Nearly Half Way...

...in The Last Great Race, THE Iditarod

Sometime within the next 24 hours, the first musher will make his or her way into the ghost town of Iditarod. He or she will have succeeded in completing nearly half the 1122 mile race. From the checkpoint at Iditarod to Nome is 589 miles.

Already 10 of the 82 teams that started the race have had to pull out due to physical injury to the mushers and/or their sleds.

Because of different strategies as to pace and when and where to rest their dogs, it is difficult to identify exactly which musher leads in a long distance race like this. All have a mandatory 24 hour rest period ahead and all have a mandatory 12 hour rest period ahead. Some may stop at Ophir (90 miles short of Iditarod) and some will go on to Iditarod for their 24 hour rest.

Currently, Lance Mackey and Zack Steer are into the checkpoint at Takotna. (They moved on since I started writing this and are headed to Ophir.) Both seem to have large (16 dog) fast teams but both are looking over their shoulder at the positioning of Martin Buser whose 2002 team holds the record for the fastest Iditarod by completing the race in 8 days, 22 hours, 46 minutes and 2 seconds. Buser may not be the fastest on the first half of the race, but he has a distinct advantage over his competitors vis-à-vis the care and conditioning of his dogs. As tribute to his treatment of his racers, Martin was awarded the coveted Leonhard Seppala Award in 1988, 1993, 1995 and again in 1997 for the most humanitarian care of his dogs. And in this race, it’s the dog power that gets it done. He and his team are currently out of McGrath and on their way to Takotna. They could very well blow past the current leaders and move on to Iditarod for their long rest.