Down in Willow for for the Northern Lights 300, and I have been staying with my good friends TC and Dave; Odaroloc Kennels, whom I can’t thank enough for all they are doing to help me and the team for this race. Taking a minute before we eat dinner and get me to bed early to do a  quick blog and let everyone know how we are doing. Before I reveal my success strategy lets do an update.

Today was a good day. Went to the Vet Check  this morning and all the dogs are looking great. You can see some photos from the vet check today at the Northern Lights 300 Facebook page.  There are some funny photos of me, and some of our team as well as other teams competing in the race. Then TC was kind enough to help me run our race dogs today. With low snow conditions I decided it would be best to run the race dogs in 2 small teams, so we could focus on keeping the slower and more relaxed. When we travel to races the dogs are living on the dog truck, comfortable and safe, but not as fun as being in a dog yard.  At TC & Daves we can set up a picket line so they can spend a good bit of time outside on straw beds, but it does get a bit boring for them. And we all know how they love to run! So a pre-race training run is something we feel really benefits the team.  It was a great run; wonderful for the dogs, who got to stretch out good and will now eat and sleep better tonight.  And made even better by the fact that it started snowing while we were out on the trails!

Yes a Winter Weather Advisory for the area says that snow will be dumped upon us! Something the trails down here badly need. And although it may significantly change the race conditions and trail report from what we had earlier heard, I am sure I am not the only one who is happy about it.

Of course everyone wants to know:
who will be running with me this weekend?
Well the race team is … drum roll please…

Sparrow     Thistle
Gremlin     ChaseUm
Hans     Alfalfa
Stymie     Buckwheat
Petey     Spanky
Sue     Barry

Now onto my success strategy.  Folks who have been following us may notice a number of our best proven race dogs are not on the list, and this was on purpose! Yup, every dogs I know I want on my Iditarod team is at home. Orchid and BedBug, superstar leaders, not here. Powerhouse dogs like MK and Wizard, not here.

And at this point in time I bet you are thinking, OK that is strange, we get the strange part.  But now how does this equate to success?

Well my friends when I decided to run this race I had a bigger goal in mind then just running the Northern Lights. At Dew Claw we do a majority of our training in the White Mountains which means we get lots of back-country and hill training, but not a lot of river miles.  And the Northern Lights is very much a river race. So this is an excellent opportunity for our dogs to get that experience.

In addition I knew that we had a lot of young dogs joining the race team this year, and was wanting an opportunity for them to have a substantial distance experience. The Northern Lights with nice long runs, and a healthy amount of mandatory rest is a perfect race for that. So in picking my team I started by choosing every dog who had not seriously raced before. And then added in Gremlin and Thistle, who are proven race dogs in team, but recently have been running in lead, so I am excited to see how they preform leading in a race. I did add solid race dogs Sparrow and ChaseUm to round out my crew of newbies, cause hey ~ even dogs need positive role models.

Now you are thinking, OK this is starting to make sense…  But still not sure about the success part?

Success comes into it when you realize that by taking all the new race dogs and question marks to this race I am giving myself a great chance to evaluate them in a new situation. At the end of this event I hope to have a much better idea which ones will be joining me on Iditarod 2015. This is a testing and training race. And success is letting all these young question marks get the opportunity to grow and develop better race skills.

Success is bigger than just one dog or one race.  Hopefully now you agree with me now that by choosing a team that is the exact opposite of a proven race team I am working to ensure the long term success of Dew Claw.

 A special thanks goes out to  Walt & Janet Tremer, long time friends of Dew Claw for everything they did to make this race entry possible. Long story short, almost missed entering because I assumed it was an online entry, I was wrong but the Tremer have the ability to move mountains and make things happen when they set their mind to it!
Mush Thanks!