Fall Training Strategy:  A dog musher attempts philosophy

September 25, 2001

Snowcrest Racing Sled Dogs--Jim Gallea

    The dogs have all been on several training runs now.  As I mentioned last time, the distance has increased a little bit since we started training, but lately the focus has been on increasing the resistance the dogs against which the dogs pull.  Like I said last time, the idea is that we want the dogs to pull very hard now (harder than they will pull when on snow) because we want to ensure that the dogs muscles are built up and that their ligaments, tendons, and joints are all tight and strong. 

A 14-dog team leaves Snowcrest's dog yard and heads out on a training run.  Notice the dust kicked up by the dogs' feet and the four-wheeler.

    For example, on Sunday morning I ran all 28 of my dogs by splitting the group up and running two fourteen dog teams.  Each team ran 4 miles with the four-wheeler in third gear for much of the way, and second gear for the rest of the time.  The only time that the four-wheeler was in a higher gear (making it easier to pull) was when the dogs were going up a very steep hill with a corner.  This part of the trail is more difficult to pull heavy loads over because the hill and curve afford only a few dogs in the back of the team a direct pull on the load.  Throughout both runs, I never touched the throttle, and my mom and I both were on the four-wheeler during one of those runs.  That meant that the dogs were pulling about 850 pounds of dead weight plus pulling against the engine.  It goes without saying that these runs are very slow--usually about 7 miles per hour.

    In the Iditarod, racing sleds usually weigh about 30-40 pounds with the sled bag, a giant backpack-like bag that holds our gear.  Inside the sled bag is usually about 65-75 pounds of gear at the most.  The only other weight on the sled is the weight of the driver, making the entire weight of sled, driver, and gear approximately 300 pounds.  That is roughly 1/3 of what the dogs are pulling right now during fall training.  Again, this is just like weight and strength training that world-class human athletes do during the "off-season."

    Including heavy pulling into fall training has been something that my family has done for years.  However, this year my parents and I have decided to have the dogs pull at a higher intensity level, and we have decided to structure this part of the training season a little bit differently.  In the past, we did runs where the dogs pulled the four-wheeler without any assistance from the engine, but we didn't have the dogs pull against a lot of engine resistance (by placing the four-wheeler in low gears while the dogs are pulling).  Additionally, we interspersed interval training into the training runs once the dogs had completed a handful of strength-building runs.  Interval training runs are just like human interval training.  The idea is to build speed and endurance by mixing fast sprints (16-18 MPH for the dogs) in with slower pulling (8-9 MPH) all in one training run.

    This year, we have decided that we don't want to start mixing in interval training runs until later in the fall.  The reason for this is that we are starting to think that the dogs are trained best by first focusing exclusively on building strength, which makes them "buff," and then gradually increasing their speed, flexibility, and agility.  I feel that taking the dogs out on a fast run immediately after doing harder strength building runs all season isn't the best thing for the dogs' muscles.  This is because the strength training increases muscle mass, but does very little to increase the flexibility and range of motion of the dogs legs, which is key for speed.  Imagine Hulk Hogan trying to race Flo Jo in the 100 meter hurdles. 

One of Jim's two 14-dog teams returning from a training run.  Notice how the dogs are working together uniformly.

    Another reason that we want the dogs to pull very hard during this part of training is that we want to get the dogs used to very tough training conditions right from the start.  My goal is to run the Iditarod in less than 11 days.  I have never run the race that fast and gotten that little sleep over such a time period; and with the exception of a few of the dogs that my family has purchased from other kennels, my dogs haven't done the race that fast.  This race will shape up to be one of the toughest things that my dogs and I have ever done.  What this means is that both the dogs and myself need to be in the best physical shape of our lives, and we need to build mental toughness.  The more mentally tough and physically fit that we all are, the more fun we will have in the race, and the better we will do.  That statement may sound like an oversimplification, but it has been proven again and again in many kinds of endurance events.  The bottom line is that by making training tougher now, the dogs get used to working hard and maintain a good work ethic and happy attitude, while still getting to do what they love to do and what they do best--run. 

Each dog has his or her own harness.  The harnesses come in several sizes, and the size of the harness is coded for by the color of the loop that connects the harness to the tugline.

    So in putting all of this "dog musher philosophizing" into summary, we will continue training the dogs by having them pull the four-wheeler in second and third gear until about the last week of October, gradually increasing the distance that they run.  At that time, we will keep the distance that the dogs are running constant, but start to gradually move the four-wheeler into a higher gear until the dogs are pulling the four-wheeler in fifth gear at a good pace (12 MPH or so) and maintaining a good focus on their job.  This, in my mind, is the key part of training when the dogs' strong muscles, joints, and ligaments are stretched out and made more flexible and fast.  After this has been accomplished, we will start the interval training where the dogs utilize and maintain their strength during the hard pulling portions of the run and maintain their speed, agility, and flexibility during the sprint portions of the run.  At the same time, we will start doing longer runs with the four-wheeler where we actually assist the dogs with the engine in order to more closely simulate pulling a sled.  This plan should take us into the middle of November, and if we are lucky, we will be training on snow by Thanksgiving. 

    Thanks for checking in, and feel free to contact me with questions if all of this training mumbo-jumbo doesn't make sense.

Jim Gallea, Snowcrest Racing Sled Dogs, Seeley Lake, MT