Epitome of a dog-beat-dog world

Brian Metzler, Special to the Rocky

Published March 1, 2007 at midnight

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Known as the Last Great Race, the Iditarod dog sled race will send 83 mushers and their teams of Alaskan huskies 1,131 miles from Anchorage to Nome when it gets under way Saturday.

The 35th event will cross two mountain ranges, parallels the Yukon River and runs over frozen Norton Sound. Weather can range from 40 degrees and rain near Anchorage to 40 degrees below zero and blowing snow in the middle of the state.

The winning team usually arrives in Nome in about nine days, while the back-of-the-pack teams show up a week later. Here are three of the Colorado connections in the race:

The Musher

Lachlan Clarke, 50, Buena VistaClarke is one of three Colorado mushers in this Iditarod. He will compete in the race for the fourth consecutive year, hoping to improve on a previous-best finish of 60th. He and his wife, Linda, live and work at a summer camp in Buena Vista nine months out of the year, but they take a three-month unpaid leave of absence to train the dogs for the race. Other Colorado mushers include Bill Pinkham, 47, of Glenwood Springs (40th last year), and Butch Austin, 58, of Fruita.

• Hooked: "My wife had been running the Steamboat Marathon in June of 2000 and we saw a sign on a door of a restaurant that said, 'Come to Steamboat in the winter and drive your own dog team.' So we came back to take a 12-mile tour the next winter and we enjoyed it so much, we called the tour company up and asked them to take us on an all-day tour. We were sort of hooked from there. Three months later, we had 16 dogs. "

• Fall camp: "We start right after Labor Day and start by running a mile. And we'll run them every other day and go at their own pace. Then we increase the distance by a mile or two each week, and as we increase the mileage, we actually slow them down and create more resistance with the ATV. Then we'll throw in some workouts very much like a marathoner would do: strength workouts, speed workouts and interval-training workouts."

• On the road: "It's hard to find the kind of long-distance trails you need to train sled dogs in Colorado. You need long trails, but you also need snowmobile traffic, because it helps keep the trails open. So we spent seven weeks in Seeley Lake, Mont. Last weekend, we ran 130 miles broken up into two legs with a six- or seven-hour rest."

• Name game: "Keeping track of 30 dogs is as easy as knowing your own children. I can remember 80 horses' names and 30 dogs' names, but I'll be darned if sometime I can't remember the name of a person I haven't seen in a couple of years."

• Rarin' to go: "We hauled 26 of our 30 dogs with us to Montana and brought the top 20 with us in Alaska. We have several good, young, new dogs this year, but a lot of them don't have any experience. I suppose if I were to finish in the 40s, I'd be pretty happy. It's sort of my responsibility to get the dogs to live up to their potential."

• Personal touch: "The Iditarod has got to be one of the greatest sporting challenges in the world, because you really have to develop a relationship with the dogs to finish it. I won't make any bones about the fact that these dogs are some of the greatest athletes in the world. No other animal or human can run 1,000 miles in a little more than a week. These dogs have to have a pretty solid constitution, a good, firm inner focus and motivation, just like a person would."

• Little sleep: "You get into a sleep-deprivation mode where you do everything mechanically and robotically, but you can't just zone out. The dogs are pretty perceptive and intuitive, and they know."

• Planning ahead: "The race has 27 checkpoints and 22 drop points and they give you three bags for each drop point that you can fill with up to 70 pounds of gear and clothing and food. You have to figure out your own run/rest schedule and fill your three bags with what you think you'll need. We sent out 2,000 pounds of food and gear on Feb. 9."

• Feeding frenzy: "The dogs eat high-protein, high-fat, dry dog food that is . . . mixed with a fortified, energized beef that is made especially for competitive sled dogs and greyhounds. When Lance Armstrong was training for the Tour de France, he was going through 6,500 calories a day, but he was 150 pounds. These dogs average 45 to 50 pounds and they're burning 10,000 to 12,000 calories, so their metabolic rate is huge. As for me, a couple weeks ago, Linda made lasagna, bacon cheeseburgers, beef brisket and beans and froze them in serve-and-seal bags that I'll put in my boiling water at a checkpoint."

• Thin spots: "In a low snow year like this one, your sled can get caught up on partially exposed rocks and stumps and roots and trees. It can be pretty tough. It sounds like we might be running on frozen dirt for a pretty significant section of the trail."

• Dream life: "I've never really had any desk or office jobs in my life. I haven't had the greatest- paying jobs, but I've had jobs with good work. I have a brother who has worked in an office in Houston for the last 30 years and he makes a ton of money, but I don't think I'd care for his lifestyle. The money wouldn't be worth it."

The Veterinarian

Dr. George Stroberg, 54, Westminster Stroberg, a native of Denver, is a veterinarian at the Church Ranch Veterinary and Wellness Center in Westminster. He got hooked on the Iditarod experience after watching Susan Butcher win the race on television in the late 1980s. He first served as a trail veterinarian in 2003 and has returned every year since. Stroberg, a graduate of Colorado State's veterinary school, has been a vet in the Denver area for 30 years.

• The office: "There are 20 or so checkpoints along the course that I'm placed at, and when the mushers and dogs come in, I'm able to examine the dogs, administer treatment, give the mushers advice and basically take care of the dogs. We see various cases of lameness, which might be an area of injury in the foot, ankle, carpus, elbow, shoulder or back. We see some GI problems, vomiting, diarrhea, pneumonia; really, everything that crosses our trail. Each checkpoint has its own vet boxes that include everything from emergency IV fluids to equipment for treating common foot problems."

