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L’Odyssee 2010 was the best of
times, it was the worst of times, wow what a dickens of a great opening
line, I bet others had wished they had thought of that – better get it
copyrighted – quick.
Anyhoo, it was the best of times,
it was the worst of times, a real tale of two ditties, I had great
expectations for this race but, as always, there was a bit of a twist
and we fell on hard times; there was to be no thoroughfare to the
winners rostrum just the bleak house that is last place. Our Mutual
Friend, lady luck, was not shining on us, I had hunted down victory but
our hopes had gone astray, the story of the British Lion was much more
the song of the wreck. But as a boys story is the best that is ever
told and a day wasted on others is not wasted on one’s self, bring in
the bottled lightening, a clean tumbler and a corkscrew and read about
another battle of life. Okay enough of being a Dick…ensian and on with
the story.
The 2010 L’Odyssee was a bit of a
comedy of errors, a real love’s labour lost you could say although
probably much ado about nothing – sorry I shall desist. Although in
reality the race really was a winter’s tale that turned into a bit of a
Richard the Third.
Although we shouldn’t have
favourites, and I enjoy all the races we attend, L’Odyssee really is my
favourite race of the year, and to squeeze in one more Dickensian
phrase, I really must eulogize large and big up this the main event,
innit – good ol’ Charlie he knew how to capture a mood. The organizers
and volunteers are amazing and work so hard to make sure each and every
musher feels special. The people of Saint-Pamphile who come out in huge
numbers to offer never ending support are just so appreciative; from
the time you get to the race site until the last musher is across the
line we always have a crowd of people around the dogs, asking
questions, hugging and petting the dogs, taking photographs. For some
reason, perhaps because it is still in its relative infancy, the whole
weekend just feels comfortable and special. Do you get the idea that I
like this race – it is, was and will be again the best of times.
However, as my experiences of two
years hence will confirm, it can also be the worst of times,
exaggeratively speaking (and with a certain amount of adverbial
inventorisation). Not since an MP had said ‘Look I have a couple of
spare luncheon vouchers, how about popping round to Cynthia Payne’s for
a quick nibble’ had someone been expecting such an arse whooping in the
name of pleasure as I was in entering into this race. Racing in Quebec
is always a lesson in speed, or should I say a lesson in others’ speed
versus my own slowness. I don’t know how they do it but the Quebec
mushers, one and all, are just so fast. I had entered the 10 dog, 25
mile race, ignoring the safer option of running in the pure-breed class
(but don’t get me started on that old Aryan chestnut), safe in the
knowledge that I was going to come in last. In the days leading up to
the race I kept looking at the list of competitors and my fears were
not getting assuaged – only 4 had entered: M. Cooke, Sylvain Voyer
(winner of the 2009 Can Am 60, and in doing so had bettered M. Cooke’s
60 mile time by over three hours), a second team from
St-Donat-de-Rimouski, that I could only assume were Sylvain’s second
stream, and Jacques Trottier, a musher I had not raced against before
but who had kicked butt at Daaquam and so was not going to be a push
over. However fourth would be OK and would result in a decent slice of
the purse – not that we normally consider such things – being at a race
in order to earn a lantern in red is always more important than sitting
at home with a bank account in the black. Imagine then my shear glee
when I walked into the auditorium in Saint-Pamphile for the musher’s
meeting and where they should only have been four, the room was full,
and with a distinct Quebec feel about it: le lantern would still be
rouge but the compensation not quite so laissez-faire but a great deal
more unfair. However I am getting ahead of myself here and as it is
very rare for me to get ahead of anyone or anything I had better take a
step back.
We had actually been having a
reasonable winter in terms of racing and training. We had started out
the winter with 24 dogs in training however due to a late start to
training, as a result of the kennel relocation, we had planned on
training for and racing at 30 mile events only. In previous years I
felt I had put too much pressure on both the dogs and myself trying to
run over distances that we just weren’t prepared for so this winter we
would be taking a kind of mushing sabbatical, to use what must be
a good Christian word. I figured that we could take things fairly easy,
building up the miles slowly yet still having a lot of 30 mile runs
under our belts before the Can Am. Although we did go into the Eagle
Lake 30 in January grossly under-miled, things had started to go to
plan as we moved towards February and in the weeks leading up to
L’Odyssee we put in some good performances in both racing and training.
