Winter race update

Since I will not be doing the Alaska Ultra Sport in 2010 I was looking for a target race during the winter. I decided to run the Arrowhead 135 in Minnesota. I talked with Eric Johnson about the race (he won the foot division last year) and he had many positive things to say about it. This will give me a race to focus on during the coming winter months.

We had a sled building party at the Hewitt's on Halloween. Chuck, Loreen, Tim and Rick B. all fabricated new sleds for the Alaska race. I still like the sled that I made last year, but after seeing the finished products, I may have to tweak my design a little. There is something cool about doing one of the toughest races there is and pulling all of your survival gear on a sled that you made yourself. Here are a couple of pictures of the sleds. You may notice there were plenty of adult beverages on hand to make the process more difficult. That is Chuck and Tim in the picture above. No doubt Tim was telling one of his Iditarod stories to Chuck. You would not believe some of the things he has experienced along the trail. It will be tough watching the race next year from the sidelines, it truly is a race that can not be described. Tim's sled, named "Cookie", is the one in the middle of the picture below. It has pieces of black velcro on it to hold the cover. It is tradition to name your sled. Sometime when any of you have a chance to run with me, you can ask me about the trail into Skwentna, it is an amusing story about "Cookie". We used it as a template for the other sleds, but made a few small changes.



Only a week to go before Wayne Kurtz gets started at the Deca Iron race in Mexico. Waynes' wife Jan will be there to crew for him the first few days. I will arrive on Friday the 13th to crew for him through the finish. Look for an article about him in the Trib North later this week. I post a link to it, when I find it. I am getting excited about the Deca, even though I am not racing it. Make sure you wish Wayne well if you see him this week. I will be posting reports from beautiful downtown Monterrey once I arrive on site.

As always, let me know what races you folks are doing and I will be sure to get your reports on the blog.