Iditarod Strategies: What It REALLY Takes to Win with Dallas Seavey
This episode is sponsored by Culligan Water
The 2025 Iditarod, which began March 1st in Fairbanks, Alaska, is more than a race; it's a testament to the incredible partnership between humans and animals. On a recent episode of The Adrenaline Zone, hosts Sandy Winnefeld and Dr. Sandra Magnus spoke with six-time champion Dallas Seavey, who shed light on the harrowing yet captivating world of ultra-long-distance sled racing. Seavey's insights revealed that survival depends not only on physical strength but on an unbreakable bond with his dog team.
Seavey's unique approach centers around understanding each dog's individuality. He emphasizes the importance of being able to anticipate how a situation today will affect his team in the days to come. This "near precognition" is developed over countless hours of training and building trust, resulting in better decisions for the team. By prioritizing his dog's needs and fostering a confident and comfortable environment, he unlocks their full potential.
Central to Seavey's philosophy is the concept of solving the dog's problems, not his own. He believes that humans and animals perceive things differently and that true leadership lies in addressing the issues that the team is experiencing. This dog-centric approach extends to training, where Seavey focuses on building a solid foundation of confidence and trust before pushing physical limits. This enables him to create a happy and well-rounded team prepared to take on the extreme conditions of the Iditarod.
Navigating the Iditarod requires strategic thinking and a deep understanding of the long-term effects of each decision. Seavey cautions against focusing solely on speed, emphasizing efficiency and making the race as easy as possible for his dogs. He explains that understanding when to make a move and how it will impact the team's ability to perform later is essential. The goal, he notes, is to ensure the team feels comfortable and confident throughout the race.
Within Seavey's dog team, each member plays a specific role, and he strategically rotates them to optimize performance. He carefully balances physical and mental well-being, selecting the lead dog based on who is having the best day. By avoiding pushing any dog beyond their limits, he maintains trust and prevents them from self-regulating out of fear. Understanding the nuances of each dog's personality and capabilities is crucial to maximizing the team's overall effectiveness.
Preparing for the unpredictable conditions of the Iditarod requires experience and adaptability. Seavey emphasizes the importance of going out on the trail and encountering bad situations. He stresses the importance of teaching the team to remain calm and handle challenges as a cohesive unit. By crossing open water and facing other obstacles in training, the team learns to trust their leader's ability to handle any situation.
While GPS technology has made navigation easier, Seavey acknowledges that reliance on it can lead to complacency. He expresses concern about the legalization of two-way communication in the Iditarod, believing it diminishes self-reliance and preparedness. He argues that mushers should be equipped to handle emergencies independently, as rescue can be days away in the remote Alaskan wilderness. This emphasis on self-sufficiency resonates with the spirit of the Iditarod, a race built on the principles of resilience and resourcefulness.
Seavey recounts a harrowing experience where he was knee-deep in freezing water at 57 below zero, highlighting the extreme risks faced during these races. Despite the near-fatal conditions, his mental toughness and ability to make quick decisions helped him survive and eventually win the race. This underscores the importance of perseverance and the ability to maintain a clear head in the face of adversity, characteristics that define true champions of the Iditarod.
Dallas Seavey's journey, as shared on The Adrenaline Zone, is a compelling reminder that true success transcends trophies and accolades. It's woven into the intricate threads of connection, trust, and mutual respect between a musher and his team. His dedication to understanding and prioritizing the well-being of his dogs, coupled with unwavering mental fortitude, illuminates the path not only for aspiring mushers but for any leader seeking to unlock the full potential of their team, proving that sometimes, the greatest victories are found not in conquering nature, but in harmonizing with it.
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Transcript
Dallas Seavey: I've been knee deep in water for almost an hour at 57 below 0. That was probably the only time that I'm doing the math in my head and it's like it's not looking good.
Sandy Winnefeld: The 2025 Iditarod started on the 1st of March in Fairbanks, Alaska.
Dr. Sandra Magnus: And six time champion Dallas Seavey knows what it means to push the limits of human and animal endurance.
Sandy Winnefeld: On this episode of The Adrenaline Zone, he'll take us inside the harrowing world of ultra long distance sled racing where survival depends on more than just physical strength.
Dr. Sandra Magnus: It is about the unbreakable bond Dallas has with his dogs.
Dallas Seavey: When it's 40 below and blowing 50 miles an hour, I don't even know what it is and I don't want to know what the wind chill factor is. But the key to me is if my dogs have a great day or a great hour, which leads to the great day, then they have a great two days and they have a great 10 days, you know, lo and behold, good things happen. They handed me the trophy. I didn't do anything. We're talking about up to 12,000 or even 14,000 calories per day. We're talking the equivalent to about 35 Big Macs a day that they have to eat. My goal now is to run a perfect race which will never happen.
Dr. Sandra Magnus: So the whole time you're building a relationship with each individual dog and then that creates a bond. How does that translate into the race?
Dallas Seavey: As a coach of a team like this, you have to have near precognition. Not the situation right now, but how will this situation affect them two or three days from now? If they are a confident, comfortable animal, all you're asking them to do is run happily down the trail.
Dr. Sandra Magnus: But first we'd like to thank our sponsor, Culligan. Culligan's drinking water systems provide the ultra filter water to fuel your high performance lifestyle right on tap. Learn more at culligan.com.
Sandy Winnefeld: So, Dallas Seavey, welcome to The Adrenaline Zone. It's so cool to have you here today.
Dallas Seavey: Thanks for having me.
Dr. Sandra Magnus: We're going to jump right in because we have a lot to cover in a short amount of time, relatively speaking. We're going to start at the beginning. So what got you interested in the sport and actually how does one go and just get started being a mushling?Is there a pipeline? Are there small local races? How does it work?
Dallas Seavey: There's a few different avenues that people get hooked on this particular activity. I came by it one way which is being born into the sport. My family has had sled dogs for over 60 years now. My grandfather moved to Alaska specifically for the purpose of experiencing the last frontier. He promised my grandmother it'd only be two years in Alaska. He was a high school social studies teacher and he got a job in Alaska. As soon as he got there, he got his first sled dog. And whatever it's been, 60 plus years later, now he still has sled dogs and is still in Alaska. So in the beginning for my family, you know, sled dogs are about hauling water, firewood, going moose hunting, you know. They were your legs in many ways in this arctic environment. And about 10 years after my grandfather had moved up here and got his first sled dogs, the first Iditarod took place. And they were trying to recruit mushers to take on that adventure. It was not yet really a race, though they kept score, if you will. There was a winner. It was more about just, can it be done? Can somebody actually travel a thousand miles by dog team? So my dad was about 14 when that first race happened. And then he's the one that decided to make racing his career or his life. And so when I was growing up, every single year we were focused on winning the Iditarod. And I was 16 by the time my dad accomplished that for the first time. So that's one way. The other way is, you know, get involved. Mushing is a broad term. Anytime you have a dog helping you be propelled down a trail, a path, the forest, whether you are on a bicycle, on your own two legs, on skis, or in fact a sled or a wheeled cart in the summertime, those are all forms of mushing. And that's where many people start, is recreationally going out with one or two dogs. And man, if I had a few more dogs, I could go farther and do week long trips. And, you know, pretty soon you're looking where, you know, you can find a group of people to learn from and share with and that is the higher end racing.
