Rain, rain and more rain!

We are about half an hour into the 5th stage and you would not believe the weather! What little snow there was is quickly being washed away by heavy rain. It's humid and very wet. Pavol (Milos's brother and the other handler) and I are hiding in the van, the leftover dogs are hiding in the trailer and Milos and Jan with 10 dogs each are battling the elements on the trail. Milos started last so he'll be out in this the longest. I hope he doesn't get sick from it. The poor dogs! I have no idea what the trail will be like but I know that Milos will sacrifice his 2nd place again to bring the team back safely if it's icy or slippery. 

I think we're expecting to lose our 2nd place today but the idea is to not give away too much time. If we can stay close to Radek and Remy then the field remains wide open. 

At the moment, on the GPS it looks like it's going ok for all of them. Take a look under the "results" tab on the homepage of www.grandeodyssee.com to follow live events. Don't forget Milos started at the back so anyone he's over taking he's making time on. Jan started fourth from the end so 2 minutes before Remy Coste. Today's stage is two loops which may also cause a bit of confusion on the GPS site but if you click on the little sled icons you'll see the name and the distance on the trail they've covered.

Finally, a thank you to everyone for your encouragement which keeps coming in. I know some of you have problems to post comments and some of the Slovaks may have to get a translation (!!) but we know you're all reading and sending your best wishes. You should be very proud of your sons/nephews/cousins Milos and Jan!! :-) And thank you to Anne for braving the weather and coming to support us on the start line today. We managed a quick chat over lunch which was lovely!

More updates later. 

Don't panic!

If you've seen tonight's results of the Megeve Challenge, don't panic!!! We came 9th and we're perfectly happy with that because the timings don't count towards the race. We knew that of course so just took the necessary 6 dogs for a nice, slow stretch. Milos didn't want to take any chances with injuries so took it really easy. Meanwhile the French sped their way over the 5km trail (super short) to give the crowds a pleasing 1st and 3rd podium position. Only Radek spoilt it for them with his 2nd place. 

Interestingly the first 6 mushers got pulled up for doping control. This is a random process carried out by an independent organisation that can turn up wherever, whenever. You never know, which is the point of course. Funnily enough Jan was laughing at the end saying that there was doping control and then promptly found himself peeing into a cup closely watched by an official. Milos missed it with his 9th place, not that it would have mattered. We had control on the dogs on yesterday's stage and we've had doping control for Milos several times before. But it was pretty funny with Jan. 

We're having a late dinner now so I don't have much time to blog but I'll try and post something about strategy tomorrow as it will be a tough stage for us - short and flat!

Oh, and before I go I should update you on Leepey. Her toe is huge!!! She had an X-ray to see if it was broken (thankfully it isn't) but I think she has broken the nail inside the toe which has now got infected. There's not much we can do for it without dropping her from the race completely (because of doping rules). But she can't run like this either so either way she is most likely done for the duration of the race, bar some small miracle. This isn't as much of a disaster as it would be normally because the dogs aren't running so much. With each stage being shortened it means they're not at all tired. So this means the other dogs can pick up the slack quite easily. Well, we hope. 

Finally, a little picture from the start. :-)

Night all!

I think they're a little bit tired...

Post lunch nap... Slovak style. :-)

Driving to Megeve...

It's a shame we didn't really get to wallow in our glory last night. By the time we got back to the accommodation it was about 10.30pm and we still had to take all the dogs out, walk them all (yes, especially important after they run) and massage them. But first we got stuck in the mud whilst parking. Backwards and forwards we went trying to free ourselves but in the end we had to unhook the trailer and re-park the van on its own then hook up the trailer again for our final parking manoeuvre. We hooked up and pulled forward and out popped the trailer from its hook and all the electric cables between the trailer and van. We were really all so tired it was the straw that broke the camels back and there was a lot of swearing in Slovakian!!!! 

A Leffe beer later (to calm Milos's nerves) and we finally got some sleep.

Morning came too soon and we needed to pack everything as we're moving to Megeve today. Our accommodation there is a gym hall, the worst nights sleep during the whole race. Everyone in together, sleeping on gym mats and snoring (except Coste in his luxury tour bus). It hate it. I never sleep. And we don't even have the chance to sleep in the car because we've put Grony in there due to her allergy to straw. Arbonne Sleep Easy spray will be required I think!!

