Saturday, March 18, 2006
Hail to the KingJeff King won the 2006 Iditarod on Tuesday, completing the 1112-mile brutal journey in 9 days 11 hours 11 minutes 36 seconds. He'd already won the race three other times and finished in the top five an impressive nine times. However, the last previous championship came in 1998, and recent runs have been dominated by non-Alaskans, Doug Swingley from Montana and Robert Sorlie from Norway -- it's amazing that the Norwegian dogs have to fly all the way to Alaska and still win.
King started racing in 1980 and finished 28th in his first Iditarod attempt the next year. Since then, he and his dogs have logged over 100,000 miles, four times the circumference of the Earth, almost half the distance from here to the Moon, the length of seven gazillion dollar bills placed end to end, or the amount we have spent in Iraq to stop weapons of mass destruction, that sort of things. No matter how you measure it, a long way, a lot of hard doggy steps.
The winning time this year wasn't the fastest, not even in the top five. The record was 8 days 23 hours achieved in 2002. But this year's run has been among the toughest, with bitter cold and pounding wind most of the way. It's just possible that global warming hasn't quite reached Alaska yet thanks to our good friends at Greenpeace (don't email me; register your complaints at 1-800-NO2-ANWR). Last Friday when King reached Ruby, roughly 2/3 of the way home in 30 below weather, he looked like a grizzled old dog himself, all bundled up in thick fur, his face wind-burned and a big block of ice hanging from his mustache. It was almost as if he was on the last rung of evolution from man to dog. No wonder he deserves so richly to win.
- posted by Woofwoof @ 5:26 AM
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Yeah, no Alaska Warming. January up here was coldest since '71. It was -35F last Friday (unseasonably cold). We need more CO2 in the atmosphere NOW!
Oh, and more dogs.
Oh, and more dogs.
John,
Glad to see you coming around. Let the dogs breed. And with more dogs, there will be more CO2 (and methane) naturally.
Glad to see you coming around. Let the dogs breed. And with more dogs, there will be more CO2 (and methane) naturally.
I am amazed. 1100 miles in under 10 days, in that kind of weather. A true test of endurance and toughness.
# posted by 
: 19 March, 2006 10:02
: 19 March, 2006 10:02
Connecticut,
You are right. Just one musher and up to 16 dogs out there all by themselves in the most challenging of conditions. Puts to shame many other "sports," like curling!
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You are right. Just one musher and up to 16 dogs out there all by themselves in the most challenging of conditions. Puts to shame many other "sports," like curling!
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