3/14/2010: Yesterday afternoon Ryan made the tough decision to scratch from the race. The musher is doing fine, a little disappointed, but he says he made the best possible decision in the interest of his dogs. He and the dogs will be flown out of Galena, hopefully sometime today. Thanks to everyone who supported us and cheered us on during the race. Right now, Ryan's brother, Ray, is still out on the trail, and in the top 20, and Emil is still headed towards Nome.
3/12/2010: Looking at the tracker, Ryan and team have made it into Ruby. The other dog to come home early was Rainy, she was the youngest member of the team and was just getting tired. She looks good and is happy to be home. Ryan and the team will most likely take their 8 hour mandatory layover at this point. Hopefully they are having fun out there!
Emil and team should be hitting the trail again soon after completing their 24 hour layover. The dog he dropped back down the trail was Hurley, a veteran of many Iditarods with Ryan. Like the others, she was super spunky and looking good when I got her today.
3/10/2010: Ryan and team are on their 24 hour layover in Takotna. He and the team made good time over there last night and are hopefully resting well to get ready for the remainder of the trail. Ryan will take off about 6 minutes behind his brother, Ray, early tommmorow morning. It will be fun to watch the race between the two brothers play out. Emil keeps making progress down the trail. Tonight he is in Nikolai. Hopefully he will rest short and try to run out of the checkpoint with another musher for company but we will just have to wait and see what he does. Jane and I picked up all the dropped dogs this afternoon. Chop and Tristana returned from Ryan's squad and Turbo and Corvette from Emil's group. The dogs all look healthy, spunky, and excited to see a familiar face. It is starting to cool off on the trail so hopefully the mushers are bundling up to stay warm.
3/9/2010: Ryan still seems to be in good spirits. The update from the musher today is that he, the dogs, and the sled are all doing well despite the rough trail. The two dogs, Chop and Tristana, he dropped back down the trail were just a little tired and it was better to let them have the flight home than worry about having to load them over the rough trail. He sounded very happy today and plans to run to Takotna to take his 24 hour layover.
By watching the updates from Iditarod, it appears that Emil is making his way down the trail. He is taking lots of rest, looks like nearly more rest than running, but when your goal is just to finish the race, this is probably a good move in the deep snow and poor trails. Hopefully both mushers are having fun!
3/8/2010 PM: Heard from Ryan today while he is resting in Rainy Pass. He and the team are doing well. The trail has lots of fresh snow and is pretty soft and punchy. He plans to rest for about 3-4 hours, to try and keep the speed up on the team, and then head down the trail.
3/8/2010: The teams are off and running in the Iditarod. Everything went nice and smoothly at both the start and the restart. The updates show that both the teams are moving well (for any of Emil's fans watching the GPS tracker, it looks like his tracker is malfunctioning and I am sure they will fix it as soon as he stops at a checkpoint for a longer rest) and in and out of Skwentna in the early morning hours. I am off to feed dogs and run puppies but this afternoon I will try to post a few pictures from the start of the race.
Ryan Redington #25 Inca- Leader, F, 3 Mac- M, 4 Win- Leader, F, 3 Ginger- Leader, F, 2 Lacey- Leader, F, 5 Strider- M, 4 Stovepipe- Leader, M, 6 Allison- Leader, F, 3 Chop- Leader, F, 4 Doc- Leader, M, 5 Snowball- M, 3 Tristana- F, 4 Johnny- M, 4 Tundra- Leader, F, 4 Noko- Leader, M, 4 Rainy- F, 1
Here is the line up for this year's Iditarod teams. Thanks to everyone who has helped us make it to the starting line this year. Special thanks goes to Raymie & Barb Redington, Wade Marrs, and Peter Fleck for loaning us some wonderful dogs to fill out the teams. The next couple days are busy ones here but I will try to get some team pictures up soon.
Emil Churchin #53 Crackle- Leader, F, 5 Barbara- Leader, F, 7 Bree- Leader, F, 5 Ghost- M, 5 Carmack- Leader, M, 6 Corvette- F, 5 Hurley- Leader, F, 6 Marvin- Leader, M, 5 Riot- M, 1 Pierce- M, 1 Sky- F, 4 Winter- Leader, F, 4 Turbo- M, 5 Scully- F, 5 Mulder- M, 5 Fat Chance- M, 5