Dr. Sandra Magnus: How many people are into mushing? How big is the sport? I mean, it's clearly in Alaska, but elsewhere in the US or globally, is there a big community?
Dallas Seavey: I wouldn't say a big community. Well, yes and no. It's hard. What do you compare it to? So it's a big niche sport. Yeah, but you know, I've raced internationally. I've raced in Canada. Obviously, that's very close to us. But also, I've traveled over to Norway and raced the longest race in Europe, which was about 1200 kilometers and the way far north of Norway, kind of up above Finland and almost touching Russia up there. So, yeah, it has taken me around the world. I've done mushing symposiums everywhere from Madrid to, you know, literally in Russia. So, you know, we travel and do this stuff. I feel like in recent years, sadly, it's shrinking. And I'm not speaking just about the racing. I'm talking about the people who would have 8 or 10 dogs and get out on the weekends or after work and go travel, you know. And that connection with humans and animals, that's what the sport is celebrating. And that's a 10,000 year history in the Arctic that huskies have been aiding humans in surviving in this part of the world. And that's really what the race is about, celebrating and keeping alive. So, yes, it's nice to see bigger numbers in the races, but I would really like to see bigger numbers, just, you know, youth getting into the sport. Hobby mushers, right. Who cares if you ever do an event?
Sandy Winnefeld: Yeah. So, Dallas, it's all about the dogs, and we can't wait to hear about the dogs. So tell us about how you start building a dog team. Pretty complicated animals, right?
Dallas Seavey: They are. They're. Complicated might be the wrong word, but in many ways, or like many animals, I suppose, they may be simple or familiar on the surface, but the more you get to know them, the more complex they are. And I think that's really what has kept me in the sport and drew me into it. I've got three brothers. All of us grew up doing very much the same thing. Working long days, homeschooled, sled dogs and racing was our life. But I'm the only one that stayed in the sport. Right. We weren't forced to continue practicing this activity. But what captivated and captured me was the uniqueness of each individual and how the more you understand them, the better able you are to coach them, to develop them, and then to work them into the team, which is really like a very large puzzle, and each one's a piece. But maybe they fit in better this way, or maybe the team is better without them even though they're great in these five categories. These categories bring negatives, right? So you're trying to develop each individual to their highest potential and then have the highest net value of a team and how they cooperate and interact with one another. So training them now is very much about developing year 1, develop a solid, confident, well rounded, happy dog. I don't care what they do physically, that's not really even in the question yet. It's more about just get them out, get them experiences, teach them that they can trust the human, that they can trust the pack, that this is a safe, secure environment and they can be boisterous and outgoing, right? But they also have to respect their teammates and their litter mates and the humans that are going to be working with them.
Between about one and two, we start actually focusing on exercising and learning how to cooperate in a team. They're going to put on a harness for the first time at about a year old. There's no rush. We do a lot of loose running and getting exercise and, you know, just loose in the forest before then. So that first year is like high school sports, learning how the game is played, kind of the rules of the game, which, you know, what you're allowed to chew on and what you're not allowed to chew on. They're going to start learning some manners and how do we hold the lines tight and what happens when we get in a big tangle. And you know, if you have a bunch of well rounded, confident dogs, they’re going to look at you and say, “Hey, boss. I think something's going wrong,” and sit there and kind of hang out patiently. But there's no need for panic, there's no need for worry or aggression or anything like that. In that year in training, it really is fairly simple. I mean, in dog terms, in human terms, they're doing a lot of 20 to 40-mile runs, which will take two to four hours, which is honestly not dissimilar to a high school student doing two to four hour hours worth of practice in a day, you know, three or four days a week.
Then as, you know, two to three year olds now, they kind of move into college sports and they start doing longer camping trips and they're going to be out on the trail for, you know, a few days in a row. And this is where you really start to see them come into themselves and start to need and value their pack. Things will start to get a little bit challenging and that's where they will start to rely on one another. And they have to be confident enough to show vulnerability, which is not something that an insecure animal often does. And then as three going on four, that's when they start training with me for the main racing teams. And now it's very serious training. They're fully matured, you know, they're going to be almost four years old before they compete in their first competitive race. And all the while it's about watching them and understanding. And that's the part that I love, is trying to figure out what is holding them back. Why do they do the behavior that they do? You know, there's a myriad of reasons. So you just have to understand them very, very well in that process.
Dr. Sandra Magnus: So the whole time you're building a relationship with each individual dog and then that creates a bond. And how does that translate into the race and why is it so important for the race?
Dallas Seavey: For a few reasons. One, as a coach of a team like this, you have to have near precognition as far as knowing how they are going to react to not the situation right now, but how will this situation affect them two or three days from now. And this is why I love ultra long distance racing. We do thousand mile dog sled races. It's not about who can cover this one piece as fast as possible. It's not just about physical ability. It's about managing that team over a number of days and challenges. And so by having that relationship with them, I can make better decisions for them. As far as setting up what we're going to do, how much of the trail are we going to cover today? How much rest do we need to take after having done that portion of the trail?
Secondly, and this is, I think far more important is if they are a confident, comfortable animal, all you're asking them to do is run happily down the trail. There's no stressors, right? Think about a human athlete that everything is perfect in their life. They have a perfect relationship, their kids are doing great in school and they're on their bicycle and all they have to worry about is pedaling hard and doing this race. It's easy. There's no resistance. Now you look at the athlete next to him who physiologically might be the same individual but is on the brink of a divorce and kids getting in trouble and is in going to juvie possibly and has a court date next week. How does that athlete function in that same setting? Right? Those emotional stressors play a huge role in our ability to perform and just be a happy, comfortable animal. And so what I want to do is solve everything in the world so that all they have to worry about is doing what they love. And if they can do that, then we do well. I do well, right? My “success” in the race, I don't really do much of anything. I'm not the athlete. I mean, I run and help up the hills. But the key to me is if my dogs have a great day or a great hour, which leads to the great day, then they have a great two days and they have a great 10 days. You know, lo and behold, good things happen. They handed me the trophy. I didn't do anything. We facilitate, we make sure they have a great day, a great minute right now.
Sandy Winnefeld: Yeah. So let's talk about the human. You grew up doing this. I'm sure you were lured on by the challenges associated with long distance racing. And so what motivates you to participate in a race as grueling as the Iditarod? And I don't know if that's the most difficult race you do, but it sounds pretty hard to me. Is there a personal reason that drives you or is it just about the challenge? You know, what has captivated you and made you a sort of a junkie here?
Dallas Seavey: Well, there's a number of different things I think that play into it. One is I love the challenge. Personally, I love the challenge of how are we going to do it better this year? What are we going to do differently? And sports as a whole, I think, force you to take an honest look. You can go through life blissfully thinking you're doing everything right. If you never hit that situation that it shows you, nope, you're doing something wrong until it's forced. And sports make us realize it is physically possible for a team to do this three hours faster than we did because they just beat us and they just did it. So I can convince myself all day long that we're doing it perfectly. But if we get out there on the race and that's where good competition drives us to be better. So that aspect is there for me personally.
