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great!" Dr. Osgood shouted.
    "Yes, they do! Thank you!"
    The soft snow gave the dogs a workout and
kept their speed down as they approached Cordova Street, a sharp
right turn and Claire's first test at keeping her rider in the
sled. She'd heard stories about teams taking it too fast, rolling
the sled and dumping rider and musher in front of onlookers. Or a
tag sled slamming into the berm of snow piled at the corner.
    "We're going slow enough it shouldn't be a
problem," she said, as much to reassure herself as to put her rider
at ease.
    Handsome anticipated the turn and started to
cut into it too soon. "Stay haw, Handsome! Stay haw!" The team
straightened, swung wide, and took the corner like pros. "Good
dogs!"She glanced back and saw Matt still behind her and upright on
the tag sled.
    "Woohoo!" he shouted and punched the air with
a gloved fist.
    Claire laughed and faced forward. "We're on
our way now!"
    Dr. Osgood slapped his mittened hands
together. If his continuous bursts of laughter were any indication,
the man was having the time of his life.
    Twelve blocks later, the trail dropped down a
hill to Mulcahy Stadium and joined the Anchorage bike and ski path
system, a greenbelt of paths that ran along Chester Creek through
stands of tall, straight birch and occasional culverts under
roadways.
    Ginny shied into Zach at the first culvert.
"It's okay, Gin. Good girl." Claire could understand the dog's
skittishness, the noise and enclosed space a stark contrast to the
trails they'd trained on. She'd questioned Matt's advice to put the
quiet, easy-to-spook female in the team out of Anchorage over one
of the calmer dogs, like Groucho.
    "This'll be a good way for her to get
acclimated," he said. "She'll come around."
    And by the third culvert, his prediction
proved correct. Ginny kept pace with her teammates, giving the
underpasses no more than a brief glance.
    Crossing a pedestrian bridge, a sharp left
took them by the university and behind a residential area where
well-wishers handed wrapped, fresh-baked muffins to the mushers and
Iditariders as they passed. Claire tucked hers into her handlebar
bag for later.
    The trail followed the south shore of
University Lake, crossed another pedestrian overpass, then dropped
onto Tudor Road for part of a mile. Two sharp turns took them onto
the Tozier Track system of dog trails through Centennial Park, a
huge undeveloped area. Claire felt some of the tension in her
shoulders ease at the more familiar terrain.
    A short while later, her team followed one
final culvert onto Campbell Airstrip, where Janey and Andy waited
with the truck, marking the end of the first stage of the race.
     
    ***
     
    The restart of the Iditarod the following
afternoon repeated Saturday's ceremonial start in Anchorage, minus
the city streets and tall buildings. Mushers spent the morning
cooking dog chow to haul in coolers for stops along the trail. On
the lake at Willow, spectators lined the starting chute and beyond.
The temperature sat at eighteen degrees under a retina-piercing
blue sky. Smoke spiraled from family grills, filling the air with
the smells of burger patties and barbeque sauce, and gave the event
a picnic atmosphere.
    Mushers and handlers unloaded their entire
teams this time, fed them, got them into booties and harnesses.
Some of the dogs sported colorful wind coats in anticipation of a
cool evening. Instead of Iditariders, mushers packed their sleds
with all the gear needed to survive the Alaskan bush, along with a
GPS tracker that would transmit the team's speed, location,
run/rest cycles and air temperature to Iditarod officials,
information the mushers themselves couldn't see.
    Yesterday had been for show. Today mushers
wore their game faces, the dogs noisier and more animated, ready to
get down to business. At 2:00 p.m., teams would begin leaving the
checkpoint.
    A lot to do, a lot to think about. Dillon
looked forward to the simplicity of life on the trail – no phones,
no demands or