Spring!

It's about a month early but Spring has come to Kentucky. The temperatures are hitting the 80 degree mark and the weeds are growing before your eyes. It's way too early for this to be happening and the extreme temperatures have also spawned some extreme storms. The tornadoes that ripped through this area spared us but destroyed so much in other places. So far our only major damage has been a tree just behind the house that was struck by lightning. The venerable old maple now sports a black stripe down its massive trunk and dirt clumps thrown up around it where the lightning ran down the roots and literally blew the sod up. Time will tell whether it is strong enough to survive.

Everywhere you look things are blooming. The first were the daffodils that sprinkle the front field. It wasn't long until the pear trees down the drive were in glowing white. Today I discovered that I even have an early tulip. Along with the warm temperatures and unsettled weather has come lots of rain. March is typically a wet month and this is certainly no exception. The yard is squishy with standing water in the low spots. Where we have weaned calves and kept them in a smaller lot to teach them to eat feed, they have churned the ground to a bottomless goo. Likewise where the cattle have come to the waterers in the fields it is now the consistency of quicksand. Once when someone asked how many acres we had and I had responded with the number, hubby looked at me hard and pointed out that I had cut out two acres. "Not so", I replied, " I figure I have mopped at least two acres of mud out of my utility room!"

I was in the kitchen last night when another rite of spring appeared. The door burst open and a tearful five year old came in with a downcast wail. "My daddy is going to be so mad. Justin made me do it and now daddy is going to be so mad." (Justin being the 14 yr. old brother). I turned from the sink and had to laugh. Standing in the doorway was a small boy that appeared to be carved out of mud. He had mud in his hair, on his face, down the front and caked to his back. "Did you fall down? No? Then how did you get so muddy?" "Playing basketball", he replied.

Between chuckles over his predicament, reassurances that he wasn't in trouble, and scraping the mud off him I kept quizzing him on how he became a human mud ball. It seems that he and the older brother were playing basketball in front of the barn. Every time the ball left the blacktop it landed in mud. Passes that weren't caught left a basketball shaped muddy spot on where they hit. Hence the large muddy spot on his shoulder and face. Then, since the field slopes steeply just off the drive, missed shots tended to roll down the slope and under the fence. Big brother was sending the little one to retrieve the balls and since he was too little to open the gate he was scooting under the plank fence. Also, since the cattle had walked the fence repeatedly to get to the waterer, that area was close to being a mud wrestling arena.

After getting him cleaned up and settled on the porch with a snack (no way was he sitting down in my house) I turned to take this up with the older brother. However, it seems he had decided that helping his dad and grandfather clean out the barn might be better than sticking around and facing a discussion about responsible kid-watching.

Yep. It is definitely Spring in Kentucky.

The Finish

With a time of 9 days 4 hours 29 minutes 26 seconds the Iditarod is over for the winner Dallas Seavey, the youngest winner ever. (He actually turned 25 on the trail.) The second place winner was Aliy Zirkle following exactly one hour behind him. Third place went to Ramey Smith, about 35 minutes behind her. The rest of the racers are strung out over the Alaska wilderness and will arrive over the next few days.

The dash down the snow covered main street with crowds of well-wishers shouting out greetings was picture perfect. (The crews spent most of yesterday afternoon hauling in snow from outside of town and grading it down to a perfect smoothness.) After a quick hug to his wife and baby, Dallas, ever polite, turned to the waiting microphones and excused himself. "I need to say hello to these guys first." He then took a minute to give a quick rub and hug to each dog.

When asked about his strategy for the race. He told them that he had planned every step of the race to utilize the strong points of his dogs and to optimize every advantage he could to shave minutes on his time. Observers had noticed that his check point routine and feeding schedule was a dance with no wasted movements or lost time. He said that he had trained running against his dad and his better team. He had learned that by shaving minutes off of the feeding routine, dog care (hustling not sacrificing care) and check point stops he was able to make up enough time to catch up with his dad. With this in mind he planned every step of the way to make up time. He also meticulously planned his take over of the lead about 2/3 of the way through the race. In his words, "I'm not sure the front-runners knew who they were racing against." , referring to his feeling of being in control of his race. Although, Aliy led most of the race, once he made his move there was no catching him.

Interestingly, while he has his own kennel, his dogs are still too young to race. So his team was collected from the "second" string from other kennels. Most of his team for this race were rejects of his father. He noted that his team was not the most athletic, fastest, or strongest of the teams so he had to make sure they had the best plan. What he didn't say was that part of the plan was the extreme athleticism and drive of their musher. Dallas ran most of the race in a windbreaker suit jogging alongside the dogs to keep warm in the brutal temperatures. Removing his weight from the sled gave his dogs a little extra power. This running cost him with a severely blistered toe that one of the vet's lanced and bandaged for him toward the last of the race.

