Teams running out of real estate to catch Holmes

Travis Beals and team at the Ceremonial Start of Iditarod 54.
Anchorage, Alaska. March 7, 2026.

Jessie Holmes continues to dominate the trail of Iditarod 54. The reigning Iditarod Champion has led for much of the race and sits with a nice cushion of over 2 hours ahead of the next team. The musher has been very candid throughout the race that he had a goal of joining two other legendary mushers to repeat his win on his first win.

While there are a handful of mushers who have won multiple Iditarods and some winning back to back, only two mushers in the last 53 runnings have defended their first win. Susan Butcher was first to do it when she won in 1986 and then again in 1987. It wouldn't be until 2007 and 2008 when Lance Mackey won the first two of four consecutive wins that a first time champ would repeat back to back.

Now Holmes is poised to be the third. 

Jessie Holmes and his Team Can't Stop dogs have just left Elim after a little over three hours in the checkpoint. Travis Beals and Wade Marrs have attempted to make a charge up the coast to catch the champ. Beals told Insider he felt like his team should be the winning team, Wade Marrs told Insider he had to just keep running the race he had planned and wait for someone to slow up (or mess up) so he could possibly take advantage. Beals rested nearly five and a half hours in Koyuk, Marrs stayed mere minutes. Both will most likely need to break up the run from Koyuk to White Mountain.

Paige Drobny who kept pace with Holmes for much of the middle of the race has seemingly conceded first, and is now in the battle for second place. Drobny is still running a similar schedule to that of Holmes which is opposite in many ways of Beals and Marrs.  The Squids are now facing a battle for fourth against Jeff Deeter who has made a huge leap along the coast to get into the mix.

Travis Beals is currently nine miles behind Holmes, he's rested 5.5 hours to Jessie's 3(ish) hours but Beals has been running several hours and will have to take a break sooner rather than later. Beals is quickly running out of real estate to make a move on Holmes. Barring any random storm popping up out of nowhere (there's nothing really dramatic forecasted for the front runners at this time) that can slow a team up, it may be too late to catch Holmes.

Further back the race for Rookie of the Year continues to be an interesting one. Sam Martin has seemingly pulled ahead to have a strong lead in the RotY department. Kevin Hansen and Martin have been duking it out for much of the race, but the team from Kotzebue is the third ranked rookie leaving Unalakleet Monday. Sandwiched between the two - and currently running two miles ahead of Hansen. Terry's run fairly conservatively to this point and it will be interesting to see how he races on the coast - a very different terrain from the races he's used to running.

Our red lantern has changed hands on the run from Kaltag to the coast. Currently Grayson Bruton is the final musher with Jody Potts-Joseph having leaped-frog (leap-frogged?) over the veteran musher after coming off the Yukon Monday.

Holmes has 43ish miles to go until he hits White Mountain and his final eight hour mandatory rest. He averaged a speed of 8mph on the run from Koyuk to Elim. It's less likely he'll stop now before White Mountain and so if he maintains that average he could be into White Mountain as early as 1:15am (give or take). That would put Holmes with a leave time of 9:15am and a ten to eleven-ish hour jaunt into the finish line from there. Puts him into Nome by dark Tuesday night. We'll know more once he has his official into time in White Mountain.

Do you think Holmes has this in the bag? Can Beals keep second place? Do you think Travis can catch Jessie? Comment below with your thoughts!

(and has this blogger mentioned math and she are not friends?)