2021 Iditarod Race

[libby the lab]

FP Casillo took his 24 early in NIK

[flowerpower]

Actually, I think he 24ed in Rohn, which was really early. No indication of any issues when they interviewed him in RP-he had said he was right on schedule. They operate Battle Dogs, a wounded warrior project. Having lost several vets that I know to suicide, those projects are near and dear to my heart. So I've been interested in following him this year.

[fladogfan]

According to GPS Martin is still in Ophir. Hope this rest is a perk up for the dogs.

[flowerpower]

From Seaveys:

Time for a numbers post #iditarod fans!
This is the closest Iditarod we've seen in a while. Last time Iditarod was a checkpoint (2019), there was a 5 hour gap between 1st and 4th. 2020 had 5 teams in 5 hours. This year we'll have 5 teams within one hour.
Dallas is still leading, but not by much. He left his 24 in McGrath, went through Ophir, and halfway to Iditarod for a 4-hour camp. His GPS is not reporting consistently, so it's hard to follow. He could either camp in Iditarod then make a similar run back to McGrath, or go through Iditarod by an hour or two and then straight back to Ophir.
Right behind him is a whole pack of teams: Joar Ulsom and Travis Beals are together and probably within sight of Dallas, and Richie Diehl and Pete Kaiser are within 15 minutes, and they're headlights are probably visible on long stretches. All 4 of those teams took the 24 at McGrath with Dallas, then stopped in Ophir for a 3 hour break. So they're an hour down on rest since the 24, and will be coming off a longer run when they arrive in Iditarod. I expect all to take a real camp in Iditarod. All 5 of these teams should arrive in Iditarod around noon.
Ryan Redington is just 10 miles back, having taken his 24 in Ophir, and he seems to be headed straight to Iditarod too, likely arriving 1:30 pm-ish.
Then there's Brent Sass, already in Iditarod taking his 24. He can leave at 7:02pm. Compared to the teams coming off the 24, he made pretty good time going over to Iditarod, he was only 20 minutes slower from Ophir to the point where Dallas and Co are now.
So if we assume a 12-1pm arrival in Iditarod for these teams, they'll likely stay 4 hours, so 4-5 pm the departures will start.
While I've written this, Travis Beals appears to have passed Dallas, but their GPSs aren't updating on the same cycles, so it's impossible to tell for sure. When you see two GPS blips passing back and forth, it's actually one updating, then the other. The teams may pass once, but dog teams don't pass back and forth racing down the trail. Travis has been the fastest team, and it looks like Dallas stopped and let him by rather than let Travis draft of him.
I hope you weren't planning on getting any work done this week,
Danny

[Fool]

Iditarod Download, Day 5:

Current Top 5*:
*Positions are given by departure time from Iditarod, because the Iditarod tracker is stupid and doesn’t know how to deal with an out and back course, and I can’t do this much math at 9:00pm at night.

1. Dallas Seavey (Left 14:55)
2. Ryan Redington (Left 15:56)
3. Richie Diehl (Left 16:37)
4. Pete Kaiser (Left 16:41)
5. Joar Leifseth Ulsom (Left 16:44)

Brent Sass gets to leave Iditarod at 19:02. Travis Beals is likely taking his 8-hour mandatory at Iditarod and will be departing at 19:18. Wade Marrs and Jessie Royer have been at Iditarod for a couple of hours and will likely be departing around the same time as Brent and Travis (unless they too decide to take their 8-hour).

This isn’t even including the myriad of mushers in the chase pack, including Mille Porsild (can depart Iditarod 00:21), Aaron Peck (can depart Iditarod 00:54), and Nicolas Petit, Ramey Smyth, and Aaron Burmeister (all on the move and less than an hour outside of Iditarod).

In other words, it’s going to be a heck of a race.

Of that top group, only Ryan Redington has taken his 8-hour mandatory, meaning he could potentially cut a few hours off of any lead Dallas or the others have when they have to stop to take their mandatory 8-hours at one of the checkpoints up to and including Rohn.

In the chase pack, Travis Beals will likely have completed his 8-hour, Mille Porsild has as well (meaning that she has a good chance at getting within striking distance of the top group), as has Aaron Burmeister.

