Boy, was that a doozy of a run! It’s going to be interesting to hear Travis’ stories from this stretch of the race: getting spun about, ground storms, and just a long, long, long run.

The Iditarod lists the run from Shaktoolik to Koyuk as a 48-mile run. Due to the sea ice that the mushers usually run on getting blown out to sea two weeks ago when the trail crews were going through, the trail was routed closer to the coast and partially overland. This added about 7 miles to the trail when all was said and done so the route was closer to 55 miles.

Travis left Shaktoolik at 12:26pm this morning and arrived at 10:19. His run time was 9 hours and 52 minutes. Ramey Smyth is starting to creep up and did the run approximately an hour faster. If you watch the tracker though, Travis and Wade got lost during the run and ended up running back towards Shaktoolik for approximately 15 minutes.  While theoretically, this was only a 30-minute error, it may have affected the overall speed of the team if their confidence was at all shaken.

I expect that Travis and Wade will take a long rest here, 5 or 6-hours, to recover the team. Richie and Linwood will be arriving at the checkpoint at some point and it will be important to look at their run times before getting a better idea of where Travis really sits.

 

Wow! Travis is into Unalakleet in 4th place. He stopped for about 1.5 hours on the trail and will rest here for 3-4 hours before continuing the 40 miles to Shaktoolik.

The dogs looked absolutely amazing coming in. There’s a great video now posted of Travis coming into Unalakleet on the Iditarod Insider. You have to have signed up for the Iditarod Insider program in order to watch this video.

Travis Beals Arrives 4th in Unalakleet – Iditarod

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Neighbor and friend, Kale Casey, was in Unalakleet and live-streamed  Travis’ arrival to the checkpoint as well as him doing his dog chores in the checkpoint.

It was great watching the team arrive and hard not to get excited by their strong performance. Travis comes into the video around the 15-minute mark: the first part of the video is Joar’s departure from Unalakleet.

The dogs all looked really strong. There were a lot of things to take away from this video: the first is that the dogs were moving great. The 1.5-hour break on the trail helped put some pep into the team and will keep them moving quickly down the rest of the coast. The other thing is that the dogs ate really well; they need this energy to continue fueling them down the trail.

Travis is clearly tired in the video and openly admits he hasn’t gotten any sleep. That’s tough. Right now, that’s going to be the most difficult thing for him to deal with. When you are that tired, even a tiny problem can seem insurmountable. From my experience on the Iditarod, Unalakleet has some of the best sleeping quarters in the race. Hopefully, Travis can get a bit of sleep here — though if he wants to stay in fighting position for the Top 5 he won’t get much more than 30 to 40 minutes; then it will be time to water dogs, booty and take off down the trail.

Travis remarked to Kale that the most important thing was that he was having fun; this has been our mantra all season. Even though it must be tough being so tired, I’m happy to hear he’s enjoying himself.

After the live feed ended, I spoke with Kale privately on the phone and he said that Travis was going to be switching out sleds. He may drop a dog, but who knows! Interestingly, he’s going to be going with his medium weight sled instead of his lightweight sled. This may have to do with the fact that his medium weight sled has a seat and his lightweight sled does not.  He’s prepping that for departure, will eat some pancakes, get a quick nap and get back out there.

Don’t be surprised when Travis leaves in a later position: Wade, Richie, Pete, and Ray will likely leapfrog Travis at this checkpoint. They rested longer on the trail and will blow through Unalakleet and run straight to Shaktoolik. Each strategy has different strengths and will unfold differently over the next 24 hours as teams make their way up the coast.

The benefit of what Travis is doing is that it will keep the dogs peppy and should keep him speedy down the coast. Travis is breaking the run from Kaltag to Shaktoolik into 3 runs. He ran 63 miles from Kaltag and camped for 1.5 hours. From his camp, Travis ran 22 miles into Unalakleet and after this run will run 40 miles from Unalakleet to Shaktoolik. These two short runs will build some speed back into the team for the final push from Shaktoolik into White Mountain.

Wade, Richie, Pete and Ray rested for Longer and broke up the 125 miles from Kaltag to Shaktoolik into 2-runs. They will rest less but rest less and longer runs will likely impact their speed.

Travis is betting that a little extra speed will help him be the musher in the front (or close to!) of this chase pack. Time will only tell how this strategy plays out.

Travis Beals Talks About His Lead Dog Fidget – Iditarod

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Go Trav go!

Make sure you follow Kale’s facebook page for more great live coverage of Iditarod 2018.

What an interesting 24 hours of racing we’ve had!

I’ve been multi-tasking trying to prep for Nome while crunching race numbers. After a great run into Eagle Island yesterday, Travis and his best friend Wade Marrs of Stump Jumpin Kennel traveled the remainder of the trail together into Kaltag. From the tracker, it looked like they alternated taking turns leading. This is advantageous as neither team tires out their lead dogs. Being a lead dog, especially in such tough trail conditions, is challenging.

