STAY CONNECTED: Have the stories that matter most delivered every night to your email inbox. Subscribe to our daily local news wrap.
Photo Credit: Aaron Peck and Elevation Sled Dog Adventures Facebook
By Shane Clausing
IDITAROD SLED DOG RACE

Bezanson’s Peck set to begin Iditarod Sled Dog Race

Mar 6, 2021 | 7:00 AM

Bezanson’s Aaron Peck will be at the starting line today of the 48th running of the Iditarod Sled Dog Race in Alaska.

Peck has previously competed in the race seven times between 2000-2020 and has a personal best time of 11 days, 11 hours, 10 minutes and five seconds.

The race sometimes takes between eight and 15 days to complete. The record time was recorded by Mitch Seavey in 2017. He finished in eight days and three hours.

This year’s edition will look different because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

While the pandemic is front and centre on everyone’s mind, Peck says he’s confident it’ll be conducted safely.

“Iditarod has been very proactive. They’ve gotten advice and help from other big-name organizations like the Tour De France who pulled off a successful event in August with zero COVID cases. They worked with epidemiologists to help them figure the right pathway forward.”

This year will also see the course shift around a bit to help limit human interaction with people from the towns the racers pass by.

“Instead of going all the way to Nome, the full 950 miles, we are going to double back at the halfway point. It’s a little shorter, it’ll be about an 860-mile trail this year.”

“We won’t even interact with communities because the checkpoint area will be just on the outskirts. That’s the way they’re doing it and there’s basically going to be a lot of remote checkpoint camping stuff this year.”

Peck says this year has also been different when it comes to training for the race.

He tells EverythingGP in the lead up to the race, all of the races close to him in Canada were cancelled because of the pandemic.

Luckily for Peck, he was able to participate in the Kuskokwim 300 race in Alaska prior to the start of the Iditarod.

This time around in Alaska, Peck is looking for some redemption.

In last year’s race, Peck and his team were forced to withdraw after a couple of his dogs got sick just before the finish line. At the time, Peck and his team were running with a top ten time, one of their best ever.

“We were running with a big strong team with 200 miles to go and gaining on the teams ahead of us, but then they (some of the dogs) developed a cough and unfortunately we had to pull out. We didn’t want any pneumonia to set in, we were in a very remote area and that could be hard on the dogs if they develop any sort of pneumonia.”

“It was hard, but we don’t have any regrets. We gained a lot of confidence, we know the dogs can run at the front of the race. We know we have the ability, we’re just going to try to build on that success and try to repeat as much as possible from last year, because it worked.”

Peck took 20 dogs with him to Alaska and 14 dogs will compete with him during the race. If any dog has to withdraw from the race, you cannot replace the dog.

As he looks to build on last year’s race, Peck also acknowledged some of the top racers won’t be participating this year because of various different COVID-19 restrictions in other countries.

You can track Peck’s progress on the Iditarod website or on Facebook. They’ll have live look-ins and updates at the race.

by Shane Clausing