Snow, snow, snow!

Once again my promise for regular updates has been slightly interupted, but this time there is a great excuse: SNOW! Yes, it does actually snow in Alaska still, although most of what we now have on the ground fell during the week I was home in MN for Christmas. In the last 2 weeks since I last wrote we have recieved about 2 feet of snow! It is absolutely wonderful. We are running sleds out of the yard daily, and not only are we the mushers happy, but the dogs are very excited with the coming of winter as well.
Because we now have snow, I have been training out of the yard more than normal as opposed to trucking the dogs to the Denali Highway and running them out to camp. We can easily get runs of up to 30 miles out of the house, and that is plenty leading up to the races in the next couple weeks. The temperatures have also turned winter-like; Fairbanks is reporting temps below -40 (yes, it actually gets that cold up here), and we are fast approaching those levels as well.
I took 12 of my puppies out on the river this afternoon, and ended up running them well into the night. Needless to say, the sun doesn't get very high this time of the year, and whatever little warmth is provided is quickly dissapated as soon as the sun dissapears at about 4:00. The dogs thrive in these sorts of temperatures; we do not. My finger tips are a bit sore as I type: proof of how little we are adapted to living in this climate. What blows me away are that animals are able to survive in the wild in these temperatures!
My first race is now less than a week away. I will be running the Cantwell Classic (200 miler) starting next Friday and the Kuskokwin 300 starting the next Thursday. Both can be followed online while they are occuring (www.cantwellclassic.com and k-300.org) Assuming I make it through them both alive and well, you will hear from me in two weeks with stories of glory on the race track (glory = finished!).