© Paul Gebhardt - Morning View Kennel  2008 Season
   Pre-Iditarod Update as of 2/16/08

As Paul and I were driving the dogs back home from a morning at the veterinary office for bloodwork and ECGs today, I heard an advertising jingle on the radio.  "Uncompromising commitment" it said.  I thought that this was a very fitting way to describe the final leg of our journey as we countdown to the start of the 2008 Iditarod Sled Dog Race.   With all of the exhaustive preparation that Paul has been doing with the team and his race preparations, it has been clear that his approach has been with an uncompromising commitment. It is a commitment that encompasses the welfare of the dogs, the logistics behind the shipping of his food drops, and analyzing every element of his race strategy in these final weeks before the race kicks off.

Although Paul will ultimately hone his final Iditarod team down to a core of 16 dogs, we did take 24 dogs into the veterinarian's office for the first of a series of checks that will occur prior to the race start.  Each dog had bloodwork done, and an Electro Cardio Gram was performed on each of our canine athletes as well.  Thanks to the support of Providence Alaska Medical Center, we are able to glean valuable information from this data that will allow final assessments to the composition of Paul's team, as well as good baseline data to reference for future dog care. On top of these visits today, next week, the dogs will also go in for a visit to Kenai Veterinary Hospital for full checkups to confirm that they are in tip top shape for the ultra marathon ahead of them. Part of these pre-race preparations involves a system to identify each dog. Each member of Paul's team has a tiny microchip that is inserted just behind one ear that is unique to that animal. Throughout the Iditarod, the dogs - in addition to being referenced by their names - will be identified with a letter and number that coincides with Paul's actual starting position, as well as the microchip technology.  Through partnering with an extensive list of professional veterinarians that will be at the various checkpoints along the race trail, the Iditarod assures that the dogs are the top priority in the race.  It is a philosophy that compliments Paul's approach.

From the veteran leader Houston, to the new yearlings in the program named Lieutenant and Hershey, Paul was at the side of every dog on the team during their ECGs today.  When we returned home, he was out feeding them warm soup of meat and food, and when it was time to hook them up for a run, it was Paul on the sled runners.  He is completely focused on cementing the relationship that has proven time and again to be a strong component in his racing success.  Earlier in the season, our great helper, Tyler, would help out by sharing training runs with Paul, taking some of the dogs in another team.  Tyler also navigated the miles of trail in the Knik 200 as well as the Tustumena 100-mile race with teams from our kennel, giving them valuable racing experience.  (Paul also ran a team in the Knik 200, but served as the volunteer race marshal during the Tustumena races so he could not compete in any of those events personally.)  But once he stepped off the runners at the Tustumena 100 finish line, Tyler knew it would be Paul exclusively running the "race" dogs. 

In these final runs before the start of the Iditarod, Paul is scrutinizing every step the individual dogs take. He is running a massive team at this point, and from this he needs to pull the best. If a dog shows indications of soreness or reduced appetite, they will fall to the bottom of the list.  From the pool of 24 that went to the veterinarian's office for their bloodwork, 20 will be selected to make the trip up to Anchorage.  For the Ceremonial Start of the Iditarod, the mushers are allowed to use any of these 20 dogs, but when Sunday morning (March 2^nd ) rolls around, Paul will need to decide upon the final 16 members of his team. 

This makes each of these final training runs a critical element for Paul and the dogs alike.  They still require the ongoing training, and Paul needs to continue his evaluation process, but in some aspects it is like running a gauntlet each time they leave the yard.  These dogs have trained over 2000 miles this season, and it can be a small slip on a patch of ice, or stepping in a hole in the trail that will take a dog off the team for the rest of the season.  To mitigate this, Paul continues to dedicate time to running the trail groomer behind his snowmachine to "fix" the trail.  The main trail system Paul has grooms is now being frequented by a lot of moose that are finding it easier walking than in the deep snow, creating yet another threat to the dog's safety as they make their daily training runs!  In addition to being very short tempered and quick to charge a team at this time of year, the moose can wreck havoc on the trail when their hooves punch holes through the surface.  When a team is running down the trail, these deep holes that appear suddenly in the otherwise hard surface they have been running on can easily tweak a dog's shoulder or wrist.  By running the groomer over the trail, Paul is able to fill many of these holes before the team encounters them.  Paul also makes a point to time his runs in such a fashion as to take advantage of the time of day when the moose would normally be bedded down and resting rather than risk meeting them on the trail.

