Comments on: Iditarod XL Day 8

By: Bryan

Bryan — Mon, 12 Mar 2012 16:06:52 +0000

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.

By: JuanitaM

JuanitaM — Mon, 12 Mar 2012 14:36:03 +0000

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. 🙂

By: Bryan

Bryan — Mon, 12 Mar 2012 01:40:38 +0000

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.

By: JuanitaM

JuanitaM — Mon, 12 Mar 2012 00:30:39 +0000

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.