UPDATE: Blake Freking has won the 35th running of the John Beargrease Sled Dog Marathon!
Freking crossed the finish line with ten dogs just before 8pm Tuesday evening.
But now, it's a dog race: watchers of the GPS tracker are seeing Jennifer Freking (Blake's wife) out in front for the second place finish, then Jason Rice (running a team of Ryan Redington's dogs). Ryan himself and Colleen Wallin are in the mix as well.
Beargrease winner, veteran musher and KUMD's race reporter John Stetson with his predictions:
Disaster - or just a turn of the tides - comes "sudden and swift in dog racing"
It's -10 in Grand Portage, MN and it feels like -40.
So it's no wonder that, unless you're a musher or a dog team, you're inside with a cup of coffee, glued to the GPS tracker on the John Beargrease Sled Dog Marathon web site.
It's how John Stetson, past Beargrease champ, veteran musher and KUMD race reporter, first realized that Ryan Redington's GPS tracker wasn't moving earlier this afternoon.
Redington took an early and commanding lead, and even this morning, Stetson told us that, barring the unforseen, Redington was poised to take his second marathon championship in as many years.
But something unforseen has happened. Not only is Blake Freking is in the lead, Ryan Redington is trailing his own team of dogs (the ones he leased to musher Jason Rice) and -- no, wait, Jennifer Freking and Colleen Wallin have moved up and -- well, let's just say, the first musher across the finish line will be celebrated, but there's no telling who will cross the line next.