So now we're on our way to Megeve, driving on the highway with some pretty nice scenery which I'll try to post later. Meanwhile, here is the podium from last night (Yay for us!!!) and a picture of my breakfast: a bowl of coffee (French style) and a Berocca!

(I think 1st place suits my husband!) ;-)

No race today, just a 5km show for the Megeve crowds. 

Today's team in pictures...

Cliff

Waf 

Button and Foxy (not looking at camera)

Hannalore

Senna

Balto (always howling)

Toby (one of my favourites)

That's 10 of the 14 we have with us. The rest tomorrow hopefully!

Stage 4 - a good day!!!

Sorry it's late but the stage started at 17.00 today so we spent all day pretty much waiting around only to be running around like crazy things since. I'm writing this as I eat dinner and it's 9.30pm already. But there's nothing that can dampen our mood tonight because we are celebrating our first stage win!!! AND we've taken back 2nd in the overall ranking, although only by a small margin. But Whoop whoop for us!!! I have been playing psychological games with Milos all day trying to stay positive and giving him encouragement but I have to say the thing that worked best seems to have been the promise of a Leffe beer if he won the stage. Well, maybe a couple of other things I said too but whatever it was it worked! Now it's to try and keep the momentum. 

The stage itself was short but with quite steep hills, so although the distance doesn't really suit us, the hills do (don't ask me how we're so good at hills when we train on the Torne River but it seems we are!). We knew it would be fast and we knew Radek wouldn't have any problems so it was just to see how Remy Coste would do after yesterday's spectacular. To be fair, he did pretty well but thankfully we did better. 

Milos and the dogs were on fire! I think the biggest contributor to that is that they have now started eating. The mix of just dry food and water worked. And when they didn't take water we just gave them dry food hoping that they would then become thirsty and would want to drink. That worked too so by the time we got to the parking place today they had all eaten breakfast and after that we managed to water them twice! It was a joy to watch. 

We also took our faster dogs (no fat Dixie) knowing it would be a fast stage. We put Waf in lead for the brains and our rocket Cliff for speed. Together they're a great lead team. Behind we had our rising star Hannalore. She goes crazy for running and we put her with Button who's also good in lead with Waf. Foxy and Senna were next and two really good and fast team dogs. Then Patch and Grony. These two are such characters and such gentle dogs out of harness but put them in harness and they love to run! Patch is always good to rev the team up at the start. They're both good, strong dogs that can keep the speed. In wheel at the back were Balto and Toby. These two are safe bets. Big, strong dogs that can also keep the speed despite their size. They're brothers to Waf. I took pictures of them all before the start so will try and post them after this but for now I have included the stage results and overall rankings. 

Jan managed a good 4th place again which was actually pretty well done by him because he went wrong on the trail twice (very easily done) and when trying to remedy his first mistake he lost his team. Luckily they got caught up in some  barrier netting and they stopped after just 10 metres or so. But Jan wasn't particularly happy with that and lost his two minutes (start interval) to Milos straight away. There were several mushers that made the same mistake. And that's what you have to be careful of here. One mistake and you can lose everything. Luckily Jan keeps his fourth place overall and his standing as Best Rookie. I've no idea if there's a prize for that this year. I know there has been in the past. 

Anyway, I must go now as its late, I'm knackered and tomorrow we leave for Megeve! It's just a short show for spectators tomorrow so a day off for the dogs really. I'm sure ours will welcome it!

Goodnight. 

This is how the French do it...

Hands up if you want us to beat this guy!!! ;-)

Video from yesterday...

I have loaded a video from yesterday's stage on my Instagram account (gaynorleeper) as I've been practicing the slo-mo video on my phone!! It's fab!!! Be sure to check it out and follow me on Instagram for more. I can't seem to post videos to this blog (on my phone anyway). 

This was the only stage so far with reasonable snow. :-)

It's Milos about a third of the way in. Enjoy!

Waiting for stage 4 - and it's raining!!!!

