The race was grueling due to blizzard conditions which created deep snow for the dogs to slog through. John came in third and unfortunately Zoya made the decision to scratch with 100 miles left in the race. She was not alone--out of 26 mushers, 13 scratched including top Quest and Iditarod mushers. Even though she scratched, Zoya gained invaluable experience from running 200 miles of a race as tough as this one. I have to now catch up on sleep...handling for two people is tricky in that there's always something to do, be it waiting for your musher to come into a checkpoint or picking up after him/her after they leave a check point. And then of course there's driving the dog truck to the next checkpoint, usually in the middle of the night, and caring for the three dropped dogs that traveled with me in the truck. I can't complain--the mushers have it worse by far but sleep deprivation is definitely a big part of race handling! But so is meeting amazing people from all over and learning so much about dogs. More later!