555 Race

This weekend Annette Kriller and Dave King invited mushers to their 555 race in Slussfors. This race was especially for newmushers to learn the checkpoint routine. I should be a type "mentor" to help the newbes to improve their routine. Jörg took the chance to drive all our 16 dogs under race conditions. Long story short told, the trainingsrace was perfect organized on a perfect trail. Annette, Dave and their crew from UK, Italy, France and South Africa (!!!) did a fatastic job to make this event possible. Henry Coronica from AXA dogequipment sponsored a few products so that Jörg came home with a new big snowhook :)))
The race was called 555 because of 50 km driving (5 mil) 5 hours rest, 5 mil driving. Btw, it was 55 km, even better for training :) I took the opportunity today to train the 10 adult dogs over the trail and really really enjoyed the fantastic trail in a spectacular landscape.
Everybody who had the opportunity and was not there should blame himself! Many thanks to Annette and dave for a perfect weekend!!!
Here a slideshow from the pictures Jörg made on the trail (and me at the start).

Todays training was a bit strange. I started at about 10 o´clock with -22 degrees and nice weather. 64 km later I came home and it was -6 degrees and heavy snowstorm. So we had really all weatherconditions today. Training went well, the dogs are in good mood. And my new camera was also with me :)))

Susen was not impressed of the weather, sitting in the sled is not that worst ;)

Here it was already snowing and starts to get windy (you can hear it). Sorry for the partly poor quality of the film, I tried to put on my beaver-gloves.

I got a new camera for christmas :)))))))))) So now you all have to look at my first tries ;)

 

On a 86 km run today

We had it warmer today, -16 degrees

 On a short rast for rolling in the snow. Tchmil and Luis in lead

 

 And here a small video, it look faster then it was.

Christmas run

Today Jörg was out with all 16 dogs for a 86 km christmas run. It was very cold the last days, so all dogs got blankets and booties on. And Jörg got his warm clothings, too ;))

Otherwise training went fine, we stick to our trainingsplan and enjoy our free days from work.

Have all merry christmas and a happy new year!

 You can see at Jörgs hood and how he has covered his face how cold it was, -30 degrees.

Maybe even the dogs appreciated their blankets today?

We wish our family and supporters merry christmas and a happy new year

Here a few pics and a small film from todays 60 km training. It was snowing a lot the last few days, so the dogs had to break partly the trail. Luckily Reidar came over on thursday for training until sunday, so he broke parts of the trail and I the other parts.

Kauppinen wide open championchip

Last weekend Taisto Thorneus organized a trainingsrace in Kiruna. The first in the beginning, it was a very good organized trainingsrace with perfect trails who were even perfect marked. It was (nearly) impossible to drive wrong. We were 7 teams who were starting saturday at 11am in Kauppinen. Jörg started with 8 dogs and I with 7 dogs, Didi was limping a little bit and so we decided to let her at home. The trail was about 56 km on the first stage, then we had to stay for 30 minutes and drove further 35 km to Taistos camp. Our dogs ran like hell and we stood nearly all the time on the brake. We didn´t want them to go faster then 17-18 km/h. At the camp the dogs had 15 hours rest and we were pampered with good food and a very (really very) warm cabin were our beds were. After a nice evening we went to bed early and at 4.30am the night was over. Going out for feeding the dogs. It is very nice to drive a race together, so one could take care of the dogs and the other was preparing the dogfood. Bartali, Gira and Sivtsov were limping a little bit and I catched a cold (already on friday) :(( So we had only 12 dogs left and only one healthy musher. We asked Taisto if it would be ok if Jörg will drive an open team and I and the three dogs take the scooter home. It was ok for all others. So Jörg went out with 12 dogs and I with three dogs at the scooter. Jörg had a lot of fun with his team and he had to stay on the brake all the time. So all in all a perfect weekend and a perfect training for us and our dogs. Specially for the youngsters, it was there first time sleeping outside and beeing on a foreign trail. And btw, Taisto won his own championchip closed before Jan who drove Milos dogs ;)

 Jörg and his team on the river

 In the woods. He was that fast that the picture is blurred ;)))

 On the river again closed behind another team

 Mats Pettersson

 Hugo with Taistos second team

 Jörg with Jaja and Sean in lead

Jörg again, he has his big gloves on it was really cold