I had something of a life in sports before racing in the wrestling world. So that was kind of my main sport for a number of years. And I love the challenge. I loved realizing that when you work really, really hard, you know, even as a young kid, hey, I scored a point on this kid who completely killed me last week. Next week, you know, it was actually pretty close. And then, you know, a year later, you're winning those matches. So I think that was an eye opener for me at a young and impressionable age was everybody's more or less the same. Especially in a sport like wrestling. You can be a tall, skinny kid or a short, stocky kid and you have to learn how to make your body work for you or what style works best for your body type. And then once you decide that you're going to put the time in, there's really no limits. So I had great coaches in there and I think that was part of what drove me to want to enjoy coaching my now canine athletes. But I became the first Alaskan to win a national title in Olympic style wrestling. This was years and years ago. And then went on to the Olympic training center and then had a few too many concussions. So my plan was to wrestle until my body gave out. You know, I was thinking, ah, 30, 35, and then I'll go back to mushing. And then at about 19, I was back at mushing. Oh, no.
Sandy Winnefeld: Wow.
Dr. Sandra Magnus: Oh, my gosh. So there's, yeah, I totally get the athlete piece there. You talked about the training to get the dogs ready to start the real training. Like when I was selected as an astronaut, we have basic training and then we've got the mission training. So the Iditarod would be the mission training. And so can you walk us through that? You know, it's like, okay, we have an Iditarod. I've got some teams I've identified are going to do it. What happens then?
Dallas Seavey: Sure. You're saying as far as the human side of it.
Dr. Sandra Magnus: No, just the whole piece. Because you talked about getting them into the harness when they were four. But is there a piece after that where you’re–
Sandy Winnefeld: Sort of in the lead up to the race?
Dr. Sandra Magnus: Lead up to the race. It's like, okay, now we're really focusing. We're not doing general training. Like we're really focusing on this race now.
Dallas Seavey: Now the lead up, I would say, is generally about six to seven months of intensive training as we're leading up into the race. And I could break that into a few, let's say, three distinct portions of the season. The first portion is elevated cardiovascular and structural training. We're going to go from our baseline training to start, you know, building that team where they're able to handle more and more miles daily on shorter and shorter recovery times. Just in general, again, a very general sense, we're not pushing super hard. You're focused on building a bigger, stronger body within this dog. And that's going to usually look something like three to five runs per week early in the year, up to 40 or 50 mile exercise sessions where they're going to be pulling a fair amount, but we're not actually pulling a ton of weight. Our sleds actually slide quite easily so they're running with a small amount of resistance, I guess would be one way to put that.
As we kind of start to turn into the second phase of training, let's say somewhere around November, the race happens in March. Now, we're going to start focusing on what I call event style training, where we're going to go out and simulate a portion of the race for between two and five days at a time. And in this phase, the runs are actually going to get shorter the distances that we travel. But then instead of having 24 hours or 36 or 48 hours to recuperate, we might have a four to six hour break and then get back on the trail again. So now you're starting to bring down the mileage level, but you're increasing difficulty by having less recovery time in between. And they're also learning how to live on the trail. They're learning how to be comfortable. The trail is our home, the wilderness is our home. It's not something that we go out into and try to survive for a period of time until we make it back home. No, we just have to be comfortable here. So in certain portions of that training, speed doesn't really matter. I just want a team that is at home on the trail with whatever variable weather conditions. When we're not going to go back to our doghouse, we're going to eat out of the camping, camping dishes. Part of it is training the musher, which is typically myself. You know, it's getting your checkpoint routines so that you can quickly and efficiently care for this dog team, thus allowing them more resting time as a percentage of your stop time. More of that is spent actually sleeping.
Then we go into the later phase of the training season where we are doing the same thing. But now our distances are pushed up to the levels we'll likely be doing on the Iditarod. Our resting times are reduced to what we're going to be doing in the Iditarod. And this is where I start actually testing the schedules and the plans that I've written. I want to see what that impact is on the team and make those mistakes before the race starts. So I can say, you know what, that was a really quick way to cover this section of the race. But I don't like how much it took out of the gas tank in doing it. So we're going to adjust that. Do we want to add more rest? Do we want to reduce the run lengths? There's a few, you know, pieces we can move around here, and then we kind of get them honed in in that way where we're testing different sections. And then finally comes race time after a taper going into the event. But we'll accrue somewhere between 3000 and 4000 miles of training in the seven to eight months prior to the race leading up to that.
Dr. Sandra Magnus: So just out of curiosity, something you said lit a bulb in my head. How much sleep do you get during this? The race is what, like eight, ten days? Something like that?
Dallas Seavey: Yeah, somewhere between eight and ten, I would say most Iditarods are going to be won in nine days flat, give or take 12 hours. A very fast race is going to be an 8, 12. I've done it in as little as eight days, six hours. A slow winning time would be a nine and a half day race. In modern times, that would be on the slower side. So within that period, the dogs are probably getting between 8 and 10 hours of actual sleep in a day. The human is getting significantly less than that because when we start a race, you start now with 16 dogs in your team. As you're going through the race, you can leave a dog behind at any of the 20 checkpoints along the way. There's about 50 volunteer veterinarians along the race. And so if you come into a checkpoint, they're going to examine the dogs. If you see anything or notice anything, you're going to bring their attention to that and help them. They're a resource. Use them. That's what I tell all the mushers. If you have a problem, you as the coach need to know about it. It does not help you in any way to continue down the trail with that dog because they become a liability if they're not in peak form. So if you start to see something that's a little bit off, and we're not talking about, oh, the dog is limping. That's pretty obvious. And you should never get to that point. We're talking about a dog that generally is in a trotting gait at 9.3 miles an hour. And now he's in a loping gait at 9.1. Something's wrong. It's usually a little bit of fatigue. And the dog doesn't realize it. They just shifted gears at a little bit slower speed than they normally would have. And that's going to bring my attention to, okay, what can we address? What can we preemptively fix? And that's really like I said before about the precognition, that's the sort of stuff you have to see coming. And if a dog does have an issue, you know, I had a dog that stepped on a sharp rock and got a cut on his foot. Okay, that's a bummer. It really was a bummer. He's my best lead dog, but, you know, not every day can be your best day. I can leave that dog behind at the checkpoint. The veterinarians take care of them for a couple days until they can fly him back to Anchorage where he rejoins my kennel. But the team goes on with one less dog. We do not get a replacement dog. And so the dogs that go to the finish will have run the entire distance.
So when we stop, it is entirely on me as the musher to care for those 16 dogs starting out. And that takes quite a lot of time. I have to maintain the equipment, which, believe me, the Iditarod trail is hell on gear. It beats things up. You have to be prepared to fix pretty much anything you take out there with you. So if we travel for, let's say typically maybe a 50-mile run, depending on trail conditions, it might take us five and a half to six and a half hours. Then I'm going to likely stop for a four to four and a half hour break. In that four and, you know, let's say four hours, the dogs are going to get to sleep a majority of that time. When I arrive, you hit the ground running. I've already changed my gear. Instead of wearing my big parka, I'm down to lighter equipment so I can move quickly, prepare the food, feed the dogs, give out the massages, put the dog jackets on them, remove the booties, little shoes that they wear, you know, and get them into camping formation, put out the straw beds they're going to be sleeping on. And I'm trying to get them tucked in, fed and sleeping as quickly as possible. Once that's done, then I turn my attention to all the other stuff I can do while they're sleeping. I might, if I'm lucky, get a 45-minute to an hour-long chance to rest. So I might, on a good race, I'll be looking at two to two and a half hours of sleep a day when things go well. When they don't go well, it can be a lot less than that.
