18/01/2024
Well there you have it 1 Gausdal marathon 150km complete … not quite in the fashion i would have hoped but a finish just the same. My health managed to hand in there but she second leg saw me thrown of the sled 7 times which i might add is 6 more than in my total career mushing. The race started with warm temperatures hovering around zero with a wind on its way the trail deteriorated over the weekend as teams passed and broke trough the harder top layers making it tough for both musher and dogs. We also had a tough check point not from the video you may think but 5 mins after that the neighbours dogs that had been left un attended began with aggression and trying to lunge into my team and the musher owner was no where to be found which meant myself and my handler Adam (huge thanks) spent the entire checkpoint protecting my team and trying to keep them calm. The situation was rectified however it took 4 hours. The second leg of the run was again tough and a insight into the trails and terrain here in southern central Norway. Suffice to say we finished and the dogs did a magnificent job as i could do little to help them on the climbs, i found myself apologising a lot to them for this as i ran out of breath so quickly. We returned tired but positive and have decided to enter one other race prior to the Femmundlopet. I will post a link below to it. To try to keep the tempo of running and training recovery up for both me and the dogs. Bless them they all worked so hard. Thankyou to the race organisers and team, thanks for Andrea holding the fort and help with all at home and Adam for both his help and patience during and after the race.
