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March 8, 2012 by
March 7, 2012 9:30 pm AST
Aliy arrived at Takotna in the first position at 11:30 pm last evening. Rambler was riding in the sled, but wasn’t injured. After missing a call early this morning (Allen is still kicking himself), he got to talk to her early this afternoon and again about an hour ago.
As you may guess, Aliy is pleased with how the dogs are looking and how the race is going to this point. The reporters at Takotna are all commenting about how good the SP dogs are looking and how upbeat and focused Aliy is. She will be leaving with 15 dogs. Meg just isn’t “looking right”. Aliy has already signed the paperwork to drop her. No injuries are evident, but she just isn’t able to keep up and isn’t herself. Rambler, who was in the basket upon their arrival in Takotna, will be continuing on at least as far as Ophir.
After the time differential, Aliy and the Red Team will be cleared to leave Takotna at 1:14 am with their 24 hour mandatory stop checked off. Mitch Seavey leaves minutes before Aliy after his time differential and Dallas Seavey will be leaving minutes after. A Iditarod Champion and two Yukon Quest Champions back on the trail!
Aliy did have an interesting story about her run out of Rohn. There was considerable gravel and ice on the trail. It was VERY rough. When Aliy stopped to camp, she flipped her sled over to check her runner plastics and they WERE NOT THERE. They were completely gone and she had been running directly on the aluminum runner! It took an hour and a half to clean out the rocks and ice in the runners so she could put new plastics on them.
Aliy saw Ryne when she got in. She is doing very well. She came in with Ranger and Stormy in lead. Aliy didn’t believe Ryne was planning to drop a dog at this point. Ryne and the Red & Black team are sleeping now. She has been right on her plan and no doubt she will continue to run a great race!
Ryne was laughing about a “tent malfunction” in Nikolai. Sure we will hear more about that later. Hopefully we will get to talk to her before she finishes her 24 hour rest.
The weather out on the trail will be cooling off. It was already dropping when Aliy talked to Allen. It was still snowing lightly, but the trail to Ophir has been travelled just a few hours ago and the trail breakers are sitting at Ophir waiting for the next wave of mushers.
Let the games begin. Again!

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17 Responses

  • Hopefully Meg will spring back after a rest and I am glad Rambler is still in the mix.

    I am definitely ready to watch the next "segment".

  • Must of been so great for Aliy and Ryne to talk and see each other. Go SP teams Go!!!!!!

  • Just incase nobody saw my comment below, I will put it here again.

    So I had just switched from the Two Rivers 200 to the 100 race. That is partially because there is so much snow that the race would be so slow that I would miss Aliy crossing the finish line in Nome, and partially because most of the lead dogs still at the kennel think I am a moron.

    However I have just received an email saying the race is postponed by 1 week. Now I can't race because I will be in Nome. Very dissapointing.

    For those of you wondering, this was to be my line up.

    Pud, Malibu
    L'il Debbie, Happy
    Mac, Cutter
    Boris, Roy
    Sophie, Looker
    Chemo, Fang

    Wes

  • Hey Wes,
    So sorry you won't be running the 2 Rivers, really fun race, but not half the hoopla of an Iditarod finish in Nome, let alone the little town of Nome itself!
    Your training run sounded adventurous tho'…
    On another note, is anybody else noticing the consistent sexism of Joe Runyan everytime he muses on the top mushers in his Iditarod column? Blathering about the guys but barely throwing Aliy a crumb.
    Thank goodness Bruce Lee has something intelligent to read.

  • I really appreciate all these stories. I just have to know one thing. How in the world do yo all stay calm during a race? I wish all the races had the GPS tracker for us but then again I am about going nuts watching Ally sit still for so long on the way to Cripple. Is there any truth to the rumor that Mitch agreed to carry her dog food if she agreed to camp in the middle of nowhere so she dumped 70lbs of food on his sled? I ws thinking if its true maybe this is her camping spot and while the reat are all comfy and resting in Cripple she will blow right by them in the cool of the night. Rhyne is doing great too.

  • I had wondered what happened to Looker and Sophie. they were on the Dog Page for a little while and then vanished. I thought Aliy had sent them back. I guess they just needed some time to grow up.

  • Aliy had a short interview on the Iditarod Insider…misspelled the featured dogs – "Cito and Beamer"..ha, ha

  • The Insider had a video interview of Aliy explaining her deal with Mitch Seavey; thats where it came from.

    Melissa,
    Sophie and Looker went down the road to spend the season with Bob Hower, a recreational musher with a much smaller kennel who was able to put a lot of individual time into each dog. They have responded fantastically and I have been running them the last few weeks to assess them. They are still young dogs and like people they mature at different speeds. I think we are all out of races this season but there might be the Two Rivers FUNALE which I can enter.

    Wes

    Wes

  • Sorry Wes about the race. Sure love all the updates.
    Have question who else is in Two Rivers with the rest of the dogs. Where is Allen?? Is anyone going to see Aliy or Ryne at a checkpoint??
    Aliy and Ryne are doing so wonderful. GO GIRLS GO !!!!
    Maureen W

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