Iditarod’s Race Insider
The Iditarod, Alaska’s premier sled dog race, begins March 3, 2007. Starting in Anchorage, the trail courses over the Alaska Range on old trade and mining routes, follows on the Yukon River through the Interior, then portages to the Bering Sea Coast at the Eskimo village of Unalakleet for the final 260 miles across wind blown treeless tundra and ocean ice to the old gold mining town of Nome.
Rules allow a maximum of 16 sled dogs, all of which are examined and monitored during the race by a team of veterinarians. Musher are allowed by the rules to position dog food and gear along the trail at twenty some checkpoints and villages before the start of the race. Once the race begins, the musher, following the traditions of the North, must take sole responsibility for the care and management of the team. No outside help is allowed.
In total, the Iditarod trail is about 1150 miles. Jeff King won the 2006 Iditarod in a time of 9 Days 11 Hours 11 Minutes 36 Seconds. Martin Buser and his Alaskan husky team of Big Lake, Alaska established the record in 2002 of 8 days, 22 hours, 46 minutes and 2 seconds.
Eighty-two mushers have announced intentions to run the 35th edition of the 2007 Iditarod. The annual migration to the March 3 start in Anchorage—–beginning with pick-up trucks with their unmistakable “dog boxes” and dog hauler trailers converging on downtown Fourth Avenue—- corresponds with a pre-race media frenzy of Iditarod insiders attempting to predict the year’s front-runners. With an abundance of competitive teams and experienced mushers established all across North America and Europe, it brings the true fan to an interesting question.
The remarkable Alaskan husky, the forty-five to fifty-five pound dynamo of power and endurance, is widely available. In addition, the science of training and caring for these biological masterpieces that travel effortlessly 150 miles per day and consume a whopping 10,000kcal of high fat foods on the race trail is well documented. Even more, the adventurous lore of the race and the competitive intrigue and complicated strategy of the race attract the inveterately consumed and dedicated competitor. It would seem that the sheer numbers of competitive kennels and mushers would make pre-race predictions meaningless. Is it even worth the effort to contemplate the outcome amongst the numbers of mushers who could prevail and win?
The answer is MAYBE—and I will tell you why. Over the last 15 years, an undeniable trend has developed. Jeff King (’93, ‘96, 98′, and ‘06), Doug Swingley (’95, ‘99, ‘00, and ‘01), and Martin Buser (’92, ‘94, ‘97, ‘02) have combined to win twelve times—-at four wins each. In addition, Robert Sorlie, the hard marching Norwegian who flies his team across the Atlantic just one week before the race, has won two out of his three Iditarod outings in 2003 and 2005 and is a mushing phenomenon.
The only intruder in the last fifteen years into this group of winners is the consistent Mitch Seavey (2004) of Sterling, Alaska.
This looming reunion in 2007 of four Iditarod multi-champions, a match of wizened competitors, is something more than a battle of wits, strategy, and preparation for intrigued observers. Ultimately, the true fan wonders what makes these four competitors, even in their unconscious mannerisms and actions, the elite of animal trainers. The Iditarod is the transparent test of men and woman and the working animal—stripped of gimmicks, and technicalities—the race is the perfect diamond, the essence of the relationship of humans and their working animals.
To travel 1100 miles of Alaska in nine days with a team of Alaskan is considerably more than sit, roll-over, and fetch, for the biggest challenge of the musher is to create a mind set where animal and man are in confident equanimity to travel 150 miles a day, and do it day after day. For the reader who enjoys a philosophical sub-plot, the Iditarod is more about saving energy than expending it, and a calm and confident strategy will always outlast a frantic scramble to the front.
Why is this the year for a real battle amongst these four sled dog elites? King is on top of his game with a win in 2006, and as we will discover, motivated to mop up again in 2007. Swingley, ambivalent about racing after his 2001 victory, spent a couple of years out of serious competition. However, he has put his kennel and full attention back on full track to win a race in 2007. Buser, known for meteoric success and failure, finished 23rd in 2006, and is primed for one of his redeeming rocket launches to the top. The inscrutable Robert Sorlie, frustrated by the financial obstacles of transporting a team from Norway to North America, has only been able to race on the odd years. This year, however, he is sponsored in Norway and free from his job as a firefighter at Oslo International to completely concentrate on the 2007 race.
