Phoebe's debut as race leader...

Last weekend, Priscila and I loaded up the car with the sled, Phoebe and 3 excellent sled dogs from Hans Christian Ørjestad (aka. "The King"). We are eternally grateful that he would lend us Kaisa, Foxy and Krølløre - three of his top-class and experienced Siberians. THANK YOU! After a looooong drive through minor blizzard conditions and slippery roads, we arrived at Grimsbu Camping in Folldalen, an eldorado for dog sledding where the Norwegian Siberian Husky Cllub had their annual winter meeting.... Setting out our stake-out chain (made that same day), the dogs were given a well-deserved meal :-) Typical of a lone house dog, Phoebe is a relatively picky eater at home - on the stake-out however, she eats...well, like a dog?! No problem with her appetite, an essential trait in a working dog. See a video of the dogs here: http://andersf.multiply.com/video/item/79/Siberian_huskies_eating_at_stake-out

On Friday, after the end of the official races, Priscila and I teamed up our 4 dogs, running Phoebe with Krølløre as wheel dogs, and Kaisa+Foxy up front. We did a practice run of the 10 km sprint circuit that I would race the next day - halfway through we switched places - Priscila and I - and Krølløre and Phoebe - so....for the last couple of kilometers Phoebe ran in lead for the first time in her life...! No problem :-) Seeing that Kaisa is a grand old lady of 11 yrs, I borrowed another dog (Hera) from fellow Siberian musher Lars - teaming up Hera and Phoebe in front with Krølløre and Foxy as wheel dogs, we set out on Saturday to compete in the informal recruitment race - 10kms sprint with up to 6 dogs. Apart from losing 1 min or so to Phoebe's desire to play with Hera, she performed really, really well for being in lead! 10 kms went by in a respectable time (37 mins or so) and we arrived in goal without any mishaps - gooooooood dogs... A really good learning experience for all of us! :-)

Training at Johanne's cabin...

This week Johanne was away working in Africa and I went to her cabin with Kjetil whom helps train her dogs. With Phoebe we had 10 dogs... I drove us there with 4 dogs in cages in the car and the remaining 6 in the dog-trailer. On the way we picked up her car from the repair-shop and one of her sleds from the "Dog musher shop" in Elverum. We had true "arctic winter" conditions with nighttime temperatures down to -25 degrees C.... Quite some debut for Phoebe's first nights to sleep outside in a dog house!!! She didn't seem worse for wear - bright and active at the morning feeding / watering time. We gave all the dogs extra food over the weekend for them to generate enough heat - "fuelling the oven" so to speak, something we had to do for us too.... When arriving at the cabin, all the plastic water storage bottles were frozen solid!!! We lit a fire in the fireplace and started melting snow on the electric stove.... Falling asleep in my sleeping bag on the sofa I was in the end warm and cozy.... :-)
At 5 in the morning, I had the pleasure (truly!) of being woken by the dog pack howling! I believe I heard an "out-of-tune" voice that perhaps was Phoebe - anyway, it is a wonderful thing to hear - I just love the dog concerts :-)

On Saturday we went out for a looooooong run - Phoebe teaming up with 4 of Johanne's experienced dogs on a run that was 34.2kms according to the GPS!! No wonder she had a great appetite when we came home, and that she went to sleep like an angel in her house....! Sunday was a shorter run of 19kms before we packed up and drove home to Oslo in the queue of cars to deliver them all back at Johanne's kennel.... It was nice to sleep in our own beds for a change - Phoebe outside our bedroom door and myself next to Priscila in our comfy bed :-)

See a video of the Saturday run here: http://andersf.multiply.com/video/item/78/Phoebe_running_long_distance

Distance sled training and cross country skiing!

Photo of Denvildra Teqno - Phoebe's father (photo by Sandra Olofsson - Huskylyan kennel).

On Friday, Phoebe and I went out with Johanne and her dogs - I ran Phoebe alone in the middle of a 5-dog team - a total of 20 kms. Really nice run in the quiet evening - we didn't get back until 23:45 (quarter to midnight).... We tried to visit a friend of Johanne, breaking trail in deep snow to reach his cabin, but we missed it by a couple of 100 meters - anyway, we don't think he was there... Phoebe is running very smoothly in the team, and seems very happy to be doing her "real job" - pulling a sled! One day soon I shall have to try her up front with an experienced leader alongside......

In the last days we have received 30-40 cms of snow here in the Oslo area - really nice!! Today Priscila and I introduced our friend Rodrigo to the pleaseure of Cross Country skiing - he is very fit (marathon runner) and has a natural talent for sports.... We did a smooth 7.5 kms on his FIRST ever outing! Of course, I had Phoebe in front pulling :-)
See a couple of videos here:
http://andersf.multiply.com/video/item/74/Priscila_and_our_friend_Rodrigo_skiing
http://andersf.multiply.com/video/item/75/Fiskebein_Fishbone_uphill_cross_country
http://andersf.multiply.com/video/item/76/Downhill_on_cross_country_skis
http://andersf.multiply.com/video/item/77/Rodrigo_going_down_the_hill...