Hi all,
Warren and the team have left Koyuk and are now headed to Elim. I expect the run will take from 6-71/2 hours and then he will probably only rest in Elim a few hours. The teams have a mandatory 8 hour layover in White Mountain so most teams don't stay long at Elim for that reason. The weather has obviously been a big factor in this year's race, slowing it down considerably from year's past. There is an insider clip of Warren talking about the ground blizzard he and the team ran through getting into Eagle Island - it was on the free videos from the Insider so be sure to go and check it out. Teams have been resting longer in checkpoints than they had planned due to the high winds. There have been some horrible stories of the conditions and our thoughts are going out to those mushers who have had to scratch, that is a heartbreaking after so much work has gone into the preparations for years prior tot he race. I can only presume some of Warren's longer rest times have been due to the weather and the dogs needing extra rest to recuperate. No matter how much you can try to train in all the types of conditions that the dogs may face in a race situation, weather like this year is not anything you could have trained for. Some of the older dogs on our team have been in some pretty good weather systems over the years but for our younger dogs like Hawkeye, Hena, and WIdgi they have definitely never seen this before. I am very curious to hear how they fared. Warren still has all 14 dogs in the team, so they must be doing ok.

The dogs here have been loving the warm weather and sun we are having here in WIllow, it is about -5 celcius right now. I have been running the dogs on short fun runs, just to keep them stretched out. The dogs with me now really aren't in training for anything in particular now. This is a very relaxing time of year for us to be running dogs. There is no pressure to stay on a training schedule and the runs are fun. We may still hold the Great Slave 200 race when we get back to Yellowknife but it will be a race without a purse, just for fun and training of younger dogs. Depends on the interest level when we return, the dogs, and of course the weather. With everything that our kennel did this year with the Yukon Quest and the Iditarod we just did not have it in us to organize the race this year. 

The kids have been having a blast sledding down the hills here. They have created a series of chutes to slide down. Our Harry Potter series has finally concluded with the last movie of the series last night. I have gotten the kids abit back in the school mode their teachers will be glad to know. We are working on our homework daily now and writing about their experiences here in ALaska and the two big races. We are so glad to be able to share this with them. They may not remember it all later but we both feel that their experiences here are a very valuable life lesson for each of them. They have been lucky enough also to meet one of my early mentors in dog sledding, Al Stead who is here from Minnesota with his racing Siberian huskies to race the Open North American race this weekend in Fairbanks. The kids and I headed to his kennel here in Wasilla yesterday to visit him and the dogs. Al is an amazing dog man who along with his wife Ann have spent the last 30 years continuing the purebred Siberian husky working dogs. They have done an amazing job and have some of the nicest looking dogs around. Itr has been fantastic to catch up with Al and I look forward to seeing Ann after the race. I am really glad Warren and they are going to get the chance to meet each other.

All for now. Time to get the kids some lunch. Cheers, Kate