Grit
10:45 p.m.
March 10, 2006

by Tyrell Seavey

Ultimate Iditarod's coverage of the 2006 Iditarod sponsored by:

The players are now in place and the race is on. By this point the mushers know where they fit in compared to the competition and what their teams’ limitations are. We often describe the in-race strategy as an invisible chess game where all the pieces are moving simultaneously. As the mushers head down the frozen Yukon River we can begin to see which teams are the power pieces and which are the pawns. Any schedule you started the race with is by now completely irrelevant. Your tactics may still be the same, but most of the mushers are a good 6 to 10 hours behind their original record-pace schedules. The hard part now is making intelligent decisions that you won’t regret later considering that after six days of tough racing your intellectual capacity resembles that of a staple gun. .

The race never goes as well as you were hoping when you left Anchorage. By now all the flash and flare of the movie cameras, the well-wishers, the brightly colored sleds, and the16 crazy dogs ready to devour days of trail are gone. The cameras and fans still hover but you scarcely notice. You are left sitting next to your filthy sled with 14 dogs sleeping soundly on the straw. They still have heart and drive, but they are more realistic now… they have been tired and they have learned to be cautious. The 2 lb. steak that looked so good when you wolfed it down immediately after pulling it out of your steaming cooker sits uneasy in your stomach and the campfire smoke caressing your nostrils is seriously threatening to upend your bowels. The gallon of coffee and half pound of moose jerky aren’t helping the situation. You can’t remember the last time you were well-rested and well-fed. The race start and the first few hundred miles seem like years ago. This is the environment where men, women and dogs are made. Your ability to function in these conditions dictates your success in the event and considering all of the effort that has already been put forth by you, your dogs, your friends, your sponsors etc. this is a team event and the ball is in your hands. You will live with the consequences of your actions today at least until next year and for some it will be the rest of their lives.

So how do the mushers handle it? The first thing to do is to completely ignore all of the above. As the mushers become more sleep deprived they focus less and less on their surroundings and more and more on their dog teams. By now the racers have forgotten about the cold and the discomfort… there are more important things to think about. This is where experience comes into play. If it is your first Iditarod the challenges can be overwhelming but if you are a veteran it is easier to put everything in perspective. Good dog care pays tremendous dividends later in the race so the mushers’ first priority is to cover their bases with the team and then they have to care for themselves. A musher isn’t nearly as effective with their team care if they are falling apart on the trail. Also, good equipment management becomes more important. A musher cannot afford to misplace required items or fall behind on maintenance in their increasing delirium. Sleep becomes less and less important as the teams get closer to Nome. They really can’t get much more tired than they are now.

This is the part of sled dog racing that people like my dad live for. I hope you all are as excited as I am to see how the 2006 race unfolds over the next four days.