Up until this point, the daytime temperatures haven't been a problem for the dogs during these afternoon runs.  We are just coming out of an extended period of subzero weather, which had the thermometer hanging at the minus-20 mark for a couple of weeks. When the winds started picking up, it was expected that warmer weather was on its way.  However, although the ambient temperature was up to 10 degrees, the windchill was anything but friendly with gusts averaging 30-40mph.  When the winds brought heavy snow, a normal person would have wanted to hunker down next to the woodstove (me).  Not Paul though!  He was all animated and getting ready for a training run.  He commented repeatedly that this was exactly what the weather was like on the Yukon River or Coastal portions of the Iditarod Trail, and it offered the team fantastic "wind" and "trail breaking" training.  So with snow coming down SIDEWAYS and the wind blowing so hard that we could not lay an empty harness on the ground without it being grabbed by a gust and sent sailing off into the snowbanks, we harnessed up Paul's big team and he was off. 

The drifting snow essentially obliterated the defined trail, so the leaders found their way through a combination of factors. Intuitively, they could feel the underlying hard surface of the main trail beneath the chest-deep snow and would follow this, and through his familiarity, Paul would guide the team by voice command.  During the Iditarod, Paul will rely on seeing the trail markers to assure that he is headed the right way in addition to his memories of the area in past races.  However, when conditions on the Iditarod are like this, it is largely due to the dogs' ability to find the hard trail and navigate through the deep snow. Hence, the term "trail breaking".    During their training run in this blizzard, the conditions simulated what they would possibly be encountering in a couple of weeks.  At times, Paul said the blowing snow made it impossible to see his full team.  I can recall a number of previous races when Paul has had stories to tell of similar white-outs, so the training they received was invaluable. Additionally, the dogs were obviously picking up on Paul's excitement - as they were all happy and jacked up when they came back in the yard after their run. I know there sure is a lot of energy in the team, both physical and mental.  Paul had anchored his snowhook into the front of our big snowmachine when we were hooking up the team.  He has them so trained to be ready to roll when he steps on the runners that before he could dislodge the snowhook, the dogs were pulling his sled and the snowmachine as one big unit right down the trail from the yard here!  I was afraid he would dislocate his shoulder yanking that snowhook loose, not to mention the crazy wild ride he had ahead of him with that team charging down the trail.  He said that lately, he has to look for really big trees to anchor the team if he needs to stop along the trail for any reason.  They are literally snapping off the spruce trees that have trunks that are 4-5 inches in diameter if he tries to anchor to them.  I see this as a pretty clear indication of the team's peak condition right now.

With the emphasis on dog care, Paul is really looking to provide every opportunity to the dogs in terms of nutrition and overall comfort. Every night it looks like a bunch of kids when he and Tyler are walking back to the heated shop with the clan of loose dogs jumping and playing their way to spend the night in kennels there.  The caliber of supplements and nutrition stepped up dramatically thanks to a partnership this season with Momentum Dog Food and Fit Dog Nutrition by Equine Direct. When he packed his "food drops" recently, he included a complex diet that the dogs will enjoy over their 1,100-mile journey.

These food drops are the supplies that mushers will need along the Iditarod Trail to care for their teams and themselves.  Each musher is responsible for supplying their own food and gear, and although we also pay for the service, the Iditarod handles the distribution of these food drops to 16 checkpoints along the trail. In a total of 53 nylon-reinforced bags gunny-sack type bags, Paul shipped out a total of 2,128 lbs. of frozen meat, dog food and gear.  It is of and in its self, a tremendous logistical undertaking, but one of the most crucial when it comes down to the minutia of race strategy.  Every element of these food drops, to what he packs, to how he packs, to where he ships specific gear, will all impact his efficiency in the checkpoints during the race.

