Eagerly waiting on a temperature drop… the last week has just been that!!! This morning was a nice 5.5c with a relatively low humidity. Dogs got loaded into the van/truck, and we hit the forest with a very crazy eager to run team :o) Just need to build up there muscles now!!!

This season, basically is going to be a repeat of last year… fall training in England… sled training in Sweden… and then onto the 12th addition of the Aplen Trail, that takes place in the magnificent Alps.

One of our yearlings after her run...

The Alpen Trail 2009 participants list has been growing fast… for more info please visit Alpen Trail 2009

Have a great season...

10/4/2008 4:27:10 PM UTC    Comments [0] 

Around mid day tomorrow, we leave Sweden for Switzerland… home to the first two stages of AT.

Happy trails...

1/7/2008 8:48:14 AM UTC    Comments [0] 

Yesterday Graham and James went out on skidoos (snow machines) to check if the river had frozen enough to run dogs on… all was good!

Running dogs up a frozen river is superb :o) and gives you a great opportunity to take in the wilderness that surrounds you... double bonus.

ooh... not totally frozen... but good as dam it!!!

1/4/2008 9:41:37 PM UTC    Comments [0] 

Today; Musher’s Malc, Graham, Betan, Tim, James, Jenny and I all ventured to the local lake with six to eight dog teams, a 30km round trip from the Axhandle Mountain dog yard.
Besides the breathtaking scenery and venturing onto the lake with your dogs, the trail back gave me a great opportunity to practice passing (overtaking). First I had my team pass Betan & Tim, then Graham and I played cat and Mouse… all went very well. Once back near the dog yard, I continued on with the 27km trail to get some miles on the dogs. We did 57km in all, which a good 15km of that involved breaking trail. All good experience for me and the dogs.

Picture by Graham Kent

Graham’s team and mine practicing overtaking and running together for photo shoot :o)

Many thanks to all the Mushers mentioned above for great and successful day...

1/2/2008 7:45:59 PM UTC    Comments [0] 

Team 'A' 54km in total today... 6c below and calm...

String working too hard as usual (wheel right)

12/29/2007 5:27:22 PM UTC    Comments [0] 

Malc setting off with team 'B' on one of his two 12km training runs...

I set off laters with team ‘A’ on two-27km runs… which included one night run… and what a fantastic feeling it is, to run your dogs on snow under the rising of a full moon under calm weather conditions. Just you, your dogs and the great vast snowed covered wilderness... a feeling that I can only describe as amazing while fearful and awe-inspiring... many thanks Graham.

12/26/2007 6:28:44 PM UTC    Comments [0] 

Now on 20 mile loop, we currently have 380 miles on the dogs. Tomorrow’s run will be there final local forest run this year, as we head out to Sweden Sunday :o)

12/13/2007 6:39:04 PM UTC    Comments [0] 

Today was the first of our 12 milers… We go 12miles again tomorrow then back to 7 until after rest… then will stick on 12 until 25th Nov!

Going up hill…

Ooh; some flat, almost...

Dam-it, more hills and steep…

11/11/2007 5:25:25 PM UTC    Comments [0] 

Today we started training dogs on 7 mile loop. Will go 7 miles tomorrow, then one 4 mile before scheduled rest days; followed by 7 mile runs until around the 11th Nov, when we leap frog to 12 miles…

10/28/2007 5:40:40 PM UTC    Comments [0] 

Spot the dog walker!

Err... Someone's in season / heat...

10/7/2007 4:26:46 PM UTC    Comments [0] 

Tonight we started quad training with 14 dogs on 4 mile loop. I put one of my recently flown over babies in swing (leader Chrome), and the other; powerhouse Fuego in wheel… as always, it’s extremely pleasing to watch sled dogs in action, that just want to pull hard for the love of it :o)

Sorry! My camera doesn’t take good pictures at dusk…

I will keep Chrome in swing for now… it will give her a chance to get use to our complicated training trails and a chance for her heat/season to pass.

Getting ready for training the night before…

Nice and clean… I don’t think it will look like this anymore after a few days of training with rain…. Oh-well… never mind :o)

Training life at the other side of the world (Alaska); Magali captures a great photo illustrating dogs working hard at there kennel just for the love of it!

