Fun run at Big Sky Ranch Animal Sanctuary

Skijored with Lucy a couple of laps of the pastures at a fundraiser fun run at Big Sky Ranch Animal Sanctuary. Three goats were in one of the fields and kept running behind their shelter to hide from the dogs as each one passed. Lucy was curious about them but not obsessive about it. There were several trail volunteers along the course, handy for practicing "on by".

She really gets excited now watching the other dogs before it's her turn. She barks and tries to pull me to the start line. Now if only she'd get that excited about flyball maybe she'd have a chance of breaking into the 4s.

11-10 Trail and Gun Club Loop

After taking Walter up and down the main trail a bit just to get his crazies out, I hooked up both dogs and for the first time checked out the 11-10 Trail and Gun Club Loop. It really is just the first couple hundred meters where the two of them together is a little too fast for my liking, then they settle right down and it's a breeze and really nice spending the time with the two of them together. Well, except when it's icy, in which case it's a different story altogether and in those conditions I'll take just one dog, thank you very much.

The trail was gorgeous with some variation in scenery and lots of fun curves. In total it was just over 9km. We took lots of short breaks.

Oh yeah, and on our way out on the main trail we (the dogs) (well I was polite too of course) politely passed a couple of 1-dog skijoring teams who had pulled over to the side.

Rideau Lakes Cup

Took a little road trip out to Newboro, Ontario to run Lucy in the skijoring class of the Rideau Lakes Cup (they also had sled dog races). The skijoring course was geared to the novice/intermediate level at an easy 5 km, with the course set entirely on Newboro Lake.

The great thing about a trail that's on a lake is that there were no distracting prey smells. Woo hoo! On the other hand, there were some fairly icy sections, which often happened to coincide with moguls resembling frozen waves. The good thing is, I didn't fall on the icy sections - would have been a hard landing! Actually for once I managed not to fall at all.

Lucy was awesome on the way out, running fast and focused. After we hit the turning loop and started to head back, she was totally lagging and from previous experience I'm quite sure it's because she really really had to "go" but just couldn't find the right place to make her deposit. She got passed by a dog who hadn't yet learned the art of passing politely, and although she was surprised by the other dog's behaviour it didn't seem to bother her too much. As we approached the finish line, Lucy picked up on the cheering of the crowd and started to canter again, much to my relief as I really needed her assistance to get up the slight but icy incline to reach the finish line.

The skijoring class was a very small field with only five of us in total. We came in at just under 22 minutes, placing third, with the top two teams coming in around the 15 minute mark. Much to my surprise, this race had a cash purse, with all participants taking home part of it. We took home enough cash to cover the entry fee, pay for the gas, and buy some tasty treats for the dogs to counter the somewhat guilty feeling I got from "making money" off my dog. If we ever finish in the money again, it would be cool to donate it to a rescue, but the chances of me getting a share of a purse ever again are really extremely, extremely low, at least until I greatly improve my skiing technique and Lucy learns to stop inspecting all of the interesting smells along the trail! :^D

AMHL Fun Race at Larose Forest

This was the second time I skijored in an organized, timed event. The first was last year when I skied with Walter in the same race. The race is open to skijorers and dogsledders and is a fundraiser for the Alaskan Malamute Help League. This year's race was somewhere around 5.1 to 5.3 kilometers, shorter than last year's race which was advertised as being about 5 km but turned out to be 7+ km. Click here to see coverage of the event on the local news.

Lucy was my race dog today since her stamina is much better than Walter's. I wasn't sure if she'd be in an "oh boy yeah let's run!" mood, or a "hmmm, what is that...? It smells interesting... oh wait what's that on the other side of the trail, that smells interesting too..." mood. Luckily for me she was mostly in a running mood. She ran really well, not trying to sniff the crisscrossing deer paths too too much, maybe thanks to the fresh dusting of snow muting some of the enticing smells. We got passed by about 5 other teams, and I pulled over, stopped, and held her for all of them, and she was totally fine. I would have tried a running pass if the trail had been wider, but given the actual trail width she probably would have inadvertently got in the way of the passing team which no one would have appreciated. :-)

Right from the get-go my skis felt s.....o s....l........o............w. Given the mild temperatures I probably should have rewaxed with violet instead of blue. But, I talked with someone else who had used blue and didn't feel slow, so who knows.

I only fell once, and we only got tangled once when she stopped to sniff something and it took me a minute to unwrap the line from my leg.

Another thing, I was a bit apprehensive about two ditches that were part of the trail. Previously on recreational outings I totally wimped out at the ditches, taking off my skis and walking down and back up. Well this time I thought what the hay, let's go for it, and for each ditch we had just enough momentum going down to manage to come back up without tooooo much trouble.

I had a feeling she would be really slow coming down the homestretch because it has a clear view of the parking lot at the end, and on recreational outings she always slows down there and stops to sniff *everything*. Well, she was slow there, but it was because she was pretty pooped by that point. It felt like forever coming down that homestretch, but the encouraging, cheering crowd kept it fun. Now, if the hot dog barbeque that was set up near the finish line had been operating during the race and if the wind had been blowing right, the homestretch may have been a different picture. ;-)

We ended with a time of 28.5 minutes, placing 11th out of 17 one-dog skijor teams, an average of about 11 km/h. This seems a bit strange given that last year with Walter, we averaged about 10 km/hr. Strange because with Walter we took tons of breaks and I thought he ran slower than Lucy. Go figure.

Skijoring being the first class to race, the dogsledders headed out after and all the events were finished several hours after our race. So, we headed out after for a quick casual ski. J. hitched Sammy and Walter together for part of it, with Lucy and I following, and I was happy to see Walter running ahead well without me. Then we hooked up Lucy and Walter and went home. Having Lucy and Walter run together was much easier today than previous outings on my skate skis since only one dog was fresh. If I can just manage to stay on my feet for the first few hundred meters until the dogs burn off their craziness, then skate skiing with the both of them together should be a doable thing.