This, however, was not going to boost confidence or ego as I knew that
we were still going to come in last in Saint-Pamphile. I was predicting
that over the two days of racing I would be around 1 ½ HOURS behind the
next competitor and it is sad to say that my prediction turned out to
be positively Nostradamus-like in its accuracy, not that you needed any
prescience to reach such a conclusion, just an ability to understand
what an arse I am when it comes to running dogs. Not to be dissuaded by
the totally predictable outcome, I was determined that we would do our
best, pace ourselves over the two days and have a bloody good time in
process, dogs and musher alike. Yes, my sixth sense really isn’t that
good; must be an age thing as all my other senses, including common it
would seem, are also all beginning to be less effective as the years
slip by.
Having learnt a travel lesson from
Greenville of two weeks previous (like I am ever going to learn a
lesson as long as I try to keep that bloody van on the road), I decided
that I would set off in the rejuvenated van early on Saturday morning
with the aim of being in Saint-Pamphille in good time for the 0930
musher’s meeting, having spent the previous night at home keeping
myself and the van nice and warm and stoked up on gin and tonic –
perhaps that is why the van isn’t running so well! Having not learnt my
lesson about listening to mechanics who advise against driving the van
when it is quite obviously on the verge of some sort of a collective,
mass breakdown (van = mechanical = me = mental) it was with a huge
sense of relief that I pulled into the car park of l’ecole
Saint-Pamphile on time, in good spirits and with a van that was, well
lets say, not terminal - yet. Even being greeted by much ribaldry,
irony and sarcasmy from my fellow ‘competitors’ who took great pleasure
in informing me that I was famous as my grotesque mug was adorning all
race promotional paraphernalia, could not dampen my mood. I swaggered
off in order to register and partake of the mushers’ meeting, possibly
signing a few autographs en route if the mood would so take me (and if
I could harangue anyone enough to get them to ask for my autograph).
A positive veteran of L’Odyssee, I
settled into the auditorium, surrounded by many more mushers that had
been registered the previous evening (I could see purse dollars
figuratively slipping away before my very eyes) and readied myself for
a meeting conducted entirely en francais interspersed with much Gallic
chortling, a nod of a head in my direction and the briefest of brief
translations normally along the lines of ‘they are discussing a
snowmobile trail that has caused a few people to go wrong in the 12
mile race this morning but don’t you worry about it; just you remember
the Plains of Abraham and you’ll be OK’. My limited french
vocabularlary detected that a lot of discussion seemed to be around the
route that the race would take, not surprising really for a mushers’
meeting, however not wishing to tax my personal translator too much, I
looked at the map on the stage and just asked if it followed the same
course as last year – “oui”; I mentally shut down (if such a thing is
possible for quite such a dullard), confident that I could remember the
way from last year and that any surprises would be a pleasant
distraction from my back of the pack stupor (as things turned out
stupid would be a better word to use).
Meeting complete and with a little
under 4 hours until my allotted start time (I was second off and so in
line for an awful lot of being passed), I returned to the car park to
relax with the dogs and watch the remainder of the earlier races finish
whilst discussing the pros and cons of Disney Siberians versus working
Siberians and in particular Jim the Siberian as opposed to Jim the
dalmation/collie/alaskan (a long story that is better being long
forgotten than long in the telling).
As start time approached I assured
any of my fellow competitors who could understand my speech, or at
least could be bothered to understand my drivel, that our dogs are very
experienced at being passed but if they had any issues to just call
‘trail’ and I would pull over and stop – ever the concerned back of the
packer. Then before I knew it, and with all going swimmingly so little
to report, we were in the start chute and away. As stated earlier my
plan had always been to pace the team so that we would put in strong
performances on both days; unfortunately I very quickly became gripped
by two devils. First was the aforementioned knowledge of the trail; I
remembered from the previous year that the first couple of miles are
pretty narrow with limited space for passing so I really wanted to
clear that section as soon as possible so as not to hold up any of the
real competitors. Secondly, and the devil that I should really have
controlled if only I believed in devils, which obviously I don’t, and I
am not broaching that ‘belief theme’ again anyway, was the fear of not
wanting to be massively embarrassed by being so far behind everyone
else. So as we flew out of the start chute and down the trail all
thoughts of pacing slipped from my mind. We cleared the first narrow
stretch of trail without being passed, part one of the plan complete.
