on the road

sitting in the truck, in Anchorage right now outside Borders Books, post Tustumena 200. on our way home, my heart hurts today joining the things that ache list ....my legs, check, arms, check, feet, check, head, check.....the hilliest of miles I've ever run...some of the best looking terrain, too. 40 miles from the finish line, my race ended on a sad note. I'm tired of sad notes! We are happy people with lots of things to be happy about. I had a hard fall on my head 2 weeks ago and ever since then haven't been up to par experiencing symptoms of a mild concussion. I was feeling OKAY but around Rocky's coming back inbound I got raging ill...then 40 miles from the finish line things went from bad to worse. Head down in the snow bank, I was sick. worried, yes. I worked hard and things caught up with me out there. My team would come in with John, loping into four corners. the dogs had a real good run moving quite fast with enthusiasm and speed. The team is talented and full of life. It's a shame I couldn't do them justice in this race. I had a tough time keeping up with them as my health got worse. So now what? I look ahead into my life with dog racing relations making no life changing decisions today but taking a good hard look at the times ahead. For this week, I rest and head to a Dr. tomorrow to see what's going on with my head/health. The dogs at home are on a running schedule with Brianna. Galen did super up in team front leading us most of the way with Sadie. The dogs came through strong in some iffy situations....we went through a wind storm on top of a pass in the high country coming out to Caribou Lakes..it was ice covered and windblown on top with no trail and no cover but the markers were quite visible..i walked in front of my team until they figured it out and grabbed the sled as it flew by....my sled flipped and we rolled down the icy hill....i got it back up finally and off we went, passing 2 more teams as mushers were sorting through their tangled dog teams and coaching their leaders ahead. Moments later, we were out of the blasting wind and back in the woods.

The course was a lot of fun and quite challenging--we were either climbing up or coming down. I don't think anyone finished that race without getting a major workout ...the mushers & teams all deserve a great big applause.

Paul Gebhart and family plus ALL the volunteers for the T200 deserve a great big THANK YOU for all the work they put into making this a great race event. Thank You.

There's lots happening here, much to think about and the road is calling....thanks for checking in and we'll be in touch.

zd