Dr. Sandra Magnus: Endurance without sleep is a big factor here. It sounds like.
Dallas Seavey: And it plays a lot on the psychological side of it.
Sandy Winnefeld: Yeah. I can imagine you're feeling kind of funky at the end of that race. You live to embrace risk in the air, on the slopes, and anywhere your determination takes you. But when it comes to the drinking water that fuels your adventures, you're not looking to take chances.
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Sandy Winnefeld: Get started by scheduling your free water test at culligan.com. So we talked about the physical preparation and what happens on the trailer. Talk to us a little bit about the role strategy plays in the Iditarod and for pacing, managing your dogs. And yeah, I'm sure there are a whole host of things that we can't even dream of that you can tell us about strategically.
Dallas Seavey: Yeah, strategically. I think that's one of the areas that I've been able to excel at. The biggest portion of it, if you zoom way out, the biggest portion is understanding what metrics actually move the needle. Where should our attention and focus be? Too many times people focus on the wrong thing. Let's say speed. Speed is usually an indicator of a strong or healthy dog team in the race. So by extension, more is better, right? Well, not exactly, because speed isn't efficient. There is an optimal speed that we would like to be running. For my team, it varies, but generally, let's say 9.2 miles an hour is on in trail conditions change this hugely. But we want to travel efficiently. And yes, sometimes that coincides with having a fast runtime. Sometimes more speed is not necessarily better. So strategy wise, I'm trying to get my team down the trail as easily as possible. Make the Iditarod as easy as you can for your dogs. They're the ones having to run it. And there's a lot of different ways we break up the length of run, the speed we choose to travel over that section of trail. Those are all major factors in what the dog's actual experience is.
And this goes back to when I first started mushing and started my own kennel. I mean, I grew up training when racing with my dad. And when I was 21, I kind of struck out and started my own kennel. And there were great opportunities to stay at the home base, but for me, I wanted to rebuild everything from square one. I felt there was a lot that we were doing because that's the way we've always done it. So we wanted to rebuild everything from the point of view of the dog. What is the experience the dog sees? Let's solve the dog's problem. Not my problem. Humans and animals look at things differently and also what's important to us is different. The dogs don't know or care if we're racing. Right? So oftentimes as a musher, we think we're solving problems. But is it the problem that your team sees? And if it's not the problem they see, they think you're an ineffectual leader because you're not solving the problem that they're seeing, even though there's a host of other things that also need to be solved. Yes, but first and foremost, solve the problems for your team, the problems and issues that they are seeing, that they're experiencing. And that goes back to building that confident happy dog team.
Sandy Winnefeld: What a great leadership lesson right there.
Dallas Seavey: There's a lot of that in there.
Sandy Winnefeld: I love it.
Dallas Seavey: On a bigger scale, on the strategy side of it, you know, a lot of it is understanding when you make a move on the Iditarod, the long term effects. And where does that leave us? Where does that set us up to do next? And I think that's one of the biggest mistakes when I'm asked to look at somebody's training schedule or racing schedule or at a past race and diagnose what they do wrong sort of a thing. A lot of times people do a big move, they're running neck and neck in first and second. And they want to break away from the other musher. They want to get a lead. So they do something big and crazy. And in short term it relieves some of the pressure and it gives them an advantage. Long term, it was a very bad leave that did not set them up for anything good from there. The only time we need to be in the front is at the finish line. You don't need to be in front. It's not who was in front for the longest, it's who's in front at a very specific point in time. So there's a lot of strategy like that. And again, it all comes back to understanding, you know, what's the easiest way to do this for my dog team that still gets us there quickly and efficiently.
Dr. Sandra Magnus: So you mentioned earlier something about your lead dog getting a cut. So there are different roles, I guess, that the dogs play and how do you sort out which dog should get which roles and how does that affect the chemistry among the dogs?
Dallas Seavey: Great question. Well, I have had a few dogs that I think are actually proud or egotistical about a position. That's very much a human emotion that we put on a hierarchical structure, right? And this goes back to solving the problem that the dog sees. So the reality of it is the lead dog is probably one of the more important positions. It is definitely the hardest position in the team. And therefore, if you're looking at efficiency, it's not smart for the team to have one dog doing the hardest job the entire time. Unless you have a freak of nature athlete in your team, which the one that I was thinking of that was kind of egotistical about it, he was a freak of nature. He was 15% better than any dog I had in that team and probably have ever had. So he could do that, you know, most of, if not the entire way. So there are different positions. We're regularly moving dogs between those positions. And mostly what I'm trying to do is balance output, right? So I might buffer a very good lead dog in the easiest position in the team so that later in the race, you know, I have a fresh, strong leader that feels capable of doing what I'm asking them to do.
And I think that's where we end up breaking trust inadvertently is I'm in a pickle. It's terrible weather. I have to get through this section of trail and I put this dog up in front. And then I also want to have a fast run time because I know all the people back home are watching and they're going to think that I have a weak dog team if I don't have a fast run time. And so they're pushing that dog for more speed. And pretty soon the dog's thinking, I was tired before we started this. Now, I'm in the hardest position again. And also we're trying to push for speed as well. And pretty soon, that's what's going to teach a dog not to want to go and lead or to self regulate. And they're going to back off because they're afraid that you're going to ask for more than they can do easily or do well. So I'm always balancing and some of it's physical and a lot of it's mental. Who's having a great day? That's going to be my lead dog today. I train them all for the position, but I want to be able to take the one that is not going to put them into– It's not going to take away from them. I want them to feel comfortable and confident. Look, I'm in the lead and I feel great. And meanwhile, if I see somebody who is a great athlete, a great lead dog, that's just not having a good day, I want to put them in a position where I never ask them to do something that would be too much. I asked you to run in the easiest position and they're going to do that perfectly. And then once, two days from now, when they're feeling better now, they can go back and lead. So it's regulating and managing that team throughout the whole race.
Sandy Winnefeld: So, Dallas, what are the other positions? You've got a wheel dog or something. What other jobs are there?
Dallas Seavey: So the main ones that we– I guess there's four kinds of main positions and that's going to be your lead dogs, which are obviously up in front. We do often run two lead dogs together. It does make that load a little bit easier in certain conditions. If there's a lot of steering, which is done entirely through voice commands, I will put one leader up there or I even have my leader and a half system, I call it, where I'll put one dog a body length or a half body length ahead of the other one. So they're both there, but one is kind of the primary for steering. And so that way there's no confusion. And I mean, except for Lewis and Clark, I'm not sure there's been many great duo leaders that have been able to do a whole lot. If you're on glare ice and I need this dog to go to the right in half a heartbeat, I don't want them to be bouncing off each other and saying, wait, is that what you thought or should– You know, there's no time for conversation. If I say G, which is the command for right, it needs to just be to the right. So if we're doing a lot of that, I will put just one dog up front.
