The Iditarod Is The Last Great Race On Earth
Tuesday, November 6, 2007 at 02:27PM 
The Iditarod in Alaska has been called the “Last Great Race on Earth” and in recent years it has become a world event. Film crews from Germany, Spain, England, Japan and America now cover the dog sled race. The Iditarod has become popular with outdoor magazines, adventure magazines, newspapers, and wire services. The race is a competition between rugged men and women (called Mushers) who have a special bond with their dog sled teams against a common opponent, Mother Nature.
The Iditarod is a truly unique competitive event, a race of 1150 miles across Alaska in the frigid month of March through the roughest terrain on Earth. The race navigates terrain across a frozen tundra which includes rivers, windswept coastlines, mountains, and dense forests, all of which are covered with plenty of deep snow and ice. The weather conditions are extreme with temperatures and wind chill that are far below zero. Often, teams race through blizzards causing whiteout conditions in sub-zero weather with gale-force winds which can cause the wind chill to reach -100 °F. The 2008 race will be the 36th Iditarod race. Over the years, the length of time to win the race has varied between nine days (two years ago) and twenty days.
Mushers enter the sled dog race from every profession and nationality. Fishermen, lawyers, doctors, miners, artists, natives, Canadians, Swiss, French and others; men and women each with their own story, each with their own reasons for going the distance. The sled dog race is organized and run primarily by thousands of volunteers, men and women, students, and village residents. In Alaska, the race is a commemoration of the life saving highway that the Iditarod trail became in 1925. Mushers and their dog sleds brought much needed serum to Nome to relieve a diphtheria epidemic.
The race distance provides long hours of darkness where a musher competes against the extreme conditions with only the companionship and assistance of his or her dog sled team. In this race against the forces of nature, a musher's bond with his or her dog sled team cannot be understated. Here is the explanation of his victory from last year's (2007) Iditarod winner Lance Mackey, “My success is not about any interesting innovations, any new technologies, or any training practices that set me apart from the rest of the field. My success is a result of my team’s success. My dogs are the ones who set the standards. They, each of them individually, came together as one team and they accomplished something that is very special. I helped keep them on the right trail, I helped keep them warm. I helped keep them nourished; they kept their focus and I can’t help but believe that intuitively they knew exactly what they were doing. They knew exactly what kind of history they were making.”
In fact, the strategy of the race is up to each individual team. Some run at night and some run in the daylight. Each has a unique menu and training program for their dog team. However, the rules of the race require that each team have standard equipment: an arctic parka, a heavy sleeping bag, an ax, snowshoes, musher food, dog food and boots for each dogs’ feet to protect against cutting ice and hard packed snow injuries.
With about three weeks until the 2008 signup deadline of November 30, 2007, the Iditarod Trail Committee has announced that ninety mushers will run in the 2008 Iditarod Trail Sled Dog event. Mushers will represent various countries throughout the world. Participants from the United States, Canada, Norway, Germany, Belgium, and Italy have already entered the 2008 Race.
In 2008, five Iditarod champions will lead a field that is full of some of the most highly competitive teams in the world. 2007 Iditarod Champion Lance Mackey will be joined by five time Iditarod Champion Rick Swenson, four time Iditarod Champions Jeff King and Martin Buser, and the 2004 Iditarod Champion, Mitch Seavey.
The 2008 Iditarod Sled Dog Race is currently scheduled to start in Anchorage, Alaska on Saturday March 1, 2008 at 10.00am. It is the next time you can see the “Last Great Race on Earth.”
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