Daily Iowan

Issue date: 3/29/07 Section: Sports

The journey of a lifetime settled March 16 at 3:45 p.m. Alaska time.

The 12 days and 45 minutes of zipping over rocky terrain, being dragged face down at 30 mph, and undergoing minus-100-degree windchills is a distant snowflake. Now, the dogs are home, the gear is unpacked, and former Hawkeye wrestler Matt Anderson is back to his day job at the Bureau of Land Management in Pinedale, Wyo.

But even with stacks of papers piled in front of him, he can still picture himself and his huskies hobbling down the Yukon River to the Eagle Island checkpoint on day 10. The conditions had gripped a full nelson on both the mind and body of the mushers and leader alike. As they finally pulled in, Anderson's eyes darted to the marvel above them.

"I went to get my camera, and I thought, 'You know what, there is no way this picture is going to be able to show what I am looking at," said the Shennandoah, Iowa, native. "The pinks and greens and yellows just raining - it was like a curtain of color just shooting streaks across the sky.

"It is almost impossible to describe. [The colors] really dance across the northern sky."

The 35th-annual Iditarod saw a record 24 participants scratch from this year's competition, including a sled-full of veteran mushers - most of whom dropped within the first few days. Anderson, a rookie, was not one of them. He finished 40th out of the 58 competitors who completed the race.

"The race is unique; there is certainly no event that can rival the Iditarod," said Anderson, who wrestled for four years on the Hawkeye mats and whose previous longest race was 300 miles. He completed 1,122 in Alaska. "It is obviously the ultimate adventure. It's like the Iditarod piles every tough aspect of every tough thing I have ever done and puts it in one race."

Now 13 days since his Alaskan crusade ended, Anderson can sit back and relax with his dogs until next year's race. Right?

Not exactly.

"I am still training - for something," said Anderson, adding that he didn't really sleep until the Nicolai checkpoint four days into the race, and he said a 45-minute nap felt like a full night's sleep. "I'm gonna buy a bicycle while the dogs are on a break. I need to keep training. If I don't have something right in front of me, I go stir-crazy.

"I need a short break from running dogs, but no break from athletics. Nose to the grindstone. I don't require much time off. The older I get, the less recovery time I need."

The enthusiasm for activity is no surprise to anyone who knows the two-time NCAA wrestling championships qualifier. What might be more surprising is Anderson's middle-of-the-pack finish in the Iditarod, because the rookie is certainly not one to be accept mediocrity.

One of the reasons for Anderson's self-proclaimed unsatisfactory finish stems from the saying, "if your dog hasn't been to Nome, it's just a puppy."

Well, Anderson's team was full of puppies.

"I am happy with what I learned," he said. "On March 3, I had a vision of how to win this race. Now, that vision has changed. 40th place is mediocre. I am very, very, very proud of those dogs, and I am not discrediting them at all, but we can do better. And we will.

"I love them all to death, they are like my kids, but they aren't Iditarod dogs."

One of his "kids," Maddie, received the worst of some of the poor conditions when a river cracked with Anderson and her on top of it, sending water surging onto them. It was at the top of his boots and over Maddies' head. Anderson said she was just "a block of ice" when he got her out.

"I thought [Maddie] was gone, but she started coughing, and I warmed her up," he said. "She was somewhat traumatized after that. She didn't think too much of getting drug through water. She's healthy now."

Maddie was one of the seven dogs Matt dropped off at various checkpoints along the track, leaving him with nine at the finish line. He says they are all almost fully healthy again, and he is confident about six of his dogs as Iditarod racers.

Andersen says that if financially he can make the pieces of the puzzle fit by adding to his kennel, then he will race again. He found out that just like in wrestling, although conditioning is key, there is a certain kind of tough-headedness needed to finish on top.

"The key to my success is going to be raising puppies, and that takes time," he said. "There is no one who wants to run it next year more than I do, and no one who wants to win it more than I do, but like in anything, it isn't an overnight success.

"The goal isn't to run the race, but to win the race."

E-mail DI reporter Eric Mandel at:
eric-mandel@uiowa.edu

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Before this year's Iditarod, an astounding 585 different competitors had finished the trip across the brutal Alaskan terrain. Of the 82 who entered this year's race, only 58 managed to cross the finish line.

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