Iditarod XL Day 8
Aliy has an hour and a half lead over John, and that is pretty slim on trails John uses as soon as the snow falls.
The air temperatures have dropped to the -20°s so the interior and Arctic Circle teams will be in optimal conditiona, while the dogs that live and train in the southern area will be chilly. The mushers will all feel like they are popsicles, and will look like it as the moisture in their breath will freeze on the ruff of their parkas and any exposed hair.
Mitch is minutes behind John, and Aaron is within two hours of Aliy. It is down to rest time and how the puppies feel. Ally and John still have a dozen, Mitch has 11, and Aaron has 15. I’m guessing that the dogs that Aliy and Mitch dropped at Kaltag are perfectly healthy, but running a little slower than the others.
Dallas Seavey and Aaron Burmeister have decided to cut rest to take the lead. Dallas tried it last year and lost, because John Baker didn’t play. John still won’t play, and I doubt, Aliy will either. There is still a long way to Nome.
Update at 11:05AM CDT – Aliy is first to the Coast at Unalakleet.
Jake Berkowitz (29) was in 6th place when he pulled into Unalakleet, but he had severely injured his hand on the trail and was withdrawn by the race marshal.
Lachlan Clarke (66) scratched at Galena, and Pat Moon (15) scratched at Ruby for the same reason, Clarke only had 8 dogs, and Moon 7 with a whole lot of trail left to cover.
Josh Cadzow (55) has scratched at Kaltag with unhappy puppies, and Jeff King (10), who had 14 dogs and was running 12th, scratched at Unalakleet. Jeff has won 4 Iditarods and the Quest, so he didn’t need to prove anything.
Update at 10:30PM CDT:
Beyond Shaktoolik
1 Dallas Seavey (34)
At Shaktoolik
2 Aaron Burmeister (44) +0:27
3 Aliy Zirkle (14) +0:46
Beyond Unalakleet
4 John Baker (11)
5 Mitch Seavey (35)
6 Ray Redington Jr (2)
7 Ramey Smyth (21)
At Unalakleet
8 Peter Kaiser (28)
9 Sonny Lindner (59)
10 DeeDee Jonrowe (17)
11 Sigrid Ekran (24)
12 Ken Anderson (39)
13 Michelle Phillips (26)
13 Michael Williams Jr (51)
15 Brent Sass (50)Q
Beyond Kaltag
16 Paul Gebhardt (25)
17 Gerry Willomitzer (23)
18 Rick Swenson (60)
19 Martin Buser (41)
20 Rohn Buser (62)
21 Anjanette Steer (32)R
22 Hugh Neff (27)
23 Colleen Robertia (42)
24 Braxton Peterson (63)R
25 Jodi Bailey (6)
26 Kelley Griffin (20)
27 Lance Mackey (18)
28 Nicolas Petit (9)
29 Ed Stielstra (45)
30 Jim Lanier (3)
31 Bruce Linton (36)
At Kaltag
32 Mike Santos (22)R
33 Ryne Olson (46)R
34 Gerald Sousa (58)
35 Tom Thurston (5)
36 Cim Smyth (8)
Beyond Nulato
37 Scott Janssen (37)
38 Curt Perano (61)R
39 Justin Savidis (38)
40 Kelly Maixner (12)
At Nulato
41 Karin Hendrickson (43)
42 Matt Giblin (52)
43 William Pinkham (4)
44 Anna Berington (33)R
45 Kristy Berington (31)
Beyond Galena
46 Trent Herbst (16)
47 Hank Debruin (48)Q
48 Karen Ramstead (56)
At Galena
49 Travis Cooper(19)R
50 Art Church Jr (64)
51 Jaimee Kinzer (30)R
Beyond Ruby
52 Michael Suprenant (13)
53 Kirk Barnum (47)
54 Matt Failor (57)R
At Ruby
55 Dan Seavey (65)
Beyond Cripple
56 Bob Chlupach (49)
57 Jan Steves (40)R
The Mushers in bold are former winners of the Iditarod, while italics indicates Yukon Quest winners. The numbers in parentheses are their Bib numbers. The small “R” indicates a total rookie, while the small “Q” indicates an Iditarod rookie who has completed a Yukon Quest.
These are the official standings. That means they are official, not that they are correct. Things jump around a lot as people decide to update the standings. This problem is especially bad in the back of the pack, as no one bothers to update those standings when the lead is changing.
This post will be updated during the day, and the map changed on all posts to reflect the current situation.
All posts on the Iditarod can be seen by selecting “Iditarod” from the Category box on the right sidebar.
4 comments
Every year, I’m stunned anew by how dang big Alaska is. So when you say there’s still a long way, you’re not kidding! It would be like trying to sled from Tallahassee to Mobile. Or from my perspective, Charlotte to Atlanta! Since you lived up there, that’s just old news to you, but most people in the rest of the country has no real conception of the vastness.
I’m ashamed to say I never really thought about it until I tried to measure how far it was in terms that made sense to me.
I see what you mean about the rest times. I noticed on the current standings page that Aliy’s team got the longest rest at Unalakleet – about 7 hours. Still, they must all be exhausted. They’ll probably sleep for a couple of days once this is over. I would probably just lay down and die.
The dogs recover quickly, it’s the people with the problem. The dogs will need to be exercized a great deal sooner than mushers will feel like it. The other problem is bringing them down from their race eating. The 12K calories per day only works when they are working all day. You have to throttle back or they will balloon.
Yes, and if you check, John Baker rested just as long as Aliy did, within minutes, because he thinks that Aliy is the competition, not Aaron or Dallas. She pulled a really good move on the Yukon, and John noticed and acknowledged it. John knows how to beat Dallas, but he isn’t sure about Aliy, because she is using his strategy.
Dallas is ignoring Aliy and thinks John is the threat. Aliy is running her race with her team, she isn’t going to react to what Dallas is doing.
Exciting! It sounds like it could be a Baker/Zirkle competition on the last leg rather than Seavey or Burmeister.
Just checked the standings and Aliy came into Koyuk about an hour and a half behind Dallas. I noticed, however, that one of the Iditarod articles made mention of how energetic Aliy’s dogs were when they came into Unalakleet. Like you said before, that could make all the difference if they can keep the energy level up.
I’m going to test the “mouth to snout” on both my dogs this afternoon. Won’t they be surprised. 🙂
As I wrote on today’s post, she spent an hour less on the trail than Dallas did. Dallas did this last year, and misjudged the rest his puppies needed. Although his team had been consistently faster than John’s initially, their speed really dropped off at the end.
This is all up to getting the amount of rest the dogs need so they remain happy, the musher is secondary.
The other thing is if Aliy gets close on the trail. As Aliy’s husband found out on the Quest, having someone behind you makes you slower, because you and the dogs keep ‘checking out the rearview mirror’ instead of the trail ahead.
Aaron has a good team, but you notice he has dropped to 4th. Aliy and John just out-thought him, and made better rest choices.
Six hours is a good lead at this point in the race, anything less is uncomfortable.