Next you have your swing dogs, which are the two dogs directly behind the leaders. And they're kind of your first mates in some regard where they're going to help set the pace. They're going to keep everything tight behind them and they're going to make the job easier for the lead dogs because they take on some of the lead dog responsibilities would be another way to say it. So it's not as strenuous for the dog as the lead position is. Physically, it's a little bit easier. Mentally, it's definitely easier.
Then behind them you have your team dogs, which is pretty much everybody back to the two dogs right in front of the sled, which are your wheel dogs. And I would say within that team dog section, we often have 10 “team dogs.” The farther forward they are probably a little bit harder it is, you know, generally speaking, again, this can change. Your wheel dogs, two types of dogs generally end up in wheel. If it's very technical, twisty, windy, I'm thinking we go over the Alaska range. When you go down the far side of the Alaska range, it is a roller coaster. It's known as well, it's called the Dalzell Gorge. And in that section, it requires a very agile, nimble dog back there. And I often will put that dog by themselves so they can move back and forth over the line freely. They can jump out of the way of obstacles. So I might put a smaller female that's quick and light on her feet that can bounce back and forth in other places. If it's deep snow or mountainous, I might put some of my larger dogs back there because that power is more near the weight that's being moved. So especially around corners, they have to dig in and pull it hard around.
And then finally on very easy trails, I'll put my “weakest dogs” in that position for two reasons. One, it is physically easier for them if the trail is very simple. And secondly, because I can monitor them much more easily if they're right there by you.
Dr. Sandra Magnus: So you mentioned earlier that if a dog is having a bad day, I might move them here or there. How can you tell a dog is having a bad day?
Dallas Seavey: You spend about 30,000 miles with them.
Sandy Winnefeld: They're looking at you. Yeah, I mean, I'm not having a good day.
Dallas Seavey: Yeah, yeah. That's basically how it goes down. It's kind of sad and embarrassing maybe, how well I get to know some of these dogs. You know, I have one retiree on my floor over here, actually. I think yeah, he's outside now, but he's about to turn 15. And I think I've mushed about 30,000 miles with him. And, you know, that's one thing in a car where you're going 60 miles an hour and when you park, you leave it. It's quite another thing in a dog team where, you know, you're traveling at maybe nine miles an hour and then you'll travel for 50 miles and then you're going to stop and camp out underneath a frozen spruce tree for four or five hours and then do another 50 miles. It takes a lot of hours. So a lot of it's body language. A lot of it is knowing what is normal for this dog. Some dogs are typically, I'm thinking Tux, he's another almost 15-year-old that's raised with me. Very mellow. Everybody just calls him Eeyore. I mean, it's the same as he acts when he was 2. Just very mellow, very calm. So obviously, if you go out there and he's just standing there kind of staring at a tree, which he'll do for hours, you know, nothing's out of sorts for him. Otherwise, if you go over to Prophet, who is a very charismatic wiggly dog, if he's acting the same way, something's wrong, right? If he's acting– So knowing their norm, the way they move, the way they look, the way they eat, everything about– Yeah, you can tell.
Sandy Winnefeld: So, Dallas, you're carrying, if I'm not mistaken, everything from the beginning to the race that you need for the entire race. You're not getting resupplied along the way, right?
Dallas Seavey: Well, we do have resupply, so in some regards, yes, we're carrying everything we need in the sense of, here's my main kit that's going to go with me. The stuff I need to cook for the dogs, my winter survival stuff, my sleeping bag, you know, all your daily use items I would say you start with in your sled. Now, the replenishable items, food, the straw that the dogs are sleeping on, the booties that we're going to put on their feet, the fuel we use to cook for the dogs that are delivered to the checkpoints along the way. So I will often send out between 1500 and 2000 pounds of food and supplies to those checkpoints. And then as we're traveling, we can pick up those supplies at the checkpoints and then elect to either stay in camp in the checkpoint or grab those supplies and continue down the trail to a more ideal location for us or our dog team.
Sandy Winnefeld: These dogs are burning a tremendous amount of energy. What are they eating on the trail?
Dallas Seavey: First of all, when you say a tremendous amount of energy, we're talking about up to 12,000 or even 14,000 calories per day. Keep in mind that this is not a human. When we think of human athletes that are capable of burning 10,000 or 12,000 calories a day, you're thinking Michael Phelps, right? And I don't know how much he weighs, but I can guarantee you it's more than 55 lbs. And that's what most of my dogs are. So their calories burned per kilo of body weight is insane. And that's one of the things that makes them the world's premier endurance mammal, is their ability to burn that number of calories, but more importantly, replace that number of calories. We're talking the equivalent to about 35 Big Macs a day that they have to eat.
So to get that much fuel into them, first of all, you always have to hit their nutritional needs, right? So we're looking at a lot of protein, and that's mostly going to come by way of beef, chicken, or salmon. Those are kind of the three main protein sources. Chicken is a little bit fattier. At least the type of chicken we get is going to have a higher fat content. We also have their dry dog food, which has the somewhat limited but still necessary carbohydrates that they need. It's also going to have some of the base vitamins that they need. So they're going to eat some amount of commercially produced dog food. You're not going to find what we use on your local grocery store shelves. It's a very boutique dog food, very calorie dense. If you fed it to any regular house dog, they would blow up like a balloon. It has a lot of calories in it. And then finally the fats, right? And that is a huge portion where the fats are really the fuel that they're burning.
Athletes that we primarily focus on, or our bodies primarily burn blood sugar or glucose. And then when you're running a marathon and you start bonking, it's because your body is transitioning and now trying to burn stored body fat. A canine system is designed to burn fats first, second and last, right? So that's why they're able to consume that number of calories, is because they're able to eat fat at 9 calories per gram versus carbohydrates or protein at 4 calories per gram. So they're taking in those fats, and then they can very efficiently shift between eating, you know, beef fat, which is one of their main sources, or chicken skins, which is primarily fat and they love them. And they'll eat that, you know, those calories. They'll either burn it immediately, they can put it to stored body fat, or they can switch to start, you know, burning stored body fat. They can do those things very, very efficiently without ever really crashing. And that's how they can do 130 miles a day, day after day after day on the Iditarod.
Dr. Sandra Magnus: Wow, that's impressive. You mentioned the different kinds of terrains that you train for, but how do you prepare for the unpredictable conditions of the race? Like extreme cold, blizzards, icy conditions, weird weather patterns.
Dallas Seavey: Deep snow, storm, wind has got to be one of the worst.
Dr. Sandra Magnus:
Oh, wind. Oh, my gosh.
Dallas Seavey:I hate the wind. I absolutely hate the wind out there. When it's 40 below and blowing 50 miles an hour, I don't even know what it is and I don't want to know what the wind chill factor is.
Dr. Sandra Magnus: Oh, my gosh. That sounds–
Sandy Winnefeld: Nor do the dogs, I'm sure.
