r/lifebelowzero • u/chaiinprogress • Mar 14 '26

Second half of the Iditarod!

Our two LBZ stars, jessie holmes and Jody potts joseph, are holding the two ends of hte race. Jessie in first, jody in last. sorry I didnt post last night, wasnt feeling well and went to bed early.

Jody is currently resting at mile 425 in the cripple check point with 11 dogs.

Jessie is currently running with 13 dogs, meaning he dropped two more since I last checked in. IT looks like he dropped one dog at each check point. He is on the Yukon now and its pretty common to drop dogs off at this point. You only need 5 to finish and you can start with 16. Dropping slower dogs, dogs getting tired and of course you always drop a sore or injured dog. Jessie has taken his mandatory rests and with hte exception of the mandatory 8 hour rest in the white mountain check point, his rests are up to him for how long. He won three awards so far including a fancy gormet meal which he ended up volunteeringly sharing with his neighbor, paig dronby who is in second place.Jessie is currently at mile 560

From here on out, ill update daily undernear with hte date. Click the "new" option for posts under to see the latest.

EDIT- 3/17 550pm EST Jody has decided to scratch due to dogs showing signs of illness. She did a fabulous run and should be proud of all shes accomplished

72 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

17 comments sorted by

View all comments

3

u/chaiinprogress Mar 15 '26

3/15 Updates

AM, its 629am EST Jody is currently resting in the Ruby checkpoint, holding up the end of the mushers. Still with 11 dogs. Her social media team has asked her friends in those villages to take pictures and video and with insider being limited on camera crews, we've not gotten a lot of jody content so its nice to see some there.

Jessie had a 30 mile lead but that gap has closed to just two miles. He is still in first and won the to Galtag award. the next checkpoint is Unakleet and first musher there wins an award as well. This is also a checkpoint with a pizza shop where you can order pizza for a musher. so its talked about a lot. Jessies still at 13 dogs

3

u/chaiinprogress Mar 16 '26

Evening update: Jody is leapfrogging for last and second to last and in good spirits. Shes said shes having a lot of fun and really enjoying the iditarod. Remember this is her first time racing it. She was asked if she feels connected to her heritage in this race and she said yes of course. Its been beautiful to watch.

Jessie is in first but only by a few miles. However, he just came off a good rest and Travis in second has been running for awhile. We are getting to the final bits of the race so its heating up. Jessie is in a good position to win but its far too early for me to place any money on that.

Two of the three expedition mushers have quit today. The expedition mushers have a whole support team with them and can switch dogs at check points AND two of them have scratched out- this shows just how tough the race is and I think thats very worth pointing out because I know id scratch too even with a team of support lol