Unfortunately I was enjoying the speed and so failed to slow the dogs
down when we hit the wider trails. As more and more teams passed me I
became more and more mentally caught up in their speed and so instead
of slowing the dogs down, like the idiot I am I pushed them on ever
faster. Passing through 8 miles we were still ‘cruising’ at around
13mph – far too fast. My speed induced hypnosis psychosis was only
broken for a moment as Sylvain Voyer, the first musher out, passed us
head on traveling in the opposite direction. Well he would be going in
the opposite direction I suppose, I mean you are not going to be passed
head on by a team going in the same direction are you, unless you are
going in reverse and, well, frankly that would just be too silly to
even contemplate; so not being silly I shall stop contemplating. As he
had passed me head on I started to wonder where either he or I could
possibly have gone wrong, the map on the stage at the mushers’ meeting
had quite clearly indicated a loop as opposed to an ‘out and back’ and
hadn’t I asked if this was being run on the same course as last year so
there really shouldn’t have been any head on passing. However before I
had chance to reflect any further, or even think about turning round,
more and more teams passed us head on and not one of them seemed
surprised to see me neither going in the opposite direction nor going
in reverse. Quite obviously I should have paid more attention at the
meeting or even requested a more lengthy translation; this was
undoubtedly an out and back trail. Oh well no harm done and it was more
head on passing practice for Ammo who is/was fast becoming my main ‘go
to’ leader.
As we came out of the small loop
that marked the turn at half way on this now definitely out and back
trail we were overtaken by the last team on the trail, Diane Marquis,
another respected and very fast Quebec musher; our average speed dipped
below 12 mph. However with only a little over 11 miles to go, and now
knowing that the trail was relatively flat, barring a disaster or the
team (understandably) quitting on me we were still going to finish the
day at a respectable pace. Perhaps this would be a good time to slow
the team down and begin pacing myself – on I pushed.
As we came back onto the narrow
section of trail that marked the first and last two miles of the race
we were still traveling at a good speed however I started to suspect
that Dawson was holding back on some of the downhill’s as the remainder
of the team picked up speed. This was unusual as he has always been
able to keep up with the team no matter what speed we have been
traveling at. Dawson however, the brother of the sadly late Yukon, was
even more under-miled than the remainder of the dogs. Having had bad
stress diarrhea which had contained a lot of blood, whilst on a
training run back in December, I had rested Dawson for over three
weeks, concerned and scared that Yukon’s condition may have been
genetic and/or hereditary and not wanting to risk Dawson’s health in
any way at all. Those three weeks off ensured he missed at least 250
miles of training. We had a problem however in that we were aiming to
enter two teams in the Can Am 30 in a couple of weeks time which meant
we needed 12 fully fit and healthy dogs. As such I wanted as many race
experienced dogs available as possible to be able to select the two
teams from. Furthermore Dawson had been showing an awful lot of promise
in training and I felt that he had potential to be a real asset on
either team at the Can Am. However as Dawson can be quite a nervous
boy, I felt that before he was subjected to the huge crowds and high
degrees of stress that greet the start of the Can Am then he needed to
get some race experience elsewhere. His lack of miles had precluded him
from running at Brownville or Greenville so L’Odyssee really was the
only option if he was to be in with a chance to make it to Fort Kent.
Having said all this a two day, 22 mile sprint probably wasn’t the best
place for Dawson to begin his race career. I cannot even claim that
hindsight is a good thing in this situation because on the Wednesday
leading up to L’Odyssee Louise and I had discussed his relative lack of
miles and whether or not this was a good ‘first’ race for Dawson;
hindsight doesn’t come into it, we knew I was taking a risk by running
him at L’Odyssee. The conclusion to the conversation was that I would
keep a close eye on him over the weekend and leave him in the van on
the second day of the race if I felt he wasn’t up to it.
