A better picture of where mushers stand relative to each other is developing as most complete their mandatory 24-hour layovers and start-time differentials. The lead pack is very tight, with 10 mushers running within five hours of each other, all with a reasonable chance of success in the second half of the race.
There is one exception.
Martin Buser is the wild card whose early, long run to Nikolai two days ago will catapult him into a commanding lead by late tonight. At this point, Buser's strategy seems to be working. It should be noted that at this point in last year's race, his strategy also seemed to be working. Buser ended up fading in the home stretch and finishing 17th, a dozen hours off of the winning time.
Jeff King and Sonny Lindner pushed on through the night to reach Ruby, the first checkpoint on the Yukon River. On paper it looks like a huge lead, but neither of these mushers have taken their 24-hour layover. Both are gambling that by resting their dog teams closer to the true halfway point in the race, they will have a faster team in the final 400 miles.
'Witching hours'
Mushers call the time from midnight to dawn the "witching hours." Most would agree it is the worst time to run for a couple of reasons. First, the dogs tend to run slower. Dogs are like people, and they seem to enjoy their sleep in the wee hours of the night as much as we do. They tend to run fastest in the first and last light of the day.
Second, the temperature will usually be at its lowest, especially in the couple of hours before sunrise. Last night's temperature in Cripple was reported to be around minus 30. These temperatures are nothing exceptional for a dog team and musher, but they're not ideal to travel through at 4 a.m. either.
Finally, the mushers themselves have extreme difficulty staying awake during the wee hours of the night. I would be surprised if either King or Lindner has totaled more than six hours sleep since the race began on Sunday. Undoubtedly, they are physically exhausted and likely to be falling off of their sleds and taking micro-naps while traveling. It's easy to get lulled to sleep by the constant bump-bump-bump of the sled as it travels down a well-packed trail. The reportedly hard and fast trail between Cripple and Ruby means they spent more time riding than running or pushing. It's hard to keep your eyes open in these conditions.
It is rare to see such divergent strategies at the top levels of any sport. Buser, King and Lindner have raced a combined 75 Iditarods. They are the professors of the sport, experts in their field, gray hair included. In math or science, when you want to test a formula you take it to the extreme to see if it fits your hypothesis. We are seeing Iditarod strategies taken to both extremes this year in a test of theory as much as sled dog performance. Will Buser's early push prevail? Will King and Lindner's long march to the Yukon be the ticket? Will a Seavey or Sorlie charge from behind in the final third of the race? The results are due in five days.
Zirkle racing in vacuum
Aliy Zirkle appears to be copying her successful 2012 race strategy, breaking up the run from Takotna to the Yukon River into equal eight-hour runs with four-hour rests. Cripple and Ruby checkpoints don't necessarily fit into her regimented schedule; look for her to camp along on the trail and run through Cripple and Ruby like she did two years ago. Zirkle is racing her team in a vacuum, running by her watch and her team's requirements without regard to the competition around her. This takes patience and discipline to pull over and rest with your team on the side of the trail as your competitors mush by, knowing that your strategy may take days to reach fruition.
The convenience of running checkpoint to checkpoint is hard to resist as a musher. Most Iditarod checkpoints offer a warm place to sleep, full bales of straw for your dogs, race updates, conversation and (sometimes) flush toilets and showers. It makes sense that a measured pace of run and rest times would be ideal. Unfortunately, the physical geography of the trail and village locations conspires to challenge mushers with the choice, "Should I stay, or should I go?"
Robert Sorlie, the two-time champion from Norway, continues to post very fast run times, passing both Hugh Neff and Nick Petit as he makes a long run from Takotna to Cripple. Sorlie is one of three lead teams with all 16 dogs. Hans Gatt and Petit are the others. This can be a tremendous advantage in the second half of the race by giving mushers the luxury of dropping healthy dogs that may be underperforming. Mushers have an old saying: "You are only as fast as your slowest dog." Sorlie's 95-mile run from Takotna to Cripple took him just 10 hours to traverse -- unbelieveably fast! That is almost two hours faster than any of the teams ahead of him over that stretch of trail. Watch out for this Norwegian rocket as he eats up the lead of Buser, King and Lindner.
Hugh Neff and Paul Gebhardt fall on the opposite end of the spectrum, both nursing teams that have dwindled to just 10 dogs by the halfway point in the race. Young Mike Williams Jr. of Akiak has just nine huskies leaving Ophir. Neff and Gebhardt have no room for error the remainder of the race and must take great care of their remaining dogs. Both of these drivers have had past success with small teams, and 10 great dogs can do better than 16 average dogs. How good are the dogs left in their teams?
Beware of Baker in second half of race
There are a couple of teams on the periphery of the lead pack, hoping to put a couple of good runs together to get them back in the mix. Early race leader Kelly Maixner has pushed his way back into the top 10 by running an abbreviated version of Buser's strategy. The pediatric dentist from Wasilla, who met his future wife at the Talkeetna Bachelor Auction, is having the best race of his Iditarod career. With 15 dogs still on his line, look for this ex-North Dakota farm boy to keep the pressure on the lead teams.
Kotzebue's John Baker is in a very familiar position, trailing the leaders midway through the race with a large and powerful dog team. He always runs a deliberate pace and has a reputation for strong finishes. Baker was ninth in Ophir during the 2009 Iditarod; he finished third. Baker was in ninth in Ophir in the 2011 Iditarod; he won in record time. This year, Baker was fifth out of Ophir -- great for him, bad for his competition.
Ray Redington Jr. is also lurking behind the leaders, preserving his team and running conservatively through the middle third of the race. Redington has finished in the top 10 each of the last three Iditarods, improving upon his finish position each year. He is an encyclopedia of knowledge when it comes to sled dog sports, able to recount mountains of race trivia and dog bloodlines from memory. A dog driver in the true sense of the word, Redington is most in his element when traveling behind a team of dogs on the Iditarod trail.
Iditarod teams are spread out almost 200 miles between Nikolai and Ruby. There are six active checkpoints with teams coming and going. Mushers in the back of the pack have the added benefit of accurate trail reports and reasonable run time expectations. So far, the news ahead is good as the lead teams are making excellent time on the long runs to the Yukon River. The shock and chaos of the challenging (to say the least) run between Rainy Pass and Nikolai is behind them. For a moment, the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race is normal. Run. Rest. Recover. Repeat.
Zack Steer, a five-time Iditarod finisher, owns and operates the Sheep Mountain Lodge with Anjanette and two young boys. Zack will bring a competitive racer's analysis to this year's Iditarod coverage. Follow Zack's race analysis at Alaska Dispatch.