Luca & Lola

  Final race weekend of the 2025 season! A slightly different format for this race, with two heats on the  Saturday, meaning we ran in morning and again in the evening. Luca and Lola were entered in the  two dog scooter class and they did great.  The weather was atrocious - heavy rain, hail and wind - and the trails were a greasy mud slide in places (I had a spill in the afternoon run - at least the mud made for a soft landing!).  Even so, it was a great weekend and a nice end to the season. Let's see what next winter brings!

  After the photo shoot in the morning, we headed back to the trails in the afternoon for a walk with a couple of friends and their dogs. So much fun running them all together 🤩 Unfortunately, I had an appointment to get to, so had to head back earlier. Luca and Lola were great about turning away from the  pack and heading down a different trail. 

 A friend who is a photographer has been doing a challenge around pet photography. She asked if Luca and Lola would model for her for the "Double Trouble" challenge. So we head out to the beach early on a Saturday morning not knowing quite how it would go. They're definitely not perfect models (too impatient to stay still long enough!) but they managed to pose nicely for a few snaps. In the end, she used a different pair of dogs of her entry for that challenge, but I got some nice pictures.

Luca and Lola just came along for the ride for this weekend - they had some fun in the snow and got out for a run with some friends before we headed home on Sunday morning. Lola also undertook a wee modelling assignment to show off some of the sponsor prizes from the previous weekend's racing. Luna ran the 15km rig event with Justin's team. Raine and I managed to make our way around the same course but in the canicross event.

  We headed back to McArthur Ridge Vineyard for the Mush Up race weekend. I had planned to run Luna, Raine and Lola as a three dog rig team for the weekend - I'll be honest and say I was terrified at the prospect! However, the weather put a spanner in the works on Saturday morning when the ice on the wheels meant the brakes were all but useless and the Race Marshall wouldn't allow me to take the rig out. So I shuffled things around and ran as follows: Luca - Single Dog Scooter (his first race on his own - he did great! (5th of 8) Luna and Raine - Two Dog Scooter  Lola - Canicross - first time running either of them canicross (like a cross country foot race with a dog pulling out front) but she was great - just my slow pace held us back! I did some work on the wheels on Saturday afternoon and was able to store the rig in a shed overnight. Once I arrived at the race venue, I kept the wheels and brakes covered as much as possible and was given the all clear to run with the rig. H...

 Proof that they can lie quietly inside and relax!

A small group of us gathered in Naseby to inspect and clear trails for the Southern Sled Dog Challenge, which is being held in August. After doing a drive around the trails and tidying up a few areas, we hooked up to explore them with dog power. Since I'm still getting comfortable running the rig, I headed out on my own a little before the others. I had Luna, Raine and Lola on the line (the team I plan to run at the Mush Up race on 2/3 August). Luca went out for a 5km run with a lovely red husky (Diesel) and, by all accounts, ran very well. The girls and I took it easy and covered around 10km on the trail, including crossing the river in both directions. It's amazing having Lola's power on the long, gradual hill climbs - it makes such a difference. On Sunday, Luca and Lola got a rest while Luna and Raine added a 9km group scooter run to their training for the distance event.

 A fab weekend away with some sled dogging friends in Alexandra for some fun training stuff. Whilst the others did a run on Saturday morning, we chose to drive up that morning and join them in the afternoon. The afternoon run was nice easy 2 dog team in and around parts of McArthur Ridge vineyard. Luca and Lola got a run together, as did Luna and Raine. (No pics from Saturday's runs). On Sunday morning we met back at the vineyard and hook 2 8 dog teams up to the quad bikes for a longer, slower training run working on some big team passing, including a head on pass. Luca and Lola were split for this with Lola running in wheel (the back pair of dogs) with Raine in one team, and Luca pairing off with Buzz (a lovely, older, more experienced Alaskan Husky) in swing (second pair of dogs) on the other team. What a great morning out! Luca in full flow. Lola with her team. Luca and his team. Lola - the after effects of running as wheel dog! Luca - tired by happy. Luca and his team against t...