It looks very much to me like Allen and the Black Team will take their mandatory six hour layover (plus 74 minutes time differential) at Sourdough. I’m pretty pleased with my estimate of 12:30pm for their arrival, their official time into the checkpoint was 12:29pm making their run time for the leg 4 hours, 32 minutes.
They should leave the checkpoint at 7.43pm to head over the Mendeltna.
Allen said his run from Meiers Lake was remarkably unremarkable – apart from all the snow making the trail wet and slow. He was breaking trail for much of the leg which slowed the team down significantly. They will have a good rest in Sourdough though and will be rearing to go again.
L-R: Handler crew in Sourdough, Black team resting in the warm, snowy conditions. (Pics by William)
Aliy and the Red Team arrived into Sourdough checkpoint at 3:45pm, behind Ryne and in front of Ed and Amanda. Their run time was 4 hours, 31 minutes so she was delighted with that! The Red Team has eight hours of rest left to split between the last two checkpoints. I’m not sure how she will split the rests so we’ll just have to wait to find out!
Will from Verizon captured these pics of Aliy feeding her team their second breakfast in Meiers Lake prior to departure.
L-R: Chevie, Driver and Chena; Five waits and watches
L-R: Perky strikes a pose, Cayenne, Scooby and Bruno watching the dinner coming
Here is my latest spreadsheet (the usual disclaimer applies) showing that although the Black Team was first into the checkpoint their cumulative run time puts them in 3rd= position with Dan Kaduce overall. The Red Team is sitting in seventh position currently.
The run to Mendeltna Lodge is long at around 75 miles. The trail crosses over a number of lakes including Fish Lake, Crosswind Lake and Lake Louise. After the lakes come another climb to about 3,100ft elevation.
Once the handlers have cleared the camp spots of straw, trash and returned drop bag supplies they will head to Glennallen and catch some sleep before travelling to Mendeltna to greet the teams for the penultimate time.
It will be a long night for everyone! Is it just me or does the 60 second auto-refresh on the tracker seem not quite quick enough?
This is such an awesome analysis!
Thank you so much for everything you have put into this. SPK has the most amazing teams, handlers, and check point by check point updates!!!
Beautiful pics
<3
🙂
Us SPK fans are so spoiled!
Great recap of where the race is at…how exciting! The artic air is over here…..you all can have it back though….I think the dogs would appreciate it! Those warm temps and wet snow must make the trek difficult. Love the pictures…sleep, eat and run! Still lots of race miles yet to go!
Haha, definitely not just you! I think you are doing an amazing job with the analysis and I appreciate it! I agree with Becky, we are spoiled! Thank you. Go SPK!!!
Nice job on the analysis. This is an exciting race with the top contenders within 30 minutes of each other it looks like Nic is starting to slow down? If so, I am thinking it must be because he was in front breaking trail for so long, but wow – Sven Haltman has returned to the sport with a vengeance.
We are spoiled and appreciate it! Thank you for all you do to keep us in the loop and in the race! This is going to be quite the finish, I suspect! Go SPK!
The analysis is great! Thanks for the hard work you have put in to all the checkpoint updates.
The 60 second refresh on the tracker DOES seem too slow!
Wow – top-flight analytics Moira!!! And the doggies are soooo adorable – thank you Will from Verizon!!!
WOOF WOOF WOOF