Even with Dawson holding back a bit
over those final few miles we still crossed the finish line with an
average of 10.5 mph for the 22+ miles. Although 31minutes behind the
next team, I was still happy with our overall performance; at the back
of my mind however I knew we would pay the penalty the next day.
Having spent Saturday night out in
the Quebec bush staying in a palatial ‘cabin’ that made even Alex and
Lucille’s camp look like…well a camp (see the Greenville story), I rose
early (to make sure that I had time to get the van started) and made my
way back into Saint Pamphile for breakfast. As the 13 mile and 45 mile
races were starting out of town, and as the 120 mile mushers had been
finishing their race throughout the night, the rest of the town seemed
bereft of mushers. I dined alone, although still surrounded by a
strangely alien french babble, and wandered up towards the race site to
get a good parking/stake out position for the day. Seeing that there
were still a few dog trucks in the ‘120 car park’ I pulled in to try to
ascertain who had won the long race. Stopping to chat with Bob and
Rhonda O’Hearn I was sad, and shocked, to hear some of the issues that
Bob had had during the night and in particular nearly losing his team
on the ploughed road when trying to bag a couple of dogs. All the
L’Odyssee races run along this road and so I knew that there was little
or no opportunity to ‘hook down’ if you had a problem; I was just glad,
and hopeful, that I didn’t, or wouldn’t, have a similar problem (the
Nostradamus effect tends to be very short lived, or even short-sighted
but see above for the effect age may be having).
The remainder of the Sunday morning
leading up to my start time was spend discussing, and fretting over
Dawson. I was hoping that he had maybe hurt a paw and that by booting
him he would be fine but in reality I knew deep down that he probably
had a shoulder injury. Unable to find anything, and again gripped by
the desire to get round the trail as fast as I could, I made the
foolish decision to run Dawson on the second day, totally going against
the position that Louise and I had previously agreed on.
Straight out of the start chute I
could see that Dawson wasn’t happy. Despite the speed of the previous
day’s run the remainder of the team were still really pumped up and set
off as they had finished the previous day – at speed; Dawson wasn’t
coping at all well. As the first ¼ mile more or less circumnavigated
the car park I considered stopping to leave Dawson in the van. As
common sense really had taken an all-inclusive vacation away from
Robertsville I decided to press on regardless, secure in the knowledge
that I could stop and bag Dawson if I had to.
Subject to reverse seeding on the
second day, and so last one out in my class, I didn’t have the worry of
being overtaken on the second day but I was going to suffer the
ignominy, or should that be agony, of crossing the finish line a long
time after everyone else had finished. I recalled on a number of
occasions over that weekend two years previous waiting for what seemed
like hours for Louise to cross the finish line. This year the good
people of Saint-Pamphile would be waiting for me. Even though I was
having to keep the speed of the team down in order to accommodate a
continuing to struggle Dawson, by working out how far I had traveled
each time I was passed head on by another team , I worked at that in
relative terms I wasn’t that much further off the pace than I had been
on the previous day. Buoyed up by this knowledge we completed the loop
that marked half-way traveling at a reasonable pace, but as we
recrossed the main road to run for home Dawson decided that enough was
enough and he slowed to a stop. Wondering if the boots were bothering
him, I peeled them off and set off again but within 100 yards he
stopped again. With no other option, but knowing that I was asking for
trouble by attempting to bag such a highly strung dog, I managed to
wrestle Dawson into the bag and attached him to the ring in the bag.