If you could only see us now. All the trucks tightly packed into a small car park in the middle of Les Gets. It's pouring with rain and there's 20 trucks here full of mushers who probably have better conditions for dog sledding at home. Seems mad! The organisers must be having a nightmare fulfilling their promises to the ski resorts for the 'musher attraction', shipping in trucks of snow to line the start through the street (that's melting as quickly as they put it down), and still trying to put on the show. As for the mushers, they'll be putting on their waterproofs not their thermals today. In our camp the mood is a bit sombre. Milos is tired. Not just physically tired but tired of the whole charade. He's taking a nap now and hopefully we'll get a lift in the weather which will improve the mood. For me, I find chocolate helps! Although I'm starting to look like fat Dixie now. ;-)

Actually, I'm also tired. Travelling for 4 days with no sleep takes time to recover from. Last night I was lying awake til midnight thinking about the day we had and couldn't sleep. Well, until I tried some "sleep easy" spray from Arbonne that my sister gave me. A few sprays in my mouth and I was out like a light! Magical stuff and I can highly recommend it. I've also got the Arbonne protein shake powder with us and Milos is using it after every stage to ease muscle recovery. Without thinking he commented last night that he doesn't ache and can't remember a previous race where his muscles weren't screaming by now. Thanks Arbonne! If anyone wants to try any of it let me know and I'll put you in touch with a supplier. It's mail order so super easy and to your door! 

Anyway, as we wait (and caffeine load) here's a couple of pics. The rain! And of Grony and Milos taking a nap in the van. Grony is now sleeping in the van at night because she developed an allergy to the straw in her box. 

Thanks to all for following and also for the comments. We're reading everything and the encouragement really helps. Hope we can all make you happy today! And if there's anything you want me to write about let me know!!

Stage 3 timings

Well it's all change after a pretty challenging stage. I asked Milos what I should write about today and his reply was "nothing". That just about sums up what we feel. The more we think about it the more unbelievable it is that Remy Coste out performed everyone by a pretty huge margin today. Milos said at the half way point (where radek caught him) he was 30 seconds faster than Coste (he could see him in the trail so could calculate) so Radek would have been 2m 30s faster. They were catching him up. Then miraculously Coste managed to gain 9 mins 20 secs on Milos in the last 25km! Ok, Milos had a few troubles but that's still a huge amount of time. Not only that but he gained 4 mins 30 secs on Radek too which just seems impossible because everything was going good for Radek and Coste hasn't been able to keep his pace til now. Very strange. But I guess you have to hand it to him, he ran an exceptional race, but I wonder how it will be tomorrow. It's only a short stage though (about 50km) so maybe that's the reason he decided to push it. We'll have to wait and see!

Anyway, this is how it is. Sometimes you have a good day and sometimes a bad day. We hope a good day will come soon for us. Meanwhile here are the timings of the stage and the new overall positions showing us now in third place. 

Stage 3 and we've lost 2nd place

This one is always tough for us. It's warm and it's a fast stage. And we took Dixie, one of the dark and fat dogs! What a mistake. She just couldn't keep the speed set by the Frenchman Remy Coste who finished in spectacular speed today. He was heard to say it was all or nothing and he took a risk which paid off. For us, Dixie got dropped at the vet check at the top of the mountain and Waf (who's been spending sleepless nights howling after the girls and not eating) took a rest in the sled at one point, although he then finished the race. Dixie got a snow mobile ride to the finish. With this in mind Milos did pretty well to keep the pace he did. And Remy took a big risk to gain 2nd place and only a few minutes in his battle with Milos. It's stage 3 of 8 so we will see if he pays for his gamble later. 

Our dogs recovered quite quickly at the van but they were tired. In another blow for our team Leepey has had her foot x-rayed as it appeared very swollen when she came out of the trailer earlier. Thankfully it's not broken but she will have to rest for a few days now. We're not sure what happened as she didn't even run yesterday or today, but these things happen. 

It's very easy to focus on that and the couple of dogs that struggle and forget that there were many that did really well. Today's favourite is Spendrup. 

I'll post up times when I know them but rumour has it Milos managed third place on the stage but we'll see. I think it was pretty close. 

Later we'll try a new strategy with feeding. No meat, just plain, cool water and the dogs favourite dry food - Royal Canin 4800. Fingers crossed it works. 

