Man, dogs prepare for Alaskan challenge

DIVIDE • As the southern-most competitor in a race synonymous with the frozen north, Kurt Reich has unique problems.

The laid-off software engineer turned husky breeder will start Alaska’s 1,049-mile Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race with 79 other teams March 7. He’ll face the biting wind, vicious weather and grinding miles that the other mushers face. But he’ll do it with almost no practice on snow.

His ragtag band of 24 mutts has had to practice for weeks by pulling an ATV because there is not enough winter around Pikes Peak for a sled.

“It’s been so warm lately that we’ve been leaving for training runs at about 2 a.m. so the dogs don’t get too hot,” said Reich,, 47.
His dogs barked and wagged their tails as he unhooked their harnesses last week following a 40-mile training run.

A city boy from the South, Reich fell into sled dog racing six years ago when he bought two Siberian huskies that were so eager to pull, he hooked them to his mountain bike and let them trot him around the forest.

Then he bought an assortment of scrappy-looking Alaskan Huskies, bred them for speed and endurance, and winnowed the roster to two dozen of his fastest dogs.

Some look like collies, some look like shepherds, some look so much like wolves that you wouldn’t want to meet them on the trail. They howl and growl when anyone but Reich approaches.

“They’re all mutts, but they are all good mutts,” Reich said. “And they are born to run.”

The dogs have been preparing for the big race for months. Reich has them sleeping outside to acclimatize for Alaska and running hundreds of miles per week to train for the icy race course from Anchorage to Nome.

Worn out dog booties litter the straw where the team sleeps.

A few of the best runners are sidelined on the injured list.

In the Iditarod, dogs run about 60 miles at a time, get a few hours rest, then do another 60 miles for days on end.

“That’s what these guys were made for,” Reich said as he scratched the ears of his lead dog, Arctic. “It may seem a little cruel, but not as cruel as leaving your dog locked up 10 hours a day while you’re at work.”

The musher also gets only a few hours’ sleep per day in a contest that can last for 17 days.

“After years cooped up in an office, I had to get used to it,” said Reich, a former MCI worker who has lost 40 pounds since he started racing in 2007.

His face is red and weather-beaten, his hands as rough as a Husky’s paws.

Only one other Pikes Peak region resident, Lachlan Clarke, has ever raced the Iditarod. His first time he got lost in a blizzard and didn’t finish.

Reich says his dogs are ready and he has a good chance of crossing the finish line.

Few races can rival the scope and difficulty of the Iditarod. Temperatures can plunge well below zero. Sometimes snow is so thick mushers can’t see the dog team in front of them. In warm years, teams have had to drag their sleds for miles over muddy tundra. And all three can happen in one race.

“It blows my mind that I am going to attempt something so tough with something so fragile,” he said. “But these dogs can do it.”

Of course, training in the semi-rural hills of Teller County poses its own challenges. Dirt bikes have almost hit the dogs on forest trails. Trouble-making neighborhood retrievers like to chase the ATV. And the lack of snow is murder on the dogs’ paws.
Two are out with tendinitis and Reich has to rub his pooches’ pads with Vaseline to sooth dry cracks.

But Reich is proof that medical problems don’t mean game over. A few years ago he had a vertebrate removed to mend a chronically cranky back.

“The doctors said after that my active days were over. That was a challenge to me. It is a big reason why I’m doing this — to prove I can,” he said.

The other reason is to raise money via donations for children’s charities, including Memorial Hospital for Children.

The race is expensive. On top of the $4,000 entry fee, he’ll pay for travel, equipment and, of course, dog food. Reich estimates it’ll cost about $1,000 per dog. He has a few sponsors, but said much of the cost comes out of his savings.

Reich isn’t thinking about winning. He’ll be happy to finish. Every year about 15 percent of sled teams drop out.

He’s headed to Montana’s 300 mile Race to the Sky competition this week, then he goes straight to the starting line in Anchorage.

“At least in Montana,” he said, “we’ll finally get some practice on the snow.”