Iditarod Countdown is On!
February 2, 2003

By Jim Gallea--Seavey's Iditarod Racing Team & Snowcrest Racing Sled Dogs

Well, I must heartily agree with Tyrell.  Time sure does fly when you are busy.  It seems just the other day that Tyrell finished very well in the Copper Basin 300, but the Iditarod starts in less than four weeks on March 1, and a lot must be done before then.

The end of January brings with it the peak part of our training season.  For the two-year-olds that Tyrell and I are running, peak training means a fairly vigorous, but still very manageable training regimen.  We are running our teams on a two days running, one day resting schedule, covering about 45 to 50 miles a day.  This isn't too bad, but we actually have to run every day in order to train the 41 dogs we still have in training.  

For mushers training competitive Iditarod teams like my mom, Cindy, and Tyrell's dad, Mitch, peak training means lots of long hours on the back of the sled and very little sleep.  This is because racing teams peak by doing "mini-Iditarods" in the span of a week to ten days.  The idea of this is to prepare the dogs with a very realistic simulation of racing conditions and run/rest schedules in order to fully prepare them for the upcoming race.  (Click here to read more about peak training.)

The recurring difficulty in training this year has been snow conditions.  In fact, the snow back at the kennel in Sterling, Alaska, has gotten very icy thanks to rain and warm weather, so we are once again calling Wolverine Lodge near Glennallen, home base.  For those of you who followed the Copper Basin 300, this is the Wolverine Checkpoint, and the trails we are running are the same race trails that Tyrell and his team ran on a few weeks ago.  

Tree and Kathy Farmer are the owners of Wolverine Lodge, and they and their staff have been absolutely wonderful to us.  They not only provide a warm place to stay and dry our clothes, but also cheerfully cook meals for us at all kinds of strange hours, bend over backwards to accommodate our motley crew of sled dogs, and make us feel very much at home away from our kennel.

The other nice thing Tree and Kathy provide are phone lines and Internet access.  Without that, we couldn't post updates to Ultimate Iditarod, and we couldn't communicate with the virtual army of people across Alaska who are beginning the enormous task of assembling the food and supplies that we will send out on the Iditarod Trail.  We have to have all of this stuff ready by the 12th of this month, and with three teams running from the Seavey kennel, we have about 6,000 pounds of stuff to cut, sort, package, bundle, bag, and freeze.  We'll devote an entire update to Food Drops, so stay tuned.

For now, it's time to head out and feed dogs, so I better run, but I do want to express my own thanks to AT&T Alascom.  They have chosen to significantly sponsor Tyrell in the Iditarod, which is a very big honor to him and a benefit to his racing plans.  Additionally, AT&T Alascom is supporting a large part of Ultimate Iditarod's coverage of the 2003 Iditarod.  Their help will make this web site even better for all of you who take advantage of it.  

© 2003 Ultimate Iditarod, Snowcrest Racing Sled Dogs, Seavey's Iditarod Racing Team
Reproduction or distribution in any way or by any means prohibited without permission.
Ultimate Iditarod http://www.ultimateiditarod.com  email: dogboy@ultimateiditarod.com