Meanwhile, Jan had another good stage today and will be fighting Milos for today's third place most likely. He's confirming his place as best Rookie and a strong fourth overall. That's a very respectable start so congratulations to him and all of his hard work to train his team whilst also working with tourists at Taistos kennel. There's no doubt the dogs have good breeding and he knows what he's doing in training and racing. 

GPS shows Radek, Milos and Jan together on trail

(Red is Radek, turquoise is Milos and Jan is yellow). 

We're avidly watching the GPS on the website and although it can be a little mis-timed it shows that Radek has caught Milos and Jan and is now chasing Remy Coste. At the moment Coste seems to be keeping the pace and it looks like a battle for 1st and 2nd between those two. If Milos can hang on for another 15km he might manage 3rd. At the moment Jan and Milos are together on the trail. 

The placing isn't so important but the time is! Milos can't afford to give away too much time to Radek in these early stages if he's to stand any chance of catching him on the longer stages. But  now Radek has over taken him he has already gained two minutes (Radek started 2 mins behind Milos) and is gaining even more. Hold on Milos, hold on!! It's important for Milos to keep in touch with Radek as long as possible. 

Start of stage 3 - Sommand

An early start today to get to the start line with plenty of time to spare. Now the crowds are gathering and the dogs are getting excited! I hope they will do ok today. I'm finding it hard to stay positive as our eating situation is reaching critical point. It's tough to know if you should take the dogs running that haven't been eating (trying to spike their appetite) or let them rest hoping it will change. We're trying everything but the boys are so focused on the girls or what's going on around them, all this chaos, that they don't have focus for anything else. It's depressing and personally it's getting me down. It's so hard to see them turn their noses up at food they would normally love. But they are all still very lively despite this. 

So this is a 60km stage and is usually very fast. Historically we don't do very well on this stage so if we're on the podium it will be a nice surprise. Radek is likely to take the stage win again as he looks really strong. I often wonder if people face the same problems we do. I know Jan had a couple of dogs not eating too but then his aren't used to the warm etc either so perhaps it's no surprise. 

Anyway, I have to run now and prepare the dogs... First to moisturise their feet, put booties on then harnesses and hook them up!!

The team today is Waf, Cliff, Hannalore, Button, Foxy, Toby, Senna, Dixie, Spendrup and Alonso. 

Enjoy the race. :-)

Stage 2 results

The timings are in and Milos lost a huge 4 mins 35 seconds to Radek today. He's quite disappointed as he felt he was running around the same speed until the last hill when Milos's team took a dive in energy and Radek easily lost him. It's not impossible to get that back but with the stages so short at the moment we will find that hard to do. The only good thing is that we couldn't lose to a nicer man. If anyone is going to beat us we want it to be him. :-)

So what went wrong? Well, Milos said the dogs were tired. I'm not sure what exactly it might be but travelling in a trailer for 4 days is certainly not going to help. Nor will the numerous coffee tours they took over Christmas. Hardly good training in the last couple of weeks. And their appetites have just disappeared. Not for all of them but for four or five. That's got to change. They can't run on empty. 

But Milos said he felt the same. He ran out of steam too. With 2900 metres climbed over 32km that is a lot of uphill and Milos hasn't trained himself that much either. 

Jan had a better day. His dogs performed well and the heat didn't seem to slow them too much. Jan himself said that he thought today's stage would be harder than it was. He was pleasantly surprised. The result is that he's climbed to fourth place in the overall rankings and now looks very good for the Best Rookie.

So now we're back at the hostel accommodation and about to go into the mushers meeting about tomorrow. The stage looks to be shortened again due to lack of snow. Again, this is a disadvantage for us (well, usually, although Milos says he was quite glad it wasn't any longer today). 

My final thought is that things are still quite good. If you can still manage 2nd place on a bad day then there's still hope. 

The pictures below show the Stage 2 times/rankings and the overall rankings. 

 

Stage 2 - another 2nd place

The official times will be released later but the podium remains the same as yesterday: Radek 1st, Milos 2nd, Remy Coste 3rd. Milos thinks Radek gained about 3 minutes on him today saying he looked really strong on the trail. Meanwhile Milos struggled especially towards the end. We have a couple of dogs that have put on weight whilst travelling and they struggled with the heat and speed. Even Cliff had trouble with speed today which is unheard of! And Balto struggled at the end too (he has his head firmly focused on Dixie who's in heat). The 'heat' cycle of the girls is actually quite a problem as the boys aren't eating well and they're not focused on running. But we all have our off days and it reminds me that this race can change in a matter of seconds. You never know what's around the next corner. And I hope things improve when it gets colder and longer towards the end.

