Check about the participation of the musher Warren Palfrey in the huge sled dog race Iditarod, happened on March 1st, in Alaska, EUA.

Warren Palfrey has been racing sled dogs since he has fifteen years old, and he has traveled from Yellowknife, NT, Canada, to Alaska, US, with his dog team, to compete at Iditarod - the race that's consider the World Cup of dog mushing.

In the competitions, his team covered over 1000 miles through a variety of terrains with lots of different trail conditions, that according to Warren, this varied terrain makes it very challenging for both musher and dog team.

The Canadian explains that to really evaluate your team, is necessary to know the dogs really well, know how to manage the team and know their limits, both physically and mentally.

Part of having a dog team prepared for the race is having them physically prepared to race the 1150 miles of Iditarod. Warren says that he puts lots of training miles on the dogs, and they must be free of injuries at the start of the race. During all the year, the dogs are treated as Olympic athletes, and fed with a premium dog food, First Mate.

Besides training the dog team, the musher also must be physically and mental prepared. Warren say that as a musher, he already gets lots of exercise just by running dogs, so, he tends to stay in pretty good shape physically. He also doesn't eat a lot, sort of a musher diet.

His team, Northern Star Kennels, is comprised by Warren, his wife Kate and their sons: Sam, 15; Peter, 10; and Jesse, 8. "Family support is essential in a sport like dog mushing", he completes.

Kate is the main handler and his kennel partner. She works more with the puppies and young dogs and helps in training, racing, and kennel upkeep. The couple sons are kennel support and all race dogs as well.

The sponsors: www.firstmate.ca, www.mmmeatsshops.com, www.uphere.ca are also are an integral part of their team. He says "Our valuable sponsors help finance the kennel goals and dreams".

According to the competitor, Iditarod has na amazing amount of preparation work before the race begins. One of the biggest is getting food drops ready, packed up and then shipped to Alaska where the race organization gets the drop bags to the checkpoints along the race route.

There are also numerous veterinarian appointments and health checks for the dogs, the logistics of travel and the training of the dogs. For example, they sent out 1600 pounds of food and equipment to the checkpoints along the race route.1300 pounds is dog food and the rest is extra equipment and musher supplies.

Before leaving on the actual race start day the sled bag must be packed with all the necessary gear for the dogs, extra booties, jackets, the dogs food and musher food, first aid kit, mandatory gear like a sleeping bag, ax, veterinarian notebook, extra hardware to repair a broken sled among other things.

The dog team is comprised by three dog positions that are: leaders, team dogs, and wheel dogs. Leaders are dogs that will run at the front of the team. Some leaders will only follow a trail, others will go wherever the musher tells them to go by voice commands.

The Warren's leaders are very good, he tells that of the sixteen that raced at Iditarod, all them can lead. The Team Dogs are those running in the middle of the team and can generally be moved around in the team but some tend to run on a certain side of the gang line because of their running style.

Thus, the Wheel Dogs are the dogs closest to the sled. In Warren's opinion, this is probably the most physically demanding position on the team because of the jarring and jerking of the sled behind them.

His team started the race with sixeen dogs. From them, there was only one female, Caper, and the rest were males. He counts that generally, had a pretty young team with the average age being 3 ½ years old. And completes, telling that is good to have a mix of older and younger dogs in the team.

About some strategy, he explains that his race schedule was set up to be competitive with his running distances traveled between rest breaks. "I was pretty aggressive in the first run of the race from Willow to Finger Lake. I started in 44th position and by Finger Lake I was in fourth position, I passed 40 mushers along the run" - emphasizes.

Warren tell us, that a lot of his race strategy was based on the race schedule that Doug Swingley devised for his 2004 race. Unfortunately that was the year that he froze his corneas and had to scratch from the race. "Doug has been a big mentor to me over the last few years. The majority of our dog team was obtained from him after his retirement from the sport in spring of 2007" - reports.

In this year edition of Iditarod, the temperature was warm. This can be good for the mushers, but it's too warm and not good for the dogs. According to him, the ideal temperature would be about -20degrees Celsius, and the weather was up to 8 to 10 degrees Celsius in some spots on the trail.

Because of the temperatures that were higher than normal, it created a soft punchy trail. The musher teaches that, for them, the soft trail condition is like the difference between running on soft sand and hard sand and you would sink up to a foot in that soft sand which makes running more difficult causing falling and stumbling. "That was one of the downfalls to having larger dogs in this race" - completes.

Not have happened serious problems with his team during the trail. Although he ran into problems before, and had to drop two key dogs early in the race. He explained the situation:

"My biggest problem was that I did not run the dogs the week before the race so they ended up having a lot of lactic acid buildup in their muscles. The last training run in Montana before we came up to Alaska was 140 miles and then we were on the road to get to Alaska so the dogs weren't given a chance to work that lactic acid out of their systems. It was a big lesson learned".

For him, exception from Gorge (where there was a open water and a big ice hole, that gave some people trouble) the rest of the trail was good and challenging. Generally, the trail from the start to Nikolai is the most technically challenging. "My sled held up well through these portions".

A few of the dogs of him, had minor bicep, triceps muscle tears. They were left in the care of the veterinarians and then flown to Kate for further care and TLC. Those were the biggest extent of injuries for their team. Warren said that the dogs are all doing well now.

Besides some adversities, the incredible scenery of Alaska caught the musher's attention at every turn of the trail. He talk about some beautiful places, as the trail from Rohn to Nikolai when the Alaska Range (mountains) were behind him and the Farewell Burn in front of him. "I could see the trail ahead of me through the plateau for many miles". - adds.

Warren races at Iditarod since 2006, and he affirms that each year this competitions become larger. According to him, at one time there were only a handful of elite teams now the top 30 or so teams are very completive.

He also emphasizes, that Iditarod is the ultimate event in Dog mushing, and people come from all over the world to watch the race start and to participate as well. The Dog mushing is the official sport of Alaska, and he tells that the Alaskan people are very supportive of the race and of mushers. "Their hospitality is huge".

He have already participated in sled dog races all over the lower Us and Western Canada, as Diavik 150, the Race to the Sky, Great Slave 200, La Pas, Wollaston Lake, Iditarod, Wyoming stage stop race, Attaboy300, Seeley 200, Camaco Northern Challenge and many more.

See the awards that Warren Palfrey has already received:

2008 - Iditarod 2008 - Most Improved Musher Award
2007 - Best Cared For Dog Team Award - the Race to the Sky, Montana.
2007 - Best Cared for Dog Team Award - Diavik 150, Yellowknife,NT.
2006 - Recipient of the Leonard Seppela Heritage Grant
2004 - Sportsmanship Award - Jackson, Wy.