Wednesday, March 25, 2009

Day 5, we are all together, one incredible day to go!

No photo today gang, we are located at http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=62.4664,-114.9762&ie=UTF8&z=12&om=1, Trout Lake Lodge for today’s finish of the stage. I have internet access but it’s dreadfully slow so I am limited in sharing today’s action with you.

From our perspective it was a wonderful day in the NWT full of sunshine and minimal wind. The main issue we heard from the athletes was the changing conditions of the snow. They would be racing in powder and then find hard packed snow.

From the start of the stage, the cat and mouse game between RN 420 Phil Villeneuve and 419 Micheal Argue continued with Argue opening a 33 second lead with one kilometer to go in the stage. The final stage will be very exciting and we are planning to be at the spot where we anticipate the battle for the EKATI diamond will begin.

Athletes and media are all in the same camp today totally isolated from the world.. It’s our first chance to be around the athletes. We were driven here by the owner of the Lodge, Ragnar Wesstrom in his Swedish military built Hagglunds. They are crazy fun, nothing can stop these vehicles, deep snow, trees, hills, we move forward. These are the same vehicles they use to monitor the ice depth in the highway used in Ice Truck Driver Highway TV series. Other than these vehicles, snowmobiles and Float plane are the only way you can reach this Fishing & Hunting Lodge (www.enodah.com) that specializes in prize catches. For the non racers, like me and the other cats, the lodge has a bar and it’s open!

The final athletes finished by mid afternoon so this was a great opportunity for me to observe and ask reader questions. Here are their comments……

“ I feel loose, warm and the race comes down to tomorrow”

“let’s get this over”

“hard packed last 5 K, time to fly”

“I use the other races to motivate myself”

“Viva Italia, Viva Spain”

“Oh my god, that beer felt good (yes, from a racer!)”

“I need to fix my pulk”

“The difference between possible and impossible is in the mind”

“I’m pretty pleased and I can’t wait for a bath!”

“We are sad the race is over because we have been happy every day”

“If the Irish can win the Grand Slam of Rugby, I can finish this race”

“I am looking forward to KFC and a dirty bucket of bert”

We are all in one warm crowded lodge room, gear is everywhere drying out, the room smells like sweat and then gas as the race crew shows up. The Europeans are talking a combo of Spanish and French, the Canadians are trying to figure out which pulk works the best and wait I smell a whiff of A-535. Some nap but the brits are enjoying Canadian beer and showing off their blisters, Yeck! There is a public computer and the athletes line up one by one to update their blogs. Lunch is Moose stew and dinner is pasta with caribou meat sauce, welcome to the Northwest Territories.

This room is the perfect setting to start thinking about a great athletic blog to finish this epic event.

1 comment:

  1. Harold,
    KFC goes with 'dirty bird'; got a laugh at the bucket of dirty bert line

    ReplyDelete