Iditawhut?
I feel a bit ridiculous talking about it, because pretty much no one else cares, but I have been following the Iditarod pretty closely and I don't really have an outlet for my thoughts.
This is, of course, why we have journals.
To begin with, I should explain that I'm obsessed with mushing, aka sled dog racing. The whole concept fascinates me. I've always been obsessed with the North. I love Alaska. I love the Yukon. I love dogs. Too much of my formative reading consisted of Jack London and Robert Service, I think. Whatever the rationale, the Iditarod is one of the highlights of my year. (One of the others is the Yukon Quest, which is sort of like the Iditarod, but moreso.)
Lance Mackey has won the Iditarod for the past four years and was expected by many to do it again this time. (Apparently, if you want to become a serial racewinner, all you have to do is be a cancer survivor named Lance.) However, circumstances have conspired against Lance, and he has dropped all the way down to 16th in the current rankings. This has opened up the field to some new people. The two in front right now have run the race many times but never won. It'll be interesting to see what happens.
There are a lot of big names in this race - I mean, big by mushing standards, which means you've only heard of them if you follow the sport, I guess. Hans Gatt. Sonny Lindner. Rick Swenson, who has run the Iditarod over 20 times and won it five times (he's currently ranked 21st). Martin Buser, the record-holder for fastest time on the entire race; he has done the Iditarod over 20 times and won four of them. Paul Gebhardt, a highly-ranked veteran of 14 Iditarods, scratched early in the race. ("Scratching" means dropping out. Generally this only happens if you are having serious problems. No one wants to scratch, but you have to do what's best for yourself and your team.) Bunch of rookies this year, 13 I think. Only three of them have scratched.
I always root for Aliy Zirkle. One of the cool things about mushing is that it's a pretty equal-opportunity sport. It's based less on strength than endurance, and the rapport you have with your dogs, and their training. Anyone can enter if they're qualified, and anyone can win. Women are a minority, but a respected one, and they win races with enough regularity that there's a saying: "Alaska, where the men are men and the women win the Iditarod." Aliy was the first - and to date, the only - woman to win the Yukon Quest, in 2000. This is something like her 11th Iditarod. She's in 13th place and she's not gonna win, but I'd like to see her finish in the top 10. There are two other women in the top 10 currently.
The front runners are doing their mandatory 8-hour layover at White Mountain, the next-to-last checkpoint, and only have 77 miles to go. They'll be leaving in the middle of the night tonight, and done sometime tomorrow morning. Their teams are moving at exactly the same speed, and Ramey Smyth is less than an hour behind John Baker. If Baker wins it will be a triumph for the Alaskan indigenous peoples, as he'd be the first Alaskan Native to win since 1977. However, according to what I've read Ramey Smyth always sprints the stretch between the last checkpoint and the end of the race at Nome. I mean literally - he changes from mukluks into racing shoes and runs behind the dogs instead of having them pull him. He invariably gets the fastest time on that stretch. At this point it could really go either way.
Or, you know, something unexpected could happen. Somebody could cut a finger almost off while opening a straw bale with a folding knife and get withdrawn from the race. Except that already happened a couple days ago.
It's a bit weird following a race that takes such a long time but during which things change so rapidly. Lance Mackey was in third place and the next time I looked he'd dropped into the mid-teens. This dude was the first to win both the Iditarod and the Quest in the same year - and then he did it again the following year. But while there's a lot of skill and savvy involved, there's a lot of chance, too, and so much depends on the dogs. All the mushers try desperately to build and train the perfect team. It's like coaching in any sport - you need to have leaders, powerhouses, and rank-and-file all working together cooperatively and putting everything they've got into the team effort. If anything goes wrong with that, your performance suffers. Lance was down to 8 dogs way too early in the race. He's already conceded, with a sportsmanship and humbleness that seems characteristic of the sport in general and of Lance in particular.
So with Lance out of the running, me and my fellow weirdos are anxiously waiting to see who's the first to make it to Nome, and then how long it takes till the Red Lantern award goes to the last musher in. How cool is a sport where the one who comes in last gets a prize?
