The Iditarod 2010
Photos & Story by Leanne
Lance Makes it Four in a Row
With a fresh blanket of snow on the ground, the 38th running of the Last Great Race, Iditarod 2010, kicked off with the Ceremonial Start on 4th Ave in downtown Anchorage Saturday, March 6th. It was a beautiful day for the festive 12 mile adventure through Anchorage for the 71 mushers and their teams. Fans from around the globe lined the streets to cheer on their favorites. This year's race field features mushers from Scotland, Belgium, Canada, the U.S. and Jamaica (yes, Jamaica). Crazy hats and flags from the homelands were a recurring theme. The Restart in Willow the next afternoon was favored with sunshine and mild temperatures as well.
This year's race held many "stories within the story" from DeeDee Jonrowe's (#31) mom beginning cancer treatment to the young rookie (Pat Moon #17) of Chicago's collision with a tree resulting in multiple injuries and the helpful actions of Belgian musher/medical student Sam Deltour (#66) to the 5 day long search for "Whitey", a three year old dog from the team of Justin Savidis, who was lost near McGrath. Trent Herbst (#60), a 4th grade teacher from Idaho is running again this year with a sled built by his class. All 17 of his students made the trip to Anchorage for the start of the race and gave a presentation detailing their role in his race preparation.
The dog teams themselves are as diverse as the mushers. The photogenic Siberian Husky teams of Hank Debruin (#45), Karen Ramstead and Blake Freking have never been front runners against the multi-colored Alaskan husky teams of legends like Mackey, King, Swenson and Seavey but all of these canine athletes seem to love what they do - run!
Lance Mackey made history on March 16, 2010 as he pulled into Nome just one second shy of nine days after leaving the the chute in Willow to claim his fourth consecutive Iditarod victory. 
A little over an hour later Hans Gatt (#20), the 2010 Yukon Quest champ, arrived in 2nd place and followed by Jeff King (#15) about an hour and a quarter later to round out the top three.
As I am writing the race is far from over even though the winner has been established. There are still some teams as far as 300 miles from the finish line in Nome battling the elements and the Alaskan wilderness to pursue their dream of completing the Last Great Race.