Lance Mackey Wins Iditarod 36!

For many years the proverbial "they" said it couldn't be done. One person could not win the Yukon Quest and the Iditarod back to back - two weeks apart even - in the same year.

An impossible feat. Those who had run both in the same year either held their dogs back during the Quest, or went all out and were too tired during the Iditarod.

But Lance Mackey didn't believe the naysayers. After all, he had just finished surviving cancer - what was a couple of 1,000 mile dogsled races?

And then last year, 2007, he did it. After already winning the Yukon Quest twice and then cracking the top 10 both times at Iditarod - a hard enough feat he got little credit for - Mackey won them both, back to back, within weeks - no - days of each other.

"A fluke," many thought. "Lucky," some said.

Lance Mackey is no fluke. And just to prove the naysayers wrong again, he won again. The Quest and the Iditarod. Back to back. For the second straight year.

An athletic feat of man and dogs that should be in the history books, but will barely scrape the first page of most papers. But in Alaska and all of the mushing world, Lance and his dogs are true heroes.

Well done Lance...and on to the All-Alaska Sweepstakes!

For more info:
http://www.adn.com/iditarod/2008/news/story/342568.html

Iditarod 36!

As many of you know I am a huge fan of the Iditarod and dogsledding in general. This is also the first year since I moved to Vermont 5 years ago that I have high-speed Internet in my house - so I am finally able to be an Iditarod "Insider" subscriber. I love watching the teams come into the checkpoints and hear the mushers talk - I'm a fan of mushing like some people are fans of the NBA or NFL. It's also hard for me to pick someone to route for. I like Lance Mackey an awful lot, and the fact that he won both the Quest and the Iditarod last year (the first person ever to win both races in the same year) and just defended his Quest title again this year, really makes me want to see him win it again. However, I've also always been a fan of Jeff King and would love to see him get his fifth championship.

And then there are some of the others that I'd love to see win for the first time like Aliy Zirkle or Dee Dee Jonrowe.

We'll have to see how it all turns out. If you're interested in learning more, check out these sites:
www.iditarod.com
www.adn.com
http://www.buserdog.com/
http://www.huskyhomestead.com/