Dallas Seavey: Yeah, no, it is truly unpleasant. That is a great question, though. How do you prepare for, by definition, the unpredictable? Right? What we do there is you can never predict every scenario. Last year we had a moose encounter. Before that, I've been knee deep in water for almost an hour at 57 below 0. We've had storms where you can't see the trail. There is no trail anymore. And it's, you know, a foot plus of fresh snow and very little sign as to where you're supposed to go. Other places where it's glare ice, completely windblown, it's polished, and the dogs have very little or no traction and you're just, you know, trying to skate across this stuff. And it's more of a, you know, Bambi on ice situation. So I really do think this goes back to our kind of middle section of training when we were talking kind of the ramp up. That's kind of what we're trying to do. Let's go out there and spend days and weeks and months on the trail. And I can guarantee you if you do that in training, bad things will happen. And we say they're bad things because we didn't plan it. We always want to have the perfect sunshine and roses. Beautiful run. That's not the reality. Sometimes your sled's going to break. There's going to be a tree down across the trail, and you're going to come around a corner and not see it. And there you're going to have 16 dogs, you know, in an area the size of your kitchen table. It's a big ball and knot of ropes and dogs and, you know. Yeah. And it's going to take you 45 minutes to untangle this mess. But by doing those experiences and situations and handling them well, as the leader of the pack, what you're doing is you're teaching your team.
I hate to say it, but shit happens. You know what? And what we're going to do is we're going to take a breath, we're going to sort it out and we're going to deal with the issue that you see right now. But what I need is for them to be calm. It can't be a panic situation. And then, you know, we're going to keep upping the level. I'm going to cross open water and at first it's going to be 6 inches wide and the puppies are going to jump over and say, “Oh, my goodness. That was scary.” And then they're going to understand, okay, we did it as a group, we did it as a team. We weren't all going different directions. We all had the same goal in mind. And next thing you know, by building one step upon the next, we're crossing rivers that are100 or 150 ft wide and 2 or 3 ft deep, which for a dog is pretty dang deep. But again, they handle it the same way. We're going to stay lined out, we're going to stay organized. I know that if I jump in as the lead dog, the two dogs are going to come in behind me, right? They're not going to throw on the brakes and leave me stranded up to my belly in water here. So yeah, I would recommend for mushers to don't always run for your familiar trails. Go out, have bad things happen and learn how to handle them. Teach your team that you're capable of handling them.
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Dallas, this is just fascinating.
Dr. Sandra Magnus: I could go on for hours.
Sandy Winnefeld: I believe I know the route varies a little bit each year, right? Or maybe a lot. How do you navigate that course? You mentioned that you might even be in a blizzard, lose sight of it. Is it clearly marked or is that up to you? Are you using GPS? You know, how do you get from point A to point Z?
Dallas Seavey: Yeah, on the main it's actually very unexciting. There are 4-foot surveyor stakes and with a little reflector on them so you can see them at night that the trail breakers put along the trail prior to the race. And I say the trail and many of the parts that we travel on, there is no track out there until the trail breakers go out, you know, a few days or maybe a week prior to the races start. Other places we might be traveling between a couple villages along the way and it's regularly trafficked. I mean, they'll go back and forth for basketball games on the weekends. Or they all have family in the next village down. So there's regular traffic and you can expect a good trail because that trail's been being trafficked all winter long.
Now, the problem is that they put out these stakes and I'm sure it looks great. At some point, weather can affect that very quickly. Snow starts blowing and the first thing that happens is the low spot, the place where the snow machine pushed down the snow. That is your trail. That's what's going to fill in first. The snow is going to blow across the other snow, settle into those holes and fill it up. But at least you still have those markers to follow until the wind blows harder, then it blows all the snow away, including the snow that the marker was stuck into. And then the marker blows away. So there are times where, you know, I do have a GPS. GPSs were legalized in 2008 in the Iditaron. And honestly, the main thing I use it for is speed and distance. That used to be honestly something of a skill to know where you were in the race with just kind of dead reckoning, you have to be able to very accurately guesstimate your speed. How long have we been traveling? How much stop time did I have approximately? Because there are sections of the race that are nearly a hundred miles between checkpoints. And you're going to stop and camp, you want to camp halfway. Well, how do you know where you are? So the GPSs have taken some of the mystery away.
Sandy Winnefeld: The only navigation is you have to hit all the checkpoints. And how you get from one checkpoint to the other is it's nice to be on the marked trail, but you just have to get there, right?
Dallas Seavey: Yes. You are supposed to follow the trail as marked, but there's a lot of margin on that one. If the trail markers blew away, then they're just happy you made it to the next checkpoint. Or if the trail conditions changed from when the trail breakers went through. You know there's one section I did a couple years ago on a race that they were going along the frozen sea ice not far from the shoreline. But where the trail was marked, the ice actually separated and when I hit it it was about 8 ft wide. And apparently I was early in the race and it eventually got to be very wide to the point that they were trying to like come up with some bridge system because the ice just kind of separated and it's, you know, kind of catches you off guard because you're not expecting that.
Dr. Sandra Magnus: So what happens if you need help in between checkpoints? You got checkpoints. So how hard is it to get help if something happens in between checkpoints? And how do people know that you need help?
Dallas Seavey: And so in what I want to say, 2017, two-way communication was legalized in the race, which is something that personally I am not a fan of and was very vocal about at that time and still would much prefer that we go back to not having two-way communication. It's great in the sense of yes, there have been a number of emergencies on the trail. I'm fine with people carrying an inreach or anything like that. And this was the rule prior to that is you could carry a two-way satellite messaging system because no cell phone's going to work unless you're within sight of one of these towns along the way. But if you were to use that two-way communication device, you were disqualified. That's what they changed in 2017. And I felt like that was a great rule where you need to go out there prepared to do this thousand mile race without being rescued.
Dr. Sandra Magnus: Yeah, without that safety net behind you.
Dallas Seavey: Without the safety net. And I think I've heard this elsewhere and I don't recall where, but it definitely resonates in the Iditarod that the more safe we feel because we have two-way communication, the less prepared we become. People are comfortable going with not enough gear. They want to be light, they want to be fast. And hey, worst case scenario I can get my in reach and text somebody. The problem is this is rural, very rural Alaska and rescue is not hours away, it could be days away. We travel in conditions that helicopters can't fly. So you know, you need to be ready to be out there for 48 hours and very likely becoming hypothermic. You know, having that extra gear, you have to be prepared to be soaking wet, 50 below 0 and not have help for two days. If you can do that, then I'm all for the two in reach or the two-way satellite communications.
Sandy Winnefeld: You got to prove it first.
Dr. Sandra Magnus: Now, I think you have a really good point actually because people can become complacent with this artificial sense that somebody can come help me when that's not actually the case.
Dallas Seavey: And hikers and people and I think we're seeing a lot more of these rescue situations because people are taking on more than what they're physically or training wise prepared for. Oh, yeah. We can go back to the country and do all this and it's like, Oh, shoot, I don't know how to navigate. You know, something you should have thought about first.
Sandy Winnefeld: So can you share any– You know, you've got a vast experience in this. Can you share any close calls or moments where you were particularly worried for your safety or the safety of your dogs? Whether it's Iditarod or not, you know, preferably Iditarod. But what has really gotten your attention there?
