"I'm getting realistic to the fact my body's going to slow down ... it's going to take away from the years on the back of the sled if I continue to do both races," Mackey said during an interview Thursday night in downtown Anchorage, where he was inducted into the Alaska Sports Hall of Fame.

Along with rebounding from throat cancer for a string of victories, the 39-year-old's legacy is built on a feat no other musher has accomplished: winning both the Quest and Iditarod in a single season. Twice.

In the future, he said, he may register for both 1,000-mile races but will only race one. Or neither.

"I might go over to Russia and do a race over there. I might be in Wyoming ... I want to really do the Fur Rondy and the North American," he said, referring to sprint races.

Mackey finished second to Hans Gatt on Feb. 15 in this year's record-breaking Quest. He'll look to defend his Iditarod title beginning March 6, when the race's ceremonial start is held in Anchorage.

Gatt recently told the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation News that he plans to retire from long-distance racing.

"There is a point where you realize that they are really hard on your body, and there's other things to do in life," Gatt told CBC.

Mackey, who was diagnosed with cancer after the 2001 Iditarod, says he feels a little bit weaker and a little bit slower than last year.

"But here I am standing here doing something that 10 years ago the doctors told me I'd never be able to do again," he said. "I don't think about the things that are, you know, trying to hold me back and set me back."

Mackey, who has a medical marijuana prescription, was charged in January with a minor count of marijuana possession that his lawyer is hoping to see dismissed. "We're working with the District Attorney's office and getting them a copy of Lance's medical prescription for treatment of conditions related to his cancer treatment," Michael Kramer said.

Six or seven of the dogs Mackey raced with on the Yukon Quest may join him on the Iditarod, the musher said. As for the trail itself, Mackey expects challenging conditions from start to finish.

"I've talked to friends out in Galena. I've talked to friends out in the coast. People who have flown in dog food lately. It doesn't sound pretty," he said.

Iditarod spokesman Chas St. George called conditions "manageable" earlier this week, and said the trail is in better shape than in 2003, when the race start was moved to Fairbanks in search of snow.

Meantime, if you see a loose sled dog in Anchorage, give Mackey a call.

The musher got little rest after the Hall of Fame ceremony Thursday night when "Girl," a black-and-white sled dog he got from his brother Jason, split during feeding time near the Millennium Hotel, a spokeswoman said.

He spent much of the night searching for it, Mackey spokeswoman Theresa Daily said. "They said they spotted it all night long. It's running with a little white dog."

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Read Iditarod Live, the ADN's sled blog, at www.adn.com/iditarodlive. Twitter updates: twitter.com/iditarodlive. Call Kyle Hopkins at 257-4334.

The Jr. Iditarod begins at 10 a.m. today in Willow, with 13 teenage mushers competing in a roughly 150-mile loop that includes a mandatory 10-hour layover at the Yenta Station Roadhouse. The young mushers' locations will be tracked today at Iditarod.com, as Iditarod organizers test the GPS system to be used in the big race, said spokesman Chas St. George.