I am sitting in a log cabin on Long Lake Road in Willow close to the Start of Iditarod 42. Long Lake is one of the first lakes a musher comes to after leaving the starting line. Its close to where all the pink flamingo´s line the trail. Some of the local mushers like Justin Savidis live in this area and for sure this afternoon the trail will be lined with bon fires, hot dog roasts and plenty of snowmachines.

Race day is setting up to be nice and even the 36F predicted look much better than what was in the forecast a few days ago. On the other side of the Alaska Range, towards Nikolai the weatherman predicting even better temperatures with little below OF at night and teens in the daytime. It does not get much better than that. One of the key factors for a musher is now to get their team into a nice run and rest schedule. Typically a musher wants to avoid the ” relative” heat of the day and shut the team down between 1 and 5 p.m. Now with starting the race at 2 p.m. that will take some juggling, of either cutting a rest a little short or lengthening the run. There are many different variations, the less competitive teams will already stop in Yentna, many will elect to stop on the trail between Yentna and Skwentna away from the busy checkpoints and a few teams will do the about 7 hrs run all the way to Skwentna. The dogs are amped up, the first rest is usually not a good rest for them, as they are not really tired. I remember getting parked in Skwentna and the next team showing up was Ken Anderson. My team was all males but Skunk and Saffron and all 14 males immediately jumped up when Ken pulled in next to me. He had several females in heat.  The gang kept on pulling my front hook and the thought of a good rest was out of the window. In hindsight that was a good thing, as it got me out of the checkpoint a bit earlier and put me on a better schedule. Sometimes good things need a little luck, or bad luck. While talking to Aaron Burmeister yesterday, he also brought up a good point. As where normally the heat of the day is a time to avoid, on the second day of Iditarod it might be a time to embrace, as the dogs will not charge as hard as they do during the cold time of the day, and going town Happy River Steps outside of Finger Lake and than conquering the Dalzell Gorge during the warmer time of the day, with a bit  more mellow of a team, might be a good thing after all. And than re-adjust the schedule in Rohn.

I can´t help but notice in the starting order, that last years champion Mitch Seavey is being chased by last years runner up Aliy Zirkle. Matter of fact runner up for 2 years in a row. I am sure Aliy will try everything in her power, to change that order by the time the finish line in Nome arrives. I am sure both of them really enjoy their starting positions. There is several advantages for going out early. Less waiting in Willow, less teams to follow with potential passes gong wrong. Although on the Yentna and Skwentna River the trail is more a maze of trails and passing is usually not an issue. But being out front is generally a more quite run, with less distractions and less dog poop on the trail. Yes dog poop could be an issue, if the team  ahead of you has picked up a bug. That in particular could pose a problem for Robert Sorlie, who´s team has trained not much on the local trails, matter of fact Alaskan Trails. And each year, despite vaccinating, viruses develop and mutate. I vaccinated the whole kennel for Bortadella ( Kennel Cough ) yet the dogs pick it up in the Quest 300, a few days later it went through the rest of the dogs at home, and I am certain now some teams will carry the virus on this race. And as it showed, vaccinating, same as with human flu shots, do not always work. 

Dog trucks are rolling towards Willow, time to head to the starting line. If you live in the area, and are still on the fence about coming out, hop in your ride and come on over. Its going to be a beautiful day!

Happy trails

Sebastian