Dallas Seavey: A few examples. I would say probably one of the most notable would be actually not in the Iditarod. It was in the Yukon Quest back in 2011, which. The Yukon Quest is another thousand mile dog sled race that ran from Whitehorse, Canada to Fairbanks, Alaska. Very challenging course. More in the interior, typically much colder weather conditions. And in that race quite a long ways into it, which is relevant because you become fatigued, you become tired. I have no body fat by that point in the race. And you know, the dogs are down to efficient traveling weights. But again they've already traveled 700 miles. So in that process, it's a long story, but I try to render it down as much as I can. Basically we ended up on a river where it was 57 below 0 in about knee deep water. So you would think that rivers would have the decency to freeze when it's that cold out, which they do. And that's the problem is that if you view the river as a pipe, you know, once it has ice on the top, that ice freezes down and it can actually choke off the river. When the bottom of the river swells up and that water is still flowing. So it'll break through the ice and flow over the top of the ice and then of course it will freeze again. So what happened to me is we were going along ice and it broke through. It is only about half an inch, maybe a little bit more thick. So it's not like you're going into the whole river, but you're in over your knees. Which again for a dog is, you know, quite a ways up their body. The dogs couldn't push through it. It was too thick for them to push through with their chest and not thick enough for them to climb up on top of without it breaking down. So I, as quickly as I could, disconnected the entire dog team from the sled and just grabbed the whole ball of I think I had about 12 dogs with me at that point in the race. And so I'd step up on the ice and break down, you know, something the size of a sheet of ice about the size of a table, and it would kind of sink down in the ice. My feet would go out from underneath me. I'd fall on my side, you know, step up on the next one, break it down. We did that for a couple hundred yards before we were able to get up where the ice was actually thick enough. Then I went back and had to try to get my sled out of there before it froze because it contained all of our food, all of our equipment of every type.
Again, long story short, I finally got all this up to the riverbank, off the ice there. And now you got to decide, what do we do now? Right? I'm completely soaked. At that temperature, I was wearing every piece of clothing I had. The only thing that I wasn't wearing was a single pair of socks. And I decided that to try to stay and build a fire is not really productive because you can't dry anything out. There's no enclosure to contain the heat. So if you build a fire that's big enough to actually put off warmth, one, you're creating a draft going, you know, feeding that fire. You're creating an artificial wind chill, basically. And secondly, to get close enough to that to actually get heat or to dry anything, you're more likely to melt. Most modern synthetic gear. So we decided the best chance for us was to make a run for it. And it was about 45 plus miles to the next checkpoint. Thankfully, I had just camped prior to that, so the team was fairly fresh and well fed and everything. I put on my one dry pair of socks, put garbage bags over my feet, put the wet boots back on, and figured I would just be running for the next five or six hours and I could stay warm like that, right? I was in very good shape at that time. And unfortunately, I took off running, and pretty soon my boots froze with the toe pointing pretty much straight up because I'd run and then I'd pedal. I'd push like you would off a skateboard, right? You're standing on your sled, pushing with your foot. And then it starts cutting off circulation. I tried to cut the boots off, they were too frozen. I cut through all the laces, but everything was frozen together. That was probably the only time that I'm doing the math in my head and it's like, it's not looking good to make it out of here. We did eventually make it to the next checkpoint. We were basically a human popsicle and took me a little while to thaw out after that one. But we took a longer, longer rest than we had planned at the next checkpoint. Tried to get stuff dried out as much as we could and then continued on the next 300 miles.
Dr. Sandra Magnus: Wow. That’s a story.
Sandy Winnefeld: Really? So you finished the race?
Dallas Seavey: Yeah. And actually that race, on the heels of that, I then developed, I didn't know it at the time, I thought I had a hernia because sitting down, I couldn't lift my foot off the ground without excruciating pain in my stomach. It turns out it was an ulcer, which I would imagine has something to do with trying to do a thousand mile race on caffeine, nicotine and no sleep. It's not the best diet. I was 23 and pretty ambitious at the time, fresh out of Olympic level training, so in fairly good shape. That actually ended up being the first dog sled race I ever won. That was just one storm after the next, one terrible situation after the next, and taught me a lot about, you know, of just making it.
Sandy Winnefeld: Survival it is.
Dallas Seavey: Everybody's having a bad day. You might think you're the only one having to deal with this, but everybody's dealing with something. Just handle the problem as best you can and let's see where the chips land at the end.
Dr. Sandra Magnus: Sorry. Mental toughness is a thing, isn't it?
Dr. Sandra Magnus: Yeah. I went through one of the checkpoints after that issue and I didn't want the vets to see me unable to stand up. So I conducted my whole checkpoint routine while I have a seat on my sled, sitting down. I mushed about two miles out of the checkpoint where I could then, you know, feed my dogs and replace some of the boots. And I literally did it on my hands and knees. I could not stand.
Dr. Sandra Magnus: That's a story.
Dallas Seavey: Yeah, that was an unpleasant one.
Dr. Sandra Magnus: So that was the first time you won a race, but you've won the Iditarod an amazing six times and the only person to do so, I believe. And that is true. I mean, that's just incredible. And each race is different. And so the strategy was different for each race. And so do you vividly recall the differences between them or anything you'd care to share there?
Dallas Seavey: I do. What I remember from them is the teams. The Iditarod gets a lot of attention because as a musher, it's the one part of the year that is witnessed or observed by other people. I don't really do other races typically. So the Iditarod has a lot of emphasis on it. But for me it's the whole year, it's the whole training season. It's developing that team and it's the chance to come out and see how we do, let's stack them up against the best teams in the world. And there's a tremendous sense of pride when you can get a dog team to that level and see what they can accomplish. Understanding who they were when they were puppies, yearlings, two year olds, the challenges that they had at that time. And now to see them as a five-year-old in their prime, absolutely shining, winning the Iditarod, it's an amazing feeling. So I think what I remember from each of them is more the team than the specific race. And some trails or years are decidedly marked by an epic storm or a lack of snow or cold. You know, there's been races where we rarely see temperatures above 40 below 0. And each of those situations faces your team with a different challenge.
But you have to remember it's so easy as a musher to go into it and say we're here to race. No, what we're here to do is overcome a challenge with our dog team and we're here to do it as best we can and hopefully better than our competition does it. And that challenge might not be the challenge you thought it was going to be. Right? You may have gone out there thinking the challenge was we were going to try a more aggressive run, rest schedule or we're going to do short breaks or longer runs. And the actual challenge you get handed is a dog team that has a minor flu bug. And in fact, one of the races I'm most proud of was not a win. We finished in second and my team got sick basically the first day of the race. And that's where you have to be able to not care that much about winning to say, yep, we're going to be out here for nine, ten days facing a challenge. But it's not the challenge I wanted. It's not going to be about racing to win it. It's going to be about taking care of this team, taking care of their problems, and continuing to get down the trail. And I talked to the race judge at one of the early checkpoints and he's a friend and told him at that point, my goal for this team is to get them healthy and have a team that I feel like we can race at the end. And if we can be racing to catch up to 20th place, I'm going to be happy. But it means I did my job. If I can get them through this challenge and reach the end with a team that's accelerating and we ended up pulling off a second place finish.
And that would have never happened had we not had the ability to take a huge step back. It would have been so easy to put the blinders on, like, nope, this isn't happening, this isn't happening. It'll pass. But that's not the reality. You got to take a hard look at reality and say, this is what we have to deal with. And the sooner we recognize it, the sooner we can do something about it and fix it. That was a race that I could not have run five years ago. I would not have been as experienced as I am now, and I would not have been able to have that performance. Some of the wins are easy. You know, everything goes great.