• Earning his wings: "They fly me along the different checkpoints in small planes. These Alaskan bush pilots are great pilots. They call them the Iditarod Air Force and they fly you all over up there. The planes can land on a hard- gravel surface or they can put skis down and they can land on a frozen riverbed if they need to. I used to be afraid of flying until I did this. You go through some storms that really bounce you around, but it just doesn't bother me anymore."

• Staying warm: "It does get very cold up there. The last place I was at last year was the Cripple checkpoint, and it was 45 below zero. You get used to layering. I had every last piece of clothing on me and didn't have much exposed at all. You want to stay warm, because a lot of times you're sleep deprived, and that makes you colder."

• Local flavor: "Each checkpoint is different. Each one has its own personality, because they're all in different communities and towns. There are some places where you stay in a post office, there are some places where you just have a tent. And others have a nice wooden lodge to stay in."

• Chill factor: "The dogs actually run better when it's zero or below. That way they're not overheating. A lot of times, the musher will run the dogs at night and rest them during the day, when the sun is out. The black-colored dogs are pretty exposed to hyperthermia. Sometimes they'll put coats on them to prevent the radiation from hitting them and heating them up."

• New trend: "I was excited to see last year's winner, Jeff King, had a little kennel that runs behind his sled so he can put a tired or lame dog in it and let it rest. He feels that rest is important, even though the rest of the team has to pull him, and I think that's something that's going to catch on."

• No thanks: "I really don't have any interest in being a musher. I guess I would rather take care of these little critters rather than trying to make a team."

• One of us: "As a native of Colorado, I love to backpack and love the outdoors and roughing it, and that's basically what you do up there. I'm a skier, cross-country skier, snowshoer. You name it, I like to do it. "

The Mountain Biker

Mike Curiak, 37, Grand Junction

A mountain biker in a dog sled race? Not really. Curiak is one of the country's top endurance mountain bikers, having completed nine events of 142 miles or longer since 2000. He's planning to bike the entire 1,131-mile Iditarod course unsupported, pulling his food and provisions behind him in a single-wheel trailer. He'll be riding a one-of-a-kind Moots Rigor titanium-frame bike custom built in Steamboat Springs. He's starting today, two days before the dog sled teams leave Anchorage.

• Why? "If you asked me in July, I could probably come up with a really romantic, wistful, nostalgic answer that would make a lot of sense to a lot of people and inspire people to buy tickets to Alaska in February. Right now, I'd say that I like to see new places and I definitely like challenges. The definition of a challenge is 'something that I'm not quite sure I can do.' I'm just looking for the next thing to see if I can push myself a little further."

• Heavy load: "With all of the gear I'm carrying to be self-supported, the bike itself is about 40 pounds and the trailer, with all food, gear, clothing, fuel, batteries for three weeks plus, is 80 pounds. I've ridden heavy bikes before, I've ridden in the snow before and I've done several multiday trips, but I've never quite put it all together like this, and I'm not really sure how my body is going to react."

• Racing slicks: "The surface that I'll be riding on is primarily soft snow, but in places, there will be dirt. Ice is a very, very rare occurrence on this course. Over the 1,100 miles, I might get 20 total miles of smooth, ballroom ice. But the weight and complexity and issues that come along with adding spikes or chains to your tires are not worth it. So I'm using big, fat, low-pressure tires."

• Secret stash: "The down tube of the frame, as well as both fork legs, are ported and vented to hold about 80 ounces of white gas for my stove. The structure of the trailer also holds about 200 oun- ces of fuel. I think that will give me about five days cushion, and I'd rather have a little cushion than run out and not eat or drink for the last few days."

• Rough road: "The race organization sends out five or six snowmobiles that pack down the trail. They tend to stay seven or eight hours ahead of the dog mushers. So if you're one of the leaders, you generally get packed trail that's easy to follow. But a storm can come in and the trail can get wiped clean, and the organization makes no effort whatsoever to do anything once the trail breakers have gone through. That's part of the adventure. You're just kind of on your own, so you have to deal with what you get."

• School daze: "In 1988, when I first went to college at Michigan State, I grabbed a mountain bike to get around campus. And then I moved off campus and found a lot of trails to ride to and from classes, and then it got to a point where I was missing classes because the trails were too damn fun to ride."

Fast facts

• Of the 83 teams this year, 58 are from Alaska. Wisconsin (four), Colorado (three), Montana (three) and Washington and Wyoming (two each) are the other states with multiple entries.

• Nine mushers hail from outside the U.S., including 31-year-old Hernan Maquieira, who traveled 9,126 miles from Ushuaia, Argentina, to compete in the race.

• There are 12 female mushers this year, including 29-year-old former Colorado resident Heather Siirtola. She formerly ran sled dog tours for Red Runner Dog Tours in Steamboat Springs, then moved to Talkeetna, Alaska, to get more involved in the sport.

• Jeff King, 50, of Denali Park, Alaska, won last year in nine days, 11 hours, 11 minutes and 36 seconds to claim the $69,000 first prize. King has 14 top-10 finishes and four victories in 17 career starts.

• The only five-time winner of the race, Rick Swenson, of Two Rivers, Alaska, is back for his 32nd race. The 55-year-old holds the record for most races completed (29).

• The fastest time was set in 2002 by Martin Buser, who finished the 1,100-mile course in eight days, 22 hours, 46 minutes and 2 seconds.

• The closest finish occurred in 1978, when Dick Mackey beat Swenson by one second.

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