(Do I have you singing the Michael Jackson song already?)
I was actually trying to write an article on the ‘typical day of a racing Siberian at the Chezhiver kennel’ and failed miserably!
In short: eat – drink – sleep – get in van – run – get in van – eat… repeat.
You get the idea!
It’s rarely that simple though.
Every day is so different, so I’ve decided to try a ‘typical week’ instead!
Let’s get physical
(A little Olivia Newton John never hurt anyone!)
For anyone that’s done athletics or a power event, weightlifting, gym work, that type of thing, they’ll understand the deal. You exercise a group of muscles that will break down slightly which brings on soreness. Resting and eating the right food repairs the muscles. As the muscles repair, they grow back slightly bigger and slightly stronger each time.
Let’s fine tune this and apply it to the dog world; we can’t be having a dog that’s completely muscle bound, looks like Sylvester Stallone, that rips along a trail in record breaking time but falls in an exhausted heap after 100 metres because the heart and lungs can’t keep up with the big muscles we spent so long building.
So you see, we have this balancing act – we need muscle but we also need decent cardio-vascular work to feed the muscles with that lovely red oxygenated blood that keeps them going.
We work to a rough regime of runs like this:
• Hard work, short run
• Speed work, long run
• Hard work, long run
• Speed work, short run
• Interval training (I can hear all the athletes, football and rugby players etc groaning as this is a real energy sapper but has profound effects!)
Some of this takes care of itself in the natural terrain of the training ground but otherwise we mix these up where conditions allow and particularly in the early pre-season particularly, where temperatures permit.
And all this can get very scientific – I have training records going back years and years; mileage, humidity, temperature, which dog went where, average speed, total stopped time, distance, distance to date etc (yes I know… *yawn* but it’s all valuable data!).
Relax, DON’T do it
(are these music links getting tenuous yet?)
What’s equally important is rest; it’s imperative that those muscles that we just ‘roughed up’ a bit have plenty of time to regroup and get stronger.
In order to help with this process, you need food, good food, and plenty of it. A good protein source in food is critical in getting the muscles to repair quicker, better and stronger, (quite aside from the other good stuffs – oils, fats, fibre, vitamins, minerals etc).
Some racers supplement food here and there to put particular emphasis on certain parts of the diet but for a good number of us, the cornerstone of this nutrition comes in the shape of Alpha High Performance which is nutritionally formulated to support speed, endurance and strength in our working dogs; and a lot of the top teams are using it!
My final thoughts…
Get the balance right!
(Had enough of the musical references yet?)
A well exercised pack is a happy pack.
A well exercised AND well fed pack is a pack that’s living the Siberian Husky dream!
With that, I’ll leave you with my little song collection, happy humming…
I’ll get my coat (I’m off training!)
Steve Rooke
