Race Report: Can-Am 100

Everyone keeps asking for a report on our race yesterday, so I figured it would be easiest to post it here.

Caleb Hayes and the team preparing for the race

We want to say thank you to the community and to our sponsors for coming out in such a great way to show Caleb and our team their support. We were overwhelmed by all of the kind encouragement before and during the race.

As many know, Caleb reluctantly made the call on the return trip to withdraw from the race. Here are the details. Caleb and I spent the month of January training and racing with Seavey Kennels. Unfortunately, the plans for our team here to be trained in our absence were not followed through with. “We kept others’ vineyards, but our own vineyard we have not kept.”

Before I left Alaska, I told Mitch Seavey that our team had virtually zero miles in January and asked how we might prep them in just a month for the 100-mile race. He gave me a training regimen but said plainly: “My first and best answer is to withdraw from the race.” That advice was not heeded.

Caleb is to be commended. He trained the dogs six days a week in gradual increments throughout the month while my knee is awaiting surgery. Caleb’s efforts were Herculean, and I am very proud of him.

Caleb chose the younger ten dogs for the race. However, the vets found a heart murmur in a two-year-old we had recently purchased, so we opted not to run him. Caleb started the race with nine dogs.

Temperatures reached 30°F yesterday, and it was obvious we were not up to last year’s pace. When Caleb arrived at the checkpoint, he had one dog in the basket and dropped her. I asked him then if he wanted to scratch, but we hoped that as temperatures dropped, the dogs would regain their vigor.

The temps remained in the upper 20s as he left the checkpoint for the return trip, and there was no “pep in their step.” Mushing veteran Larry Murphy, running a safety checkpoint, went out to check on them. He saw Caleb running every hill just to keep the team moving.

Larry wisely counseled: “You’re a couple miles from the safety station on the road. There are a couple of really big hills. See how they perform over those hills and then make the call.” When Caleb pulled into the roadside safety station, he wisely decided to withdraw.