Yeah, exactly.
This is, of course, why we have journals.
To begin with, I should explain that I'm obsessed with mushing, aka sled dog racing. The whole concept fascinates me. I've always been obsessed with the North. I love Alaska. I love the Yukon. I love dogs. Too much of my formative reading consisted of Jack London and Robert Service, I think. Whatever the rationale, the Iditarod is one of the highlights of my year. (One of the others is the Yukon Quest, which is sort of like the Iditarod, but moreso.)
Lance Mackey has won the Iditarod for the past four years and was expected by many to do it again this time. (Apparently, if you want to become a serial racewinner, all you have to do is be a cancer survivor named Lance.) However, circumstances have conspired against Lance, and he has dropped all the way down to 16th in the current rankings. This has opened up the field to some new people. The two in front right now have run the race many times but never won. It'll be interesting to see what happens.
There are a lot of big names in this race - I mean, big by mushing standards, which means you've only heard of them if you follow the sport, I guess. Hans Gatt. Sonny Lindner. Rick Swenson, who has run the Iditarod over 20 times and won it five times (he's currently ranked 21st). Martin Buser, the record-holder for fastest time on the entire race; he has done the Iditarod over 20 times and won four of them. Paul Gebhardt, a highly-ranked veteran of 14 Iditarods, scratched early in the race. ("Scratching" means dropping out. Generally this only happens if you are having serious problems. No one wants to scratch, but you have to do what's best for yourself and your team.) Bunch of rookies this year, 13 I think. Only three of them have scratched.
I always root for Aliy Zirkle. One of the cool things about mushing is that it's a pretty equal-opportunity sport. It's based less on strength than endurance, and the rapport you have with your dogs, and their training. Anyone can enter if they're qualified, and anyone can win. Women are a minority, but a respected one, and they win races with enough regularity that there's a saying: "Alaska, where the men are men and the women win the Iditarod." Aliy was the first - and to date, the only - woman to win the Yukon Quest, in 2000. This is something like her 11th Iditarod. She's in 13th place and she's not gonna win, but I'd like to see her finish in the top 10. There are two other women in the top 10 currently.
The front runners are doing their mandatory 8-hour layover at White Mountain, the next-to-last checkpoint, and only have 77 miles to go. They'll be leaving in the middle of the night tonight, and done sometime tomorrow morning. Their teams are moving at exactly the same speed, and Ramey Smyth is less than an hour behind John Baker. If Baker wins it will be a triumph for the Alaskan indigenous peoples, as he'd be the first Alaskan Native to win since 1977. However, according to what I've read Ramey Smyth always sprints the stretch between the last checkpoint and the end of the race at Nome. I mean literally - he changes from mukluks into racing shoes and runs behind the dogs instead of having them pull him. He invariably gets the fastest time on that stretch. At this point it could really go either way.
Or, you know, something unexpected could happen. Somebody could cut a finger almost off while opening a straw bale with a folding knife and get withdrawn from the race. Except that already happened a couple days ago.
It's a bit weird following a race that takes such a long time but during which things change so rapidly. Lance Mackey was in third place and the next time I looked he'd dropped into the mid-teens. This dude was the first to win both the Iditarod and the Quest in the same year - and then he did it again the following year. But while there's a lot of skill and savvy involved, there's a lot of chance, too, and so much depends on the dogs. All the mushers try desperately to build and train the perfect team. It's like coaching in any sport - you need to have leaders, powerhouses, and rank-and-file all working together cooperatively and putting everything they've got into the team effort. If anything goes wrong with that, your performance suffers. Lance was down to 8 dogs way too early in the race. He's already conceded, with a sportsmanship and humbleness that seems characteristic of the sport in general and of Lance in particular.
So with Lance out of the running, me and my fellow weirdos are anxiously waiting to see who's the first to make it to Nome, and then how long it takes till the Red Lantern award goes to the last musher in. How cool is a sport where the one who comes in last gets a prize?
Yeah, exactly.