I know it’s cliché to say, but there is so much going through my head right now, I feel it is going to explode. Sometimes, I can make a list that helps keep an idea from floating in across the membranes of my brain and back out before I have truly absorbed what I am supposed to remember. Here are a few things I have been contemplating.
Feet
Better known as paws on our canine friends, we must spend a good deal of time caring for these assets to our athletes’ bodies. I’ve read of runners in Australia who run barefoot across great tracts of land, and so do our dogs until there is an abrasion, a ding in their pad, and then we rub on a special cream, don a bootie, and on they go, as if there were no problem at all. So, this time of year, each run starts with a look at each paw and a check of the armpits. Harnesses can start to rub, causing chafing. If there is a rub starting, we can give them a special shirt to wear under their harness to keep it from rubbing. It can take a long time to dress up a 14-dog team. Eventually, when it does snow, their toenails will start to grow, and the hair between their toes will grow, necessitating some trimming, lest they build up ice balls, which cause splits in the skin between their toes, necessitating more cream, and more booties. On certain days we go around with toenail trimmers and hair trimmers doing what we can to keep things tidy. Short nails mean more life out of our dog booties, which these days run $1.25 a piece, so at four paws, that’s $5 when all dressed up.
Alaskan husky racing dogs are used to having their feet messed with—touched, bootied, clipped, looked at, salved, you name it. But we have one special dog named Frida who has made a reputation for herself by refusing to abide by our belief that we should be able to touch her feet. Back feet, maybe; front feet, definitely not. So when I take her to a race, I have to explain to the vets that I can’t touch her feet, so you (the vet) definitely aren’t going to be able to touch her feet—if that’s a problem, we should probably figure that out now. Then halfway through the race, the vets insist they should look at her feet, and she freaks out because she doesn’t want her feet touched, and I say I told you so. Eventually, they give up. I’ve been trying to get Frida to let me put booties on her front feet because if she won’t, she definitely won’t be running the Iditarod because a dog can’t run the Iditarod without booties on all four feet.
This year, with a real lack of snowfall, we’ve had to bootie a lot of paws. I’m often found sewing booties out of a thick Cordura fabric we use for running on gravel just before a run so that we have enough to bootie the problem paws. For a few days, there was snow to run on, providing a nice soft cushion for running, and allowing us to up our training mileage.
Meat
Another crucial commodity for fall training that has been particularly hard to come by this year has been meat for the dogs. Our regular hauling truck has been out of commission, so we’ve had to borrow meat from other mushers. Meat is a crucial part of the diet for these dogs to keep their weight up when they start running more miles each day (they are currently running 100 miles a week), and it helps them stay hydrated when the temperatures are below freezing because we are using meat to bait water—we blend it into water, making a “soup” that we feed each morning before they run. At the beginning of November, I was able to make a run to a facility near St. Cloud that supplies mushers with meat and brought home a large supply (2,000 pounds), much to our relief. Then the meat becomes part of the daily routine—pull five tubes out of the freezer to thaw each night. If they don’t get pulled, oof, big mistake, because it’s hard to hydrate dogs with frozen meat.
Beats
When we are out running dogs, on ATV or sled, both Matt and I enjoy listening to music. Titanium by David Guetta is the song that both embodies and perks me up when it plays on shuffle. Some days, it takes a tough state of mind to live this life that we have created for ourselves. Music transcends us to a mental place that embraces that tough place. Music can, of course, also capture beauty and magic.
“I’m bulletproof, nothing to lose, fire away, fire away.” I hear the desperation in these lyrics, and some days, I’m just right there. I know this is supposed to be exciting, running the Iditarod. I know that when I pull the hook in early March, it will be. It is also perhaps the most stressful thing I’ve ever tried to pull off. The training, the logistics, the life that I am supposed to hold together while training, working, and parenting. It’s a new kind of pressure that even with the many big things I have undertaken in my life, I have never quite felt. So, I embrace bulletproof for now; I embody Titanium. November hasn’t been the easiest of months in recent years. Perhaps by December, I will have moved on to something more Celestial.
