Whew! Busy day yesterday with the safe driver course given by AAA (anything to help lower the cost of insurance!), the Photoshop Elements workshop given by a member of the photography club, and the Iditarod. The former two certainly interfered with the latter! Big Time!
I just managed to miss viewing the live feeds of Lance Mackey crossing the finish line at 2:59 AKDT (6:59 EDT) for his fourth consecutive victory by about 40 minutes. (KTUU story here.) I had to leave the Aerie to get to Wellsboro for the workshop and waited as long as I could before packing up the computer to go. "His time of 8 days, 23 hours, 59 minutes, 9 seconds is the second-fastest on record, behind only Martin Buser's record of 8:22:46:02." If he had gone just a little faster, I could have seen him win and he could have set a new record.
I had to explain to people all day what the Iditarod was and just how momentous a fourth consecutive win in this endurance race was. I mean, it's comparable to an NFL team winning the Super Bowl four consecutive years. Maybe tougher.
Second place went to Hans Gatt who arrived in Nome a little more than an hour later. Four time winner, Jeff King ran the fastest time in his career, yet managed "only" to come in third.
As I type this, there are 7 mushers in Nome--just one tenth of the starting field--with two more rapidly approaching. The race is far from over, however. Once Dallas Seavey and Hugh Neff come down Front Street, there will still be 47 mushers out on the trail. Some will surely scratch as they are down to so few dogs remaining active in their teams, but most will continue on. This is not a race just to see who can come in first--it is often a race within oneself to see who can come in at all.
******
Then there were 56....
Over night, there was one more scratch. Rookie Hank Debruin (Bib #45) pulled out of the race at the Nulato checkpoint. He had been running alone many hours to the rear and, though he had 13 dogs in harness, he opted to pull out since they were no longer competitive. (That sometimes means the dogs just won't go any more.)
1 comment:
Attending the Iditarod is now one of my dreams. When I worked for Alaska Airlines we had the opportunity to work as volunteers but because I was so low on the totem pole had to stay at work (so the senior folks could volunteer). Ahhh well. At least we get to experience the Iditarod through the miracle of telecommunications!
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