9/28/2007 8:02:04 PM UTC    Comments [0] 

As I got rained off today with re-fitting out van, which I will post about laters, I made a start on lines ready for fall training…

The necklines I’m making are 1 ½ foot long, woven together with the technique that Magali taught me over in Alaska.
In AK, Jacquie and Magali use 2 foot necklines, which gives much more freedom for the dog in moment, and you can clearly see this as the necklines are not tight like we see when running on 1 foot necklines over here in the UK.
When I first came back from my visit in AK, I introduced the longer necklines to my friend Malc, and like I first thought over in AK, instantly thought this would increase the likelihood of tangles, not so!!! Why is this; purely because the necklines run angled into the dog from the mainline by about 10-15 degrees. We have far less tangles now then we used to get with the 1 foot necklines, with a great improvement on dogs freedom of moment.
Why are you using 1 ½ foot necklines and not 2 foot? Purely because our training trails are quite narrow with built up woodland on each side. So I wanted to restrict the distance on how wide the dogs could run; so for us, the 1 ½ foot necklines work well in that sense but still give the dogs more freedom of moment over that of the 1 foot necklines...

8/19/2007 7:37:16 AM UTC    Comments [0] 

Sadly the temperatures never got down low enough and mix abilities of dogs prohibited us to get up to 20 mile runs, but we had lots of enjoyment with the following and the dogs loved it

Happy New Year and may it be filled with prosperity :) Post more laters…

Total Miles on dogs: 342

1/1/2007 7:23:35 PM UTC    Comments [0] 

Dear Blog reader, have a great Christmas and a happy New Year with happy trails.

7AM Christmas Morning and rearing to Go… No Santa though:)

Since the 3rd December, dogs on quad training where split down into two smaller teams each pulling a lighter training rig. This gave us the opportunity as mentioned in previous post to increase distance on the dogs, further evaluation and more fun...
Team ‘A’ consists of 3-4 dogs (my team) and team ‘B’, 6 dogs (Malc’s team).

Training/Race Simulation over the last four days:
Fri 8.1 miles, Sat 8.1m, Sun 8.1m, Mon 8.1m & Tomorrow 7 (+/-1)m
Total training miles on dogs: 289.3 

Yeah, some of those sibes are on and off there tug lines! Still, good spirit though :)

12/25/2006 3:40:22 PM UTC    Comments [0] 

Our training trail has become very sticky and muddy over the past week due to heavy rainfall. But tonight’s temperature of 0.8c (33.4f) with a clear sky was most welcomed, compared to the previous night’s 9.0c (48.2f) with rain.
Sticky and muddy trail routes do have there good points besides plastering me, Malc and the dogs with mud, as the dogs have to work extra hard to pull the four wheeler through with one person on. It took us 54mins to complete 5.3 miles with two rest stops.


139miles on the dogs since the 1st Oct

11/21/2006 2:49:46 PM UTC    Comments [0] 

Today’s training run of 6.4miles puts us just short of 104 miles on the dogs since 1st October. We are aiming towards 170 miles by the end of the month; then dividing the team into two smaller teams, pulling lighter loads to leap frog to 12mile runs, later 20.
This is a temporary training idea for this winter to lesson the load on the harder working dogs, until my babies from Magali Philip & leader dog from Joee Redington Jr. come over, which will then create a bigger pool of good sled dogs to group together with similar abilities...

Rest stop (5c 90% Humidity).


Romana trying to play Peek-a-Boo with Sting… Hey!!!…

11/12/2006 4:13:39 PM UTC    Comments [0] 

Yah, a great slightly frosty morning for training, with temperatures down to 1.8c (35f) with a wind chill of 0c (32f), although humidity is still relatively high at 85%.

Today’s 5.5 mile run puts 80 miles on the dogs since training started on the 1st October. Besides dropping one of the lesser dogs at the beginning of the week, spirits are remaining high! So my fingers are crossed that the 4-5 Sibes here that raced last season, will maintain there spirit as we go further into the training program.
Except from my Alaskan in Swing right; like Malc & I, these Sibes have never done this kind of training before, just short 3 mile sprints… so far so good :)

Inspired by Magali Philip (Noatak Kennel) and Joe Redington Jr. (Iditarod Kennel).

11/5/2006 3:58:43 PM UTC    Comments [0] 

With great enthusiasm, Teigan joins the training team after a four week recovering from spayed operation due to Pyometra, bless her :)

10/8/2006 8:25:45 PM UTC    Comments [0] 

Now the temperature has fallen to around 10c (evening & mornings). This week saw the start of our interval training program geared mainly towards next season’s overseas mid-distance racing.
This type of training is new to us, and the only member of the team here that’s done this kind of training before is my Alaskan from Magali Philip, who has taught me earlier on in the year how hard a purpose bred race dog can pull while maintaining a very high spirit! :)
Mixture of dogs consist of mine and Malcolm Goodwins and main evaluations include; a) determining the ability of each dog for toughness b) endurance soundness c) and ability to cover distance. Many thanks Magali :)

Sunday morning, 11 dogs running as a unit/team, errr, only six working!!! ok, two dogs here are house pets :)

10/5/2006 9:13:24 AM UTC    Comments [0]