I made a few phone calls this Friday and gathered that the Thursday Musher Meeting -- which is closed to the public, but leaks a little after 62 mushers wander around Anchorage for a day -- was quiet and uneventful. Pre-race anxiety was muted by the fact that the trail over the Alaska Range was described by officials as fully blanketed with deep snow. "We may go slowly, but at least we’re not going to crash and burn!" In particular, the stretch from Rohn through the Buffalo Tunnels and on to the Nikolai Flats appears safe. 

As for the ceremonial start to the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race through downtown Anchorage on Saturday, I talked to a few musher's wives by phone and found that same old ennui and dangerous boredom. It's great for the public but accomplishes nothing for the musher, except to get you to the Sunday start -- if you don't screw up on the streets of the city. I have no interest in the ceremonial start and my "Iditarod Insider expert," four-time champion Doug Swingley, speaking from his home in Lincoln, Mont., apparently didn't even hear my question about the ceremonial start. His mind was further down the trail.

Swingley has agreed to compromise his credibility by joining me in daily repartee and heated debate. I'll call him from my home in Cliff, NM to his in Lincoln, Mont. On our first exchange, we were somewhat in agreement. 

Most of the pack Iditatough in the Mackey mold

Generally, the race has been recently defined by defending Iditarod champion Lance Mackey with a strategy of 60-percent run and 40-percent rest, which means that the Yukon Quest International Sled Dog Race mushers are particularly prepared for Iditarod. (More conventional mushers like 50-50). We immediately think of race favorites, Dallas Seavey, Schnuelle, Hans Gatt, Ken Anderson and Hugh Neff. Most of the players in the Iditarod are proficient Yukon Quest racers with the gritty, tough, and prepared teams that stick with Mackey. 

Those that aren't, including former Iditarod champion Mitch Seavey, still believe in the philosophy. We've heard that Mitch went on a 700 mile training regime weeks prior to the Iditarod, which means, as Doug put it, "He went on the Yukon Quest, but just didn’t pay the entry fee." I talked to John Baker, one of the most consistent mushers to have never won the Iditarod, and found that he spent all winter in storm-battered Kotzebue on frustratingly slow trails. He could have run the Quest, except he didn't have to plunge into knee deep overflow at 50 degrees below zero on Birch Creek and freeze his hands as Gatt did.

"I would start out for a five hour training run to Noorvik, and get there the next morning after 15 hours of breaking trail through new snow. The dogs never had a decent trail all winter. They're really slow," he told me. (I checked later and he said the dogs perked up when they trained on a hard trail outside of Anchorage two days ago.)  

Now, enter Lance Mackey, the originator of the "Mackey Marathon" strategy, winner of four consecutive Yukon Quests, winner of four consecutive Iditarods. As another of my mushing insiders, the World Wrestling Federation champ (and former Deadlift world record holder) Paul Ellering told me, "There can be no other favorite. To be the Champ, you have to beat the Champ. Mackey is the favorite."

While everyone else was breaking trail into a headwind this January and February, Mackey was sleeping in motels while stage racing in Wyoming. It seems totally out of character. Why wasn't he leaving at 2 a.m. from his house on Murphy Dome for an 80-mile training run? I worked with him on his autobiography, "The Lance Mackey Story". If there is a certainty to Mackey's race preparation, it is his almost comical commitment to an acceptance of unpredictability. He never wants to be in a situation he hasn’t faced and therefore he will design extraordinarily unconventional training regimes. One time, he told me, he became so spontaneous that he even found himself ridiculous. He just laughs.  

He just likes to run sled dogs.