With considerable help from Tyler, Paul cut and bagged frozen blocks of beef, lamb, turkey skins, horse, and beaver.  Additionally, the bright red fillets off of frozen king salmon that we had purchased over the summer, were sliced into snack-size pieces and packaged in ziploc bags.  Add to this bite sized pieces of beef fat and bags of vitamin reinforced poultry fat, and you have a diet that is off the charts for caloric count, but exactly what the dogs will need to maintain proper nutrition along the trail.  There are also dog booties shipped out to the trail in the food drops.  Lots and lots of dog booties - over 1,200 to be exact.  These are the "shoes" if you will of the team.  At every stop, Paul will switch out the booties on each dog, and spend time caring for the dog's feet.  This year a remarkable lady named Lisa Davis from Dayton, Ohio contacted us about sewing booties for the team.  Between her contribution, and Barbara Trombley's annual rite of going through our used booties to clean and sort them, we have appreciated the support in this area.  Another area we have been blessed with help towards is Paul's own personal food.  With Blockbuster Video once again providing the bulk of Paul's snacks and juices, it was just filling in the gaps of the main meals for Paul.  He always ships out cartons of chocolate milk, and this year he added yogurt and ice cream to the arsenal to ward off leg cramps. (The calcium helps.)  But hands down, his absolute favorite food are McDonalds cheeseburgers.  Like his other personal food, these are packaged in vacuum sealed-bags and frozen before being included in the food drop bags.

Paul will send some additional gear in his actual dog sleds that go out just days before the start of the race.  He will ship two sleds out, as he has in the past, to strategic checkpoints along the trail.  Last week he built a new sled that he plans to use from the starting line at the re-start.  It is a modification of the new "sit-down" style sleds that are becoming popular, and a variation of Paul's own sled design from a couple years ago. Right now he is still hand tying all the unions and pieces to reinforce the design, and then he will take it out with the team to give it a couple of crash-dummy tests. He will purposefully do this to identify any design flaws.  This isn't to say that he isn't as susceptible to a damaged sled as anyone else given the right, or wrong, conditions on the trail, but it does help him tweak things if they need to be. Mickey's Custom Sewing is creating another custom bag for this new sled, and is finishing up the therapeutic jackets for the dogs as well.

In addition to the continued training runs and race preparations, Paul has been busy with a few other things as well. During the Tustumena 200 Sled Dog Race, he served as the race marshal.  While this took precious time and energy away from our own personal focus, it is a volunteer role that Paul takes very seriously and commits the time towards as he sees it as a way to enhance the care of dogs in the sport overall. Both Tyler and Paul visited the Soldotna Chamber of Commerce weekly luncheon to do a presentation on mushing for the crowd.  I can't begin to tell you the number of guests that have made positive comments about their talk. Equally positive is the feedback from the guests that joined us for the kick-off event hosted by The Crossing in Soldotna.  Following that, when it came time for Paul to make the long drive up to Anchorage to deliver his food drops, he not only made the trip for his own benefit. Paul also hauled the heavy food drop loads of three other area mushers on this long trip through the single mountain pass that connects us to the rest of Alaska.  In the final days before food drops were due, I would return from work to find one dog truck or another in the yard here with mushers plying Paul for information on what to pack in their own drops. The other evening, former Iditarod Champion, Joe Runyan, was sitting at our kitchen table together with Rachael Scdoris, the legally blind musher that is running the Iditarod again this year.  Runyan, who has provided significant race commentary and journalistic coverage of the Iditarod in recent years, is serving as Rachael's visual interpreter on the trail.  They were asking many questions about the trail, and Paul was sharing his insight on dog care and gear.  Rather than view any of this as a negative "helping the competition" in some fashion, Paul just sees it as doing the best he can by mankind and canine athlete alike. I think it kind of brings home the "uncompromising commitment" approach to mushing as a whole.  It certainly gives us all a reason to be proud to be a part of this.

I plan to get at least one more update off before I head up to Anchorage for the start of the race.  I will detail the individual dogs on the team at that time.

Until later …. Life is a journey, enjoy the ride - Evy