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Skittering around a sharp curve on the Iditarod Trail outside Eagle River Saturday afternoon, Willow musher Ted English flipped his sled and landed hard on a patch of glare ice. The 61-year-old part-time carpenter struck his head on the snow hook and slammed his right leg and hip. On Sunday morning, English decided his injuries were serious enough to force him to become the first musher to scratch from the 2000 Iditarod. Although English figured he'd recover from the head bump, the knot on his leg "swelled up larger than a softball" and made racing out of the question. Still, the veteran musher, who first ran in 1981, hadn't lost his sense of humor. As he lay on the ice, he looked up to see a photographer snapping away. "He said, 'Are you all right, Ted?' click, click, click. 'Can you get up, Ted?' Click, click, click. 'Are your eyes open, Ted?' "I said, 'Yes they are."' With a long commitment to mushing and 20 puppies to train, English said the injuries would only be atemporary setback. "I'll probably just play around with shorter races for a while," he said. "As soon as I get tough again. Or, as soon as I think I'm tough again." - Doug O'Harra She's come a long way Trisha Kolegar got her mushing start in Ohio. Ohio? "In the Cleveland area," she said. "When they used to have snow in Ohio." Cleveland? Just about Cleveland's only known connection to mushing is the museum housing a stuffed Balto, the famous dog of the original serum run to Nome in 1925. Kolegar, 29, is living the dream of her youth. When she was about 5 years old, she got her first dog. Her mother bought her a Siberian husky and Kolegar raced it in 100-yard dashes. One kid, one dog. "I won all the time," she said. "We had the 100-yard dash thing sewn up. I won lots of 100-yard races." Then Kolegar found out about the long one - the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race. Then she made it her ambition to someday enter the 1,100-mile mush from Anchorage to Nome. And there she was, at the ceremonial start Saturday, in downtown Anchorage, and at the restart Sunday in Wasilla, readying herself to hit the trail for the 28th annual race. "When I was in school and they asked what you wanted to do when you grew up, I always said, 'Run the Iditarod.' And they said, 'What's that?' .. " Kolegar, who lives in Wasilla now, got some serious training by working as a handler for perennial Iditarod top finisher DeeDee Jonrowe of Willow after moving north in 1994. She's an all-around outdoorswoman who wrote in her race biography that she enjoys retriever training, duck hunting, skeet and trap shooting and hiking. At the moment, though, Kolegar is enjoying being part of the Iditarod. "I'm nervous," she said before departing. "I'm ready to go. I've been waiting a long time for this." - Lew Freedman Biblical message They got the message, but they were slow to get the Word. After Charlie Boulding drew bib No. 82 for the start of the 2000 Iditarod, which scheduled his departure last (behind honorary mushers and the other 80 entries), his father-in-law, Elliot Morrison of Traverse City, Mich., a Presbyterian minister, tried to reach Boulding. Charlie and wife Robin, already in Anchorage, had a succinct radio message relayed to them. It read, "Mark 10:31, Dad." Robin's reaction? Who was this Mark, who tried to phone them at 10:30, and what connection does he have to her father? "I didn't know what the heck it was," she said. Then she clued in. Mark 10:31 is the Biblical passage in the New Testament referring to the last becoming the first. An evangelical pep talk of sorts. - Lew Freedman Baker once played for Bruns Top contender John Baker of Kotzebue, who was fifth in 1998 and eighth in 1999, played high school basketball for University of Alaska Anchorage coach Charlie Bruns when Bruns coached Kotzebue to two Alaska small-schools state championships 20 years ago. "He made an impact on your life," said Baker, who at 37 said he doesn't play the game anymore. "There isn't any more basketball when you're out of high school." - Lew Freedman Warm weather worries mushers With temperatures soaring into the upper 30s in Wasilla, Iditarod mushers braced for balmy conditions on the first day of the trip to Nome. Kotzebue's John Baker, one of the race's rising contenders,hoped to get his team on a run-rest schedule right away. But "we're going to have to stop sooner than we would have because of the heat," he said. Most mushers will rest during the mid-afternoon and wait for colder conditions toward sundown, said chief vet Stuart Nelson. Like several other mushers, Trapper Creek racer Vern Halter draps white capes over several dogs vulnerable to the heat. "It helps a lot, you know," he said. Chugiak rookie Anna Bonderanko has another ploy, one that doesn't fall off or need laundering. She and her husband, veteran musher Jim Lanier, have a kennel of white huskies. "It seems like they're handling (the heat) better," she said. - Doug O'Harra
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