How to Run the Iditarod

Endless strategies revolve throughout Iditarod history, and any given musher will argue for any of them. Basic principles, however, stand.

Instructions

Difficulty: Challenging

Things You’ll Need:

• Sleds

1. Don't be fooled by the dogs' initial speed. "If you believe them and let them go faster in the beginning, you're going to pay for it later," Iditarod veteran Shawn Sidelinger notes.
2. Have patience; slow the dogs down. "We would love to finish as fast as we started, but to do that, you have to put on the brakes at the beginning."
3. Slow your team in the first 200 miles of the 1,150-mile trail.
4. Let the dogs run their pace sometime after mile 250 to 300. "They'll likely find that ideal speed and maintain it."
5. Help the team pull up hills, even though they are fully capable of bearing the load. Jump from the sled and run alongside, or keep one foot on the sled and help by poling or pedaling with the other.

Tips & Warnings

• Enjoy yourself. "We are retracing the steps of the gold rush," Sidelinger says. "Even though some of the mushers are only a few miles ' or feet ' apart between checkpoints, there's just nothing else out there. Most of the mushers are hoping to get that feeling the pioneers had."
• "Every year someone is going to believe what they see in their dogs at the beginning of the race and think the team will hold that pace," Sidelinger says. It is a mistaken assumption.