All of the racers have endured extreme physical punishment as they forge across the Alaska topography. The have walked, climbed and pushed through terrain from river valleys, to mountains to wind swept coasts, crossing rivers and on a couple of occasions frozen portions of the Bering Sea. They have done this in blizzards, drifts of new snow, brutal wind, and temperatures as low as -30 degrees. They have endured exhaustion, sleep deprivation, injuries, and hunger (Mushers are careful to feed the dogs on the trail but don't prepare food for themselves. They eat at check-points.) All of this is done with fierce determination but cheerful cooperation and friendship at the check-points and layovers. There you will see mushers sharing stories, offering advice, laughing and enjoying the moment.

With the front-runners home it is to be noted that the middle pack of racers have been sitting the last day or so in Shaktoolik waiting out a ground blizzard with winds of 35 mph , visibility of about 50 feet, and wind chills of -30. I can only imagine the conditions that would cause these hardened mushers to just wait it out. Consider that they are accustomed to spending days and nights on a trail in a climate that would cause our state to close down and demand a national emergency response! I salute these men, women, and dogs that thrive in an area that demands that they be strong and resilient.

Iditarod: Alaska's Ky. Derby

Although I have followed the Iditarod race for several years, it wasn't until our trip to Alaska last summer that I realized just how important this race was to the state. It's a lot like having the Kentucky Derby here in our state. It means money, national recognition, and a lot of state pride.

The race generates intense state pride. Everywhere we went there were signs, souvenirs, pictures, and talk of the Iditarod. Nearly every young person we talked to wanted to become a musher. Our bus driver, the waitress, the girl at the visitor's center all told us that their dream was to become a musher and race in the Iditarod. They take all kinds of jobs to finance their dream. They work for dog kennels for the experience and train all winter. It's an intense sport requiring dedication, great physical fitness, and lots of money. (dogs and equipment aren't cheap.)

However, the rewards are tremendous. Iditarod racers are the spotlighted athletes in the state. The few who are winners or finish in the top ten are as well known and popular as rock stars. They can be seen on billboards, television, cruise ships, books and endorsing all kinds of things. Most use their fame to create improvements in their villages or locales through programs, youth support, or corporate involvement. Everywhere they go they are greeted with autograph seekers and cameras. Children everywhere know the names of the winners and top finishers, like we know basketball players.

The race itself isn't the product of a grand business scheme but rather the result of literately hundreds of volunteers who work around the year to see that this race is accomplished. 1500 volunteers from 21 states and 4 countries will put in over 35,000 hours of time for this year's race. They will be doing everything from manning the COMM center (collecting data from the check points and posting in on the Internet) to working at the checkpoints to assist the mushers in finding places to bed their teams. Teams of veterinarians will be on hand to check each dog at every check point. Workers will monitor the times, speeds, conditions, weather, and mushers to report back to race headquarters. Volunteers will see that food is cooked, sleeping areas are clean, straw is available for the dogs, hot water ready to fix dog rations, supplies are ready for the next leg of the trip and to keep everything running smoothly.

For weeks volunteers have been collecting supplies and seeing that they are packaged and delivered to the check-point sites. Many of the communities are small, many under 200 people, so the strain of feeding the 67 mushers and numerous visitors, news people and support people is massive. Supplies are gathered and flown in to these villages to provide for the rush of people. The locals, however, are proud to be able to provide many of the dishes that will feed the racers. Each stop is a veritable feast for the humans. The dogs dine on food that has been supplied by each musher for his own animals. However, rather than attempt to haul that much food with them, it has been delivered to the check points by a virtual air force of small planes that have ferried in food and supplies.

All in all, it is a massive effort by the people of Alaska to see that the Iditarod race proceeds without a hitch. They can be proud of their race and the tremendous organization that goes into it.

Iditarod Musings

It's a beautiful spring day in Kentucky. The daffodils are blooming in the yard and in delightful clumps in the front field. I just watched the University of Kentucky lose the SEC tournament championship but maintain their number one seed in the NCAA tournament. Yep. It's spring in Kentucky. Daffodils and basketball.

With that break over I returned to studying the Iditarod Trail and the extreme weather conditions the mushers and dogs are experiencing. The race started with temperatures reaching to a balmy 25 degrees F. in the afternoons and dipping down to -5 to -10 below at night. (Remember, they don't have much daylight this time of year). Now the lead teams have reached the Bering Coast with temperatures hovering around -30 degrees. The cold is beginning to take it's toll on both people and dogs. The mushers are beginning to find that keeping awake is harder as exhaustion and cold settle in.

