From Squid Biology and Archaeology to Sleddog Science

Paige and Cody put their science hats back on for a day... but not to do squid or archaeological research.

Along with Paige's run in the Yukon Quest 300, our dogs are part of an experiment to see how the stresses of racing affect the physiology of sled dogs. Dr. Sarah Love ,a collaborator on the study, came out Friday to collect urine and blood samples from the 12 athletes that will be competing in this years race. Samples will then be collected again right after the race is completed to see how the body chemistry has changed under such adverse conditions.



Cody is collecting urine from Okie with the pee ladle.a very precise scientific collection tool. :) . nice stream Okie! This was a challenging job.. maybe harder than Doctor Love's job of finding the jugular vein to collect blood. :)

Okay, maybe drawing blood is more difficult. Lupine is getting her blood drawn above, while Paige whispers sweet nothings in her ear.

Dr. Love organizes all the samples and seperates the blood samples using a centrifuge on our kitchen table. The purpose of this study and others on sled dog athletes is to understand their physiology under stress and hopefully to learn how to lessen health problems that can occur during strenous activity such as long distance racing. We will post more on these studies as we learn more.



Puppy names

We got one name suggestion for something cephlapod related, so we did! We named the boy Kraken after the mythical giant octopus/squid. We kept with the mythical creatures theme and named the girls Yeti, Nessy (Locness monster) and Nuk-luk. Here is what wikipedia has to say about Nuk-luk...

"The Nuk-luk ("Man of the Bush") is a cryptozoological hominid reported in the Nahanni National Park Reserve near Nahanni Butte, Northwest Territories, Canada, between April and June of 1964, by John Baptist, several men, and a boy named Jerry. Several Dene from Fort Liard who were trapping at a river reportedly came upon the creature in April of 1964. It appeared strong-looking, and appeared to have a long, dark beard, wore no clothes, and was 5 ft (1.5 m) tall.
In June 1964, near Fort Simpson around 9 p.m. a boy named Jerry reported a similar creature. It had black hair on its head, upper body, and legs, and a black head, slightly pointed at the back. It also had a long, brown beard that reached its waist, and wore ankle-high boots, a mooseskin loincloth, and had a stone club in its hand. These creatures have been reported for hundreds of years and are said to have bootlike footprints and whistling calls. They have been reported from the Northwest Territories to Yukon to the Kenai Peninsula in Alaska."

We thought that was a funny enough description to keep the name in the kennel...

Quest 300 food drops done.. Paige makes the Fairbanks Sports Beat!

Paige finished up her drop bags Saturday in the nick of time to get them all dropped off along with all the other racers in the Yukon Quest 300 and 1000 mile races.

We dropped off 500 pounds of dog food and gear for use at the start and 3 checkpoints along the race. Bags contained meat, kibble, booties, dog blankets, human food, clothing and spare runner plastic for the sled. Kate is sealing the dropped bags above and piling them so they can be shipped out to the checkpoints ahead of time.. Thanks to all the Volunteers that make this happen.

Paige was asked if she would give a little interview for the local news channel. They interviewed many mushers, but Paige must have had something special in her eyes, because she ended up in the sports beat.. check out the video below, after the hockey section. Stay tuned for more Quest madness!

Pickin puppy teams

So the windsor / chicken pups came to town yesterday.. we did the old fashioned team picking like you do for kickball in elementary school.. Brent got the first pick as the momma was his.. we went back and forth till they were all picked up..

Team wild and free above.. team squid below

Below is a better shot of our new babies.

now we just have to come up with names! any ideas? go ahead and put your ideas under comments. Thanks!

Copper Basin Start Video

Here is a little video taken by Lisa from the start.... Paige asked the lead dogs if they were ready to go.. and they were and almost drug me out early!

A Big Thanks!

