Ready to Go
by Ultimate Iditarod's Tyrell Seavey
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Ultimate Iditarod's 2007 Iditarod Coverage Sponsored By:
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The
official Iditarod start is mere hours away.
The teams made it through the ceremonial start and they are now taking
care of last minute details as they prepare themselves for the daunting 1,150
miles to come. For the veterans, these
last few hours before go-time are usually spent in quiet reflection and
personal time with family members. This
is the last respite these mushers will enjoy for the
next nine days. For most rookies, and I
am speaking from experience here, these hours are usually spent in a giddy
semi-conscious state until someone with a stopwatch and a clipboard kicks you
out of Willow and sends you to meet you maker over 1,000 miles of some of the
most intimidating landscape on this planet.
This year’s field is a representation of the ever-expanding sport of
sled dog racing. I think the argument
could be made that this is the most evenly matched field of competitive racers
ever to take on the Iditarod Trail. This
doesn’t mean it is going to be a neck-and-neck finish. What it does mean is that there is no way to
predict today who is going to walk away with the yellow roses and the
oh-so-treasured 90 lb. likeness of Iditarod legend Joe Redington
Sr.
Before
we get into details about this event we all look forward to so much, I would
like to ask for a moment of silence for the 2007 Iditarod Honorary Musher,
Four-time Champion and perhaps the most well-known and respected Iditarod
legend in the history of our beloved event, Susan Butcher. Our hearts and prayers go out to her family. I hope they know that in this time of
excitement and high emotion she is foremost in our thoughts. Though her pre-race involvement is dearly
missed she is out there on the trail with Joe waiting for the first teams to
reach Skwentna.
Trust me.
It has been accurately stated that
you can’t win the Iditarod in the first few days, but you certainly can lose
it. Regardless, we all cluster around
our monitors with watery eyes and drool like rabid wolves as we wait for the
first reports to be posted. These binary
representations of reality are then dissected and analyzed by our prying minds
as we attempt to make some sense of what our sleep deprived optical receptors
are telling us. Iditarod is great isn’t
it? If you think you are the only one so
possessed by this sport, don’t worry, you are not alone out there. Even though it will be impossible to sort out
what is going on throughout the next few days I will be right there with you
hitting refresh every 30 seconds and waiting for the next update.
© 2007 Ultimate Iditarod
Reproduction or distribution in any way or by any means prohibited without
permission.
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