When you are leading the Iditarod, but a five-time champion is breathing down your neck, you do not have time for the finer things in life.
Brent Sass, who is seeking his first title in the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race across Alaska, on Friday turned down a five-course meal for being the first musher to reach the Yukon River.
He arrived at the checkpoint in the community of Ruby, where a gourmet spread awaited him.
Photo: AP
He politely declined such delicacies as reindeer and beef tenderloin. Instead, he only stayed at the checkpoint for five minutes and got back on the trail without even grabbing a to-go bag.
“I guess you’ll have to give it to someone else. I’d love to stay longer, but my schedule doesn’t allow it,” Alaska Public Media quoted Sass saying at the checkpoint.
Sass arrived in Ruby just before 6am. He was followed about three hours later by Dallas Seavey, the defending champion seeking his sixth title.
Seavey did not stick around Ruby long either, getting back on the trail after a seven-minute stay.
Several other mushers followed Seavey into Ruby, but appeared to be taking a rest.
Sass later was the first to reach the next checkpoint in Galena.
The Iditarod, a 1,609km race across untamed Alaska, began for 49 mushers on Sunday north of Anchorage. Since then four mushers have scratched, including the latest, Hugh Neff, who had been in third place.
If Sass had the time to enjoy a sit-down meal, it would have included pan-seared blackened shrimp as an appetizer, a reindeer minestrone soup and an iceberg wedge salad with trimmings. The entree would have been a bacon-wrapped beef tenderloin, seared and served with asparagus, baby carrots, fingerling potatoes and a red wine mushroom sauce.
Dessert would have been a trio cheesecake bar with strawberry sauce.
The fine meal did not go to waste. It was given to Billy Honea, a checkpoint volunteer who has been involved with the Iditarod for decades.
He shared it with other volunteers in Ruby.
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