Jeff King had a great night's sleep before the official start of the Iditarod in Wasilla Sunday except for a dream he had about rival Rick Swenson. "I tried to reconcile the anxiety between us," said King, who won his third championship last year but still is two victories behind Swenson's record. Did the two work it out in his dream? "No," King said, smiling. "Definitely not." And so begins the longest sled dog race in the world - an unsanitized, unpredictable race that stretches over 1,100 miles of winding trails, steep hills, sudden blizzards and hard winds. By 8 a.m. Sunday, the mushers were lined up around Wasilla Airport with their dog trucks and sleds like a circle of pioneer wagons waiting for the journey west to begin. Despite the dream, King got 10 hours of sleep Saturday night, thanks to a dozen handlers who took care of most of the last-minute fussing. "It was the best night's rest I have ever gotten before a race," he said, standing calmly by the side of his neatly packed sled. Across the lot, dozens of mushers were adjusting runners, counting harnesses and checking lists. Ed Iten stood among metal dog bowls, coats and harnesses. The night before the race, Iten wasn't dreaming about competitors. He hardly slept at all. "I was up most of the night fiddling and packing," he said. With just four handlers, used sleds and a borrowed pickup truck for getting to the race start, Iten is running what he calls a "shoestring operation. "I am really just learning," he Iten as he scanned the piles in search of backup plastic runners for his sled. Though he still calls himself a rookie, Iten finished 14th in 1992, his first and only Iditarod. Since then, the 45-year-old carpenter who lives in AMBLER, a remote homestead miles from Kotzebue, has been unable to afford to return. He didn't even know he was going to make it to Anchorage until early December when Lynden Air Cargo offered to fly his 16 dogs from Fairbanks to Anchorage. "Living out in the Bush, it is hard to raise the funds and get the sponsors. There's just not a lot of work," said Iten, one of the few Iditarod racers born in Alaska. Iten relies on his dogs for getting to town, hauling wood, and bringing in the meat he hunts for his family. "Their work is their training," said Iten. "Most people are really serious about racing and have regimented training schedules. We are the opposite. Even if I had the time, I don't think I could do it. It sounds really boring." Nevertheless, Iten has been working almost nonstop for months to prepare, leaving little time for their two kids, said Ruth, his wife. "This takes a huge amount of sacrifice," she said. "A lot of nights I am like, 'Sorry kids, you are going to have to eat dried caribou and seal oil because I am cooking fish stew for the dogs,' " she said. The dogs - more than 800 of them - were a major focus of the race start. Throughout the morning, veterinarians passed scanners over each dog's back, looking for microchips inserted earlier like high-tech fingerprints. The dogs that finish in Nome will be checked again to make sure the mushers have not tried to swap in any new animals. "These are my favorite dogs - not like spoiled, little snappy house pets," said Stu Nelson, the Iditarod's chief veterinarian as he did rounds around the airport lot. While the dogs can pull hundreds of pounds, trot marathon distances in a few short hours, and stay warm in subzero cold, Nelson said the animals still need to be checked along the way for everything from elevated heart rates to weight loss. The dogs eat up to 12,000 calories a day during the race. For a human, that's the equivalent of about 40 Big Macs in one day. "They need an adequate fat reserve in case they get caught out in a storm," he said."They need to eat a lot." Don't talk to Wasilla musher Harry Caldwell about food. He didn't get his prepackaged meals in time to send to the checkpoints. So he's scrounged up eight meals left over from last year and bought 20 pounds of candy. "I lose 10 to 15 pounds every year no matter what I bring," said Caldwell, who is running for the seventh time. Without any big sponsors, Caldwell spent $25,000 to race this year. "We haven't been on a vacation in 10 years," said Caldwell, a respiratory therapist who helps premature babies breath on their own. Caldwell - who's never been in the top 20 - is one of dozens of mushers who race not to win but for the joy of it. Caldwell lives in heart of Wasilla's doggy corridor, down the road from Iditarod headquarters, a few miles from the Iditarod Trail and just around the corner from Dog Sled Street. "I just love the Iditarod," he said. "It's like a family - the vets, the checkers, the volunteers," he said. By 10 a.m., Caldwell is whistling with energy, loading his sled with his favorite cassette tapes (Gloria Estefan and The Mamas and the Papas), a red rose for the owner of a lodge at one of the checkpoints and Flat Sammy, a paper doll a child had given him Saturday. "I am just having some fun," he said. By this time, the surprisingly calm and mostly bark-free lot of a few hours ago is starting to buzz as the first teams begin to prepare their sleds. DeeDee Jonrowe, the popular Willow musher, still has her dogs in the truck to keep them calm in the cacophony of sounds and scents created by more than 800 dogs. Keeping cool is important, said Jonrowe, who spent the night before the race curled up with her three Labradors, two cats and husband watching ice-skating finals and shows on the Christian channel. "The start of the race is extremely critical," she said. "It sets the tone for the rest of the race." Like most other mushers, Jonrowe's main goal Sunday was to get the dogs into a routine they can sustain the rest of the race. By 10:45 a.m., hours of waiting and months of preparation are almost behind them. The first team of dogs led by musher Vern Halter is on its way to the starting line. Escorted by more than a dozen handlers in matching navy-blue coats, Halter and his team look like the president and his Secret Service agents as they move quickly through the crowd. But just seconds before the start, the scene changes. The handlers let go of the dogs, the race officials stand back and Halter jumps on the back of his sled. Only 1,100 miles to go. * Eve Rose can be reached at erose@adn.com
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