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A famous Czech musher Jana Henychova and her Siberian Husky sled dogs achieved a really unique success. She is the first Czech women in history to take a part in an extreme 500km sled dog race in Norway Finnmarkslopet. Jana and her eight dogs set on the trail in a Norwegian town Alta on 8 March and safe and sound they all crossed the finish line on 12 March - in 3 days, 20 hours and 6 minutes. Only 32 competitors out of 58 entering the race finished it. Jana Henychova on the 24th place was one of them.
There are five or may be ten years of hard work, endless training, pain and effort behind this short announcement of the Czech Press Agency. The very first thought that I could try an adventure of this scale came to me when my B-litter of puppies was born in 2003. I kept four of them and there came the temptation that with such dogs in my team I could do something great. Taking this decision I sacrificed everything considered normal: a partner, a prospect of a family, a “proper” job… Looking back I declare: No regrets, it was worth is it! As time went, the puppies grew up and more young ones were born. Suddenly I reached the point of decision: I have got enough good dogs for this race, I pulled all my courage together and sent my application to take a part in Finnmarkslopet 2008. A real breaking point was getting in touch with Johanne Sundby who found me somewhere on the internet and contacted me. Where she found me remains a secret to me, but it was probably meant to happen… Our discussions followed by my visit to a seminar in Hadakal sled dog club and training consultations and support from Geir Wiik suddenly made my plan look much more realistic. The training itself started in August last year. The dogs run and run and before the actual race had over 2000 km in their paws. I started training all twenty dogs, then I chose fourteen to come to Norway with me and finally I selected the best eight for the racing team. We arrived to Alta a month before the race at the beginning of February. We travelled through Poland, Baltic States and Finnland to Utsjok. We followed the trail of the race from Utsjok to Alta. We arrived to Alta after a 5 day and 3500 km long journey. Everything felt strange in Alta and we felt like total strangers there. Everything was different, unfamiliar and we didnt know a soul. Arnt Holger Jensen, one of the few people in Alta who own and love Siberian Huskies, soon became the most important person for me. As bizzare as it sounds, he is the one and only in Alta, proud of his pure-breed dogs who seem to be lost amongst all those Alaskans - just like a rare specimen. It was very kind and obliging of him to support me and my team with such determination to get through the race to the finish line. However he was not the only one. I had a great supporter in another Siberian Husky lover Hans-Christian Orjeatad from Oslo. He organized meat supply for my dogs from a comp. VOM og Hundemat. I collected the meat at Rodger Dahls. Rodger, one of the most famous mushers in Europe, told me how to make portions of meat and taught me a lot of almost life-saving things about feeding the dogs during the race. His ears must have been ringing almost constantly when I was on the trail as I remembered his words dozens of times. I am convinced that without all that meat and information I would have hardly finished the race!!! I have to admit that my beloved doggies put a lot of weight on during our stay in Norway. ? We arrived to Alta one month before the race, so we had enough time to acclimatize and get used to the local conditions, very different to what we knew from our homeland. Training in the Czech Republic is mostly about zigzagging forest trails, passing houses, crossing roads, bending our dogs in sharp turns. And there was Norway… A vast flat plateau, where you see neither its end nor its beginning, just blue colour. I expected something different. The landscape took me by surprise so as the snow did – being so different then the snow I know and am used to. The Czech snow is soft, fluffy and smooth just like a feather duvet. The Norwegian snow is rough, powdery and it hurts and wears down the dogs paws. I had to buy booties for all my dogs and I spent a lot of time learning how to use them properly.