Before leaving Eagle Island, Travis dropped Granger. Granger came up with a sore shoulder on the run into Ealge Island and with soft trail and several long runs ahead he didn’t want to have to carry her. This isn’t anything to be too concerned about as his team has lots of depth. I’m sure another dog will step up to the challenge!

The 122-mile stretch of trail from Grayling to Kaltag took Travis 20 hours and 42 minutes. Wade posted a slightly faster time — but both Travis and Wade continue to post faster times than the mushers in front of them. Currently, Travis is camped at mile 712 approximately 25 miles from Unalakleet. Ray, Pete, Richie, and Wade are all camped a few miles up ahead 0n the trail. I expect these teams will rest, 4-5 hours, and blow through Unalakleet.

Travis won’t rest long on the trail. He’ll rest approximately 1.5 to 2-hours tops before continuing to Unalakleet. Breaking up the 85 miles run like this, into a 60-mile run and a 25-mile run, will keep the dogs peppy and keep speed in the team for the push up the coast. He’ll play some leapfrog here, passing Wade, Ray, Pete, and Richie going into Unalakleet but they will pass him back shortly. Travis will have to stop in Unalakleet for a few hours whereas these teams will be able to blow through.

 

In Unalakleet, Travis will switch to a smaller, lighter sled which will hopefully help him gain some faster times. It will be interesting to see how things take shape from there. Travis will have sacrificed some time but will hopefully have gained some speed. With already faster run times and a little extra rest, he’s hoping he can push past some of the competitors for a better finishing placement: it’s a conservative movement that will allow him to hold his current position with a possibility of gaining.

 

 

The 122-mile push to Kaltag has begun!

After arriving in Grayling at 11:40 last night in 11th position, Travis opted to stay 5 hours and 40 minutes before heading down the trail. He left in 9th position: two teams who arrived before him took longer rests and departed after him. These teams were friend Wade Marrs and Jessie Royer.  Jessie stayed 6.5 hours and Wade about 7 hours. These longer rests may prove beneficial a day or two down the line but for now it appears that Travis has the slight edge.

In mushing, there is a general rule of thumb that the dogs don’t really much of a benefit from a rest over 6 hours. That is, if a dog team isn’t restored from a 6-hour rest, an extra 30 minutes or even another hour or two isn’t going to be the deciding factor. Rests over 6 hours, however, do help the musher tremendously. With mushers only getting a little sleep here and there, a 6 or 7-hour break can really help the musher get a good quality 4-hour nap in and may better prepare them for helping their team down the trail.

So far, things are looking good on his run. He’s maintained some really good speed and appears to be putting distance between the teams he left ahead of as well as catching the teams who left before him. It’s been an interesting year given the tough trail conditions thus far. Although our training this year emphasized speed over power, this was the first year that speed has been our true emphasis in training. Even though we did not emphasize power training as much this year, Travis’ team has gone through several seasons of tough “power” training before switching to a different speedier style. Because of this, it’s hard for me to really say what our team specializes in. I’d give a slight edge to speed as that, after all, has been our focus — but that emphasis was built on a rock-solid foundation of many years where power training was the focus. Whatever it is, it seems to be working!

Travis will likely catch several teams, depending on the amount of rest he chooses to take while camped, before Kaltag. He’s also poised to overtake many other teams on the run to Unalakleet. I couldn’t be more proud of how he has managed his race: his strong team management has really shown in his run times!

In Unalakleet, Travis has two different sleds waiting for him. He will certainly switch to one of these sleds as they are both lighter, but I can’t say which one for sure. The important thing is: they are both much lighter than the sled he is driving now. This decrease in weight will make pulling significantly easier on the dogs and give the team a boost at a later stage in the race.

 

I expect Travis and the teams ahead of him will camp somewhere between mile 585 and 592. Mitch and Joar are resting at 585 and from the map, it looks like this might be a great spot out of the wind — which I’ve heard there is plenty of. Nic is further up the trail at 591. I screenshotted Eagle Island before it was “erased” and had that at mile 592 so it’s unclear if Nic is at the hospitality stop in Eagle Island or resting shortly before it.

By my estimation, Trav will be pulling off the trail sometime between 11-12:30 which will give him and the rest of the pack he is with the benefit of resting during the heat of the day. Nic, Mitch, and Joar do not have that benefit. Make no mistake, these three teams have a significant lead over the rest of the chase pack — but with some forecasted snow along the coast, mother nature could throw a wrench in their races plans.

There’s been some concern from race fans that Travis hasn’t taken his 8-hour layover. Don’t worry! He took his mandatory 8-hour layover in Shageluk but there appears to be a glitch in Iditarod’s system. Every time they try to update this section of his racing information it doesn’t appear to save.

I am off to do some last minute packing, cleaning, etc before flying to Nome tomorrow morning!