Martin is midway through his 34th Iditarod, 32 in a row. For more than half his lifetime, he's been negotiating Alaska's grandeur in March. He is, as always, inspired by his canine athletes and seems to be having a fairly clean, conservative run. The average age of the team is four and eight dogs ran last year as yearlings just on a long campout so easing them into a more competitive schedule is the right thing to do. His race plan is to get to Nome as fast as possible with a happy, healthy dog team, which is basically the same as every year. You can follow along at iditarod.com, ktuu.com and adn.com.
Martin will be part of the Class of 2017 Inductees to the Alaska Sports Hall of Fame. Noted accomplishments are his 31 consecutive Iditarod finishes, his 4 Iditarod championships and 5 Leonhard Seppala Awards for outstanding dog care. The Hall of Fame award came as quite a surprise. He was out training dogs in a remote area and on his way home his cell phone started to ping with messages of congratulations. He is honored for the recognition and feels so fortunate to be able to spend his days with his incredbile 4 legged friends.
We are happy to report that we do have winter in Alaska. After many years of unusually warm winters, we are back into the "burrr"! -14 F today with just enough snow to train with sleds. 60 mile training runs are the order of the day with camp outs on a regular basis. The dogs are doing spectacularly well!!! We are hoping for more snow in the upcoming week.
With cool temps, a successful tour season closing and all dogs home, Happy Trails has transistioned to training mode. After last year's challenging race season, the kennel focus this year will be on training one super team to compete in the Iditarod with Martin driving our A and only team. We look forward to the upcoming season and are excited about the level of talent in our four legged athletes!!!
