This is Anna’s 13th time on the Iditarod trail, and thus my 13th stint as Mad Blogger for Seeing Double. It’s not my first rodeo! But it never fails… one or both of the twins get to this point in the race and it’s so easy to look at the map and think, “oh! So close to the finish!” But when Anna and her dogs left their most recent checkpoint, Elim, they still had 123 miles to go. 123 miles… That is not “close.” It is over 12% of the race.
We last left Anna and her team mushing across the sea ice between Shaktoolik and Koyuk. She ultimately spent about 6 hours mushing the 50 miles between checkpoints, arriving in KYK on Tuesday before 5pm. Note, I had an error in my prior post. She didn’t pull out of Shak at 4am - she arrived there at that time. She hit the trail out of KYK at 10:44am. Just in case I confused anyone.
Right. So she arrived in KYK just before 5pm. She gave the dogs and herself a seven hour rest and pulled her snow hook at 5 minutes to midnight. She retained 9 dogs in front of her sled. She also retained 21st place.
Anna spent the wee hours of Wednesday morning mushing the 48 miles from Koyuk to Elim, arriving there just before 6am. She stayed six hours and, during that time, opted to return Diego home. She sent a brief text explaining that Diego seemed to have a sore left pectoral muscle and she couldn’t ask him to go any farther. Even if he wanted to, which he likely did. I know it is hard on Anna to have returned as many dogs as she has this year. She’s absolutely doing the right thing by each dog, and it isn’t so much hard physically on Anna as it is mentally. You hate to see a teammate benched. You second guess the decisions you made up to that point - what did I do wrong? What should I have done better? Maybe you learn something and make a change in the future. Maybe there are no clear answers or lessons.
I’ve heard it said that the windshield of a car is so very much bigger than the rearview mirror because it is what is in front of you that is really important. Kinda makes sense. It’s not that what’s back there doesn’t count. You simply can’t change it, so why not focus most of your attention on what’s ahead…?!
Anna pulled out of Elim at 12:01pm Wednesday, March 13th. After returning Diego, she has 8 dogs: Shoshanna, Mayhem, Astro, Platinum, Havoc, Rampage, Trout, and Elmer. They have a 46 mile run to White Mountain (via Golovin, which isn’t an official checkpoint). Anna and the pups will then take their final mandatory 8 hour rest in WM before mushing 55 miles to Safety and then a final 22 miles to Nome.
Which brings me to my annual finish prediction…! Looking at her run times from Elim to the finish in 2023, 2022, and 2019 (as 2021 was the Gold Trail Loop and 2020 was the only year either of the twins scratched from the race), I figure she’ll need about 7 hours to run from Elim to White Mountain, plus her 8-hour rest in WM, plus 7 hours to run from WM to Safety, and another 3 to run from Safety to Nome… that’s 25 hours. She left Elim around noon on Wednesday… I put her into Nome around 1pm Alaska time Thursday, March 14th. Please remember to convert that to your own time zone and keep an eye on the Iditarod Insider GPS tracker if you intend to catch her live finish online.
Speaking of finishes… this feels like old news by this point, but I have to congratulate Dallas Seavey for claiming the Iditarod 2024 championship! Dallas pulled under the burled arch Tuesday, March 12th, with 10 dogs in front of his sled after 9 days, 2 hours, 16 minutes and 8 seconds on the trail. This is his sixth Iditarod championship, making history as the musher with the most first place finishes ever. Dallas was in lucky Bib #7.
Less than five hours after Dallas arrived, fans in Nome welcomed Matt Hall in second place. Rounding out the top five finishers was Jessie Holmes, Jeff Deeter, and Paige Drobny. Travis Beals, who was in the lead throughout much of the early race, arrived 6th. Our top 11 finishers all completed the race with a 9-day handle this year.
As I try and wrap up this post, we have a total of 13 finishers into Nome and 18 racing. Our scratch tally has increased by one to a total of 7 scratched. Rookie Calvin Daugherty, from Alaska, ended his race in Shaktoolik. He had to scratch after one of his dogs, named Henry, collapsed outside of Shak. It pains me to report that, despite attempts to revive the dog, he did not survive. A necropsy will be performed and further investigations as necessary. As far as I know, no additional information has been released with respect to the two prior dogs, Bog and George.
Which means, in my realm of Iditarod statistics, I must raise the dog death tally to 3 for this year. I hope, desperately hope, that is the final one. There hasn’t been a dog fatality in the Iditarod since 2019, and I really hate having to spend any time on this column of the aforementioned spreadsheet!
And I cannot end this post on such a solemn note. With love in my heart for Bog, George, and Henry ~ I must return us to the trail. One fun tidbit for you before I go… starting in Unalakleet, any dog returned by a musher is shuttled on to Nome, rather than flown back to Anchorage. Diego is the only dog Anna has returned since UNA, so he’ll actually beat those still out on the trail into Nome. Add to that, Kristy flew to Nome yesterday! She and Diego will be so very excited to be reunited with Anna and the rest of the dogs Thursday afternoon.
