushed countless snow-white Ptarmigan through the day. It was reallyu a beautiful journey, and we are thankful we could make it together. Well, we have to get a shower and some sleep. Cole only caught 30 minutes of sleep over the last three days, while Joseph caught 4 hours. We have a lot of making up to do. Look for more tomorrow and a few photos too.