Now, that 8-hour mandatory can be, in the words of Dallas Seavey, “a weapon”. There’s still a lot of trail to go, and a long rest at some point before the final 8-hour mandatory rest at Skwentna could be a necessary boost to keep your team going at top speed through the end. If any of the crew that has already taken their mandatory needs to take another long rest on the trail, they’ve ceded that weapon. Any good musher knows that rest = speed, and with how bunched up the top group is, there’s going to be no margin of error for teams that drop off the pace.

Word on the street (actually straight from the mouth of Danny Seavey, that snitch) is that Dallas has been continuing to rest dogs in his sled even on the run over to Iditarod. That is very, very scary. The run back from Iditarod to McGrath/Ophir is going to be very interesting to keep an eye on. Dallas broke the run from McGrath to Iditarod into two roughly equal sections on the way out, and is likely to do something similar on the way back. Most of the rest of the top group rested for a short time in Ophir, and then put in longer rests closer to Iditarod, meaning they might break up the return trip with two rests as well, which could be to Dallas’s advantage. (Jessie Royer is on a similar schedule to Dallas - it’ll be interesting to see if this allows her to make up any time on that lead pack as they start re-tracing the trail.)

Estimated Ophir - Iditarod Run Times:

Ryan Redington: 8h 35m
Richie Diehl: 8h 58m
Pete Kaiser: 9h 5m
Dallas Seavey: 9h 12m
Travis Beals: 9h 14m
Jessie Royer: 9h 14m
Joar Leifseth Ulsom: 9h 23m
Mille Porsild: 9h 44m
Brent Sass: 10h 27m

Ryan Redington is FLYING down the trail right now. I keep waiting for him to crash and burn...but maybe this will be the year that everything comes together. If ever there was a year where a mid-distance mentality takes the race, it would be this one.

It looks like Brent Sass and Mille Porsild didn’t lose too much time coming all the way to Iditarod for their 24 - their run times were definitely slower, but that’s compared to a bunch of teams just off their 24-hour rest. Mille, especially, is putting together an excellent race - I wouldn’t be surprised to see her make a push for top five.

Of note, keep an eye on team sizes as the race nears the Alaska Range. A small team is not necessarily a disadvantage (and many mushers like Dallas Seavey will deliberately drop dogs closer to the finish to keep the average speed of their team up) but crossing over Rainey Pass once again will likely demand at least a certain amount of dog power that could put smaller teams at a disadvantage. Right now, both Ryan Redington and Travis Beals are down to 11 dogs.

I can’t wait to see what the next couple of days of racing holds. As Danny Seavey put it: “This is the closest Iditarod we've seen in a while. Last time Iditarod was a checkpoint (2019), there was a 5 hour gap between 1st and 4th. 2020 had 5 teams in 5 hours. This year we'll have 5 teams within one hour.” !!!

Quote of the Day:

“We knew it was a tent camp. We just thought it would be a tents camp.”

-Paige Drobny, remarking on the sparse accommodations at the Ophir checkpoints, where teams taking their 24-hour rest had to fight for space in the single heated arctic tent provided for the mushers.

"He (Dallas) looks trail hardened. When I look at his face, I'm like, "MAN!" That's what it takes to be first? Not that he's an ugly guy, OK, he's a good looking guy. Just saying he's got like chapped lips, whatever. Might want to put some chapstick on."

-Iditarod Musher and Dallas' Training Partner Sean Underwood's take after seeing Dallas in McGrath.

"The Gorge and Burn is nothing you can train for, you just hold on and hope for the best."

-Wade Marrs

"YOUR JACKET! YOur Jacket! HEY!!! HEYYYYYY!!!!"

-Multiple McGrath checkpoint volunteers, after Joar zoomed out of the dog yard in McGrath after his 24 and the coat he had sitting on the back of his sled seat flew off. The volunteers all LEPT into action--they were very concerned.

“My pocket was flaming, and I didn’t understand what’s going on because I just woken up.”

- Susannah Tuminelli. She was camping between the Nikolai and Rohn checkpoints when she woke up to her pocket on fire after a box of matches began to burn.

“It’s not a race. It’s a trip that I take every year.”

- Nicolas Petit (This helps me understand so much more about Nicolas Petit.)

“The outhouse is a bucket inside a fort made of hay bales and a tarp.”

-Zachariah Huges, Iditarod reporter. Please do yourself a favor and look at the picture of this beautiful creation here: https://twitter.com/ZachHughesNews/stat ... 2512029696 (If you zoom in real close on the “Musher Outhouse” paper plate sign it reads: “Taj Mahal” along the top and “Consider it the Red Monster of the Interior” along the bottom. I’m dying laughing.)

