I know you are going to think I am making this up.......

just to have interesting reading on the blog.........but I don't have THIS good of an imagination!!!!!!!!

Got up on Friday morning to a "balmy" day - cloudy, foggy and 37degrees - fed dogs and Randy and headed for downtown for the race on 4th avenue. No problem parking even though because of the warm temp the snow was pretty mushy and I thought more than once we would have to put the chains on (Sue and Mike you have no idea how many times those studded tires have saved us!!!) This year because he is going out 8th we got to park only a block and a half away from the starting line! instead of the 3 blocks we had last year - A guy, Doug who is the husband of a ski jourer, Pam, we met at the track last week came to help us out - he is also a FedEx pilot and Jess, he said to tell you that he deserves a "Zulu Bravo" - I thing that's a FedEx inside joke......
So we get the 12 dogs hooked up and the snowmobile takes us up to the line. I get the leaders (Neenah and Birdie) started out good - and all of a sudden I look at the back of the team and the sled is dragging out of the chute on its side and I can't see Randy and the team takes off down the trail/road by themselves - now I'm not in as good a shape as when I used to foot race, but I ran the block down to where the dogs were caught by spectators faster than I even thought I could...... come to find out they were not just "any" spectators- it was Libby Riddles (1st woman to win the Iditarod - she was just there taking pictures.....) and a competitor's wife (Faye Cousins, wife of Don, who had just saved his team when they turned off the trail, and it appeared were heading off to the carnival a block away!!)- by the time I got there they were already straightening the tangles out and Randy was not far behind me and he jumped on the sled and took off!

Now, here's the deal.....the reason Randy's sled flipped on its side at the start was because (instead of having a painted line in the snow for the starting line) they had a rope laying in the snow for the starting line - when he started either the drag or the brake hooked that rope and stopped the sled so abruptly that he flipped and then dragged into a old guy, lost the team, HIT HIS HEAD ON THE SNOW HOOK (laceration above his eyebrow but not bad enough to need stithches - and did re-injure his amputated finger, but not too bad....), and then got up and ran, all the while trying to keep the blood off his glasses so he could see - after he took off again he couldn't see at all and just put his glasses in the sled bag and had faith the leaders would stay on the trail!

Not only did he have a bad start, but 2 of his team dogs vomited on the trail....

All in all, he is 20th of 22.......not where he wanted to be......but things could always be worse.........tomorrow is another day........