King, Buser, Swingley, and Sorlie will all come to the start line on March 3, 2007 uncompromised. All four are preparing and training in their unique way to bring their best effort to this year’s Iditarod. For insiders, the 2007 Iditarod is a dream team race, show casing magnificent sled dogs, calculated strategies, and exceptional mushers.
While it can be said that all mushers gauge their competition, I think generally that the top mushers, the great trainers, operate in their own sphere of influence, indifferent to the rumors of training miles, speculation, and strategy of other mushers. They are absorbed in their own methods and feelings— rehearsed after years of experience to follow only their instincts. Ultimately, the primary goal is to establish the undeniable connection between animal and human that characterize all great animal trainers.
Robert Sorlie, the Norwegian champ, is said to be methodical—-a marcher, a trotter—prepared to travel long hours with abbreviated rest, with a psychological preference to lead the race. Despite the fact that his team travels slower than the speed balls of the trail, some theorize, his mental grit, and toughness has enabled him and team to hold on to an early lead and prevail to win in 2003 and 2005. Many race pundits believe that he can be beaten by speed with a faster team taking longer rests.
Here, I have to disagree. I had a chance to follow Robert in 2003 and 2005 at the front of the race and to visit him at his home in Norway this September ‘06. While it is true that he is not hesitant to turn his team loose for a ten or even twelve-hour run, if necessary, and rest only five to eight hours, he is not racing this way because his team is slow. Over the years, he has come to understand that an easy traveling team actually is physiologically more efficient over long distances.
Generally, long distance mushers have learned that equal rest and equal run—-normally 6 hours of effort on the trail and 6 hours of rest can be sustained for days and hundreds of miles. However, the Norwegian Robert Sorlie considers his team of huskies, traveling easily for 8 hours and resting five or six hours, to be more resilient than a team traveling faster, for example, with a six hour run/rest schedule.
In fact, Robert told me that his best teams were ones trained at very slow speeds, often breaking trails through wooded forest on the outskirts of Oslo. He also added that he felt they genetically had the same potential for speed as his competitors.
Sorlie will be dangerous competition this year. In partnership with two other top long distance kennels in Norway, he chose his team of super stars last spring. He now has the freedom to devote this winter to strictly training a team of eighteen selected dogs. Sorlie, the former champion wrestler, is personally working out hard—lifting weights, running, and biking. He has two very impressive Iditarod wins and now understands the trail. He flew the trail as a tourist in 2006 and carefully studied mushers and strategy. His admitted weakness—efficiency in checkpoints-will certainly be improved after closely studying King, Buser, and Swingley. As a goal, he will plan to arrive at a checkpoint, and in less than 20 minutes provide straw beds for his huskies, remove nylon booties that protect the dog’s feet from abrasive crystallized snow, snack the dogs with frozen meat and fat, and have his alcohol cooker ignited and melting snow for the main meal—a hot water extravaganza of specially prepared commercial kibble and high quality meats and fat.
As a trainer, he is remarkable. In the summer, he will simply lounge around the dog yard for hours, petting each husky, moving from dog to dog in leisurely mental discussions. He has an ability to focus the attention of the team, has a team of interchangeable leaders, and an uncanny ability to maintain their confidence. Watching him race in difficult situations, you can almost hear a dialogue with his team. “Relax, just eat, and get some sleep. Everything is ok. I’ll take care of you.” Moreover, the dogs, flawlessly, believe him, and with out hesitation or anxiety, get off their beds several hours later and leave at a brisk trot.
The gregarious and consistently smiling and happy Robert Sorlie is assisted in Norway by a sophisticated team of supporters that designs his dog food, and formulates a race strategy. While I was visiting last fall, friends were even monitoring heart rates of his dogs in an attempt to balance the working efforts of the huskies. Individually, however, he is a raw competitor, counting on his instincts and feelings to guide him—attributes that are difficult to define or mimic.
In 2005, he led the race to Ophir, but then was confronted with an abysmal trail of soft snow. He and team broke trail for fourteen hours to the next checkpoint at the gold town of Iditarod-about mid-way on the race trail. Undismayed by this huge effort, Sorlie and team rested then went on to win the race, proving the adage “if the mind dares to go, the body will follow.”