Dawson quite obviously wasn’t going to settle so I tried to completely do up
the zipper on the bag hoping that if he couldn’t see what was going on
then he may settle – no such luck. We wrestled with each other for the
next 6 miles, much to the amusement of every marshal point we passed,
until eventually, and inevitably, on the infamous ploughed road Dawson
decided to get out of the sled bag when the rest of the team stopped,
and subsequently tangled, to eat some snacks that another musher had so
very kindly left right in the middle of the trail. Having fixed the
tangle and straightened out the team I got back onto the runners just
in time to watch Dawson get out of the bag. This was the moment that
the hook that was precariously, and barely, holding the team decided to
pop and the team, fed up with all this standing around, set off at
pace. As I tried to hold on to the sled, scoop Dawson up and reset the
hook all at the same time I watched the very same hook bouncing around
before me getting perilously close to planting itself into Dawson’s
leg. With both feet, and all my weight, now on the brake I managed to
slow the team enough so that the hook stopped its wild lambda; grabbing
the hook I managed to just reach out far enough to force it into the
snow bank. As Dawson was still attached to the sled bag, although now
stood next to the sled, I picked him up and forced him back into the
bag and off we went again. No more than ¼ mile down the road Ammo
decided he would quite like to stop for a toilet break. Before I could
react, and before the brake took effect on the ploughed road, we once
again had a major tangle. I set one hook in the snow bank as best I
could and kicked the other hook, infectively, into what remained of the
ice and snow of the road. Running to the front of the team I was
greeted by a Herculean tangle the likes of which I had never seen
before. In stopping to dump, for want of a more salubrious phrase, Ammo
with Eclipse alongside in lead had been passed by the swing dogs and
the first set of team dogs. As soon as he finished what he was doing
Ammo decided that it was time to go again so he passed over the lines
of the team dogs, but now well and truly tangled with the team dogs he
couldn’t get by the swing dogs, no matter how hard he tried. The hook
in the snow bank popped and the team jumped forward thankfully causing
the hook to catch again but it was enough that some of the dogs were
now in serious danger of getting strangled by the lines. In absolute
desperation I looked up to see Dawson getting back out of the bag –
just what I needed. For the last ½ mile or so I had been followed, at a
distance, by a snow machine; in an absolute panic as I tried to undo
clasps without completely letting dogs loose I waved frantically for
the guys on the machine to help me. By this point I didn’t care about
disqualification for outside assistance or anything, I just cared about
the dogs. The snow machine roared up, someone shouted something about
‘you OK’ and then without waiting for a reply roared on into the
distance; surely it had been quite obvious that I really was not OK. As
I watched the snow machine disappear into the distance I did shout
something in response but it was lost in the noise of the engine and as
I can’t remember the exact phrase I used perhaps I shouldn’t speculate
now on what it might have been. I don’t know how I did it but all of a
sudden the lead dogs were back at lead, the swing dogs were back
swinging (although not literally I must add), the team dogs were
teaming again and Dawson was stood next to the sled watching all these
goings on with some bemusement. I decided that was enough was enough;
as quickly as I could, out of fear of the snow hook popping again, I
put Dawson back in the team and still muttering epithets and
superlatives aimed at the snowmobilers, I set off once more along the
trail. Thankfully that was about it for the excitement. Dawson was
still unhappy running in the team but had come to realize that life was
even worse in the bag near the idiot on the runners. The speed of the
previous day and a half also took its toll on the other dogs and we
slowed right down. Over the final 4 miles I tried 5 different leader
combinations in order to try to perk things up but we were spent; 2 ½
hours after starting, and a full hour after the previous team, we
crawled across the line to be greeted by the cheers of a huge crowd.
Having a microphone thrust into my face, accompanied I must add by a
copy of the L’Odyssee brochure with my face on the front, I could find
very little to say but that I had had a horrible day and I had burnt
the team out the previous day. Well and truly humbled we eased back to
the van for a well earned rest and time to dust off the red lantern
holder – I was a victor by a mere 1 ½ hours over the two days –
Nostrodamus would have been impressed, although, I would imagine, not
in the least bit surprised.
The rest of the day passed without
issue and we even made it home in good time and without the van
breaking down; time to begin preparing for the Can Am 30, our final
race of the winter. Dawson definitely wouldn’t be making the short
jaunt to Fort Kent now, but at least with Paris and Cassie coming back
to full fitness I should have a squad of 14 full fit, healthy and well
miled dogs to pick from and should be able to enter two strong teams.
Should be I said.
Rob
