He’d spent $1,500 flying Zowie, his favorite leader, from his remote training camp to a clinic a few months before, after the dog ate a bum salmon. Zowie had pulled through, but still hadn’t regained his stamina. That much was obvious. Daily hated to admit it, but his entire team’s performance left a lot to be desired. Short training runs weren’t adequate to prepare dogs for a trip of this distance. The former hippie knew that from making his living giving sled-dog rides in Colorado. A once-in-a-lifetime sponsorship offer had landed him here, but the disruption of relocating North had interfered with training. With or without Zowie, these dogs were hurting.

Lynda Plettner wasn’t an official Klondike participant. Why pay an entry fee when she wasn’t here to race? Plettner was just tagging along. Someone had to keep an eye on Urtha Lenthar, the schoolteacher leasing dogs from Plettner’s kennel.

By Skwentna, Plettner had abandoned any attempt at maintaining a casual distance. Barking orders in a voice improbably loud, the Iditarod veteran was directing Lenthar’s every move. Her dogs were ready, Plettner decided, but the big goof riding the sled needed a lot of work.

Barry Lee’s borrowed dogs were short on conditioning. With that in mind, Lee took it easy the first 100 miles of the Klondike. Driving two hours, then resting two or three.

“This race will more than double some of their mileage,” Barry told me, watching his dogs settling down as I prepared to break camp.

I knew Lee from covering past races. He was one of those guys who was always turning up as a checkpoint volunteer. His confession about his dogs’ training distances was startling. All of my dogs had at least double, if not triple, that many miles of conditioning, and here Barry was playing catch-up. The dogs weren’t the only ones in need of conditioning. The musher’s gut was as wide as his habitual smile. Stepping inside the roadhouse, Barry staggered under the weight of the past 100 miles.