Martin Buser, the four-time champ, has developed a sardonic appreciation of his dramatic up and down career. He is capable of an abysmal, perplexing performance, followed by a brilliant victory, like the one in 2002, when his team, known for outrageous demonstrations of enthusiasm and speed, set an Iditarod record of 8 days, 22 hours, 46 minutes, and two seconds. In 2006, Martin dismayed his coterie of fans with a 23rd finish.
Doug Swingley told me, “Well, it’s time again for Buser to uncork a good run.” I asked Martin on Nov. 21, ‘06 about this year’s team and if he could sense something special. He told me it was an essentially new group of dogs. He called them the “Rah, Rah, Boys” because their exuberance and penchant for speed was at an elevated level.
On a philosophical plane, Martin Buser is at his best when he tries to understand the lessons of success and disappointment. He is a hard worker and totally invested in his commitment to a chaotic exhibition of speed—-in fact, the fastest ever on the Iditarod trail. Yet, and this is the genius of his training, it can be remarkably controlled. He trains and races without necklines, regularly turns his dogs free, and casually calls his 45 to 55 lb swifts back to him—despite their unbounded exuberance. His actions around the dogs are always designed to create an atmosphere of willing action. Martin answers the phone like he trains, “Happy Trails Kennels.” Make no mistake; his calling card is speed on the trail and unbridled enthusiasm to travel.
“After twenty-five years of racing,” he told me, “the dogs reflect my likes and dislikes and mimic my idiosyncrasies.” Buser is consistent, experienced, probably the best of the top mushers in checkpoint efficiency, and understands the feel of a winning dog team. Winning, Martin advises, is “done at an unspoken level.”
Here is my take. Buser is waiting and preparing patiently for the magic of a great ride. It does not happen every year—-training and mental attitude must combine perfectly. If it DOES happen, and this team of specially bred Alaskan Huskies suddenly puts it in overdrive on the 50 mile run from Nikolai to McGrath, about a third of the way through the race, leaving a vapor mist for his competitors, Martin Buser could very easily be the Five Time 2007 Champ. It will also be a spectacular demonstration, as Buser has never deviated from a strategy of overwhelming speed.
Doug Swingley, the four times Champ, won his last Iditarod in 2001-elevating the sport to a new level. With three straight wins in ‘99, 2000, and ‘01, his kennel and strategy was unrivaled. Peppy and Stormy, the foundation stock of his durable line of Alaskan Huskies, were the franchise players of the best sled dog team in the world. Then, after monumental focus and concentration, Doug understandably decided to throttle back his racing efforts. He essentially evaporated from the upper Iditarod echelon from 2002 to 2005, ostensibly retired from mushing.
However, in 2006, Swingley reappeared. His trademark tactic is a display of strength just as the trail approaches the Yukon River. His team will steam roll the trail at an alternating trot and lope for eight or nine hours, take a short four hour rest, and travel for another eight hours, leaving the competition behind. Mushers remember him as the apparition to the front of the race about the time the trail reaches the Yukon, never seen again until Nome.
The reinvented Swingley decided to revitalize his career and set to challenge the field. His second place finish behind Jeff King in 2006 was tacit proof that he was again prepared to race. Race insiders noted that he had prepared an entirely new team in the interim since his last competitive effort in 2001.
I called Doug on Oct. 19, ‘06. The Montana musher, who grew up on a ranch, is literally back in the saddle, quite prepared to dominate the Iditarod, and as pragmatic as ever. An excellent horseman, Doug has been riding his Polish Arabs in competitive distance rides through the summer. Fooling with the horses, he told me, “put me in great shape for the dogs this fall.”
Asked about strategy, he explained that genetics is the foundation of performance. Here, I think, is Swingley’s strongest asset. Maybe it’s his ranch background, his grandfather and father’s insistence on well bred horses and cattle, but this is Swingley in a word— Genetics. Of the genetic priorities Doug appreciates, the most important is “recovery,” the ability to quickly bounce back from hard work after a short rest. His superstars also have huge appetites and the physiological efficiency to consume mountains of calorie rich food. At some point in the race, Swingley will challenge the field with a giant run, usually from the Iditarod or Cripple Checkpoint to the Yukon—a genetic statement, classically Swingley.
