Iditarod already loses three dogs

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Iditarod just started and already 3 dogs "lost". Can you imagine running/pulling for FOUR HOURS STRAIGHT???? ?? Bismarck native's Iditarod sled loses 3 dogs LOADING Mar 06, 2008 - 04:06:30 CST By VIRGINIA GRANTIER Bismarck Tribune "Shadow" has a sore back, so he's out.And two other dogs are no longer running, for reasons not yet explained.So the

16-dog team that Heather Siirtola, 30, started out with is now down to 13 dogs in the Iditarod Race that started Sunday in Willow, Alaska, north of Anchorage, said her dad, Jim Siirtola of Bismarck on Wednesday.In addition, she had to leave one of her better dogs at home in Talkeetna, Alaska, prior to the race, because the dog was in heat and would have been a distraction to the male dogs on the team.But Heather Siirtola, a Bismarck High School graduate, is still in the hunt. She was reported to be in about 69th position, out of the 93 teams still in the race, when she left Rohn at 12:27 a.m. Wednesday. By Wednesday afternoon, she was reported to be in 74th place.She still hadn't called her parents as of Wednesday afternoon. But her stepfather, Dann Stuart of West Virginia, with the help of information from the Iditarod Race Web site and contacts he has there, knows she left Rohn for Nikolai, an 80-mile stretch.After Wednesday's 80-mile run

to Nikolai, she and the dogs will have racked up 347 miles, leaving another 765 miles to Nome's finish line.Being in the middle of the pack, it was expected this leg would be rough.Snowmobilers go up ahead to groom the trail, but by the time the first 20 or so sleds go through, the ruts begin to form, especially true when new snow is falling, Stuart reported to the Tribune in an e-mail.And she's winning, if winning is doing better than she did in her first Iditarod attempt in 2007.Siirtola at this point is about 36 hours ahead of her time last year at the same point. In that race, she raced for 16 days and accomplished a 56th place. The winner, Lance Mackey, finished in nine days."She's doing a much better job with scheduling," said Stuart.Stuart said last year she was concerned about tiring the dogs too much and would spend too much time resting at checkpoints.But in training for this year's race, she logged in about

2,000 miles, many five- to seven-hour runs, and is much more understanding of her dogs' abilities and limitations, he said. And so this race, her racing schedule is kind of a four hours running, four hours resting strategy, he said.Stuart said he and his wife, Deb Stuart, Siirtola's mom, have had sleepless nights, as she's usually racing in the middle of the night their time, in West Virginia.Jim Siirtola was there the week prior to the race and on race day to see his daughter off.He said she packed the sled lighter this year for a total of about 150 pounds, had a lighter sleeping bag, lighter shovel and so on.He helped tighten bolts on the sled before the start, but he said there wasn't much to do, and things were different this year."Last year when she was getting ready, she was really uptight, edgy,"he said. "This year it wasn't like that, she was more calm."But was dad?"I was kind of scared, seeing my little

daughter going out in the wilderness," he said about watching her take off.Sleds took off every two minutes on Sunday. She took off in 47th position.To keep up with Siirtola and all the other mushers during the race, click on Current Iditarod Standings on the homepage. It will take you to an interactive map that shows daily race standings. You also can follow her progress at her own Web site, www.hardcorehuskies .com. http://pets.Fortheanimals7/join