The Race isn't Over Yet, is it?

In the old inter-office, inter-family, or inter-village pool, it was difficult to place your money on Lance Mackey this year. You almost want there to be a competitive race. The list of mushers competing was simply stuffed with the best mushing pedigrees around. Lance was the odds on favorite before the start of the 2009 Iditarod and yet there seem to be something in the air that said maybe this race’s outcome was not going to be as easy to predict as people thought.

There was the weather factor. Tons of snow this year and all the people in the know, and some (myself included) in the not-so-know, thought this snow factor was going to lead to some very different times and leaders. Also, Mackey has a different status this year. He is no longer the underdog that we all like to root for. His face is on 50% of the mushing commercials; his fancy wolf ruffed blue parka is now heavily clad with corporate sponsored patches; and he has received countless accolades regarding his phenomenal athletic achievements. However the charismatic, cancer surviving, digit-challenged (missing one finger), joking, fan adored musher was extremely difficult not to put money on.

We weren’t sure what was going to happen this year with Lance. He was training with a different strategy. Was he trying two shorter quicker training runs or was he just training at times when none of his mushing competitive neighbors could spot him? Did his training of the Bethel Native, Harry, T. Alexie, distract from his focus? Would not running the Yukon Quest effect his peak performance routine? When asked about his race preparatory activities, Lance was cagey and eluded to having a few tricks up his sleeve this year, of which he was not willing to share. But in the end this much enamored fan had to go with her heart and with her head and place her wages on Lance to again be victorious.

Having made the commitment to Mackey, I have been closely monitoring times of all mushers throughout the first half of the race. Switching between the GPS monitoring, the leaderboard and my calculator, trying to figure out who was running the fastest and who was truly ahead. Again listening to the many pundits analyzing the trail conditions and weather factors, which were non-factors, I was as confused as I was before the start of the race.

And then the 24 hour layover took place.

Now the race has all of a sudden become crystal clear. Lance took off after his layover as if the first half of the race was just a tease for the “Lance Mackey...A Musher with Mystical Ability” show. With a time between Ophir and Iditarod breaking the ten hour mark, and his dogs showing no inkling of wear through Shageluk, all our pre-race jitters of Lance’s performance have been settled. He is shown on an Insider video looking back to see who might be following him and he most certainly didn't see anybody. It is now his race to lose. And unless there is another dog team and musher out there that has drank from the same “magical, miraculous mushing” Kool-Aid, the rest of the race will be spent analyzing the leaderboard and GPS positions of the other teams trying to figure out who will place second.