Asked about innovations and training methods, Doug summarized his no gimmick training program. “There are limits, physical limits,” he responded when I asked him about extra long distance training programs reportedly used by some mushers this year. I do not think Swingley is going to change his winning program one iota. His winter will consist of three stages. The first occurs in the fall with rigorous conditioning at slow speeds on hills, the second is a duplication of racing conditions with long, fast 100-mile runs at 13 to 14 miles per hour on soft heavy trails in the eastern Montana Rockies, and the third is a recuperation period of rest and short training runs before the Iditarod in early March.
In training, he has no favorites, and the team is meticulously prepared. All the dogs take their rotation as leader at the front of the team and can take voice commands to the left or right, and importantly, pass another dog team with a surge of power.
Swingley is back on track. Put a check by this four-time champion on your racing form. His strong points are genetic superiority of the dogs, strength on the hills (probably the best hill team over the Alaska Range), and like Sorlie, a psychological inclination to control the front of the race. Take note, Swingley prefers a position at the front of the race.
At the pinnacle of our elite Pyramid of mushers resides the 2006 champ (and 4X winner), Jeff King. Key concepts guide King in his pursuit of excellence and a fifth Iditarod win in 2007. First, above a certain level of good genetic quality, King maintains, “it’s not the dogs—but it’s what we’re doing with them. Why is it,” he asked me rhetorically, “can great football coaches go from team to team and bring out the excellence of that team?” The answer, of course, is preparation, and that is his commitment. In fact, it may be the reason why we are once again favoring Buser, Swingley, Sorlie, and King while we all acknowledge that many challengers have the raw genetics of top running huskies to do battle with our front four.
To this end, Jeff King has made a commitment for 2007. “It just killed me (after winning the Iditarod) to let the team get out of shape. I had to figure out a way to maintain conditioning for 2007.” This is the second guiding concept for 2007. Rather than allowing the conditioning and training of his winning 2006 team to diminish over the summer, he has kept his dogs in shape by regularly swimming them in a small lake located on his property. Buoyed by an innovative towline of floats, the dogs swim for an hour or more, burning enough calories to duplicate winter training. King knows it absolutely because the dogs are eagerly consuming race rations of food in summer weather. Another indicator, “Instead of barking all night, they are sound asleep,” King told me.
In addition, he has invested in equipment that duplicates a high altitude atmosphere and has been applying techniques now used by thousands of human athletes. A controlled group of dogs is spending 6 to 7 hours a day at a duplicated 9,000 ft. oxygen level, and training by day with the team. His friend, animal researcher Dr. Arleigh Reynolds, is closely following the results.
Naturally, we are all intrigued. Jeff told me that the summer conditioning was an immediate benefit and obvious when land training began this fall. “We’ve never trained the dogs as long and as hard.” In fact, King already trained 150-mile runs, with breaks, in November. These runs, which duplicate race conditions, are followed by three or four day rest breaks for complete recovery. Furthermore, training runs in November have been 40 or more miles. On November 27, King told me, “Where they were and where they are now is just staggering.”
The O2 technology, while widely regarded as a definite benefit for human athletes, is harder to gauge for the sled dogs. While Dr. Reynolds has been able to measure laboratory differences between the dogs sleeping at altitude and the control group housed as usual, Jeff told me that he could not see the differences in training. However, all though the percent advantage is small, it may be that it could be significant in a race situation when the dogs are really asked to perform.
Beyond the merits of the O2 technology, I believe it is King’s willingness to test new ideas that ultimately gives him the advantage. Without consciously realizing it, he is certainly applying the same mentality to other aspects of his training.
I reminded Jeff that we did some interviews prior to the 2006 race for a television documentary about the Iditarod, and, at that time, he felt the team was special. His assessment for 2007? The complete 2006 team is returning and considered individually as candidates for the 2007 team along with a promising group of two year olds. The oldest dog is only seven, and Salem, his super leader, will be at his prime at age six by race time. This is not good news for his competitors who are at the moment playing catch up with last year.
Over King’s long racing career, I have always regarded him as one of the best “buyers” in the business. He races incessantly, sees and observes many dogs, and was not afraid to trust his judgment and purchase key animals. For the last several years, however, King’s kennel has been built from with-in and he does not supplement the team with purchased dogs. “Every single dog in the team is one we have raised—-”and, of course, prepared in King’s grand vision for the team.