Well, we need to step back a little bit and thank some very important people for helping us. Thanks so much to Megan for staying at home and taking care of all the pooches that were left behind. It was awesome knowing they were so well cared for. Also, Megan did a great job of keeping the blog updated when we had cell reception and could tell her what was happening. I think we came home to a house that was cleaner than when we left it! You are awesome Megan! Also a big thanks to Thomas for keeping things rolling down the road while Paige was in a semi- delirious, lack of sleep state. My stomach is still hurting from laughing so much. And last but not least, we need to thank our parents who are super supportive of our wild adventures and crazy ideas of how to live this life.It is beyond awesome to have parents who know that living happily can take many forms and they recognize how this life makes us so happy and fulfilled. So to our parents especially and also the rest of our families and friends, thanks so much for your support and for being there for us! We are now focusing on the next race that Paige is running, the Yukon Quest 300. Giddy up!

Nice Pictures from Carol Falcetta

Here are a couple pictures taken by Carol Falcetta at the start of the Copper Basin.

You can check out her work at http://www.athousandwords.us/

Puppy Preview

 

Thats right.. a couple more pups are coming this way next week. We have split a litter with the Wild and Free Kennel. These pups are from Brent's dog Chicken and our dog Windsor.. can't wait to get them here and get to know them soon.. Stay tuned for more pics once we get them home.

Strong Finish!

We made it! Cody here, just dropping in to let you all know that we came into Paxson in 28th place.. not bad for our first attempt. I'm super happy with the performance of the team and can't wait to see how they do in the next race. I will have more stories about the race soon. Today we are home and giving all the dogs a little house time and spending time with those we left behind.

Here is a little video of the first run of the race. Thomas has a ton of pics and video that I will try to get up soon with some stories..

CB300 - 1:23pm Tuesday

Cody finished early this morning at 2:36am with 9 dogs and in 28th place!!!! He had a really awesome rookie run, and we are definitely proud of him and his dogs. They did awesome!!

Cody, Paige, and Thomas were all finally able to get some sleep, it had been a long crazy weekend. They are all on their way home now, and I expect to see them around 5 or 6 tonight! They will be able to give an update of how the race was for them, and more details when they get home.

A big huge 'THANK YOU' the crew down at race central who did an awesome job keeping the Facebook page updated, especially Helen Hegener, who kept us all posted while communication was down from Sourdough, as well as providing extra information for all the fans to follow. The spottracker was super addicting! It was great to be able to follow the race from here! Also, thanks to all the volunteers and race officials! It was an awesome year, and a really fun race to follow and be part of!

CB300 Update - 8:30pm Saturday

Cody got into Wolverine tonight around 7:40pm! The dogs were still screaming and ready to run! They flew through Tolsona this afternoon around 4:15, for a run time of just over 3 hours!! It was just a quick stop at Tolsona, to put on an extra layer of clothes, before heading off to Wolverine.

From the handlers :

we saw cody scream through tolsona. in fact he was there early and the dogs were screaming to go. unfortunately the handlers were slacking and someone else had to do our job of holding the dogs while he checked in. rockin, the cb300!

They were running fast on their way to Wolverine, covering the distance in 3 hours. Once to Wolverine, he fed them, and all the dogs ate like horses! They are looking happy, and definitely having a good time. Cody is massaging them now and getting them ready for their long rest. With his time differential added on to his 8 hour layover, they will be there for about 9.5 hours.

CB300 Update - 2:10pm Saturday

Cody arrived at Glennallen this morning at 7:19, after a smooth run in from Chistochina. The trail has been good, and he has been really pleased with how the dogs are doing. He is definitely tired, he has been up with the dogs most the of time, only getting an hour of sleep for himself during this last rest. On these shorter first two rests at Chistochina and Glennallen, the main priorities are getting the dogs fed and bedded down, and making sure they are looking good- checking for any injuries or soreness, leaving little time for anyone to get much rest. Cody has been taken great care of his team, and they are certainly showing it!

Cody and the team left Glennallen this afternoon at 1:20. His dogs were screaming to go! All 12 of his dogs are looking good, and running great. As they left the checkpoint they were going crazy, barking, jumping, and harness banging! They are totally pumped and looking awesome. His run into Wolverine will mostly be in the daylight today, which will help keep Cody awake, and he will take his mandatory 8 hour layover tonight, and hopefully catch up on sleep and get refreshed for the rest of the race.