Dr. Sandra Magnus: That's impressive.
Dr. Sandra Magnus: That's kind of my next question. You know, some of the people that Sandra and I have talked to who have done something very well for a very long time, one of the common themes was they changed over that time. And I can imagine that maybe when you were first doing this, you were in much better physical condition and that sort of stuff, but maybe you weren't as smart as you are now. And now maybe not quite as good a physical condition, but you're much wiser. Has there been a similar evolution for you in that vein?
Dr. Sandra Magnus: Absolutely. So the first race, I would even say, I would go a step farther and say that my goal on the race has changed. The reason to try to do well has changed. I think a lot has changed. So I won my first Iditarod at 25. I became the youngest person to win the race. Incidentally, the person who held that record was also the person that was the only person to have five Iditarod wins. And then last year, we reached our sixth win. In that first Iditarod,
I would say, honestly, I was in very good shape. I was very active, very physical, very stubborn. You're kind of your stereotypical , going to do extreme sports, drive hard. It's fun because I'm miserable. I think we were smart to recognize that my physicality was one of the assets for the team. But we also hit it with that bull in a china shop sort of mentality. There's not a lot of finesse there. And my goal, I mean, part of my reason to win, I think, was I didn't know if I could. I wanted to prove that I could. And I was one of the people that didn't know if I could. So it was more about being first, beating these people that I had grown up honestly kind of idolizing. They were the people that were dominant in our sport that I had grown up thinking was the biggest sport in the world.
And then I would say now it's more about running a perfect race. And I can find success and joy in a well executed second place run. Sometimes if you do this long enough, somebody's going to have a better dog team. Winning it when you have the best dog team is not really that much of a challenge. It's, well, you were supposed to win, but doing well when everything goes against you. Last year, I think, was an example. It was not the best team I've ever had. And I feel like this one took a lot more finesse than some of those earlier races did.
Sandy Winnefeld: Being the best version of what you can be. Yeah. Good.
Dallas Seavey: My goal now is to run a perfect race, which will never happen. There are literally a million decisions that are made. I mean, second by second. Are we going too fast? Should I slow them down by a half a tenth of a mile an hour? Should we stay here two minutes longer? I mean, it really is down to the minutes and seconds. And you're never going to make all those decisions right. But I'm going to strive to and I'm hopefully going to get more right each year.
And sometimes we're going to make mistakes. And that's part of it now too, is I want to make a certain number of mistakes because we're trying to evolve. I'm not looking for the silver bullet that this is how we train a team every single year. This is how we race. The idea is there's not one perfect way. I want to be a good enough coach and understand the different styles and the different dogs to when I have an old, mature team, that speed isn't their strong suit. All right. We can still win with that team. We're going to play to their strengths. If I have a young team that has a lot of speed, but not a lot of staying power, how do we adjust? And so it's just trying to broaden my experience to be able to be successful in any type of race and make the best decisions we can along the way.
Dr. Sandra Magnus: So, you know, you commented that the Idatarod, it's a big race. Everybody watches it. Public's very aware of it. So what do you think the future holds for the race? And are there changes you'd like to see in how it's run as things evolve, or are you happy with it?
Dallas Seavey: No, I think there are changes that should be done. No doubt. A lot of it's minor things. I think one of the biggest problems we face right now, honestly, is, like, we touched on earlier, there are fewer people, I think, practicing mushing in general. And I'll be honest, a big part of that is to try getting youth into really any outdoor sport. There's so much competition for our attention, basically, where it is dang hard to compete with an iPad. You know, I don't care how fun your sport is, it's really hard. So there's less there.
But I think one of the mistakes we're making as a sport is putting more and more emphasis on the Iditarod, because it's one of the last big holdouts. What we need to do is put an emphasis on get outside, create a bond, a connection with animals, travel. And if we have, let's say, a thousand mushers, and we're trying to pull 25 of them or 50 of them to run the Iditarod, or 100 of them, what we're doing is pulling people into the race that probably aren't honestly ready to be taking on that challenge yet. I would rather see us have a base of 10,000 mushers and then try to find the 50. You know, basically, a smaller percentage should be doing the Iditarod at that level. So I would like to see an emphasis on growing the sport and pushing up here for more shorter races with smaller numbers of dogs. That is more enticing for beginners.
Dr. Sandra Magnus: Do you guys have, like, an association? You know, I'm thinking of, like, in soccer, right? They've got FIFA that promotes the sport. Do you guys have a group that promotes the sport?
Dallas Seavey: There have been a number over the years, but I would say right now there is not a definite group. And that's one of the things we talked about changes, and that's one of the things that needs to be addressed. We'll just put it that way, where we can have that emphasis. The Iditarod really in some ways should be that group because they are the big entity. But to be honest, they have their hands full putting on the one event that they do put on. So they're not really capable of doing the other services that the sport needs as a sport.
Sandy Winnefeld: So Dallas, this has been amazing. It has to be one of–
Dr. Sandra Magnus: I don't want it to be over.
Sandy Winnefeld: Yeah, we've done 60 plus episodes and it's probably one of my most favorite, if not my favorite which is why it's gone longer than we normally go.
Dr. Sandra Magnus: Sorry.
Sandy Winnefeld: So I have one last question for you before we sign off. Are you running the race this year?
Dallas Seavey: So I am not racing this year. I have another team that's going to be running the Iditarod. And that's one of the things we do here also is we do have mushers getting into the sport. We touched on that briefly earlier. So I have two mushers that are going through the process of getting qualified for the Iditarod by doing the 200 and 300 mile, what we call mid-distance races. I have one musher who helped me training last year quite a lot. Kind of my main trainer. She's going to be running her first Iditarod this year. So we do have you know, mushers coming through that program. And I think you'll find many of the big kennels do something similar where we need help. You know, we need people that are engaged and invested in this and they want to become better mushers. So we will have a team in the race. But I won't be driving it. I've recently been doing kind of a every other year thing. I hope to do this until I'm well into my 60s, if not 70s. So part of it is pacing myself.
Sandy Winnefeld: The old man in.
Dallas Seavey: My dad is actually racing this year at 60. Oh, man. I don't even know how old he is. 65, 66.
Sandy Winnefeld: Hey, you're starting to get personal in here. Making me feel bad.
Dallas Seavey: So we'll be watching him as well.
Sandy Winnefeld: Thank you so much for spending time with us. It's really cool.
Dr. Sandra Magnus: This has been wonderful.
Sandy Winnefeld: Good luck to your team.
Dallas Seavey: All right. Thank you. And I do apologize for the long answers. I'm sorry but the questions don’t have easy answers. They are too–
Dr. Sandra Magnus: No, no. This is perfect. That was Iditarod veteran and multi-year champion Dallas Seavey. I'm Sandra Magnus.
Sandy Winnefeld: And I'm Sandy Winnefeld. Thanks again to Culligan for sponsoring this episode. Get exceptional water for exceptional performance learn more at culligan.com.
Dr. Sandra Magnus: And please pass our podcast around to your friends and we'll see you soon with another episode of The Adrenaline Zone.
