by Terrie Hanke in Nome
Mushers, Trent Herbst and Matt Giblin, made it another two for one deal at the finish line in Nome on Friday morning. Herbst and Giblin left Safety at 0817 and 0815 respectively. Herbst passed Giblin somewhere during the twenty-two mile run to claim 37th place in Iditarod XL.
Herbst is an educator who enjoys and experiential hands on classroom. When teaching 4th grade in Ketchum, Idaho his students calculated dog food needs, Trent food needs, personal gear and sled gear. They measured, packaged and sorted all the goods that went into his drop bags. They even designed and constructed his sleds. Iditarod was a theme for education that let his students and thousands of students around the world learn through practical applications. Herbst became interested in running dogs when he was teaching in Switzerland. He’s been associated with Ed Stielstra’s kennel showing the pups the way to Nome. For the past two years, he’s run teams for Jake Berkowitz. Last year he was the first team to southern halfway point of Iditarod. He was chosen by his peers as the Most Improved Musher. This year Herbst ran the Yukon Quest. For the 2012 Iditarod, Trent was again teaching young dogs on the way to Nome. Herbst was chosen as the 2009 Most Inspirational Musher. His three hour run from Safety rounds out his 11d 20h 17m 36s run. Every year Trent says this’ll be my last Iditarod but he admits that he just can’t get enough of traveling with the dogs.
Matt Giblin shared the finish chute with Herbst. When asked what was tough about this race, without hesitation, Giblin answered the wind – it just wouldn’t quit. Shaktoolik was bad as was every spot with a reputation for wind. Giblin praised his leader, an eleven year old black dog with floppy ears name Feta (this was the cheese litter). Feta has run several 1,000 miles races and came to the finish line of Iditarod 40 in single lead. Matt said he enjoyed the trail but is glad to be in Nome. Seems that the gentle weather pattern experienced during the first part of the race made up for itself later with ground blizzards. Giblin has been mushing for twenty-five years after seeing the sport on television. Wonder if it was ABC’s Wide World of Sports when they sponsored and covered this race? This is Giblin’s third run across the last frontier of Alaska. He enters races to witness the potential of the dogs and to enjoy time on the trail with these incredible canine athletes. Since his rookie race in 1998, Giblin has improved in both time and place – 50th to 38th place and from 14d 1h 56m 17s to 11d 20h 20m 49s.
