The most well-known sled dog race is undoubtedly the Iditarod Trail, a 1,049-mile trek through the Alaskan wilderness that has been run in no fewer than eight days and 18 hours. Usually, though, sled dog races are much shorter — such as the annual Fur Rendezvous in Anchorage. Only this year the "Rondy" happens to be much shorter than anyone had anticipated.
The Fur Rendezvous, or Open World Championship, is typically 26 miles, with dogs running in teams as big as 20. However, due to this year's nearly snow-free conditions, the organizers of the Rendezvous truncated the race to just 3.05 miles through the city, Alaska Dispatch News reports. "[It's] as if you had been a person training for the Boston Marathon and then asked to run a 200-yard dash," explained race marshal Janet Clark.
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