Saturday, March 04, 2006

Adam reaches McGrath

Congratulations to Anchorage endurance monster Pete Basinger for reaching McGrath in 4 days, 17 hours, and to Adam Bartlett for bagging sixth place this morning at 2 a.m. with a time of 6 days, 12 hours. I'm sipping a glass of Alaskan Amber for both of them.

Pete arrived in McGrath at the same time as Rocky Reifenstuhl of Fairbanks, but that's not the whole story. Reifenstuhl put on an impressive show but, for him, McGrath was the finish line. For Basinger, it was only a checkpoint. He took a four-and-a-half-hour break and then rode on; he's racing to Nome, so he's only one-third of the way to his finish line. Go, Pete, go!

Somewhere out there, skiers Ned Rozell and Andy Sterns are still working their way up the trail. They left Puntilla Lake yesterday morning with 165 miles behind them and 185 to go. They've now been racing for a full week.

Brutal. And amazing.

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