The time was ticking and our Day D was getting closer and closer… We get to the start as the very first. It needs a certain amount of skills and enough space to manoeuvre the car and the 5m trailer. Other competitors – mushers - start slowly coming here as well. The frantic mummery starts right here. The time flies and everything is getting inevitably close and real. I have butterflies in my stomach and my whole body trembles with an inner feeling of desperation. Thousand times repeated rutine takes over and I do all I have to do on an auto-pilot. I am putting on the dogs´ harnesses, their booties, and we begin to harness the sled. Finally the helpers in their yellow waistcoats come and lead us to the starting line. The starting corridor is full of lined up dogsleds as every minute one competitor after another crosses the starting line. The air vibrates with maddening noise of barking dogs, loud music and the speaker’s stream of words from the loud speakers topped up with a ramble from a passing helicopter… And here I am at the start. I feel a heartbreaking cry of desperation deep inside my soul that cannot be seen. The last minute before the start... And here comes THREE, TWO, ONE and GO!!! The dogs shoot out as bullets and we are almost flying through the corridor surrounded by hundreds of people. Everyone shouts and waves. It is mad. I wave too and my heart is beating as strong as a bell. Going through the start here is the ultimate life experience! I enter the race with an incredibly heavy sled. Nobody cares
how heavy it is, what you carry with you is what matters. The
sled is full of the compulsory equipment: dog food, food for the
musher, spare clothes, a sleeping bag, a stove, spare dog booties,
compasses, the complete set of maps with marked trail, a long
knife or an axe, a pot for boiling water, a veterinary book and
an emergency signal flare. http://www1.nrk.no/nett-tv/klipp/345947 we are on 42nd minut The sled is full as it can be with almost nothing else to fit in and it is almost impossible to lift it. Franta Chlan´s sled slides greatly and I feel how smoothly we move forward.
It starts to get dark at about 6PM. A vast blueish slightly undulating plain is all I can see as far as I can see. As the daylight fades I see nothing else but the yellow beam of my headlamp and my dogs´ butts rocking. This view is really and truly the most important. I have to check everyone is alright and healthy. That is crucial, so I check and check again. It´s all unpenetrably black around the headlight beam and I suddenly feel like being back at home, in the Jizera mountains. I clearly sense the tall spruces standing around in the dark protecting me. I am thinking about this illusory effect. I shoot the headlight aside twice and suddenly I feel the black night´s emptiness and desolation. I also feel like standing on the edge of a cliff falling deep into darkness. Quickly I shoot the light back at the dogs and build a vision of a trail taking me through the dark forrest in my head. I look at my watch to check the time and mileage. I have a great
feeling after getting through Jotka that it is only 88km now.
As we make our way formard I start to feel that it is all going
fine, but we could already be there. I check my technology just
to find out that we still have about 40 km more to go. I sit in
a snow hole and the dogs are having a rest. It´s dark all around
me. Just a thought: Is it possible to give up the race here? There
are no roads here and the first civilization is in those 40km.
I learnt at the pre-start seminar that they start looking for
a lost competitor 24 hours after the last contact. The thought
of waiting here for a day before somebody rescues me makes me
get the dogs up and off we go again. We take a break every two hours to check the dogs and arrange
back their booties. It is their snack time too. I carefully scan
that everyone eats. Who eats, goes and is at ease… Who doesn’t
eat gets a ride in the sled bag to rest for a while. We are moving
steadily and we reach Skoganvaare at 01.30AM.
I make the dogs beds from straw at the check points. Each competitor can use one pile of straw. I prepare drinks for the dogs and make their hot main course. In a moment they snuggle down into the straw. I massage them using Algyval ointment. I dress each dog into a warm outfit so their muscles could have a rest as well. No one protests. I wrap them all into blankets and then no one turns a hair and sleeps. I wake up after three hours of sleep and it´s morning already.
I see that we are neither first not last. It freezes, the temperature
is below zero, the sun is shining and the right positive thoughts
are taking over my mind. It is only 88 km, just over the hill,
so we should be there in a while.
As I say, the bigest psychological support for me is my GPS navigation
with the marked trail. I always know exactly where I am and how
much is left. There is the estimated arrival time too. It has
to be maddening to stand somewhere in the darkness, stuck in a
deep snow not knowing how fast I am moving forward or how long
I have to carry on for. I am sure I would feel really bad without
this psychological help.
