Before the 1,000-mile race to Nome, Iditarod teams mush 11 miles through Anchorage

A journey of a thousand miles began with a dog show Saturday in downtown Anchorage.

A field of 57 mushers and nearly 800 sled dogs took part in the ceremonial start of the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race, which began at 10 a.m. on Fourth Avenue.

Teams traveled 11 miles from downtown to Campbell Airstrip, where mushers loaded their dogs into trucks and spent the rest of the day taking care of last-minute chores or enjoying one last night in the comfort of homes or hotels.

Saturday’s short run was just for show — a chance for fans to get a close-up look at the dogs and dog drivers and for sponsors to get their names out to the public.

Sunday brings the real start of the 48th annual 1,000-mile race. The clock starts ticking at 2 p.m. and will keep going until the final racer crosses the finish line in Nome.

Pete Kaiser of Bethel is back to defend his championship, and he’ll face plenty of competition.

Kaiser is one of five former champions in the race, along with three-time winner Mitch Seavey, four-time winners Martin Buser and Lance Mackey and 2019 winner Joar Leifseth Ulsom. Jeff King, another four-time champ, was on the entry list but had to bow out earlier this week when he had emergency surgery for a perforated intestine.

[Meet all the mushers in the 2020 Iditarod ]

Another dozen or so teams are legitimate contenders, among them nine mushers who finished in the top 10 and 13 who finished in the top 15 last year. The only people missing from that group are sixth-place Matt Hall and 13th-place King.

Jessie Royer of Fairbanks, who placed third last year, said she counted 18 people in the race who have posted top-10 finishes in the last five Iditarods.

[Here are the best places to watch the Iditarod ceremonial start in Anchorage]

Also in the field is reigning Yukon Quest champion Brent Sass, who is back in the Iditarod for the first time since 2016, and Nic Petit, who led each of the last two races in the late going before encountering trouble. Petit finished second in 2018 after losing the trail in bad weather on the Bering Sea coast, and scratched last year after his team refused to keep running on the sea ice near Shaktoolik.

Royer is one of 12 women and 45 veterans in the race. There are 12 rookies.

You must be 18 years old to enter the Iditarod, and there is no cap on how old you can be. This year’s mushers span 56 years, from 23-year-old Laura Neese of Michigan to 79-year-old Jim Lanier of Chugiak.

The race will follow the northern route this year, which puts the halfway point in Cripple. Plentiful snow is expected pretty much from Willow to Nome, and weather advisory issued Friday afternoon said 8 to 16 inches of snow could fall during a 48-hour period beginning Saturday morning in the Susitna Valley, site of the race’s first few checkpoints.