Tuesday, February 17, 2015

There are dogs, and then there are dogs.

In Alaska this morning, Brent Sass won the 1,000 mile Yukon Quest dogsled race, finishing in 9 days, 12 hours and 49 minutes, coming in just ahead of Allen Moore, who briefly overtook him yesterday when Sass overslept at a checkpoint and blew a ten-hour lead. He finished with 12 dogs, having started with sixteen. Four were dropped during the race for various issues. Racers can drop dogs, but they cannot add new ones, and have to finish with at least eight. And running the race means taking care of all those dogs, feeding them, massaging their feet, changing their booties, and keeping them from fighting, going off-trail or quitting. And those dogs are some serious athletes to go that far for that long in those cold temperatures.


Meanwhile, back at the Lair...
"Hey, man...it's cold outside here, too."

5 comments:

  1. I love sled dogs. They are amazing. Races are amazing to watch as well. I know I used amazing a lot. Because it is. LOL. I miss watching them. We had them in Wyoming, but they were much shorter and not as grueling.

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  2. And the Quest teams had to deal with rocky, frozen ground in some places where there was insufficient snow. That's why the official restart of the Iditarod will be in Fairbanks next month: little-to-no snow here in southcentral AK.

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  3. Awww, sleep tight Murphy!

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  4. Those are TRULY Iron Men and Iron Dogs!!! Hats off to them!

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  5. Yes. Murph looks REALLY content there!

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