07/03/2017
Sibersong Sleddogs
So that was the roughest trail I've ever driven to date, toughest can-am for sure. I've driven some challenging races but this trail felt like it was beating me and the dogs up left and right.
Before I get into details let me just say that I commend the Can-Am trail people for managing to even get the trail into the shape it was in a matter of days. Not only that but they had to throw out months and months of trail work, reroute and remark over half of the race and rework the checkpoint plans. Even on Friday afternoon they were still trying to come up with solutions that would work, and I know how incredibly stressful that had to be. I know they did the best they could with what mother nature threw at us all, and this is all part of distance racing. It wouldn't and shouldn't be an Iditarod qualifier if it were a piece of cake. Do I think they should have cancelled? No. Obviously it was runnable and plenty of folks finished. I'm sure we're all going home bruised and sore and with injured dogs. I just happened to have worse luck with it than others.
Funny how I often wish for a 'fast' can-am trail, but in the many years of racing this race the only 2 times we've actually had a fast trail I've said at the end, "I change my mind: I want the slow trail back!"
I consider myself to be a pretty good sled driver. For me to have 3 really nasty falls in one race is unusual. Yet that's what happened.
There were parts of the trail that were decent. Still rock hard and fast with no give whatsoever for joints, but they weren't solid ice and they weren't jumbled up. But for every mile of decent trail there seemed to be an equal amount of trail that made me wish I were anywhere but there.
As Becki Tucker put it, "It was fun for the first 8 miles." You know: the heavily snowmobile-trafficked rail bed.
Lakes & ponds were sheer glare ice. Not even a hint of snow. Trail breakers did the best they could at scratching out a trail on that so you had some tiny bit of traction but you still spent the trip across praying you wouldn't see your dogs wipe out.
Plowed roads were sheer glare ice with a tiny trail of snow on the sides. Thank god the dog teams stuck to the sides but at times the "trail" wasn't 2 dogs wide so inevitably the dogs on the haw side of the line would be slipping. This would go on for miles. Anya completely wiped out on one of those.
Sections of narrow winding trail were what I can only describe as "jumble snow" - obviously at one time a nicely groomed trail but rain and warm temps earlier in the week caused water to flow beneath some of the sections, which caused the trails to collapse in on themselves in huge chunks. Then it froze into concrete. Your sled would bounce one way, and then the other way, and then you were sidehilling it to avoid falling into a huge water hole, and then you were bounced left again, and right again. By about 30 miles into the race my shoulders and arms were already aching from handling the sled.
A few places where you left the trail to come out onto a plowed road were nothing short of scary. The snowbanks were very tall as there is still a lot of base snow and the trail crew did what they could to carve a trail out of them but they were the equivalent of ski jumps. If your team needed to turn onto the road rather than go straight across your sled would be 90 degrees sideways.
Coming around one of those in leg 1 I had enough time to see a handful of trail help down the road before my sled went flying and I hit the ground hard. Very hard. My head bounced off the frozen road so hard and the pain in my neck and shoulders was instantaneous. I lost the team. I didn't lose consciousness but i was stunned and in enough pain that all I could do was cradle my head and moan for a few seconds. Then I managed to get up and go after the team, which thankfully the trail help had caught. While we tried to figure out how to get them back on the turnoff trail (since they overshot it and were wrapped somewhat around a vehicle) both Becki and Sally came shooting around the same trail corner. Becki apparently did a barrel roll around it. They should have stuck a photographer on that corner as the resulting images would likely have been pretty entertaining - for the viewer at least.
Anyway, I'm lucky I didn't have a concussion (and no, I was stupidly not wearing my helmet because the hood of my new parka doesn't go over it well enough and I needed the hood due to the extremely frigid cold) but I did have some whiplash.
Towards the end of the first leg we crossed another piece of lake coming into Portage. As we got towards the middle the wind started blowing and the sled, myself and even the dogs were blown off the scratched out trail. The dogs were better able to stay upright in the wind - me, not so much. The wind blew my sled completely sideways, as if the team and my sled formed a backwards L shape, and before I could manage to slide it back again we hit some really bumpy mogul ice (if there's such a thing) and the sled flipped onto it's side. I landed on my left knee and then proceeded to drag on that knee across the ice chunks.
I knew the knee was pretty hurt as even within a mile or two it started giving out on me and was throbbing pretty badly. By the time I had taken care of dogs and got inside the checkpoint it was quite swollen. I iced it and tried to keep it elevated. I put a compression bandage on and it held up for the next run, which was a lot smoother trail as it was all snowmobile trail. That was the easy part of the race!
Leg 3 involved us going back towards allagash using most of the same trail we took from fort kent to portage until it turned off for about 10-15 miles to head to allagash. May have been longer - that run was an agonizingly slow blur of pain, sleep-deprivation, meltdowns. I left the checkpoint with 11 dogs. A few had sore wrists, 2 had stiff shoulders. Few minor limps on maybe 4 dogs, most of which got worked out in the first 5-10 miles.
By halfway into the run there was only 1 dog in the team left not limping. And frankly, I blame myself. The rough trail was wreaking havoc on my sore knee. It hadn't bothered me on the 2nd leg, on the smoother trail, but now we were back to jumble snow and snowbank jumps and glare ice mixed with good sections. When you're bouncing over some rough snow and your knee suddenly buckles, or a sharp stab of pain occurs, if it's the leg you're braking with your pressure on the bar brake inevitably lessons. So I'm sure I wasn't doing as good a job of driving the sled as I normally would have. Or maybe it just was the many miles of hard-as-sh*t conditions that were taking their toll on the dogs. I watched them go from bad to worse during the run and when I stopped to try and bag Moses, who was limping quite badly, the team lay down to rest while I rearranged stuff in the sled to make room and secured him in there. When I went to take off again the team was unenthused. Mia staged a sit-in which I've never seen her do. She just sat there and gave me a look that spoke volumes, "Mom - really? This trail hurts."
They really shouldn't have been super tired but I think the rough conditions and the extreme cold contributed, and they were likely feeding off some negative vibes coming off me due to the pain.
Anyway, I managed to get them going again (which is another story altogether, involving goofy Toothless) and we continued to trudge towards Allagash.
I have to say I hate - absolutely HATE - seeing my dogs in a lot of pain like that. Bad enough to watch one dog limp but to watch 10 of them limp down the trail in various states of injury? Horrible. It gets my mothering instinct up. No mother likes to see their kids in pain. Have to say this was the worst race for injuries I've ever done (my own included) as I've never had that many dogs on a team injured at once. Toothless was the only uninjured one.
About 8 miles out of Allagash we flew over another one of those ski-jump-like snow berms. Mia thought the plowed road was the trail and swung the team left onto it before I had a chance to call "straight ahead". I stopped and told her where to go but as she and the team swung straight the sled flipped and my already injured knee twisted on the way down. I felt it. Then I dragged across the paved road to the other side. I couldn't stop them - the hook would have done nothing - and mostly I didn't want to interrupt their aim at the correct trail just in case they tried going down the road again.
Kudos to Duluth Trading Company and their Manorak. I was dragging across that pavement and thinking, "oh my god, my brand new parka is probably shredding" but there isn't a rip or tear on the thing. I was amazed.
Back on the trail it was pretty evident I had messed up the knee. Thank god we weren't far from the checkpoint as I don't know how I would have done 20 more miles on it. Long story short, I came into the checkpoint planning to scratch but did what you're supposed to do: I took care of the dogs, I went inside, I ate, I saw the medic, I got some sleep. I woke up, did some soul searching. I looked at the stats board and saw 2 mushers had scratched, including one in front of me, and that I was now in 6th place if I left on time. I didn't tell many folks but 6th was what I kind of was aiming for and what I felt my team could possibly accomplish. But the medic was advising me that if I continued she could almost guarantee I wouldn't be walking on that knee at the finish line.
I still was wishy washy about it until the medic's sister who happens to be an orthopedic PT asked if she could take a look and maybe diagnose. She did a bunch of little diagnostic tests based on movement and areas of pain and she felt strongly that it was the medial meniscus that was injured. I know the seriousness of that kind of injury and that helped me make up my mind.
As disappointing as it was to scratch and give up what would have been our best finish yet (not to mention a pair of Muck boots for Chris and a nice paycheck to boot) I would be lying if I didn't say that I was relieved not to have to go do another 45 miles of that trail too!
Congrats to all of you mushers who finished on such a challenging race. Major congrats to Lara Renner who finished her first 100 miler and finished really well!
And thanks to all of you who helped me along the way and during the race. Special thanks to Tenley Scofield, who hosted us this weekend, and Makayla Kinsley for taking care of the kennel while we're away (as well as the delicious trail snacks!).
I fear my race season is over with this injury but Chris now gets the chance to race the "A-string". He did amazing in his first ever race this weekend and I couldn't be prouder of him!
