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Iditarod 2018

Travis Beals Iditarod 2018: Choosing Takotna for his 24

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Well, I’ve been scouring the internet and finally found a picture of Travis and Team in Takotna on their 24-hour layover.

Right now, Travis sits approximately 6.5 hours behind the current front runners. He’s traveling at similar speeds to most of the front runners so that 6.5 hours is primarily from additional rest that Travis has put into his team.

This extra rest is going to be a real benefit in the miles ahead as the trail looks slow and tough leaving Ophir — just look at Joar’s runtime time to Iditarod (though he did stop for about 3 hour). That extra rest will certainly help the team there!

Travis Beals Resting in Takotna
Travis gets ready to put jackets on his dogs while resting in Takotna

YesTravis’ decision to rest for two hours in McGrath wasn’t originally part of the race plan we designed but was decided on due to the fact that the trail into McGrath wasn’t good. Given the trail conditions and suspected forecast — I think he’s right and made a great choice in stopping.

Up until now, Travis has had a very conservative run/rest schedule for a competitive team. This has allowed his team to stay in better shape. Rather then go into his 24 with the dogs depleted and needing to recover, the dogs go into the 24 stronger making their rest more beneficial and coming out of the 24 much tougher.

Travis’ race strategy up until now seems to have paid off. His team is eager — the word is that his dogs barked and screamed upon his arrival in Takotna with several dogs jumping and lunging in harness. Although the team was clearly capable of continuing on, Travis shut them down. Keeping the dogs eager to go will ensure a strong team moving forward.

The dogs are also eating and resting well. So far, the dogs have eaten every meal they’ve been offered. This is a tell-tale sign that the team is shaping up nicely. How a dog team eats is often one of the surest ways to measure how that team is feeling. Having every dog wolf down its meal is a definite confidence booster for any musher and this team, it seems, is shaping up to be one of the strongest teams Travis has ever driven in Iditarod.

Travis will depart Takotna 5:56 am Thursday morning.

Go Trav go!

Travis Beals Is Through Ophir on the 2018 Iditarod

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Travis rolled out of Takotna right on time 5:56 this morning. He still has 14 very talented, capable dogs in the team — many who will lead.

Travis Beals in the Fingerlake Checkpoint during the 2018 Iditarod
Travis poses with his lead dog Fidget at the Finger Lake checkpoint in the 2018 Iditarod

Moving like a freight train at an impressive 9.9 miles an hour, blew through Ophir with a run time of 2 hours and 19 minutes. This is the second fastest time posted info Ophir and a good sign of things to come. He’s already made up a lot of time on the teams that left ahead of him and I expect he will do a bit of passing on the run to Iditarod.

When we talked about this section of the race for scheduling, we assumed he would rest in Takotna and somewhere on the trail between Ophir and Iditarod. From Takotna to Iditarod is 103 miles. I wouldn’t be surprised to see him shut down for a few hours during the heat of the day before continuing on — but I can’t say exactly where he’ll choose to do so. He may decide to break the run up evenly or favor a slightly longer or shorter run off the start.

Travis Beals leaves the Finger Lake Checkpoint in the 2018 Iditarod.
Travis Beals leaves the Finger Lake Checkpoint in the 2018 Iditarod. Dogs Wrangler and Fidget are in lead.

Being able to rest at the warmest part of the day will help his team maintain speed — which he’s been very careful in managing up to this point in the race. As the race progresses, I expect to see the team excel.

Another plus is that it seems that the trail to Iditarod has set up nicely overnight with teams now posting much faster run teams. This is great news for Travis but not good for the teams that choose to run to Iditarod for their 24. The biggest question is whether or not the trail with soften with the heat of the day and how much snow is accumulating.

Travis Beals Resting in Takotna

It sure seems like things are starting to come together and it will be exciting to watch the progression of the race in the next 48 hours.

Stay tuned for a team roster update coming later today.  With all the chaos in getting ready for the big race and just Travis and I, I haven’t had much time for preparing things and am a little behind the curveball!