Little Delving
Beyond Here There Be Dragons
Like A Thief In The Night
Mar 10, 2006 07:16 PM Filed in:
Fun &
Interesting
Radical Move Rockets King To The Front
by Jon Little
Cabelas.com
March 9, 2006
Cripple, Alaska, Mar. 9, 2006, 3:00 p.m. – Jeff King made a bold move to not only make up time on Iditarod leader Doug Swingley, but pass him, running some 85 miles - more than 10 hours - from Takotna to this remote tent camp in the middle of nowhere.
King's team loped past the inflatable palm tree set up as a joke by checkpoint volunteers at 2:45 p.m., just under 11 hours since he was allowed to leave Takotna, where he took his mandatory 24-hour layover. That is simply flying. It's also unheard of.
King
immediately went to work pouring dry dog food on the ground for his
alert dogs that milled around and alertly looked around at
spectators. But King had enough time to acknowledge that this exact
run was in his mind the whole time, and it was why he pulled over
at Takotna. "I needed the trail," he said emphatically, staring at
me over the brim of his sunglasses with a furrowed brow.
A race veterinarian said the team looked sharp. Some of them just want to lay down when they come in here, said Paul Piefer of Toledo, Ohio. "Not this one."
King's stunt, rolling along without a campout all that way, has never been done in the modern history of the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race. Hard, fast conditions and an obviously healthy dog team set King up for the move. The question is, will it pay off the ultimate dividend of a victory? Will his team be able to match the pace of Doug Swingley's, once Swingley comes off his 24-hour layover with a rested, powerful team?
Swingley had been moving a little faster than King through the first half of the race. But he ran slower than King from Takotna to Cripple and took an extra four hours rest with a team that had yet to take its 24-hour layover. King pulled over early at Takotna. Swingley said the trail from Takotna to Ophir was drifted in and soft, slowing his 15 dogs down considerably. Then, trail breakers were only an hour or two ahead of him leaving Ophir, and the going was punchy and slow over freshly broken snow, he said.
Before King arrived, Swingley was well aware that his closest competitor in the race so far was going to show up a little earlier than anticipated. "Jeffy's making a move," he said. "We'll see how long he's going to rest. I know he's not going to keep up with me in this next stretch."
Swingley said his dogs were in excellent shape. Running slow doesn't hurt the team any; in fact, it can reduce some race-related injuries; but it does hurt the musher - time-wise, he pointed out. "They came in here barking and lunging. They're now just wondering what's up - what are we doing here?," Swingley said, indicating the dogs were ready to get up and run at 2 p.m., a full 12 hours before he was due to leave.
King's
team loped along the hard-packed white ribbon of trail along the
Innoko River valley through blinding sunshine and crystal clear
blue skies. It may have looked warm, but his day started at
temperatures in the 25-below range and crept up maybe to 10 above
by the time he arrived.
King's move puts him in first place. For how long? It depends how long he chooses to rest his team after the long run. Some guessed six hours. My hunch is he would stay eight hours after that push. That would have him out of Cripple at 10:45 p.m. about three hours ahead of Swingley.
One long-time observer of this race, the official Iditarod photographer Jeff Schultz, asked if King's team was the team to beat. I said, "I think there's two teams to beat, and one of them will take off out of here after a 24 with its own long run." Swingley didn't hesitate to give out his plan: Run straight to Ruby, take his mandatory eight-hour rest on the Yukon River, then break the Yukon River into two long runs, stopping to camp at Bishop Rock. From Kaltag, he'd run all the way to Unalakleet, and take it from there. That's Swingley's traditional plan. It's nothing radical, but it's mighty tough to match his pace, one has taken him to four Iditarod victories.
One of the mushers who was on the trail ahead of these two but still technically behind them, Paul Gebhardt, concurred with Swingley. He said the Yukon River stretch is where the front runners pull away from the pretenders.
There were some eight teams bedded down here, most of them arriving in the thick of the night when temperatures dropped to 45 below. Among them, Bjørnar Andersen, seemed resigned to his position - near the front but clearly not in the lead. He said Swingley's team looked like it might win, but he added that anything could happen with half the race to go. He was sticking to his race plan.
