Snowshoe Racing, Downton Abby, and the Iditarod

Snowshoe running: Neither for the faint of heart, nor the out of shape runner. In January, I made my second finish at the Tahoe Rim Tour Snowshoe Race. Somehow, I remember it being so much easier the last time I ran it. But then again, I suppose I was in better shape that time.

In fact, I think it was the ease and joy of the 2011 race that had me eager to return, and of course I had Jamie in tow this time as well.  What’s the fun in tromping through powder with tennis rackets on your feet if you can’t do it with your best friend? Unfortunately, for this year’s edition, we’d both run long just the day before, but I thought it would be a good way to get my winter ass back into shape. Ha! Well, it was. Depending on what you mean by “good.”

This is what it looked like at the start. Do you see anyone without skis on their feet? Yeah, me neither!

Ready for a long day on beautiful trails!

Here's Helen, getting ready to ski away from us at the sound of the gun.

Fortunately, the conditions were pretty firm, and we set a conservative pace early. This was a good move, since we certainly didn’t feel like it was easy at any point. Snowshoe running for me isn’t so much about going fast as it is about focused coordination: Don’t step on your own shoes (or your friends), don’t kick your ankles (Ouch!), and don't forget to point your toes on the downhills. 

The course, starting in Tahoe City and finishing at Northstar Resort, has a solid climb over a mountain pass. Not easy. We enjoyed incredible scenery and were happy to find some downhill running in the later miles.

Jamie, tearing up the downhill.

We finished exhausted and happy in the bright Tahoe sunshine. Thirty minutes slower than in 2011 and with our snowshoe craving sated for the year.

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In February I joined many of the wonderful women of my family for the second annual Snowshoe Jamboree (aka “SnowJam”) in Arnold, CA. It’s ladies’ weekend at the cabin, and we always have so much fun.

More snowshoeing? Okay, count me in!

This year, my sister and I spent the first morning skate skiing at Bear Valley.

View from the summit!

Skate skiing is hard work!

I also learned about the quaint little town of Murphys, which was just a short drive from our cabin. If you like wine tasting, you will appreciate Murphys. The whole main street was packed with tasting rooms, and we had a grand time exploring. Perfect for ladies weekend!

A lovely afternoon in the tasting room at the Frog's Leap Winery.

See why it's perfect for Ladies' Weekend?

They sort of have this thing about frogs in these parts, especially the jumping kind. These two were just hanging out though.

On day two we went snowshoeing around Lake Alpine. The weather could not have been better!

Yosemite Gals at Lake Alpine.

With Mom and Sister.

I'm already looking forward to next year's SnowJam!

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This weekend will see one of my favorite races take place: Way Too Cool 50K. I’m signed up for it, but I’m not sure I’ll be at the starting line this year. The prospect of not running it makes me mighty sad, but I still have some lingering health questions to answer for myself. I’d like to get those things figured out before embarking on any serious races.  Part of the reason I haven’t committed to the DNS is because I just can’t face it. I love this race!

We’ll see how the next week plays out, but either way, I will certainly be there. If I don’t race, I’ll be volunteering at the Highway 49 aid station, cheering you all that final 1.4 miles to the finish. My advice if you’re running Cool? Make friends and have fun. It’s a big race, and the upside of that is that you’ll get to meet a lot of great people. Ultrarunners are pretty cool folks (no pun intended).

~~~~~

And in extremely important non-running-related news, I burned through the entire second season of Downton Abby in three days last week. Based on the spoiler-y comments on Facebook, I have decided that I will not be watching season three. This is where it ends for me. As far as I’m concerned, there is no season three. Aside from the fate of poor Mr. Bates, (who, let’s face it, as the story’s martyr, is pretty much doomed), everything seems to be resolved quite nicely, thank you very much. The End.

And it occurs to me that this must be a particular challenge of writing for a television series – you never know just exactly when your story is going to end. If Downton Abby were a book or a movie, the end of season two would be a pretty solid ending. I mean, (Spoiler Alert!) the war is over, Sybil’s made her break, Edith has had some growing experiences and is more mature (less of a bitch), Anna and Mr. Bates are together (okay, sort of), and Mary and Matthew … Well that took long enough, didn’t it? It was very Pride and Prejudice. But nonetheless, resolved.

When you’re writing a book, you know exactly when it’s going to end, and you create your story arc to arrive there at the right time. Even in a series, if you were writing, say, seven books. You know that it’s at the end of book seven where either Harry or Voldemort is killed by the other. You wouldn't write that part into book five.

In TV, it seems that it’s more like, “Okay, we might get cancelled so maybe we’ll resolve this storyline, but leave these others hanging in case we do run next season.” But then if things are too resolved and the show does run for another season, they have to reopen old storylines, or invent some new ones, and eventually it all starts to feel rather ridiculous and contrived. I mean, how much drama can one family really go through?

So, anyway. Downton Abby. Only two seasons. End of story. (Unless there’s a season four, and it really rocks. Then, someone call me.)

