Zoya Facebook fan page!

I know I have at least a few readers who are Zoya fans--check out and "like" her new fan page, lots to come on it! Click here. Zoya's racing season is not over, she'll be headed to Kotzebue for the Kobuk 440 in mid April! Join the FB page for training, race and family updates and of course, lots of pics!

Iditarod!

The Iditarod broadcast was busy but fun, of course, because there were dogs involved! Here are some pics from the shoot. The dogs were rarin' to go, it's not easy to hold them back!As you can see, we had great Iditarod media jackets. Unfortunately, we didn't get to keep them! There were lots of colorful Alaskan characters there. I wasn't thrilled about the wolf, but hey, it's AK...

Here is a pic from Zoya's facebook today, with Miller, the dog she resuscitated.

Great article on the front page of the Anchorage Daily News yesterday about Zoya. There's a little audio clip, too. Check out the comments under the article, too--she is getting a LOT of praise for her stellar dog care!

I got to see her and her husband John in Anchorage and she is in good spirits. In fact, she was on her way to race the dogs in the Chatanika 200 the next day!

Click here to read article!

And here is another article from a few days ago about juggling being a musher and a mom! Click here.

One of my co-workers took some absolutely amazing pics of Zoya--if you'd like to check them out click here!

Sad news

From Zoya's husband:

"I am sorry to report what most of you already know-----Zoya scratched in Rainy. She was having a good run to that point. She left Rainy and was in the Dalzell when Miller went down; it was sudden as if he had a heart attack. Zoya gave him mouth to mouth, but he seemed not to recover. She put him in the basket and turned back toward Rainy---and found him with his head up, looking at her. Zoya returned to Rainy. At this time she says that she never wants to risk having a dog die again. Time will tell. There is no doubt that racing puts a strain on our animals and that anything can happen---either in the yard, or while on the trail. Our kennel has been fortunate thus far. At this point we need to sit back and weigh the risks vs. the benefits.
At the time of this writing, Miller is acting normal; eating and drinking. He will be fine. "

Zoya is an amazing person who always puts her dogs first. She will bounce back as she always does!

I got really busy when I got back from India, so haven't had time to blog. Just got finished producing the live broadcast of the Iditarod start, and luckily my coworker Zak Melms has been taking pics of what we've been up to, so here's a link to his site:

Click here

On the third entry down, click on the pic of me if you want to see more pics of Zoya, a good friend who is running this year for her third time. Zak took the pic of us with her daughter at the musher's banquet, where the mushers pick numbers to decide the running order. Zoya got #9, which she was really happy about--she wanted to pick in the top twenty and she did!

I took the pic on top at the start of the race, about two hours before she took off. She's definitely got a little bit of a 'game face' going!