What is perseverance?  I believe perseverance is more than endurance.  It is endurance combined with the certainty that what one is looking for is going to happen.  Perseverance is more than hanging on to the sled, which may expose the fear of letting go and falling.  Perseverance is the super effort of refusing to believe that you will not be conquered.  Endurance athletes, like mushers and their sled dogs, know that perseverance is more than day in and day out workouts and putting in the time.  Perseverance is about having faith in what you are doing and truly believing in yourself and the path (or trail) you are taking.  The training mushers do will yield the results they have aimed for.  The mushers that trust in themselves and their dogs and don’t worry about what the other teams are doing – that is perseverance that leads to success.

I am still in Nikolai on Thursday afternoon.  Being here has allowed me to see perseverance at its best. The last three mushers in the 2009 Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race came off the Kuskokwim River into the Nikolai checkpoint by 11:00 a.m.   All three mushers, Blake Maltray, Kim Darst, and Rob Loveman, are definitely interested in what is going on in the rest of the race, but it doesn’t effect their personal race.  All three of these rookies arrived in good spirits, as did their dogs.  They may be the last three in the race, but they are persevering in their own personal race in The Last Great Race on Earth.  These folks are demonstrating how to set goals, how to work as a team, and how to give their personal best.  For these rookies, finishing the Iditarod will be their success story.  They exemplify perseverance, and encourage the rest of us to do the same.