Alaska's Last Great Race

[Tonichelle]

Wow! What a way to start a job. Keep it up! Congratulations to your whole gang, Toni!

tell me about it, I'm not going to have a life now thanks to Dallas! LOL

[Olympia]

Hope you get to watch your other sport, skating, sometime!

Does Dallas know that he has a whole bunch of fans from the skating world?

[Tonichelle]

I'm not sure! He's gotten a TON of fans over this last race, and I don't know if he's even slept yet. He actually doesn't give me TOO much of a hard time about figure skating - which is surprising. The Seavey's are very athletic and competitive and gymnastics was a sport a few of them did for a while so I think that helps... but man the costumes are definitely a turn off for Dallas. THAT he'd give me a hard time about...

Also I know one of the BIG arguments that the anti-race people make are that the mushers sit fat and happy while the dogs do all the work. That may have been 40 years ago, but most of the mushers have at least a little athletic ability. Most (in the case of the guys) are smaller than the average male (on par size wize, I think, with figure skaters actually). Dallas actually RUNS or "paddles" (that's where they kick and push with one foot) or "skipole" (use ski poles to push). He worked hard. Mushers also do not sleep or eat regularly or well... teh dogs eat and snack on a schedule and they sleep on a schedule at LEAST four hours, normally more like six. Until the very end Dallas rested his team on average six hours every time they stopped. Dallas MAYBE got half an hour sleep on those short rests. He slept a little bit whenever he took his mandatory rests but that's only after the dogs are cared for and fed.

I made this graphic to show the difference 9 days on the trail for the human makes (the dogs look so much better!)
http://sphotos.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-...21589068_n.jpg