Molly Yazwinski, 26, was born and raised in Deerfield, Massachusetts, where she grew up working on the family's dairy farm. She raised her own flock of sheep as a 4-H project and gained experience training border collies for livestock/farm work and herding trials. She graduated from Middlebury College in Vermont in 2004 with a degree in biology. While in college she ran competitively on the NCAA DIII cross-country team. She says she continues to run road races and has finished three marathons. "My mother raced a sprint team on the New England circuit in the 1970's and her aunt mushed dogs in Alaska during the 1980's, so she says she grew up hearing a few mushing stories. "Mom's sleds still hang in the garage and on occasion, we sometimes hook up a team of border collies. When she was six, she and her mom traveled to Alaska to visit her aunt and she was in Nome to see the finish of the Iditarod. Since she graduated from college, she has spent the summer months back in Massachusetts working on the dairy farm and other shepherding jobs and the winters in Fairbanks mushing dogs where I have been a handler for Susan Butcher and Dave Monson. "I decided to run the Iditarod this winter after having traveled part of the trail in March of 2007 with Tekla and Dave. We experienced the energy and atmosphere of the Race and traveled through some spectacular country. In the 2008 Iditarod I will be mushing a team from Trail Breaker Kennel. I have been working with many of these dogs for three years and I am excited to see how they will perform in the Race. I am deferring my enrollment at Cornell Veterinary School for one year in order to have the opportunity to run Iditarod. Then I plan to pursue a career in veterinary medicine with a focus on large animal medicine and serving rural communities.