This year the weather has been a challenge, even for Alaska. The old-timers are saying that this is the most snow they have ever seen. The trail in spots has been covered with an additional two feet of snow during the race. This creates some interesting challenges and some real strategies. The race committee marks the trail and breaks a path for the race. However, they only break trail for the first sled, trusting to the following sleds to pack it down and clear it for everyone else. However, if a musher decides to get an early start the trail breakers rush out to open the trail for them. Then if the others don't follow right away, the snow has a chance to fill the path up before they get underway. Then they are on their own to break their own trail. This is much harder on the dogs and slows them down. This is why rest breaks, while necessary, become a part of the strategy.

In addition to the hazards of running over rough trails at night in extreme cold, the mushers have to be alert to dangers of the four legged kind. Most mushers will carry a gun with them to protect themselves and their dogs. The biggest danger (literally) is a moose. The moose like to use the trails for the same reason the racers do. It's easier than fighting the deep snow. Consequently, it's not unheard of to run into a moose strolling down the trail. These guys are big, really big, and irritable, really irritable. Sometimes they will abandon the trail and let the dogs pass, but sometimes they will defend their right to the trail and just wade into the dogs. This is an extreme danger for the dogs and the musher. Sometimes the only defense is to just shoot the moose.

The problem then gets even bigger. It seems that in Alaska moose tend to use all types of trails, including highways. So killing a moose isn't all that uncommon, whether it is intentional or accidental. To deal with this and eliminate the waste, Alaska has a law that if you kill a moose on public land you can't just walk off and leave it as "roadkill". You have to field dress the animal and notify someone to come and get it so it can be used. This can slow you down considerably in a race, so every effort is used to come to a peaceful solution.

The lead is still held by Aliy Zirkle but she is being chased by a determined group of men. Aliy runs a team of small dogs and there has been a lot of speculation as to whether her little dogs can maintain the pace over the distance. Her dogs average 40-45 lbs. while most of the bigger teams will weigh 60-70 pounds. This could be a big advantage when strength and endurance are needed toward the end of the race. So far the 41 year old woman is making the 25 year old man in second place eat her dust....um....snow.

You go girl!!

The Iditarod

It's March in Kentucky and every television is tuned to a basketball game 24/7. There are high school championships, several divisions of college championships (both boys and girls) and then, of course, the big party...the NCAA championships. And then there is me. Now, don't get me wrong, I will certainly be watching a lot of round ball, but my real interest this month will involve snow and a lot of barking.

Several years ago, I had a March with time on my hands. This led to some wandering on the Internet. We had just returned from a trip to Alaska the fall before and I stumbled upon the site for the Iditarod Race. In a short time I became a devoted follower of this famous dog race that covers 1100 miles from Anchorage to Nome. Now starting the first of March I am glued to the Internet following the racers (mushers) as they brave the elements and follow the trail across Alaska.

The Iditarod Race was started in 1974 to commemorate a time when dog sleds provided transportation for food, medicine, mail and goods across a state that had few roads and these were mostly buried in snow from October until May. With the advent of the airplane in the late 1920's dog sleds were used less and less for the long haul deliveries. While they were still used for personal transportation and deliveries to isolated cabins, the airplane became the primary mode of transportation to the remote stretches of Alaska. However, on one historic run when weather conditions had made air delivery impossible, dog sleds made the 1100 mile trip from Anchorage to Nome to rush a supply of vaccine. The Iditarod celebrates this historic run and the intrepid mushers who routinely braved the wilderness to deliver goods.

This year sixty-seven racers will face the rigors of an Alaskan winter across rivers, plains, mountains, tundra, forests, and coastline for a grueling 1100 miles in 11-12 days. They will do this alternately running behind or riding on the runners of a sled loaded with supplies and pulled by a team of 16 or less dogs. (Dogs that become injured or tired may be left at check-points for delivery home, so the number of dogs is flexible; although no dogs may be added after the start of the race.) This is a true test of the physical fitness of both musher and dogs.

The racers are both male and female, although more men run it than women. However, both men and women have won it. The ages ranges from 19 to ?. The oldest I have seen in this race is a 72 year old musher named Dan Seavey who also ran in the first Iditarod 40 years ago. He is running to commemorate the opening of the Iditarod Trail 100 years ago, as a delivery route and the 40th running of the Iditarod Race. He will deliver pamphlets and material along the way. While he is not a contender he is committed to finishing the race. Interestingly, his son and grandson are in the top four at this time.

As I am in my "golden years" it is interesting to me that this is not a race dominated by youth. The main contenders and top mushers tend to be from 40-55 years old. This is a race that is won not just by speed, but endurance and strategy. Traits that experience and age enhance. The front runner for most of the race and the definite pace setter is a 41 year old woman who has finished the race 10 times. With all that being said it has to be noted that the third place musher at this time is Dallas Seavey who is 25. The race is about half over so things have lots of time to change.

Since I am spending every spare minute checking race standings and weather conditions (it has snowed over two feet on some of the course in the past week) I will write more about some of the adventures of the Iditarod later. If you are interested in following it yourself, check out www.iditarod.com.