I*KID*AROD

Okay, so here's the deal. Every year the 7th grade class follows the Ididarod races. Each student aligns himself with a real racer, and they follow the progress. At the end of the week they get to watch the movie, Eight Below (about the race) and have their own race. They are broken into teams with one musher, a lead dog, and then 4-6 other dogs. They travel a 1.5 mile course (see the hill in the background of the photo) that includes climbing a big ol' hill TWICE. The musher has blankets, pillows, etc (the things you would need if you were doing it for real) in the sled. They stop at check points where they have to answer school-related questions. If they get a question wrong, they lose a dog! Mitch's team finished with only THREE people so they were awarded the "Most Inspirational" award! It's very fun and it was a pretty nice day yesterday!

From the Gazette:

A team starts the Ikidarod cross country sled pulling race Friday at Lockwood Middle School. The teams pull one member in a sled more than a mile over a hilly course. Along the way teams must stop at five check points where they answer academic questions. An incorrect answer means a member is dropped from the team. The race also has mandatory rest stops like the Alaskan dog race it is patterned after.

This link takes you to raw video shot by the Gazette. In it, toward the end, you'll see Mitch, in the black tshirt and glasses and hear him say, "Who's going?" He's famous!!

http://videos.billingsgazette.com/p/video?id=1758199