At 9.11pm the Red Team left Koyuk in fourth position heading towards Elim some 48 miles away. She is currently about 30 miles behind Dallas Seavey, about 15 miles behind Aaron Burmeister and 5 or so miles behind Mitch Seavey. They are all breaking the trail in front of her. Jessie Royer left one minute after her.
Aliy left with all 13 team mates.
I want to point you in the direction of this story by Emily Schwing and a quote by Aliy “You can only race as hard as your dog team can go and then you can’t race any harder, so that is a pill that everyone has to swallow and swallow with a smile on your face.” She knows each member of her team well; she's known them since the day they were born and has personally raised and trained them all. She knows how hard she can push and what the limit is. Rest assured, she will be racing as hard as she can to catch these three guys in front of her and to stay in front of Jessie, Joar, Jeff and the others behind her.
In an interview with the Insider in Koyuk, Mitch Seavey spoke about how he and Aliy got caught in some weather coming into Shaktoolik that blew them off the trail and maybe lost them both about half an hour. It's a good interview, check it out if you can. He talks about the importance of having a rested team if weather becomes a factor and what a difficult call it is to make; whether to let other teams get ahead or to rest and make up time on them during the runs if their dogs tire.
To find out more about the leg she has just embarked on click here for Donald Bowers Jnr's write-up.
Here is a screen shot (sorry for poor quality) from the Insider video of the Red Team coming into Koyuk. Look at all those happy faces!
Allen plus 14 Black Team have left Kaltag at 8.58pm after just under eight hours break. They are heading for the coast and Unalakleet checkpoint and seem to be travelling with Chuck Schaeffer, Yvonne Dabakk and Rick Casillo at the moment.
