Great video of LGO 2012!

This is a fantastic collection of video clips from all stages at LGO 2012 showing just how hard it can get! Congratulations to all the Mushers who managed to complete the race successfully.

Watch the video here. Enjoy!

Stage 9b - the end!!

It turns out Milos came first last night just seconds ahead of Pontier. For a 85km trail the dogs did really well against Pointier’s Finnmark-trained dogs who love long distance. I’d say our dogs are more suited to a 60km distance in this race. Milos also gained 6 minutes on Radek – who for the first time in a while was running 10 dogs – but it didn’t matter too much at this point as it was too late to make a difference to the final ranking unless something awful happened to Radek… and we didn’t want a repeat of last year! He deserved to win and win he did.

So, they started early this morning and within a few km Pointier and Salva were already running their dogs fast and hard downhill overtaking Milos with ease. Milos meanwhile was braking and admiring the scenery – he knew he had to take it easy if they were to make the 92km stage of today. But he also knew he couldn’t let Pointier get too far ahead so it was to be a careful balance of speed and pace. After about 60km, Pointier was still leading and Milos was about 5 minutes behind. This was almost a perfect race. However, we noticed Milos started to slow in the last 20km and my stomach started to turn. It wasn’t by much but on the GPS tracker (which was displayed in the town hall) it was clear Pointier was pulling away at the end. As soon as we could see Pointier approaching the finish line, we ran outside and just about caught him finishing. Of course there was loud roar of approval from the audience that the Frenchman had finished first. I just started the stopwatch on my phone. We had about 30 minutes, no more. Milos had to cross the line within that time.

Seven minutes passed, nothing. Daniel the commentator wasn’t even talking so we knew he wasn’t close yet. Nine minutes, still nothing. I was starting to feel sick. Then Daniel suddenly announced the imminent arrival of Milos! Just 13 minutes after Pointier. He had done it!!!! Secured second place. We all breathed a sigh of relief. Milos also happened to gain time on Radek again (who crossed third) but again it wasn’t important, or enough to change the rankings. Radek was the winner. Fourth across the line was the Swede Jimmy Petterson, an amazing run by him. He remained fifth overall but he can return to Sweden really proud of his achievement as a Rookie. I’m sure he’ll have no problem reaching the podium in years to come. As for Salva, well, all that whistling for his dogs to speed up and keep pace well ahead of everyone else didn’t serve him so well… He crossed 38 minutes behind Pontier, allowing Pontier to forget the fear of losing third place overall. That is the price of running a risky strategy and pushing too hard in such a long race.

Strangely, I didn’t feel like celebrating. For sure, there is a great sigh of relief and of course we were all happy, but Milos came over the line with Cute in the sled (hence slowing down on the last stretch) as she had got tired and dehydrated and shortly after arriving Waf took a turn for the worse and seemed to have quite a lot of pain on the inside of his front leg. He was yelping at the slightest touch. The vet gave him painkillers and said it was actually nothing to worry about and usually heals fine within 48 hours but I didn’t like the look of it at all. It had me in tears… I think the vet’s comment was “I don’t know who’s suffering more… the dog or the girl”! Thankfully, just a couple of hours after the race and Cute and Waf are both looking so much better.

We are all really happy about second place as in the race you never know what’s going to happen, but we're also glad it’s over. I think Milos may take a year off next year and maybe he’ll have his eye on some other race with some of the new dogs coming through the kennel now. Grony, our youngest star, had certainly proved her worth, but every single one of the dogs have been amazing. I really can’t believe how far and fast they can run, and they always come back for more.

Milos and Pavol are now sleeping and tonight is the official prize ceremony for the Mushers and LGO staff. I think Milos would be really chuffed to pick up “Best Dog Care” like last year but we’ll see… there’s a lot of Mushers out there who love their dogs!

So ciao for now. Tomorrow we leave for Slovakia and a few days rest. I can’t wait.

Stage 9a - the last start for the handlers!

As the last two days of the race consist of one stage split into two (9a tonight and 9b tomorrow morning – with the timing counted as one stage) it was an afternoon start again meaning we had a fairly leisurely start to the day. All of us woke feeling like we’re on the mend from our illnesses, and despite last night ending quite late, we have all had enough sleep.

The morning routine didn’t produce any surprise injuries or stiffness thankfully. Waf had come over the finish line last night with a bit of an elbow problem but we strapped it straight away and this morning he was fine. Spendrup has also started to get sore feet but we have moisturised them and he’s wearing booties so he is also quite happy to run. Today, Milos wanted to rest Sonnie as he believes she’s a little ‘soft in the head’ for these long stages and can’t risk her wanting to lie down and take a break in the middle of the trail! Foxy remains in the trailer as she has since stage three, and we are also resting Max and Flox. It has to be said that Wuf and Falco are our big heroes of this final stage in some way as they have both now run six stages in a row, the most of all the dogs. Closely followed by Heinken, Spendrup and Waf with five stages in a row.

So the final-stage team is a strong one, although the dogs are obviously quite tired by now. However, they’re in good shape and in comparison to some teams, they look excellent. Some of the Mushers push their dogs so hard during the race it’s hard to imagine what goes on behind the scenes and it’s difficult to know if they’re properly cared for. That’s another thing I like about the way Milos is with his dogs. He’s so considerate of them, making decisions that suit them not necessarily him. I think it’s important to treat them like this if you want the most out of them. And our race dogs are certainly feeling the ‘love’ from us at the moment… it’s like a dog spa every day with massage, moisturising of feet, back rubs, feeding several times a day. They’re loving it!!!!

Anyway, back to the race! We started at 15.22 in the penultimate place (because we finished second the previous day). That meant Radek started 2 minutes ahead of us and Pontier 2 minutes behind. So the strategy for today was just to go as fast and push as hard as we needed to stay with Pontier, no less, no more.

The trail passed the road several times which gave us a great opportunity to ‘follow’ the race for a while. Infact, we saw Milos after about 40 mins, almost two hours and three and a half hours. After 40 minutes, Milos looked good and had already increased the gap between Pontier by one and a half minutes. After two hours, Salva led the leading pack (whistling at his dogs constantly for them to go faster – again, not really thinking of pacing them on this long stretch), Radek was about 3.5 minutes behind him, Milos a minute after that and Pontier close behind. The last time we caught up with them on the trail, all four were pretty much following eachother except Milos was leading, Salva second, Pontier third and Radek fourth. It was proving to be a very close race.

Now I am waiting for an update from Milos on how it went and the unofficial times for tonight. The only thing I know is that Milos gained 6 minutes on Radek (according to his handlers) but Radek's first place is safe so it's Pontier we're most concerned about. But it looked good the last we saw on the trail so I am hoping Milos came in first or second. The last 12 km was uphill and Milos has already been recognised as the “Best Climber” so he may well have managed to pull away from Pontier again (who although in second place behind Milos was actually slightly faster than him because he started two minutes behind). For now though, I guess he’s enjoying a beer or two with the others up on the Polar Base and not looking forward to his night in the tent. But it’s a gorgeous night and the stars are shining so I can think of worse things to be doing.

The race starts again at 6.30 tomorrow morning so although it is the longest stage of all (at over 90km!) they should be done by lunchtime. Our strategy, as always, is to try and avoid mistakes, don’t push harder than we have to and just try and hang on to second place overall. That will make us very happy indeed.