~~~~~

And lastly, the 41^st Iditarod started this week! Once again, my 5th –grade students and I are following the race, learning about the history, and each choosing a musher to track online. Many of my students’ mushers are already in the top ten, so they’re pretty excited.

Last year, I chose to follow Dallas Seavy. Despite the fact that there were six past champions in the race that year, Dallas pulled out his first win as the youngest person ever to be Iditarod Champion. Of course I spent the last 3 months of school bragging to my students about how my musher kicked all their mushers' butts. 

I always give the students first choice of which musher they want to follow. This year, even though no one chose to follow Dallas, (I need to teach them better research skills!) I picked Aliy Zirkle. I still kind of think Dallas is the one to beat, but there are a lot of strong dogs and experienced mushers out there. Aliy is smart, has a strong kennel, and could definitely pull out the win! (I try to tell my students that it's not about choosing the winner, but it's hard not to want to see your musher first to Nome!)

If you’re interested in a silly thing like long distance foot races, you can check out the updates on Iditarod.com. The Iditarod Trail Committee also has a Facebook page, but I have found the best updates so far on Dallas Seavy’s Facebook page.

Happy running, doggies (and everyone else out there)!

Zoya DeNure's team at the 2011 Iditarod (Photo by Dana Orlosky)

Finding your Inner Sled Dog: An Ultrarunner's Guide to the Iditarod

Zoya DeNure's team at the 2011 Iditarod (Photo by Dana Orlosky)

If I told you about a sport where the athletes run crazy distances over remote wilderness trails through sleepless nights, where nutrition, hydration, and pacing play key roles, where logistics and route finding can be tricky and an entire year is dedicated to preparing for just one or two big races – a sport that is dominated by the older set because experience counts more than anything, and race finishers are rewarded with a belt buckle – I bet you’d know what sport I’m talking about.

That’s right. Dog sledding.

I got into dog sledding when I lived in Minnesota, and wondered, what’s a California girl to do in the frozen north? As a dirtbag 20-something, the easiest way for me to find adventures was by finding work in the outdoors, so I promptly moved up north and took a job as a dog handler for a musher in Brimson. There, I spent a winter living off the grid, pumping water from a well, splitting many, many chords of firewood, bathing in a sauna (pronounced SOW-nuh), and caring for 35 Alaskan huskies.

Ray Reddington Jr. at the 2011 Iditarod (Photo by Dana Orlosky)

If you’re not familiar with the sport, you may have some misconceptions about dog sledding. Alaskan huskies are a mixed breed – mutts – who have been bred for their desire to run. I have never related so well to another animal. When they see you pull that sled out and walk toward the dog yard with a pile of harnesses in your arms, they’re like children on the best Christmas morning ever. The chaos of barking and howling and pulling on their chains as they cry desperately to be one of the dogs chosen for the day’s team reaches a fever pitch when you finally have all the dogs on the gangline, pull the snow hook, and speed off into the woods. The team dogs lope down the trail with joyful abandon, but the dogs left behind let out with a mournful song.

You have no idea what the phrase “born to run” means until you’ve met a sled dog.

The musher I worked for had a library of books on dog sledding, and I devoured them. I read the memoirs of so many Iditarod finishers I can’t even remember all their names. The book by Libby Riddles, the first woman to win the race, was particularly educational with tons of side notes about the rules and history of the race. I wasn’t an ultrarunner at the time, but the endurance and tenacity required to drive a team a thousand miles across Alaska was not lost on me. I became a total Iditarod junkie.

As we speak, the 2012 Iditarod is underway. Sixty-six mushers, each starting with a team of 16 dogs, are on their way to Nome.

Mitch Seavey's team at the 2011 Iditarod (Photo by Dana Orlosky)

And it’s one of the beautiful things about being a teacher that you can bring your passions into the classroom and turn them into lessons. My students and I are immersed in all things Iditarod right now, watching a documentary of the 2008 race, following  the teams online, and completing related lessons in Social Studies, Literature, and Math. Each student has researched and chosen a musher to follow, and every day we move our musher tags to the appropriate checkpoint on the giant map in our classroom.

They are SO into it!

One of the books I read and loved when I was running dogs was Winterdance - The fine Madness of Running the Iditarod, by Gary Paulsen. If you like adventure stories, you should definitely read this memoir. Paulsen is best known as a Newberry Award winning author of middle grade fiction (Hatchet, anyone?), but did you know he ran the Iditarod? As part of our Iditarod unit, my students and I are reading Woodsong, the middle grade version of Winterdance. Whether written for children or adults, his books are incredible.

Lance Mackey's dogs at the 2011 Iditarod (Photo by Dana Orlosky)

So, let’s take a look at some comparisons of Ultrarunning and dog sledding.

Similarities:

• Long runs through day and night
• Consumption of many calories by athletes
• Lack of sleep and hallucinations
• Wonderful and tireless volunteers
• Belt buckle for finishing
• Training is important, but experience and tenacity may be even more so

Differences: 

Ultrarunning: Two legs

Dogsledding: 34 legs

Ultrarunnig: GU

Dogsledding: Frozen fish

Ultrarunning: Dave Mackey

Dogsledding: Lance Mackey

Ultrarunning: The race doesn’t start until Foresthill.

