March 15, 2005

• Another Iditablog

  
  (photo credit:  Al Grillo, The Associated Press) Sorlie and team outside Unalakleet
  Robert Sorlie, the Norwegian musher who won two years ago, is about
  three hours ahead of his closest competition out of Koyuk and Elim
  checkpoints.  He dropped a dog in Elim and is now down to
  eight.  John Baker and Mitch Seavey moved up into second and third
  place since the last time I checked the standings last night.

  
  (Photo credit:  Bob Hallinen, Anchorage Daily News)  Oh,
  yes, there’s a story to this one.  Dallas Seavey (youngest musher
  ever to run the Idiatarod, only one to run both Jr. Iditarod and
  Iditarod in the same year [this year]) turned eighteen the day before
  the race started.  His grandmother Shirley gave him the teddy bear
  for his birthday.  Teddy turned pirate on the trail.  Doesn’t
  the dog look like it just can’t believe it?

  Martin
  Buser dropped back into ninth place and left two more dogs in
  Koyuk.  He’s now down to seven, less than half the team he started
  with, and was almost seven hours behind Sorlie out of Koyuk.

  
  (photo credit:  Gabriel Spitzer, Alaska Public Radio Network)  Tyrell Seavey (Dallas’s older brother) checks into Grayling with his father Mitch’s “second
  string” team. [In latest standings, 10:23 AM AK Standard Time, Mitch is
  in third place with 11 dogs, Tyrell in thirteenth with nine dogs, and
  Dallas in 53rd with 14.  Running and training the puppy team,
  Dallas’s first priority is not speed but getting some experience on as
  many pups as possible.)
  
  This is the part of the race where some people’s strategies begin to
  come together and be evident and others fall apart.  Ramy Brooks
  had been pushing his team hard when he got to the Bering Sea coast,
  breezing through several checkpoints without rest.  Late last
  night he stopped for six hours in Koyuk and dropped a dog.  His
  team is now down to eleven and he is in fourth place.

  
  vets transporting dropped dogs from Unalakleet checkpoint to the airport

  Aliy Zirkle has moved into tenth place and Dee Dee Jonrow dropped back
  to twelfth.  Eighth place Doug Swingley’s time from Shaktoolik to
  Koyuk was faster than any of the other leaders’: just under five hours,
  averaging 11.8 MPH.  The two men of the Barron family are both
  running in the money now.  Jason is still in 30th place, with his
  father John in 29th and his wife Harmony in 31st in Shaktoolik.

  
  Paul Gebhardt and team between Unalakleet and Shaktoolik on the Bering Sea
  Gebhardt
  has the saddest story of this year’s race (so far).  One of his
  dogs, Rita, a 3-year-old female died Saturday of anemia associated with
  gastric ulcers.  Paul was in tears as he turned her body over to
  vet Bill Daly in Grayling.  He had rushed to her side when she
  fell and did CPR on her to no avail.  He is now out of Elim in
  seventh place.

  
  Nine-and-a-half-fingered Martin Buser opening a jar of paw-ointment for his dogs.

  Sandy McKee is still bringing up the rear, left Shageluk a couple of
  hours ago after spending 10 1/2 hours there.  About an hour and a
  half ago, Scdoris and her seeing-eye musher Ellering pulled into
  Grayling in 66th and 67th place.   For comparison, Sorlie
  passed through there about four days ago.

  (Note:  if you
  notice any conflicts in the standings listed here, such as more than
  one musher holding the same position, I’ve been working on this for
  more than three hours, checking standings frequently and changing my
  text where there have been changes, but I may have missed something.)
  

  • 3:51 pm
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