Jan ran a really good race today and I think he must have taken 4th in the end although I think he enjoyed coming first into the finish (don't forget the time differential at the start means that mushers further back can be the fastest over the trail). He seems in good spirits. 

I'll post timings when I know them. 

Arriving at Stage 2 - Morillon

We're just arriving at the starting car park for stage 2 in Morillon. It's about 9.55 and 3 degrees. There's a distinct lack of snow other than a steep zig zag path up a mountain side. It's today's trail. A massive 2500m over the first 12 km. I can't even imagine what the trail is normally used for its so steep. No-one in their right mind would go up or down it... Except crazy Mushers!!! In the picture you can even see a waterfall by its side. 

Today's stage has been halved to approx 35km. We saved a couple of the bigger, stronger dogs for today knowing the hills would be a problem. Waf gets to go in lead today and I'm glad because he's been so excitable he's been howling at night and keeping everyone awake apparently... I did comment that the place was full of about 200 dogs but it just so happens it was one of ours causing problems (according to some mushers who chose to complain to the organisation. No-one said anything to us). Anyway, today we let Waf do what he does best. :-) 

The first musher starts at 11.30 and 2 minute intervals after that. We'll start second to last so I'm guessing about 12ish. 

Oops, but excited, forgot to post the results list!!

Here you go... The official results. :-)

2 seconds between Milos and Radek!!

Oh my, official results just in and there was only 2 seconds between Radek in first place and Milos in second place. Wow!!! I'm pretty sure that hasn't happened before. Over 25km they practically ran the same time!!! Now we're really chuffed. 

Eating a good dinner now and off to bed soon. Tomorrows stage starts at 11.30am so it will be an early start for us. 

Well done to Milos (who worked as hard as the dogs today) and our amazing team of pooches. Special thanks to Cliff today... Not the brightest button but super fast leader. :-)

Podium Stage 1 - and we're on it!!!

We haven't had the official times yet but we have had the podium presentation and we were on it!! Yay!!! 2nd place after Radek. But I think it must have been a really close result... Down to about 30 seconds difference maybe. We'll find out later. Remy Coste came third. 

Milos is very happy with that. He says he actually went wrong at one point which cost him over a minute. The markings on one of the loops they made was hard to spot (even one of the organisers missed it when they were on the trail with a snow machine) and then up one particular hill it was a bit of a mess too. The pictures I posted earlier show how the teams were spread out. Unfortunately Jan went a little bit too far to the left side too and it meant he struggled to see any marker at the top of the hill and went wrong. He lost time here. 

Both probably struggled with the steep hills down. Milos said there was no way to brake hard enough even though he deployed his chain brakes and used every other way he could think of to steady his pace. It's essential to run the dogs steady downhill otherwise you're asking for injuries. 

But the first stage is just the start. Infact Milos says he's never been 2nd on the first stage before and in 2011 when he won he actually came 5th in stage one! 

I will try and post again later with timings. But for now all the dogs are fed (although we're still having problems with some not really eating) and we're heading back to the accommodation for dinner. 

And they're off!

16.15 saw the first team leave Les Carroz, closely followed by each team in 2 minute intervals. Jan left at 16.37 and Milos at 16.40. It was confirmed the stage would be 25km with only one big hill to climb. It was pure chaos at the start. Crowds walking between the dog teams (some with dogs!) and dog teams lined up next to each other on a narrow ridge before the start chute. We have met some Norwegians running Siberians and I think they are quite overwhelmed by it all. They seem quiet in nature, very friendly and wondering what crazy world they've come to. 

It wasn't long before we could see some mushers climbing the hill that skiers had been sliding down just an hour before. I managed to take a picture but I don't know of who. I just know it's not Jan or Milos. 

Now we're in a rush to beat the mushers to the finish line!

Our team today are Cliff and Hannalore, Foxy and Leepey, Button and Senna, Patch and Grony, Alonso and Spendrup.