by elsietee » Tue Mar 07, 2023 10:42 pm
Liz Failor reporting that Kelly is taking his 24. <shrug> Who knows.
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Watching the front runners - Ryan and Richie have both opted to take a break in Takotna (their last "proper" break was in Nikolai, 63 miles ago), while Jessie and Brent have both gone through (their last breaks were 40 and 50 miles ago, respectively). Currently, Jessie has a 35 minute lead on Brent... except that Jessie is bib #2, while Brent is bib #14... what's the time difference between mushers starting? 2 mins? or 3 mins? So either 24 or 36 mins deficit...? so nothing in it really. Jessie has 22 miles to go to get to Ophir, while Brent has 26. What will be interesting is to see their relative run times between McGrath/Takotna and Takotna/Ophir - to see if they are losing speed from the long run.
Bruce Lee reporting that although Brent is down to 11 dogs, he still has a lot of power in there. I worried that the heat would really affect Brent's dog, but they did look good coming through Tak (I missed Jessie's team). Brent says he'll likely 24 in Ophir, but there's a slight possibility that he'll go on to Iditarod.
Pete Kaiser is due next - and Bruce says Pete's going to 24 at Tak, since that's where his food drop bags are.
The trail to Iditarod is possibly blown in (when they were reporting, the trailbreakers hadn't got there yet). Remember the year Joar had to bump over tussocks? It could be like that again.
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elsietee AT ponyhill DOT org
Repotted english person in the Sierra foothills, CA
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