We just returned from the largest dryland dog race in North America, right here in our back yard. If you didn’t make it you definitely missed out on a $10,000 prize list! The organization was very close to canceling the race because of the low number of entries, but they decided to stick it out thanks to Monica Jendro for taking entries at the Dirty Dog the week before.
We previewed the race course at the end of October when I came down for a swim meet in the cities. The course is very flat double track and sandy with two bridges and a 1/2 mile finishing stretch on a one lane gravel road, very fast.
The categories we were competing in are the 1 dog canicross (Toivo), 1 dog bikejoring (Valor), and the 2 dog bikejoring (Valor & Magnus). Laddie came along to help out with the dogs and experience the dryland racing. He was going to compete in the 1 dog canix but the entry fee was $90 if you weren’t an ISDRA member. In hindsight, he wishes he would have signed up because I’m sure he would have finished well. On Friday night we set up camp in the rain and went out to preview the course. I free ran Toivo and Valor so they could memorize the start, turns, and finish. The course looked great and well marked with snow fencing in all the right places, they did a good job at laying everything out. That night at the mushers meeting, I realized we were doing dual starts every 1:00 which means two teams start at the same time. I wasn’t too keen on that since the trail was too narrow to pass at 20+ mph, but I couldn’t do anything about it. I mentioned my concern to Joel Nelson and he said they were doing it that way for spectators. He told me several times how many races he had competed in, 40 or so, and that he had been doing it for years. I didn’t have the heart to tell him my racing experience because I could tell that nothing was going to change and that we would just have to deal with it.
Our neighbors William & Kathleen Duppler came down to watch the races on Saturday. They love the dogs and know the hard work that we have been doing this fall training them. They’ve even come out on 4wheeler with us even when it was super muddy!
Anyways, on to racing. Our first event was the 1 dog canix with Toivo. He pulled like a champ and we ended up in 3rd behind Tesch and Howard. You cannot say that you know pain and hard work until you have raced canicross! That is some of the hardest racing I have ever done.
The one dog bikejoring was one of our key events that we should have won, very easily. However, Valor had a different agenda. We had a great start out of the gate and were ahead of our starting team. Valor pulled hard for 150 meters and then balked, looked back at me a couple of times and then stopped! I kept yelling hike hike, let’s go!! He wouldn’t go! Finally after the team passed us he started running but he was jogging right beside me. No matter what I did, he wouldn’t run. Teams kept passing us and passing us. I was so livid and frustrated that I was at a loss of words and actions. In complete shock and embarrassment, completely blown away. Our time was over six minutes a full 1:30 behind first place. I have no idea why he did that, never ever has he done that. EVER! Completely bizzare.
We had only 30 minutes between that event and the 2 dog bikejoring. Since Valor didn’t want to run by himself, I decided to run him and Magnus side by side instead of tandem with Valor in the lead. I didn’t trust him. They got out of the gate 1 second too late growling at each other in a challenging tone Magnus telling Valor, “You want to race, I’ll show you how to race you pansy!” We were stuck behind our gate competitor slowing us down a bit because the trail was too narrow to pass. Finally the dogs put in a big surge and we were able to pass about 1/2 way around the course. Other than that we had a good race and finished in 2nd only 4 seconds down from first.
William had noticed the start line was not pained straight and so did I after looking at it. Gate 1 was on the uphill and 2 on the down, but the trail curved to the right letting gate 2 have the advantage. We explained this to Joel and he fixed it for Sunday’s race. At least 95% of the teams in gate 2 were out in front of the teams leaving from gate 1.
Sunday’s goal was to hold my place in the 1 dog canix since there was no way I could make up over a minute on 2nd place. I felt like I ran faster on Sunday but Toivo didn’t pull as hard so we lost 20 seconds but stayed in 3rd. Laddie was snapping pics in front of the finish gate and called Toivo’s name as we came in and Toivo b-lines straight for him stopping 100 yards from the finish. I kept running and called him but it spun him around and dragged him on the ground for a few seconds before he recovered and started running with me again. I could just sense the spectators jaws hitting the floor witnessing animal cruelty at it’s finest, great. Just great.
Earlier that morning before any of the races started I free ran Toivo and harnessed Valor and went out on the course right from the start line. The first and second time we tried to start, Valor balked. He didn’t want to go. So I got off my bike went up to him and grabbed his collar and lifted it slightly and pulled on his tug line and said “stay” a few times. Went back to my bike and said, ready…hike! Finally, he went. He pulled the entire time with no problems.
When it was time to race I did the same thing with 30 seconds to go all the way down to 15 while Laddie held my bike. Then we took off and had a great race until the last 500 meters where I really started to push the bike hard and I came up beside Valor and he quit again, but we finished strong with a time that beat the first place time on Saturday but it was too late. We stayed in last place.
I used the same setup for Valor and Magnus in the 2 dog bikejoring that we did on Saturday, because I didn’t trust Valor again. They took off without any problems challenging each other vocally and running really fast! I looked at the GPS data and we hit 27-28 mph a few times on the course. There was a slick right hand corner where the frost was coming out of the ground making it muddy. I hit that mud and slid a little sideways keeping it up but going in the grass and a little outside the turn slowing the dogs down to 15. 
After that it was a perfect run, Valor really pushed it with Magnus there. Thank goodness we have an experience racer on the team!! Our time was really fast but 1/2 second too slow! Dangit, we had the fastest time of the day with the mess up and still finished second, but just barely!! If we didn’t get hung up behind on Saturday and made that slippery corner we could have won. Oh well, that’s racing I guess.
Other local athletes placing well were Josh and Kate Tesch competing in the canicross (1st), scooter (1st), and bikejoring. Way to go northland representing top finishes at a high caliber event!
We would like to thank Laddie for coming down to help us, it always is great to have someone with on long weekends. Also Monica Jendro for putting on this race, it’s awesome that people in the sport provide venues for us to enjoy our hobbies. You can’t truly appreciate the effort on hosting an event unless you have done one yourself. We got to meet some new faces, adding to the network of awesome sprint mushers that have the biggest hearts. Everyone was helping everyone again, it was truly and experience worth being part of.
I believe with the ISDRA points that we earned this weekend we can still hold our #1 spot for fastest 2 dog bikejoring team in North America, but I’m one that doesn’t like to count my chickens until they hatch so we will see.
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