Odds and Ends:

-There’s a mushing video game! https://www.adn.com/alaska-life/2021/03 ... ilderness/
-This is an awesome news site to follow with a blog that will keep you in the loop about ALL the happenings of the Iditarod: https://www.alaskasnewssource.com/2021/ ... rod-trail/
-Gunnar Johnson was withdrawn from the race after testing positive for COVID-19. (He was apparently exposed by a dog handler he drove with on Friday before the race.) He apparently shared a tent with two others mushers, and race officials are trying to figure out who they were. (Uh oh…) Because of the positive test result, every musher will be re-tested when they arrive back in McGrath. https://www.adn.com/outdoors-adventure/ ... -positive/
-A common theme from mushers is they’re NOT looking forward to hitting the Burn again: https://www.adn.com/outdoors-adventure/ ... ats-ahead/

This is where the race really starts to shift into gear!

[dashdel]

Niece found this on FB I think...

So now Is the time in the race where it’s really hard to tell what is going on. Some of the lead mushers are just coming off their 24, some are in the middle of theirs and all at different points in the trail. Hard to really tell who is actually in the mix of this thing. I’ll make an attempt to shake things out but I may be totally wrong. The important thing is that Slippery Pete and Rowdy Rowdy Richie Diehl (™️ pending) pulled hooks one minute before 7pm in McGrath and are both about 3 miles out of Tokotna. This year TKT is not a checkpoint so they probably won’t be stopping for one of Tokotna’s famed beers and will blow right through there chasing down Travis Beals on Wheels, Joar “eating my curly fries” Ulsom, and Dallas “son of a Mitch” Seavy who had a couple stops between McG and TKT and times have been a bit off the pace of this lead group. Brent “Not Broken” Sass is still the only musher in Iditarod(The new turnaround spot) taking his 24. Even though they are still in Ophir Taking their 24s, I think the true leaders are still Ryan “ Locked Cocked and” Redington and Aaron “The Brewmaster” Burmeister. They have their 8’s done and are about 6 hours finishing their 24s. I would guess our 2021 winner will come from the 8 mushers mentioned above, but we know which ones we are pulling for. Victoria “The Frozen Candle” Hardwick checked into MCG in 40th for her 24. She has all 14 of her dogs and has been steadily moving along the trail. Things should be a lot more clear in the morning as mushers start to turn around and head back towards Deshka!! See you bright and early Couch Mushers!!

[fladogfan]

This is good dashdel, thank your niece for us.

[flowerpower]

Dallas 'son of a mitch' Seavey

gave me quite a chuckle!

[mira]

Ryan dropped one dog in Ophir and is down to 9 dogs. I really wonder how the return trip will be, over rainy pass, very different from the coast. Instead of rolling hills and the ice crossings and bad weather, this year it will be up the steps and gorge.

[Fool]

Iditarod Download, Day 6

Current Top 10:

1. Dallas Seavey (McGrath, Mile 553)
2. Brent Sass (McGrath)
3. Wade Marrs (McGrath)
4. Ryan Redington (McGrath)
5. Aaron Burmeister (McGrath)
6. Travis Beals (Mile 549)
7. Mille Porsild (Mile 542)
8. Michelle Phillips (Mile 542)
9. Richie Diehl (Mile 534)
10. Pete Kaiser (Mile 533)
11. Joar Leifseth Ulsom (Mile 530)
12. Jessie Royer (Mile 527)

As I type this, it looks like Dallas Seavey and Brent Sass are getting ready to leave McGrath. Of the top 10, however, Sass and Wade Marrs are the only ones who have yet to take their 8-hour mandatory rest, at which point they will both likely drop back in the standings at least a couple of places.

Dallas Seavey is really something else. There’s plenty of mushers right now who have awesome dog teams. There’s a bunch of mushers who are savvy, intelligent racers. But no one right now has put it all together the way Dallas has. There’s still 300 miles of racing to go, and a lot can happen in that time, but at this point I would truly be shocked if Dallas didn’t bring home his 5th Iditarod. He’s brought the art of racing to a level of efficiency that is unprecedented. To beat him you not only have to have a better dog team (hard) but also have to put together a near perfect race strategy (exceptionally hard), because you know he’s going to get just about everything possible out of his team once on the trail.