Dogsledding: The race doesn’t start until the Yukon River.

Ultrarunning: Shoes

Dogsledding: Booties

Ultrarunning: Hydration pack, electrolyte pills, Clif bar, rain jacket

Dogsledding: Snowshoes, axe, frozen meat, parka

Ultrarunning: Athletes weigh in at a few aid stations

Dogsledding: Volunteer vets perform hundreds of vet checks at every check point

Ultrarunning: Gordy Ainsleigh

Dogsledding: Leonhard Seppala

How about some analogies?

Western States is to the Iditarod as Hardrock is to the Yukon Quest.

Ann Trason is to Susan Butcher as Scott Jurek is to JeffKing.

Well, you get the idea, right? Although these two sports exist in two different worlds, they have more in common than most people realize.

For me, dog sledding has this almost magical appeal because it combines some of my favorite things: endurance, the wilderness, running, and dogs. As much as I love running myself, there is something so appealing about being a part of a team. And make no mistake – musher and dogs have an incredible bond and work as a team.

If you can’t tell, I really miss running dogs. If you ever get the chance to drive a dog sled team – and I mean drive the team, not ride in the sled – don’t pass it up! Being a musher is a much bigger lifestyle commitment than being an ultrarunner, but of course, the greater the challenge, the better the reward.

If you’re interested in learning more about the Iditarod and dog sled racing, you can follow the race online at Iditarod.com. They have an extensive website! I also urge you to read Winterdance, by Gary Paulsen. It’s an entertaining read, and you’ll learn a good deal about running dogs. Finally, there is a great documentary from the 2008 race called “Iditarod: The Toughest Race on Earth,” and it’s excellent. If you have a Netflix subscription, it’s available to stream instantly. It’s quite long, but I even watched it with my students, and they couldn’t get enough of it.

Aliy Zirkle at the start of the 2011 Iditarod (Photo by Dana Orlosky)

I’ll be watching the rest of the race as it unfolds online. The musher I chose to follow with my class, Dallas Seavey, is currently in 5^th. (Incidentally, he’s ahead of every musher chosen by my students. Not that I’m competitive about it or anything.) I’d love to see someone so young show the old men how it’s done. I’m also rooting for a few of the other contenders, like Aliy Zirkle, and the sentimental favorite, DeeDee Jonrowe. It’s been a really tight race so far, and it could belong to absolutely anyone. I can’t wait to see how it plays out!

Dallas Seavey's team at the 2011 Iditarod (Photo by Dana Orlosky)

Iditarod 2010!

It's an exciting day in Alaska, and people from all over the world are watching as 71 mushers and over 850 dogs take to the trail for the 38th Iditarod. For lovers of endurance events, this one really is the ultimate. Dogsled teams take between 10 and 14 days to cover 1,100 miles between Anchorage and Nome, traveling across frozen rivers and high mountain passes, through the interior of Alaska, and along the coast. The race, just like its home state, is one of epic proportions.

For my own brief stint running dogs, I spent a season working as a dog handler for a musher in northern Minnesota. It was an amazing winter and fulfilled most of the dreams that had brought me from southern California to the north woods. If you've never driven a dog team across a frozen lake, I highly recommend you put it on your bucket list. It's difficult to describe the experience: the excitement of the dogs born to pull, the frozen air flying past your cheeks and stinging your eyes as you lean into a turn, your lead dog so far around the bend that you can't even see her anymore. It's magic.

During that winter, I read every book I could get my hands on about dogsledding, and the musher's library was extensive on the subject. If you think I didn't dream of running the Iditarod myself one day, then you clearly don't know me very well. I still love the idea of it, but I learned enough during that winter to realize that running the Iditarod requires not only a lifestyle commitment to prepare, but that the race itself presents some challenges I don't think I'm equipped to handle (sleep-deprivation being the first to come to mind).

I still enjoy spectating for this one though, and the race website offers more information than I can really absorb. I'm also subjecting my students to a cross-curricular Iditarod unit this year. (Once I learned how much they all love dogs, I couldn't resist.) We'll be learning a little history, following the mushers online and running some statistics during math, and reading Woodsong, Gary Paulson's memoir for middle-grade readers about running the Iditarod. (If you're interested, Paulson is a fabulous writer, and his version of the book for adults is called Winterdance.)

Here's a little teaser video, offering a glimpse of some of the excitement of the race. It's short (about a minute) and put together by Dallas Seavey's sponsor, but I like it because it has some great footage and appropriate, heart-pounding music.

Here's one that's a bit longer, and was sort of an introduction to the 2008 race. The musher's it names are from that year's race, but the Iditarod tends to feature a field of extremely experienced mushers, so it isn't surprising that you'll find most of those same names on this year's start list.

Best of luck to all the mushers and dogs out there over the next two weeks!