What a weird training run we had this morning, in the dark none the less. The loggers are working hard down my road and it’s very dangerous running into them on a single lane road. They fly down the road at over 40 mph with no intention of slowing down, stopping, or moving over…grrr…I hate training in the dark, too hard to see your leaders when you have a long string with little lighting and high speeds. Toivo was getting knarly with Grace before we headed out…nothing out of normal…the run was going great despite the lack of light and gravel being thrown in my face from 20 yards up the road, dog paws are great for throwing gravel!
We stopped for a short break about 3/4 the way through the run, dogs looked good but tired from the high humidity at 46 degrees. When we got going again, Jaana fell off the side of the road into the deep ditch taking Raimo with her and the rest of the team. Seppo took advantage of Raimo on his back and gave him his opinion, poor Raimo. I got them untangled and straightened out and back on the road. Narcissa was a tangled mess, I had no idea how she was so messed up with rear feet through her harness and the neckline the same? What the heck. She was so tangled that when I pulled on her tug I couldn’t get any slack so I braced myself and pulled hard, trying to pull against 8 dogs breaking her neckline snap. That’s two necklines in two training runs, I’ve never broke a neckline snap nor seen one broken in all my hookups!
Finally we were moving again and then Toivo just takes a random digger, right on his face! We stopped and checked him out, all good.
Everything was going perfectly fine until that first rest break! What the heck? Full moon I guess…or when it rains…it pours…Did I mention I hate running in the dark?