Seeing Double Iditarod 2024 Playlist…
Song 12: Runnin’ Down A Dream by Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers.
We last left Anna and her team mushing across the sea ice between Shaktoolik and Koyuk. She ultimately spent about 6 hours mushing the 50 miles between checkpoints, arriving in KYK on Tuesday before 5pm. Note, I had an error in my prior post. She didn’t pull out of Shak at 4am - she arrived there at that time. She hit the trail out of KYK at 10:44am. Just in case I confused anyone.
Right. So she arrived in KYK just before 5pm. She gave the dogs and herself a seven hour rest and pulled her snow hook at 5 minutes to midnight. She retained 9 dogs in front of her sled. She also retained 21st place.
Anna spent the wee hours of Wednesday morning mushing the 48 miles from Koyuk to Elim, arriving there just before 6am. She stayed six hours and, during that time, opted to return Diego home. She sent a brief text explaining that Diego seemed to have a sore left pectoral muscle and she couldn’t ask him to go any farther. Even if he wanted to, which he likely did. I know it is hard on Anna to have returned as many dogs as she has this year. She’s absolutely doing the right thing by each dog, and it isn’t so much hard physically on Anna as it is mentally. You hate to see a teammate benched. You second guess the decisions you made up to that point - what did I do wrong? What should I have done better? Maybe you learn something and make a change in the future. Maybe there are no clear answers or lessons.
I’ve heard it said that the windshield of a car is so very much bigger than the rearview mirror because it is what is in front of you that is really important. Kinda makes sense. It’s not that what’s back there doesn’t count. You simply can’t change it, so why not focus most of your attention on what’s ahead…?!
Anna pulled out of Elim at 12:01pm Wednesday, March 13th. After returning Diego, she has 8 dogs: Shoshanna, Mayhem, Astro, Platinum, Havoc, Rampage, Trout, and Elmer. They have a 46 mile run to White Mountain (via Golovin, which isn’t an official checkpoint). Anna and the pups will then take their final mandatory 8 hour rest in WM before mushing 55 miles to Safety and then a final 22 miles to Nome.
Which brings me to my annual finish prediction…! Looking at her run times from Elim to the finish in 2023, 2022, and 2019 (as 2021 was the Gold Trail Loop and 2020 was the only year either of the twins scratched from the race), I figure she’ll need about 7 hours to run from Elim to White Mountain, plus her 8-hour rest in WM, plus 7 hours to run from WM to Safety, and another 3 to run from Safety to Nome… that’s 25 hours. She left Elim around noon on Wednesday… I put her into Nome around 1pm Alaska time Thursday, March 14th. Please remember to convert that to your own time zone and keep an eye on the Iditarod Insider GPS tracker if you intend to catch her live finish online.
Speaking of finishes… this feels like old news by this point, but I have to congratulate Dallas Seavey for claiming the Iditarod 2024 championship! Dallas pulled under the burled arch Tuesday, March 12th, with 10 dogs in front of his sled after 9 days, 2 hours, 16 minutes and 8 seconds on the trail. This is his sixth Iditarod championship, making history as the musher with the most first place finishes ever. Dallas was in lucky Bib #7.
Less than five hours after Dallas arrived, fans in Nome welcomed Matt Hall in second place. Rounding out the top five finishers was Jessie Holmes, Jeff Deeter, and Paige Drobny. Travis Beals, who was in the lead throughout much of the early race, arrived 6th. Our top 11 finishers all completed the race with a 9-day handle this year.
As I try and wrap up this post, we have a total of 13 finishers into Nome and 18 racing. Our scratch tally has increased by one to a total of 7 scratched. Rookie Calvin Daugherty, from Alaska, ended his race in Shaktoolik. He had to scratch after one of his dogs, named Henry, collapsed outside of Shak. It pains me to report that, despite attempts to revive the dog, he did not survive. A necropsy will be performed and further investigations as necessary. As far as I know, no additional information has been released with respect to the two prior dogs, Bog and George.
Which means, in my realm of Iditarod statistics, I must raise the dog death tally to 3 for this year. I hope, desperately hope, that is the final one. There hasn’t been a dog fatality in the Iditarod since 2019, and I really hate having to spend any time on this column of the aforementioned spreadsheet!
And I cannot end this post on such a solemn note. With love in my heart for Bog, George, and Henry ~ I must return us to the trail. One fun tidbit for you before I go… starting in Unalakleet, any dog returned by a musher is shuttled on to Nome, rather than flown back to Anchorage. Diego is the only dog Anna has returned since UNA, so he’ll actually beat those still out on the trail into Nome. Add to that, Kristy flew to Nome yesterday! She and Diego will be so very excited to be reunited with Anna and the rest of the dogs Thursday afternoon.
Seeing Double Iditarod 2024 Playlist…
Song 12: Runnin’ Down A Dream by Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers.