In article <XMdKh.9367$P47.9084@newssvr22.news.prodigy.net>,
Shelly <scouvrette.RemoveThis@yahoo.com> wrote:
>No kidding! What is it with guys named Lance, anyway?
To be honest I'm about 60% on the other Lance being a
doper. I think he probably is but I'm very not sure.
Cycling is just a disaster area when it comes to performance
enhancing substances (so is nordic skiing) but he's got
exceptional physiology. I don't know if we'll ever know for
sure.
I think that we learned a lot about dog exercise physiology
over the past couple of months. Jeff King experimented with
a hypoxic chamber for his dogs but it apparently didn't help
much, if at all, while Mackey seems to have gone with the
basic cycling training. Once you get past the heart rate
monitors and the power meters and all that stuff, the key
seems to be "ride more" (or "train more"). Lance Mackey
seems to have a real feel for where the line is between good
stress and bad stress and did a brilliant job of walking it.
But this Iditarod has been full of amazing stories, from Deb
Bicknell's capsize to a huge number of broken bones, broken
sleds, frostbite, a race between two women for rookie of the
year (no woman has won that before), and so on. So far 22
people have scratched.
The one really, really sad note is that one of Karen
Ramstead's leaders died. She scratched from the race to be
with her family and grieve, which is the first time I know
of where someone has scratched after that kind of loss.
Karen is someone that everybody knows - she's on the lecture
circuit, she's active on mailing lists, she judges CKC and
AKC classes, and she makes a point of being very, very
accessible. So, this was a loss that's been felt quite
widely.
Anyway, the TV coverage should be pretty interesting, when
it finally airs. The stuff in the papers and at
iditarod.com didn't spend much time on what was going on in
the middle and back of the pack, where so much of the drama
was. I hope those schmucks at Versus do better.
>I guess it's the updated version of spit and baling twine, eh?
Zip ties and duct tape. Mackey also had an old ski in his
sledbag that he brought along specifically to use for
repairs (everybody knew in advance that the trail was
awful). There's a free video of Lance and his broken sled
at iditarod.com, and the "Team Moving In Blizzard" is
definitely worth checking out if for a great shot of a
ground blizzard. Clear blue skies above, and a white-out on
the ground.
--
Melinda Shore - Software longa, hardware brevis - shore.RemoveThis@panix.com
If you can't say it clearly, you don't understand it yourself -- John Searle
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