Paige and Thomas haven't gotten much sleep either, these are crazy weekends and everything is constantly moving. Paige is on 0 hours of sleep, and Thomas was able to sneak in 2 hours. But, they are all really pumped with how everything is going! They just arrived in Tolsona. It is a 25 mile run for Cody to get to Tolsana, so they will see him later this afternoon, and he is planning at this point to continue through Tolsona and then onto Wolverine.

CB300!

Cody took off from Glenallen today with 12 dogs, wearing bib #10! They left the start at 1:18 this afternoon. They had a smooth run, and the team got in tonight to Chistochina at 8:29pm, for a run time of 7 hours and 11 minutes!! According to the Spottracker, their average run time was just over 6 mph. They had some overflow to contend with, but his awesome leaders Windsor and Oakie were perfect, and they hardly got wet. I just got off the phone with Paige and Thomas, who are handling for Cody , and he is doing amazing! The dogs are doing looking really good, and Cody is really happy with how they ran. He gave them some extra attention tonight as they bedded down in the straw, just to make sure they continue to do well. They still have 242 miles to go, but for now they are sleeping. Cody probably won't get much sleep tonight because it is always really exciting at the start of the race; they are all definitely excited to have a great first run behind them. They are going to rest 5-6 hours, and then take off in the early hours of the morning.

I will keep updating as I hear from Paige and Thomas, and if Paige gets internet, she will try to post too. But, definitely watch the team from the CB300.com website, the spottracker is rather addicting, and their facebook page keeps things updated too!

Here is Cody's Spottracker: http://trackleaders.com/copperi.php?name=Strathe__Cody
And search them of Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Copper-Basin-300-Sled-Dog-Race/113218608732801

copper basin

We are all packed up and ready to roll. Codys team lineup is....
windsor okie
bleeker stout
lupine tj maxx
dundee horstein
dozer ursa
berry goober

we are really happy with how the dogs have been running up to this point and are sure they are going to do a great job. go team squid!!

Copper Basin 300 live tracker by trackleaders.com

Here is the link to the SPOT tracker site for the race. It sounds like they might not have enough for all mushers, but you can look here to see where those mushers with SPOT trackers are on the trail during the race. Copper Basin 300 live tracker by trackleaders.com

Follow along on FACEBOOK

Here is the link to the Copper Basin 300 Facebook page. They will have updates here as well, so if you are a facebooker, then check it out.. Copper Basin 300 Sled Dog Race (12)

Copper Basin Bound!

Training has been going well. Last week we had a great run in the White Mountains with Mike Ellis. Our plan was to run out to the divide, a little over 50 miles, camp for a couple hours and then run back to the truck. Plans changed when we hit nasty wind blown conditions that were a little punchy for the dogs about 38 miles into the run. At that point we decided to spare the dogs the difficult travel conditions that could injure them and head back to the truck. Instead, we had glorious 76 mile run and the dogs felt stronger with every mile we passed.. just the momentum we needed to make Cody go ahead and bite the bullet and sign up for the toughest 300 miles in Alaska!...

Cody and the dogs will be running the Copper Basin 300 on January 8th. This race starts in Paxson in the Alaska range and does big loop south through the Copper River Basin and Lake Louise Areas before heading back north to Paxson for the finish.

This week will be spent getting drop bags all ready for each checkpoint. You can see below that there is a big pile of stuff that needs to be organized which includes, booties, dog food, human food, hand warmers, extra gloves, sled runner plastic, cooker fuel, headlamp batteries, dog blankets, and the list goes on and on.. will be a busy week getting organized and doing our last training runs.

The race can be followed on their website at http://www.cb300.com/ . The race start will also be on the local radio which can be heard online at http://www.kcam.org/ . Thomas Robertson will be handling along with Paige on the race, so they will try to update the blog.. that is if Paige can figure out how to use that new smart phone and can find a hot spot in the small communties along the trail. We heard the race may have GPS SPOT trackers on all the racers, so you can follow team Squid's progress in real time.