Yay teams - they really did good this year, dealing with the cold - even the ones that dropped out (so difficult when you're trained to "not be a wussy" to know "ok, that's enough". Kudos to them for recognizing it).
As far as Paige - it's SO hard to balance racing, versus keeping your dogs within their capabilities when you're looking at a 1000 mile race. They feel so great, they want to go... until they suddenly don't - and you have no way of knowing when that balance point is tipping, since I suspect it goes in tiny increments. And mental motivation has as much to do with it as physical ability. Maybe it all comes down to having an excellent lead dog that will get up and go no matter what - and the rest of the team will follow. You kind of have to have a dog that's a little bit crazy, a little bit one-track, all they want to do is GO DOWN THE TRAIL. Whereas if you get one dog that "doesn't wanna" and suddenly the whole team join him.
It's the same in any endurance sport - how to go as fast as you can without going too fast.
(which is why I seldom race when I do my horse distance rides - I have no idea how to
race, but I can
ride 100 miles
).