Halftime is Over! Back to the Trail!

The front Teams are coming off their 24 hour rests in McGrath and Takotna, as Joar pulls up in Iditarod for his 24 hour rest.   The speeds (caution, the GPS speeds are just "pings" in time, but if they are consistantly around a certain speed, you can bet that is about the average they are traveling) are pretty impressive, which could indicate the trail has set up and developed a crust as several Teams have already packed it in ahead of them.  Joar is not the only one who pushed forward into Iditarod...he is the only one there now, but there are several Teams who opted not to take their 24 in any of the previous checkpoints...some may be out of contention but there are some that are definately positioning themselves in the money.  Here is a rundown of where Teams are at:

Joar - resting in Iditarod at mile 432.....he got into there at 12:30 am (est).
Lars Monson at mile 400
Jeff King moving at 6 mph at mile 388
Larry Daughtery moving at 7 mph at mile 377

Several Teams are in Ophir Checkpoint (mile 352) serving out their 24 hour rest....they are:
Hugh Neff
Ketil Reitan
Martin Buser
Jessie Holmes

There are 3 more Teams there, but they just arrived.  So there are several Teams, some in contention and some not in contention that have packed down the trail, which appears to be in good condition for those who are now chasing.  Here is the lead chase pack:

Mitch Seavey - moving at a blistering 10.2 mph at mile 342 (24 hour rest done)
Nic Petit - moving at 8.2 mph at mile 338 (24 hour rest done)
Aaron Burmeister - moving at 7 mph at mile 333 (24 hour rest done)

The following Teams are serving out their 24 hour rest (plus start differential, I forgot to mention that previously) and many of them like Jessie Royer and Aily Zirkle will be leaving soon.....so the Teams in Takotna are:

Ray Redington
Jessie Royer
Lindwood Fiedler
Aliy Zirkle
Richie Diehl
Peter Kaiser
Mats Patterson
Michelle Phillips
Kelly Maxiner
Matt Hall
Ramey Smyth
Michi Konno
Cody Strathe

There are more, but these folks just got in, so I will leave them off my list as I need to get to work (its Idita-Bagel Day!)

And dont forget, there are some lead Teams wh pulled up in McGrath (mile 311).  These Teams served out their 24 hour rest in McGrath and are again on the move....they include:

Wade Marrs - moving at a blistering 10.3 mph at mile 329
Ryan Redington - moving at 6 mph at mile 324

So that about does it for the lead pack and the trail conditions set up.  Im not sure at this time if trail conditions are hard enough for Mitch to be able to go back to carrying dogs in his oversized sled....I will keep an eye out for that.  Iditarod.com put out a nice video of Aliy and Mitch talking about Mitch's sled and the hard work Mitch has to put into rotating his dogs around.  Aliy is a bit mystified with the strategy....she keeps on saying "thats a lot of work", and "you mean you can carry 250 pounds of dog in that sled", with Mitch saying "yes, while also keeping my speed:", which is impressive IF trail conditions allow. Im still a bit old school and rather see dogs experiancing the trail from the outside of the sled, but again, just my opinion.  Im sure some see this as a awesome strategy, while people like me see it as a gimic.....just Mush for goodness sakes.....its a sled DOG race, not a race in how to keep your dogs from running!  But as Aliy said "its a lot of work, and you are in the lead", and with that she patted Mitch on the back and walked off saying "and winning takes a lot of work".