Recent Comments

Looking ahead, after Kaltag2, there is a pretty long 81+ mile run overland to Unalakleet - the biggest town on the trail between Fairbanks and Nome. From there it is just over 40 miles up the wind-swept south side of Norton Sound and then ~50 miles across the sea ice to Koyuk on the north side of the Sound. The whole 50 is not over water, but most of it is.

A couple of interviews with Jessie Holmes and Matt Hall while they were resting their teams. Jessie said he has been carrying a dog for long stretches to keep them fresh. One dog, Polar, has been carried for ~200 miles so that he is fresh for the big pushes and can motivate the team. Said that the trail was terrible and there were long stretches of slow going breaking trail, but the trail is finally getting better as he approaches Kaltag2. His hope is to leave Kaltag2 with all 13 dogs. Polar has some pups at home as well. His pups will be one of the keys to the future of the kennel.

Matt had only a short, 2 hour rest in Grayling2. Was hoping to do the full run to Eagle Island in one shot, but had to stop and camp short of there. Did feel that taking the 8-hour in Shageluk was a good idea. It was above freezing and snowing, so it was wet, heavy snow at noon. Instead of plowing through, it was evening and colder when the team left.

Had Paige coming into a couple of the checkpoints, but no interviews. All she asked about was what the trail conditions were like.

Bruce Lee had noted the speeds Paige and Matt had relative to Jessie would give a good indication of if they could catch him. Jessie and Matt had almost identical average speeds on the last checkpoint-to-checkpoint run and Paige was a bit slower. Will see what their speeds are into Kaltag2. Even if the both pass him, Jessie's team will come out of Kaltag well-rested, so will be a challenge to hold him off, but anything can happen. Still a long way to go.

Wonder if some of the legacy programs will revive themselves with this blueprint. Could be interesting to see smaller programs rise again. Maybe.

Paige is resting just past Eagle Island 2 and just got passed by Matt Hall. However, Paige and Matt have been on almost exactly opposite schedules (running/resting) since last night. Matt only has 11 dogs to Paige and Jessie's 13 each.

The site that SpiritofTech posted now predicts Paige to win on March 14th, an hour ahead of Matt Hall and Jessie Holmes dropping to 3rd an hour behind Matt. I'm sure that doesn't really mean much and probably doesn't take into account any weird and unfortunate breaks....but I'll take it.

So Davidson has a basketball GM, at least two assistant GMs (one by Curry) and Curry with several others are starting an 8-figure fund for both men's and women's basketball. Should be able to buy any team they want.

That's works for the players, but coaches get left having to decide whether to play kids that have entered the portal prior to their season being done. Especially the mid-major players looking to find a spot to move up.

LET'S GO......

But hear me out, what if we just give Duke and UNC permanent byes into the semis. One game each to get the famed Duke-UNC final. That's what the commissioners want and we should give them what they want.

That's the feeling I've gotten so far. I don't think Paige will push the dogs just to win.

Found this site through Twitter that shows some interesting info regarding positioning as well as each team's current and avg pace. There's also a checkbox to "predict" the finishing times for all the teams, but I'm not sure how that's being calculated. I'm sure speed and any remaining rest periods have to be factors, but right now it has Paige coming in 2 hours behind Jessie.

No-we are going to lose to either Cal or Stanford, who have been in the ACC for 5 mins... or Louisville who literally brought in 13 transfers in one off season and are going to be 5 seed in the dance. We can't get out of our own fucking way. So, no.

Michelle doing great at age 80!