King likes team speed, but is characteristically conservative in the first several days of the race and will stand on the brake, if that is what it takes, to keep his team at a controllable velocity. For the remainder of the race he could have the fastest team on the trail. King is the undimished 2006 Champ and a clear favorite for 2007. I will be curious to watch strategic moves as King and team draw near Takotna, the pivotal interior checkpoint. Will he advance with Swingley and Sorlie, who will almost certainly go to Iditarod or the Yukon River for a 24-hour mandatory rest, or will he stop in Takotna, and calculate as he did in 2006 that the superior conditioning of his team would vault him to the front in the second half of the race?
Of course, this inordinate preoccupation with Sorlie, Buser, Swingley, and King is sure to excite the emotions of worthy challengers and their raucous supporters reading this article. “What about my musher!” Let me emphasize the challenge. To beat these four front runners, Paul Gebhardt, Dee Jonrowe, John Baker, Ed Iten, Jason Barron, Mitch Seavey, Lance Mackey, and Jessie Royer, to name a few, will have to race with an independent zeal. It is not good enough to shadow one of the front four, hoping to pass a faltering team in the final stage of the race. If King fades, Swingley, Buser, and Sorlie will be there to aggressively fill the niche. A challenger needs to begin the race with a clear strategy, test the field of competitors on selected runs, and accept the heavy responsibility of taking control of the front of the race and defend it. This is the quantum leap of a new champion, the willingness to seize control of the race as Swingley, Sorlie, Buser, and King, that a competitor must be prepared to take to win Iditarod 2007.
Finally, as a dubious bonus for the reader still with us, I offer my vision for the dedicated race fan. For the last two years, I have had the great fortune to ride in a TV crew helicopter for the entire 1100 miles of race trail. We follow the front of the pack and watch the teams travel daily.
In a nutshell, day one and day two are totally inconclusive with so many beautifully traveling teams. It is impossible to form opinions. I will say, however, that King and Swingley in 2006 were definitely distinguished from the air—so smooth and powerful traveling on the shoulders of the Alaska Range. The first defining moment, for me, is to watch the teams arrive in Rohn River on the north side of the Alaska Range. Here, after passing over the Alaska Range and descending the Dalzell Gorge, a technically difficult defile that brings the teams to the huge basin of the Yukon River drainage, the fan gets the first sense of a team starting to control the race and the lead pack defining itself.
The next two hundred miles to Takotna, an isolated mining village is largely posturing, but at Takotna, the front-runners must commit to a strategy and display strength. This is one of my favorite Iditarod interludes—-the musher either shuts the engines of the huskies down and rests in Takotna or continues over long rolling hills of brush and sparse stunted black spruce to Iditarod, the half-way point, or even the Yukon for a 24-hour mandatory rest required by the Iditarod rules. This is a big decision, tempered by planning and current weather and trail conditions that can make or break the race.
The trail is complicated by the strategic thrusts and jabs of competitors who take a gamble and shorten a rest break or take an extra long run of 8 or ten hours on the Yukon River. The frozen Mighty Yukon, four miles wide at some points, is immense, and unobstructed. Wind typically howls downriver into the face of the progressing teams, burying the trail in minutes with snow spindrift, and tests the strength of huskies and musher who tediously break trail.
All this subterfuge finally emerges in truth on the monstrous 90-mile portage to Unalakleet, an Eskimo village on the Bering Sea Coast. Just as the coast is wind blown and barren, so is a strategy stark and revealing for all to see. A winning team must arrive at Unalakleet to the front of the pack, and with the indefatigable reserves to overcome Bering Sea weather and the exhausting push to the finish. Unalakleet may be the most important landmark on the Iditarod trail and every strategy of feeding, and resting, and animal psychology must be designed for the team to arrive in Unalakleet solid and strong. It is a good bet that one of our four favorites—Jeff King, Doug Swingley, Martin Buser, and Robert Sorlie— will be there to host the competition.
In most Iditarods, it seems that the subtle differences, hardly noticeable for most of the race, between teams begin to magnify at an accelerated rate—-and, well, by White Mountain just seventy miles from the finish in Nome, it seems that the winner is obvious.
There are exceptions. In 1978, Dick Mackey and Ric Swenson arrived in Nome racing down Front Street abreast. Mackey and team prevailed by one second in a classic photo finish.
This year feels the same with the charged influence of King, Swingley, Buser and Swingley—four great trainers setting a high standard for the Iditarod field. Iditarod insiders are already forming on the sidelines for 2007, anticipating the race of the new century.