Ultiamte Iditarod Training Update

Bags of food and supplies sent out by the mushers to the checkpoints along the Iditarod Trail wait for the teams to arrive. Each team has about 2000 pounds of food and supplies distributed out to the 18 "food drop" checkpoints. The bags contain both dog food and human food as well as extra clothing, dog booties, sled parts, and batteries for the musher's headlamp. The cost of the "food drops" alone is several thousand dollars per team.

In addition to training dogs and finishing up my college studies for this year, I have also been dedicating some of my time recently to working on securing sponsors for the racing team. The cost of competing in the Iditarod, coupled with the expenses associated with training for the race and feeding and caring for the dogs, totals to about $30-40,000 every year. This is a considerable amount of money considering that little money can be won in dog sled races compared with the actual expense. The winner of the Iditarod wins just of $65,000, but a large amount of that goes directly to paying for running the race.

Well, every mushers' situation is a little different, but many mushers hold regular jobs in addition to devoting countless hours to the dogs. Many of these jobs are seasonal in nature or allow flexible work schedules, which allows mushers to work during the summer but have more time available for training and racing in the winter.

Other mushers are able to use their dogs to make a living. Most of these mushers operate sled dog rides and/or tours as a means of recouping the expense of having the kennel. The Seavey family makes their living this way with IdidaRide Sled Dog Tours. The 2001 Second Place Iditarod Finisher, Linwood Fiedler, is another musher who supports his family and his dog team with a tour business. And finally, for a small group of mushers, sled dog racing is their profession, and they are able to make their living off racing, training, breeding, and selling dogs.

However, income from jobs, sled dog rides, and winning races usually must be supplemented. Essentially every Iditarod musher (and nearly every musher who races) has at least a few sponsors. Sponsors are very important to races, too. And we mushers are extremely grateful for the sponsors' interest, generosity, and enthusiasm for what we do.

Sponsors come in all forms. Some sponsors are large corporations or businesses that give large amounts of cash, dog food, or other equipment and supplies. Some sponsors are smaller local businesses that give very generously to support their local teams. Both the Seavey family and my family have been sponsored by some wonderful businesses in Alaska. These include Footworks, a boot and shoe store, and ABEARE Photography, a professional photography company. Other sponsors are groups or individuals who simply like what they see in mushing and want to support and help out. Some of these groups and individuals give donations or help with raising other sponsors. For example, when I ran my first Iditarod, the student council from my high school worked to secure donations and equipment that I needed. They raised over $5,000 in money, goods, and services!!! And the Beardsley family in Alaska is always at the ready to help with whatever we need, and my neighbor donates the use of his freezers and meat processing shop to help us prepare our dog food for the Iditarod.

As I said before, the generosity and excitement that our sponsors have means a great deal to us and serves as a motivator to keep working hard toward our goals with the dogs. We appreciate all that they do.

We like to be able to give back to our sponsors and our community at the end of every racing season, so sponsorship agreements usually include some ways in which we can help our the sponsors. This includes advertising or public appearances, promotional events, and, of course, good old-fashioned thank-yous and gifts. We also visit a number of schools and community groups and give presentations on the Iditarod where we show slides of the race, and demonstrate the sleds and gear. We usually can bring a few dogs for everyone to play with as well. And at one school visit I did, we hooked 16 third grade students up to a sled and let them pull their teachers around.

As for the rest of the goings-on, snow is falling and the dogs are howling. Training is proceeding very well.