St. Appolinaire race report!!

 We made our way to St. Appolinaire (about 2 hour drive from here at Bellerive’s, on the south side of  the St. Lawrence River across from Quebec City)  We had a bit of trouble finding it because I had to have another painful conversation with Pure Talk our cell provider because none of the features on the phone (including most importantly, the MAP!!!!) were working – come to find out we had already used up our $10 worth of international data in 4 days and we were down to nothing!!!  Plus I found out when you do something like look at the weather for about a minute, it’s 88 cents!!!!!

I managed to find the address that Emily Therrien send me just by seeing how closed our current location was to the dropped pin we had found when we were at Melanie and Patrick’s for dinner.  Then we stopped and asked a postman if this was the right address and he said yes but that it is an elementary school!!!  We didn’t see any place to park so we drove a bit farther down the street and did finally see them setting up for the race………..and what a set-up!!!!!! I have attached some pictures so you can see how impressive!!

We had learned from Claude that the open class was to begin at 8:30 in the morning Saturday, so we went to bed early and got up at 6am!!!  Way early for us!!!  Usually it’s about 8:30 we get up and moving……..  Well for some reason the race did not begin at 8:30 (probably weather related??  Things were starting to melt pretty fast so I don’t know……….) it didn’t start until 10:45!  Randy went out fine (lots of people and loud music and right in front of the really really big screen tv) one leader was acting a little freaky but they left and I could watch Randy and the team on the tv from the drone up above us!!!  They followed each team until the next team started in 2 minute intervals and then followed that team – he came in looking good and didn’t have any trouble on the run and ended up 12^th out of 18, I think.

After we took care of the dogs we went to the “largest food truck in North America” and ordered “Smash hamburgers” and fries.  Delicious!!!!  Especially since we hadn’t eaten since 6 and it was now noon!!!

The remainder of the day we visited with friends in the parking lot  and met some new mushers – and were very ready for bed that nite!!!!!

Sunday we did not have to get up so early as the race was supposed to start at 11:30 and at the driver’s meeting they said they were shortening the course from 15 to 9 miles and putting a limit of 10 dogs in the teams because the race course had gone to you-know-what  …………….

So Randy started out fine from what I could see and I forgot to stay and watch out team on the tv…………if I had I would have seen him be stopped for 4 minutes because the leader that acted squirrelly yesterday would not go ahead!!  He didn’t realize who it was at the time, but Nova Clifford ran about 50 yards to help him knowing that the snow hooks wouldn’t hold in the slush!! She stood on the brake whiled he untangled the mess the team was in and changed the leader with one of the point dogs that has led in training but not in a race……….and she didn’t want to go ahead very much either……so it was slower going than he wanted – especially with the trail being either slush or bare dirt or grass!!!  At  one point he had so much slush build up on his mat it jerked his foot off the runner and he strained his neck and at another point he was going around a corner in the deep snow (part of the 9 miles was just packed overnite and was 2 feet of wet snow ) and fell and dragged for a bit and then got back up when the dogs stopped because they were pulling Randy and the overturned sled in deep snow!!  The ordeal was finally over and we thought he might be waaaaaay down but actually he only dropped one place 

We watched Lee our friend from New Hampshire do the canicross and he came in 3^rd!!  We couldn’t imagine how hard it must have been to run in that crap!

Thankfully we had parked in a location that made it easy for us to get out and we didn’t even get stuck pulling uphill out of the lot in the slush!!

And here we are again back at Bellerive’s!!  no plans for this week except waiting to see if they are going to cancel the race in 2 weeks………..the snow is melting a lot today and it’s above freezing with no snow predicted.  Then next race is at Pont Rouge which is also not far away from here so would have the same weather- don’t know how Claude’s training trail will hold up to today with the warmth but at least it is supposed to be below freezing for the next week!!

Next up – a walk up to the house to see if I can get on the internet and post this!!!