Iditarod 46: The Bottom's on top!

Cody Strathe's lead dogs lead the team
through Anchorage for the Ceremonial
Start of Iditarod 46. March 3, 2018.

The Iditarod has come into the period of true strategy. Teams are starting to take their mandatory 24 hour breaks. What checkpoint they choose is based on strategy as well as how their teams look as they get to the checkpoints. Teams like Mitch Seavey are resting where they'd planned to rest before they started down the trail on Sunday. Others may decide to push on because they feel their team wouldn't benefit from the rest just yet, and still more will rest earlier than planned due to the deep snow taking a toll on their team's energy.

All of this means that the front runners suddenly look stalled on the GPS tracker, because... well... they are. But it's not something to worry about. Once the teams get their 24 hour (plus differentials) out of the way then we'll have an equal playing field and we can better tell who really is in the lead. 

Takotna is filling up fast, and is a very popular spot for teams to take their mandatory rest (I hear the food is a major factor in deciding where to stay). Note that when they do "declare" their 24, teams CAN choose to leave before it's up... but it will not count as their 24 rest. And when we say 24, we also mean any differential they have to take. Because teams leave at two minute intervals, there has to be a way to make it equal, so the earlier you start, the more time you have to make up and the best way to do that is to add it to the longest mandatory rest. So for bib number 2, he has 67 mushers behind him... so it's 24hours+(67teams X 2minutes)=total rest for the first musher... which means Cody Strathe has to stay in the checkpoint for 26 hours and 14 minutes. Make sense? The only team that gets a straight 24 is Hugh Neff as he is the last musher out of the starting gate.

Mitch Seavey's time (who was first to declare his 24) into Takotna last night was 9:45pm, he is bib number 13, Neff is Bib 68 (remember the bib numbers start at 2, not 1). 68-13= 55. So He has 55 teams behind him... so now we multiply by 2 to get minutes added to 24hours... which is 110minutes so just under 2 hours... (1hour 50mins) So he can leave at 11:35pm.

This is what we diehards lovingly refer to as "Iditamath". I am not good at the maths so these times are unofficial and I'd trust just about anyone else but me.

This is the perfect time for fans to get some well needed rest, or at least get some chores out of the way. With many teams bedded down for the next day and half there's really not a whole lot going on. This is also a great time to get to know the back of the pack. A lot of rookies are just heading to McGrath having hit Nikolai early this morning. So many dreams come true to run this race. Make sure to give them some love too.

You can call and leave a musher gram for any musher/team by calling 907-248-MUSH! The COMMS center will make sure to get the message to your team!