Brent Sass could have not asked for a nicer welcome to Nulato. The whole town was out under a beautiful evening sky. Children were holding signs reading Brent Sass. In the gym great food is waiting. They plowed a big parking lot right in front of the school gym and that is nice and conveniently close to come inside. A big pot of hot water for the dogs is ready. The church bells were ringing when he arrived.
Brent right away announced: ” I am staying this time “. He seems to be ready for a nice long rest and declared his 8 hour layover here. I think he will be very pleased with his choice. He is probably a little less happy with doing such a long run here in the heat of the day. I would say till Galena, Brent ran the race of a lifetime. Closely sticking to an optimum schedule for the dogs, always avoiding the warmer parts of the day. With coming in at 11.45 a.m. into Galena, I wonder why he did not just do his usual routine and camp out 5 to 10 miles past the checkpoint, then pull the hook for a long night run to Kaltag. Brent got the double whammy of bad conditions today. Very warm weather, with next to no wind in the new slough trail and also a pretty soft trail as soon as the trail dropped onto the Koyukuk River. The mushers following tonight will post much faster runtimes. Time will tell, how Brent’s dogs rebound from this long run, and how Brent mentally takes it, having done a ” big mistake ” as he called it himself. It was a close to 13 hr run for him, he left his camping spot outside of Ruby near 7 a.m. His speed in the later part of the day dropped down to 6.5 miles per hour, which is a big difference from the 8 to 9 mph he had been doing prior to this long run.