A great example of this is the loop from McGrath to Iditarod and back that all the mushers are currently completing. From McGrath to Iditarod is about 120 miles. Dallas Seavey split this into roughly 4-60 mile runs -- he stopped to rest past Ophir, then in Iditarod, then a bit before Ophir again. Most of the rest of the lead pack chose instead to stop in Ophir, a relatively short 40 mile run from McGrath, and then again before Iditarod, and then repeated these rests on the way back.

Going into McGrath for his 24-hour mandatory, Seavey had a roughly 1.5 hour lead on the chase pack of Pete Kaiser, Richie Diehl, and Joar Leifseth Ulsom. Just by managing his run-rest cycles better over the next 250 miles of trail, Seavey will be leaving McGrath roughly two hours before any of those three even arrive..and they’ll be a full rest cycle behind Seavey at that point.

Who even has a chance of catching him? Once Wade Marrs and Brent Sass take their 8-hour, they’re likely going to be 4-6 hours behind. Ryan Redington maybe has a shot - assuming he takes a 3-4 hour rest he’ll be leaving McGrath around 2 hours behind Dallas. But Ryan is down to 9 dogs and took his last substantial rest in Ophir on the way out--does his team have the strength to maintain this pace all the way to end, including what could be a brutal traverse back over the Alaska Range? Travis Beals arrived in McGrath just as Dallas was leaving, but looks to be settling in for a rest. And the next closest teams are an hour out.

It’s pretty crazy to me how much the complexion of this race changed over this last day and half. Dallas is either going to need to make a major mis-step--unlikely--or his competition is going to have to be focused on slowly trying to cut into his lead in the race to Skwentna. But cutting rest or running too long at this stage in the race is a dangerous game. The lead Dallas has built up at this point has put him in the driver’s seat, able to comfortably play to his strengths and with enough cushion to react to any moves other mushers may make.

In an interview in Iditarod, Dallas shared some fascinating insight into his mentality in the lead and what it’s like to have to play catch-up as this race reaches its final stages: “You feel pressure. You feel like you have to catch up. You feel like you have to do something big and bold and crazy ‘cause you think this machine is just going to keep on rolling and if you do schedule another 300 miles they’ll be 4 hours ahead and then you’re not going to catch ‘em. So one of the things I was hoping is people would do some crazy stuff leaving their 24, trying to catch up, and make ‘em a little easier to fight later. I don’t care if they catch up with me--I fully expect that they will--I just want them to be as weak as possible when they do.”

It got cold. Very cold.
Recorded temperatures in Ophir this morning was -50! Cold weather is better for the dogs, but that kind of cold is brutal on the mushers. Everybody looked super cold coming into Ophir. And apparently the propane stove in the musher’s tent ran out of fuel overnight. There’s an Insider video of Richie Diehl coming into Ophir and he sounds desperate for a warm cabin--and crushed when Bruce Lee had to tell them the cabin on site was NOT currently heated.

Quote of the Day:

Interviewer: “How do you deal with the cold?” Pete Kaiser: “You just sit there and shiver…”

“I couldn’t understand why my toes were so cold and then I hear it was 52-below and that would explain it.” -Joar Leifseth Ulsom

“Joar is hard to read right now.” -Bruce Lee “He’s always hard to read, though.” -Greg Heister

“My goal is always to win as easily as possible.” -Dallas Seavey

Odds and Ends:

-There’s now snow on the Farewell Burn! (At least for now…) This is GREAT news for the mushers: https://twitter.com/ZachHughesNews/stat ... 5337418754
-Dallas Seavey’s sweater is the new fashion trend. Fans are going crazy over Seavey’s sweater (https://twitter.com/JamesFrye/status/13 ... 68/photo/1), which was apparently a gift to him when he visited Norway to race in the Finnmarksløpet: https://twitter.com/lizzykat/status/1370511983053799431
-ADN always brings the best in Iditarod coverage. I’ve really been enjoying the articles from Zachariah Hughes this year: https://www.adn.com/outdoors-adventure/ ... n-traffic/

I’m going to close with another quote from Dallas Seavey:

“This portion coming up is definitely my favorite portion of the race. This is where we actually get to race finally. After all year of training. The first third of the race getting these guys into a routine and a habit. The second third of the race putting us into position. Now, the final third, we actually get to do it. So that’s kind of fun.”

This race could see a champion in two more days!