We'll list the accomplishments in a moment. But first, marvel at Lance Mackey on Front Street in Nome on Tuesday afternoon. The man should have been barely conscious. Instead he was gracious, funny and coherent after driving a dog team a thousand miles in just less than nine days.

If that's the Alaska standard for toughness, 99 percent of us are cream puffs.

Mackey has now won the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog race four years in a row. He's the only musher to do that. Twice in those four years he won both the Yukon Quest and the Iditarod. He's the only musher to do that too. Even once.

This year he finished second in the Quest. He did say he was slowing down a little.

Lord have mercy.

On the competition.

That competition was fierce and included fellow four-time champion Jeff King, the man Mackey said was his strongest Iditarod rival.

We'll skip the breathless adjectives and repeat what King said in Elim as Mackey drove for Nome:

"He's pretty good at this."