UNALAKLEET, Alaska — Haggard and bleary eyed, Lance Mackey didn't expect to keep up with the leaders of the 1,100-mile Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race, he said Monday, hours after front-runner Robert Sorlie left this checkpoint on the windy Western Alaska coast.UNALAKLEET, Alaska — Haggard and bleary eyed, Lance Mackey didn't expect to keep up with the leaders of the 1,100-mile Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race, he said Monday, hours after front-runner Robert Sorlie left this checkpoint on the windy Western Alaska coast.
And yet he was near the top of the standings later in the day, less than three weeks after winning the 1,000-mile Yukon Quest International Sled Dog Race — the first rookie to do so.
The 34-year-old Kasilof musher was fifth out of Shaktoolik — 219 miles from the Nome finish line. He tore out of the checkpoint at 3:15 p.m. after a 10-minute stop with 11 dogs, including five that took him to victory Feb. 24 in the Whitehorse-to-Fairbanks race.
''It's not an accident that I won the Quest,'' Mackey said before leaving Unalakleet in 13th place for the 48-mile trek to Shaktoolik. ''I earned that win and I wanted to follow it with another good run to show people it wasn't a fluke.''
Tackling two grueling races back-to-back, as Mackey and two other Quest finishers are doing, is a tough challenge.
''Why do both? Boredom, I guess,'' said fellow Quest finisher Hugh Neff. ''Mushers don't like to keep still.''
For Mackey, there's also the added punch of surviving the cancer diagnosed three days after the 2001 Iditarod. Doctors removed the growth from his neck and shoulder.
''What it all boils down to, I love what I do, although maybe not at this precise moment,'' he said at the Unalakleet checkpoint, patting down knots of hair. ''This has been a brutal race for me. I came off the Quest with a flawless run — and here it's been a reality check.''
That the Iditarod has turned out to be more difficult surprised him.
Many mushers consider the lesser-known Quest a more demanding race. It's got fewer checkpoints, goes over more remote, mountainous terrain and, because the race begins in mid-February, conditions are likely to be colder.
But Mackey and Neff have found the Iditarod a more hellish test this year. Above-freezing temperatures have turned much of the trail to slush and icy puddles, an ordeal for the most experienced teams. No one expects any speed records to be broken.
''We call it devil snow, punchy wet snow that we're wallowing in,'' said Neff, 37, who was in 15th place Monday evening. ''I've taken spills and so many near misses.''
Neff, of Skagway, placed third in the Quest and brought five of his Quest dogs to the Iditarod. Only one has been dropped. And they'll be back next year, too, Neff said.
''I've got dogs. Might as well use them,'' he said.
Another musher doing double duty on the Iditarod and the Quest is Sebastian Schnuelle, 34, of Whitehorse, Yukon, who was running in the middle of the pack Monday.
Kelley Griffin of Wasilla, running her first Iditarod, started her fourth Quest in February but scratched at Pelly Crossing. She was in 51st place Monday on the race to Nome.
Plenty of former Quest champions — including Aliy Zirkle of Two Rivers, Tim Osmar of Ninilchik and triple-winner Hans Gatt of Atlin, British Columbia — are in the Iditarod this year. But none of them ran the Quest last month.
Gatt tried running both races in 2002, when he won the Quest. He finished 23rd in the Iditarod. Osmar gave it a shot after winning the Quest in 2001, and was 18th to Nome that year.
Mackey hopes to do better.
''No one has ever done this well,'' he said. ''But not too many people have even tried.''
