Hi Boys and Girls,

Good Morning, There sure have a lot of changes in the team positions since my last update.  Martin Buser is resting at Rohn and several mushers have left Rohn ahead of him.  Today’s picture from Jeff Schultz is of John Baker upon his arrival into Finger Lake.

 Now for today’s update:

DATE:   March 5, 2013  early edition

TIME:  00:36 Alaska Time   

LEADERS: 1. Paul Gebhardt 2. Aliy Zirkle 3. Jeff King 4. Michelle Phillips 5. Mitch Seavey.    WOW- what a difference 12 hours has made. 

WHERE ARE THE MUSHERS: The leaders plus the next 18 mushers are all out of Rohn , 16 Mushers are in Rohn, 12 are on their way to Rohn, 7 Mushers are in Rainy Pass and the last 5 mushers are in Finger Lake.

RED LANTERN POSITION: James Volek who is resting in Finger Lake

WEATHER:   The weather between all the checkpoints right now is 28 and cloudy.

SCRATCHED: Scott Janssen scratched in Finger Lake, out of concern for his dogs and their performance.

Answer to Yesterday’s Question: The time used for the Iditarod is called either Military time or 24 hour time.  When knowing the difference between am and pm is very important, Military time is used. It can be very confusing until you get use to using it. Let’s give it a try. From 12:01 am- 12:59 am the time is shown as 0:01 -0:59.  From 1:00 am-12:59 pm the time looks like what you are use to.  Then starting at 1pm the time changes, 1pm is the same at 13:00, 2pm is 14:00 all the way to 11:59pm or 23:59.  By using Military or 24 hour time, you do not need to say whether it is am or pm.  You just know by what time it is.  So if your watching the updates either here or on the Iditarod.com website, and you see  15:45-  you’ll know it’s in the pm and you can figure out the time (it’s 3:45pm)  Practice with this and have fun.

QUESTION OF THE DAY: The 24 hour mandatory rest is coming up soon, What is this rest and when does it have to be taken?  Do all mushers take exactly 24 hours for their rest- Why or why not?

That’s it for right now. How is your musher doing?   Don’t just watch the leaders, there are a lot of mushers out there- all with good stories to tell!

Until tomorrow,

Gypsy