I normally stay the night in M Grath with my friend Rick Breckheimer, not so this year. The pace is a bit quicker and teams very tight and bunched up. Not wanting to get caught in the middle of that, I opted for going to Takotna instead. The run over showed me how quickly things could get messy, as all for sudden I came to a screeching halt on the machine. What the h? One of my tiedowns had come loose and wrapped around the track. I had just passed Brent Sass, not good, as the trail is tight here.  Talking about Brent Sass, he and Nicolas Petit had pretty much left McGrath together, although the time sheets show a bit different. Both teams had to stop on the Kusko River to untangle dogs and then left right one after the other. By the time I had passed Brent, he made a quite a bit of time on Nicolas. And Nicolas’s dogs were very animated when I passed them. Hard to believe that Brent’s dogs are even another notch above that.

Overall, that is what I have seen today on the trail. These lead teams show no sign of tiredness whatsoever. Each and every single one looks amazing. To me the ones of Mitch, Dallas, Pete, Brent are standing out in appearance.  Looking at the runtimes, 2 hrs from McGrath to Takotna are some very fast times. 5 hrs and 30 minutes to McGrath also. Mitch posted an average speed of 9 mph on the last 18 miles, a whopping 1.2 miles faster than Aliy Zirkle. The trail remains to be hard and fast and the teams are making good use of that. It will be a busy night here in Takotna, as quite a few teams will be arriving, some even going through as Dallas sure will after his short rest in  McGrath. 

Time to get some shut eye. Have a good night! 

Sebastian