Day of zigzags on the standings

Quite a few mushers are now taking their mandatory twenty-four hour rest stop at Takotna, which is about 40-45% of the way into the race. One of these is Aliy; she will be leaving early tomorrow with the 2 1/2 hours roughly added to her twenty four in this stop.  Several of the other ladies seem to be doing the same thing but she will be out ahead of most of them. Right now she is sitting at 20th in the leader board since quite a few have gone on to Ophir (23 miles farther) and Dallas Seavey has made it to Cripple, an additional 73 miles; I expect he may do his twenty four there. The standings are very artificial now with this stop either in progress or not yet started for various mushers.

According to an interview with Mitch Seavey, Dallas's dad and a dedicated competitor too, Dallas is not feeling well and is driving on with grim determination. This may end up to his disadvantage if he either gets to the point where he gives out or his judgment goes south or ends up making it to Nome, even in the winning group but is then incapacitated for a time from too much stress. Even young folks are not made of cast iron! There is the old saw about fighting and running away to fight another day that might apply here. Time will tell.

Noah Burmeister, the brother of Aaron who was third last year, is right in there and John Baker, who won several years ago and was the first Native person to do so is too. There are five other male mushers between Ophir and Cripple at this time. Old timers Jeff King and Lance Mackey are among them. All will have to do their twenty four hours sooner or later, though, so those taking that now will have a chance to catch up. The strategies various teams employ are quite varied!

Allen Moore and the Black Team have also reached Takotna so he and Aliy will have a little time to visit and discuss strategy and dogs. I am still not sure what dog Allen has dropped. It may came up on the SPK blog shortly. Aliy still has fifteen in her Red Team. Mismo, the other big guy after the dropped Mac is holding his own very well even leading. It is much cooler in this interior region, too.

No, just checked SPK and no race news but some good pix and a video of the fall puppies out running free with the stay-home crew to supervise them. They are growing up so fast! Quito and Olivia's babies sure look fine!  SO stay tuned or better yet go to the Iditarod.com site and follow it yourself! And visit the SPK Dog Log while you are at it.

I forgot to add there has been another scratch. Veteran musher Hans Gatt was out at Nikolai with sick dogs. They were not eating well and dogs cannot manage with the huge exertion and keeping warm when the temperatures drop to the zero range without getting about 10,000 calories a day--convert that to Big Macs or double cheeseburgers and it is scary!! They can dehydrate and get in bad shape fast so a wise musher knows when to pull the pin,.A four times YQ winner and top ten finisher in several Iditarods, he is not one to panic, If he felt he needed to stop for the dogs, I'd support that decision! That's a live to run another day call. Right on.