movin' right along...

it feels like i've been on the move for weeks... in actuality, this whole she-bang just got started last saturday... hard to believe -- wait, no it's not... i've barely been sleeping, running inside and outside, writing whenever possible, waiting for hours for mushers to come in, sleeping on floors in pain... it's been a long haul...

and while the race itself will have a winner determined by tomorrow night, my work here is not done... i still have to keep tabs on the mushers, get some more stories posted to the website, go to the finish banquet and all around close 'er down... there are three things that i can think of that i want so badly right now: a bed, a massage and a movie to watch... i'm not a woman of high demands...

right this second i'm in carmacks... i'm procrastinating writing another article before i hit the sack for a few hours... then it's another radio interview for me tomorrow morning at 6:40 a.m., write another press release, start an article, off to braeburn for breakfast, then on to whitehorse for the finish line...

i can't believe these mushers are moving like this... according to our estimates, they're about 24+ hours ahead of schedule, or something ridiculous like that... they rarely sleep, camp out in the wilderness, tend to their dogs, eat when they can, run when they need to, bear the cold weather at all hours of the day... this race is not for the everyday human... i feel like you'd have to love this sport to want to have a go at this...

my opinions about mushing fall into a number of different groupings... i won't disclose them, but let's just say i'm on the fence... the thing that never sits too well with me is the racing part of it all... that's all i'll get into...

as much as this experience has been a test of my patience, it's been an incredible way to explore this northern destination in which i live... it's been interesting getting to know the different people from those i work directly with from the vets, to the race personnel, the hilarious german judges whom i love, the fans, the volunteers, the handlers... i developed a "mush crush" -- i can't believe i just wrote that -- which snowballed into a nickname for him, "manscape"... i also won't disclose who i speak of, but essentially this moniker came from the fact that he has an impeccable beard -- for a musher, but also just for a man in general...

for a brief period i was given my own nickname -- "hottie on the trail"... it arose out of a conversation we had at the hotel in fairbanks about female sportscasters... "hi guys, there's so many puppies!" yes, it's a terribly sexist joke... but i think after one full day of no sleeping, they took that one away from me... as a friend of mine said to me in dawson, "you look like the living dead"... that's so sweet... looking gorgeous on the trail is not a.) a priority, or b.) possible...