Archive for Monday, March 9, 2009
Thurston begins 1st day of racing Sunday
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The annual Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race starts at 10 a.m. Saturday in Anchorage, Alaska, then restarts at 2 p.m. Sunday in Willow, Alaska.
Oak Creek-based musher Tom Thurston was driving his team of 12 dogs down the frozen Yentna River on Sunday night on the first day of the Iditarod in Alaska.
The event officially began Saturday morning in Anchorage. Thurston and the 67-team field ran 20 miles through the city before loading back up and driving to Willow, Alaska. The race was restarted Sunday afternoon in Willow.
Thurston was the 26th racer to start, and he left 40 minutes after the first team hit the trail.
The field raced Sunday night from Willow to the race's first checkpoint 40 miles down the trail at Yentna Station.
The course remained relatively flat from Willow, cutting through forests.
The mileage after the checkpoint is on the Yentna River. It's 34 miles until the next checkpoint, a few miles off the Yentna and up the Skwentna River.
Today marks the first full day of racing. The teams are headed 1,131 miles through the Alaskan wilderness to Nome.
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