We come to a place where we turned around during training here.
Becky (my leader) and I remember this place very well. I know
that we are going up a little hill now and then down and down
to a lake. And there will be Jotka. We know our way from Jotka…
Yet again I feel dizzy from the lack of sleep and tiredness. I have been riding all night and it´s getting bright now. I am standing on the sled tightened to it to make sure that I don´t fall off. I still have to keep an eye on the dogs. When I concentrate and focus my eyes only into one place I almost fall unconscious. What do I do now? I can´t I stop and sleep here, such a short way to the finish!! I put my hand into a pocket and fill my mouth with everything I can find in a subconscious movement. It works!!! When the mouth moves, the eyes do not shut!!! I keep stuffing myself with chocolate, dry fruit and glucose tablets till I am wide awake. The temperature is just about zero. When it was below zero, the dry fruit was crunching, now it´s chewy. It took the dogs some time to start running, but we continue
in our standard speed in a while. The mood in the team improves
a lot as we get into some trees. A shimering cloud covers Alta
as the sun rises. We still have about about 40km to go. We are
going slightly up among trees, not just on the vast plains and
I can see the first log cabins. My little hunters start hunting
again. Go on, we MUST NOT stop! After a long zigzagging we reach the first houses and we get to the main road. Of course, Becky pulls the sled from the snowy sidewalk onto the tarmac road and my eight crazy dogs dragg me behind without any control what so ever. There is a lady with two little dogs standing aside at a little fence. My hunters put on a higher gear. We fly by the doggies and… I can see the finishing line! We are here at last… It is such an incredible relieve. This really is the end. How many kilometres have we done? 500? Not possible!!! We have done it!!! The dogs are lying down getting their much deserved snacks. I accept congratulations, it is too early and everyone is sleepy. Next time I will get the timing right! We have done: altogether 501km in 57h 39min. We spent 33h 58min
resting. Our total time: 3days 20hours 06min. Result
servise
VIDEO FROM COMING TO THE FINISH No one is interested if you have pure-breed dogs or not in this race. Everyone starts together. But people know… Just finishing the race is credited by respectable breeders. The teams of pure breeds seem to be rather unique, something like a memory of the good old times. No one who breeds the Alaskans can understand how others can race with Siberian Huskies or Malamutes. Personally I am very proud to finish the race and would like
to pay a compliment to all Siberian Huskies. The fantastic and
wonderful animals that can captivate your heart and change your
life for good.
I have 24 dogs now. It is sad to see your four-legged friends
age. It takes two or three years to bring up a dog and teach it
something. When it is about eight years old you see the old age
coming and the dogs unwillingness to keep up with the young energetic
dogs.
I would like to send my biggest THANK YOU to all my helpers and all my new friends from Norway who were very supportive and helpful to make my dream come true. Thank you very much!!!
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FINNARKSLOPET
It
is all quiet at last. The trail goes on a frozen river, mile after
mile, on and on. How long is five hundred kilometers? No, I must
not think like that!!! We are heading to Jotka now. It is 53 km
and another 88 km to Skoganvaare. From Skoganvaare the trail leads
us to Levajok settlement on the side of the mountains. Then we
descend to a river which makes a natural border between Norway
and Finland. This part of the race is 88 km long. Now on the trail
follows the river for the next 86 km and it will take us to Karasjok.
It´s only 20 km from Karasjok to Jergul then, but we will have
to climb from the river to the upper plateau, cross it and descend
back to the river and add another 69 km. The trail follows the
river from Jergul to Jotka, then it slowly goes up on the frozen
steams and lakes and to a great lake Iesajarvi. Passing the lake
and a small mountain ridge we will get back to the 80th kilometer
to Jotka and then back to Alta following the same 53 km long route.
