Swiss born Marcelle Fressineau has worked as an adventure outfitter. After learning about Iditarod, Marcelle moved to Whitehorse in the Yukon Territory because it was a good place for dog mushing. She’s been living a life of adventure with dogs ever since.  Before attempting the marathon races she’s run mid-distance races in Canada and Alaska. Marcelle is no stranger to 1,000 mile races as she ran the Yukon Quest in 2012 finishing 17th out of 18 mushers. I asked Fressineau how she made it through Survivor Straights. Her secret was pretty simple – when she laid her sled down and said “whoa,” her dogs stopped and stood still until she gave them the “okay.”  What made a believer out of me was watching how well mannered Marcelle’s dogs were when she fed. She filled all the bowls and carried two to the wheel dogs. The wheel dogs stood and began to eat. The other dogs were still on the straw but all eyes were on the hand that feeds them. She carried two more bowls to the next pair of dogs, they stood and ate. This was the pattern all the way up the team to the leaders. Marcelle really enjoyed the 50 mile run from Nicole to McGrath.

A very tall Christian Turner is parked across the road in front of the checkpoint. It’s a great place to rest. Growing up in Dorrigo, Australia this musher never experienced snow as a youngster. He was introduced to the sport of mushing in Banff National Park and has been working to achieve his dream of running dogs ever since. Meeting the Seaveys has brought Christian just that much closer to his dream. He’s been working winters with Dallas Seavey, has completed his qualifiers and is now experiencing Iditarod. Turner is taking a bunch of two-year-old dogs on their kindergarten experience along the trail. They run 40 miles and then rest five hours. Repeat, repeat, and repeat until you reach the burled arch in Nome. Turner said this race was much harder than he ever expected it to be but it makes me feel better that it’s been hard for everybody not just me. Asked how he managed the challenging technical portions of the trail he replied that he ran his entire team except for the leaders on their necklines. That strategy cuts their power immensely. He was also quite pleased with controlling the sled. He really didn’t crash and the only real difficulty he experienced was when his gangline broke and the front half of his team went looping down the trail. Mother Nature has to some extent built a natural brake into that situation. The fast dogs will catch up to the slightly slower dogs and they’ll get slowed down soon enough as was the case with Turner’s wayward team. Turner’s job with the Seavey pups is to give them an enjoyable learning experience. Christian has fed every three hours during the 24-hour layover. The dogs sleep then wakeup and eat, sleep then wakeup and eat, sleep then wakeup and eat then sleep wakeup, put booties on then go out an a beautiful run through Takotna to Ophir. What more could an athlete ask for?