Swingley earned the Dorothy G. Page halfway award, good for $3,000 and a trophy for arriving at Cripple first. Gebhardt will probably be the first musher to reach Ruby, again claiming the Millennium Hotel First Musher to the Yukon Award. Gebhardt won that prize last year by following a similar strategy of running a long way before taking his 24. He finished 9th last year.
by Jon Little
Cabelas.com
March 9, 2006
Cripple, Alaska, Mar. 9, 2006, 3:00 p.m. – Jeff King made a bold move to not only make up time on Iditarod leader Doug Swingley, but pass him, running some 85 miles - more than 10 hours - from Takotna to this remote tent camp in the middle of nowhere.
King's team loped past the inflatable palm tree set up as a joke by checkpoint volunteers at 2:45 p.m., just under 11 hours since he was allowed to leave Takotna, where he took his mandatory 24-hour layover. That is simply flying. It's also unheard of.
A race veterinarian said the team looked sharp. Some of them just want to lay down when they come in here, said Paul Piefer of Toledo, Ohio. "Not this one."
King's stunt, rolling along without a campout all that way, has never been done in the modern history of the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race. Hard, fast conditions and an obviously healthy dog team set King up for the move. The question is, will it pay off the ultimate dividend of a victory? Will his team be able to match the pace of Doug Swingley's, once Swingley comes off his 24-hour layover with a rested, powerful team?
Swingley had been moving a little faster than King through the first half of the race. But he ran slower than King from Takotna to Cripple and took an extra four hours rest with a team that had yet to take its 24-hour layover. King pulled over early at Takotna. Swingley said the trail from Takotna to Ophir was drifted in and soft, slowing his 15 dogs down considerably. Then, trail breakers were only an hour or two ahead of him leaving Ophir, and the going was punchy and slow over freshly broken snow, he said.
Before King arrived, Swingley was well aware that his closest competitor in the race so far was going to show up a little earlier than anticipated. "Jeffy's making a move," he said. "We'll see how long he's going to rest. I know he's not going to keep up with me in this next stretch."
Swingley said his dogs were in excellent shape. Running slow doesn't hurt the team any; in fact, it can reduce some race-related injuries; but it does hurt the musher - time-wise, he pointed out. "They came in here barking and lunging. They're now just wondering what's up - what are we doing here?," Swingley said, indicating the dogs were ready to get up and run at 2 p.m., a full 12 hours before he was due to leave.
King's move puts him in first place. For how long? It depends how long he chooses to rest his team after the long run. Some guessed six hours. My hunch is he would stay eight hours after that push. That would have him out of Cripple at 10:45 p.m. about three hours ahead of Swingley.
One long-time observer of this race, the official Iditarod photographer Jeff Schultz, asked if King's team was the team to beat. I said, "I think there's two teams to beat, and one of them will take off out of here after a 24 with its own long run." Swingley didn't hesitate to give out his plan: Run straight to Ruby, take his mandatory eight-hour rest on the Yukon River, then break the Yukon River into two long runs, stopping to camp at Bishop Rock. From Kaltag, he'd run all the way to Unalakleet, and take it from there. That's Swingley's traditional plan. It's nothing radical, but it's mighty tough to match his pace, one has taken him to four Iditarod victories.
One of the mushers who was on the trail ahead of these two but still technically behind them, Paul Gebhardt, concurred with Swingley. He said the Yukon River stretch is where the front runners pull away from the pretenders.
There were some eight teams bedded down here, most of them arriving in the thick of the night when temperatures dropped to 45 below. Among them, Bjørnar Andersen, seemed resigned to his position - near the front but clearly not in the lead. He said Swingley's team looked like it might win, but he added that anything could happen with half the race to go. He was sticking to his race plan.
Swingley earned the Dorothy G. Page halfway award, good for $3,000 and a trophy for arriving at Cripple first. Gebhardt will probably be the first musher to reach Ruby, again claiming the Millennium Hotel First Musher to the Yukon Award. Gebhardt won that prize last year by following a similar strategy of running a long way before taking his 24. He finished 9th last year.