Blair Braverman: The 5 Coaching Suggestions That Prepped Me for a 998-Mile Canine Sledding Race Throughout Alaska

As a toddler, Blair Braverman dreamed of being a dogsledder the best way different youngsters aspire to be astronauts, film stars, or deep ocean explorers. Rising up in Northern California’s Central Valley, the place snow was a international idea, Braverman would nonetheless pull on rollerblades, tether herself to her golden retriever, and fake she was mushing.

“I cherished being outside and I cherished canines,” Braverman, 34, tells SELF. “To me, having the ability to mix them appeared like magic. I did not perceive why each single grownup wasn’t a dogsledder.”

After first studying about canine sledding, also called mushing, via books—Braverman was obsessive about the story of the enduring Alaskan sled canine Balto at a younger age—she moved to Norway at 18 to check the game for a yr at a “folks faculty” (principally, a specialised boarding faculty). Eight years in the past, she competed in her first canine sledding race: The Apostle Islands Sled Canine Race in Wisconsin. The snowy race is a 40-mile, two-day occasion with a six-dog staff. Since then, Braverman has raced so prolifically that she says she misplaced depend of what number of she’s accomplished.

However there’s one race that stands out above all of them. In 2019, Braverman—who presently lives in northern Wisconsin together with her husband and fellow musher, Quince Mountain, and 24 huskies—completed the celebrated and grueling Iditarod. On this annual 998-mile race throughout Alaska, contestants battle excessive circumstances, together with subzero temperatures, whiteout blizzards, and encounters with moose, bears, and bison. Dozens of mushers compete in every race, however not all end: In actual fact, when Braverman competed in 2019, solely 39 folks accomplished the race, whereas 13 both withdrew or scratched in the course of the race. Braverman and her staff of eight canines accomplished the Iditarod in slightly underneath 14 days. (The report for the quickest time, which was set in 2017, was eight days, three hours, and 40 minutes.)

When she’s not coaching for or competing in canine sledding occasions, Braverman chronicles her adventures within the wild via her work as a journalist, creator, and Twitter character. Her third e-book and debut fiction novel, Small Sport, which got here out November 1, encompasses “deeper reflection about what survival actually means and what it means to be seen and to be watched,” says Braverman, who dreamed up the idea after she and her husband had been contestants on the Discovery Channel actuality present Bare and Afraid.

It’s solely becoming that she describes her first novel as a “survival story,” since survivalism is a theme in canine sledding, too—in spite of everything, individuals should keep totally calm whereas enduring some extremely harsh and harmful circumstances.

Canine sledding, says Braverman, encompasses many components: Athleticism, tolerance of chilly, coping with wildlife, sleep deprivation, bodily power, endurance, and most significantly, a connection along with your canines. As Braverman and her husband, who type the mushing staff BraverMountain, look towards the upcoming dogsledding season—which usually begins to ramp up within the fall, although it spans all yr lengthy in some methods—Braverman shared with SELF the coaching suggestions that assist put together her for long-distance races.