Gealach Mor Siberians
Working sleddogs - just for the love of it..............
February 2007
My American trip was cut short, and I do regret having missed the opportunity to have gone to the Beargrease. However, the time spent with Mike and Sue was great and I feel I still managed to pick up some ideas and add to my skills.
Returning early also means I may just manage to get my guys back on the trail for some runs this year and possibly be able to enter a couple of events. High on my agenda is the NSDSC run at Balloch, a fledging organisation trying to put on "distance" races here in the UK. There's a small group of us involved in this but it makes for a good atmosphere and is very relaxed. The desire to run your dogs over distances greater that the usual 4 miles is slowly gaining some momentum.
Making use of our new training camp up in the Highlands, I finally spent some time up there this month. It was obviously meant to be - it snowed !!!!
The race dogs working hard in training, Takeo and Inka are at wheel.
With the weather co-operating, and the dogs running well, amazingly well considering they have not been in harness since the 2nd of December, I'm wishing the NSDSC run was another couple of weeks away - but it's not, it's 17 - 18th of Feb and there's just no way I can get these guys ready in time. Fortunately, being a pretty laid back group, by "volunteering" to man one of the marshal points on the Saturday , I can run a 10 dog team on the 7 mile trail on the Sunday.
Not content with just racing - we decided to make it more of a test for the dogs - and as well as using a 200lb cart instead of the usual 25lb race rigs, I also carried a passenger.
Our race team
Harry and Teague, Nadia and Wink, Milloy and Fina, Trey and Seven, Inka and Takeo
Photograph copyright of Brian Duncan Taseevo Siberians (and used with permission)
The following weekend was the SHCGB race at Blackcraigs - another race offering slightly further distance than normally available - approx 6 miles for some of the classes. We entered a 6 dog team and were 3rd after the first day, finishing 4th overall in a reasonable combined time of 52 minutes 11 seconds.
