March 21, 2011

  • The Iditarod is Over!

    I’m late, you say?  The Last Great Race ended on Tuesday, with John Baker’s record-breaking time of 8 days, 18 hours, 46 minutes, 39 seconds, you think?  Everyone in the know knows that’s not so.  Each year, Iditarod ends when the last musher into Nome puts out the Widow’s Lamp and wins the Red Lantern trophy.

    This year, it was Ellen Halverson, finishing in 13 days, 19 hours, 45 minutes and 49 seconds, to capture a record of her own:  only musher to have won the Red Lantern twice.  She wasn’t pleased about that, said it isn’t supposed to be that way.  If it was me, I think I’d be consoling myself that I’d beaten 3 out of Rick Swenson’s 5 winning times – he holds the record for most championships.

    She also beat Libby Riddle’s time when she became the first female Iditarod Champion in 1985, but everyone in the know knows that Libby’s time of 18 days + had nothing to do with speed.  Libby won because she had trained her team in the Nome area, they knew their way home, and she had the courage to leave a pack of more prudent men behind and venture into a blinding snowstorm.

    This year, Ellen beat her own Red Lantern finish from her rookie year by over 2 days.  She also beat Joe May’s record-breaking championship time from 1980, as well as every winning time from the Iditarods before 1980, so although coming in last might not mean much to somebody who has finished the Iditarod, it means a great deal to one like me, who hasn’t a hope in hell of ever even starting one.

Comments (6)

Post a Comment

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *