Didn't realise that Richie/Pete/Joar had stopped 20 miles out - hadn't anticipated that option. Doesn't think it makes any difference as far as what he, Dallas, is doing. He thinks he has a good plan for his team (which is the only thing that matters) - forget about what everyone else is doing. But after McGrath, what the others do may affect what he does.
Speculating on the run lengths for R-P-J:
I guess they're lined up to go ...I don't quite understand that one... that gives them 95 miles back to Ophir, gives them 135 back to McG - both are kind of odd numbers. I guess they do McGrath in two legs - do a 50-60 and then a long 80 or something, then they do this whole loop in three runs.
One of his plans was, if they ran the schedule they did, they'd be in front - by just a little bit - and we were - a two hour lead or something. The effects of that is that if you're behind, you feel pressure, you feel like you have to catch up, you have to do something big and bold and crazy - that if you didn't do that, you'd be four hours behind and you'd never catch up. So one of the things I was hoping, was that people would do crazy stuff leaving their 24, trying to catch up. Which will make them weaker - I fully expected them to catch up, I think they will - but I want them to be as weak as possible when they do <laughs>. That's how my strategy works. If they're an hour or two ahead of me, that's fine, I just need to have the strongest dog team, so I have to figure out what makes my team be strongest relative to the competition.
[Ed - I'm not sure anyone took the bait ]
Dogs would probably eat another 5 lbs, but he prefers to keep them just a little hungry, so when he goes back to feed them later they'll wolf it down.
The cold weather helped - he was worried they wouldn't eat well in the warm on the 24. All the dogs had been eating, but not in unison, which meant he was running circles trying to keep up with all their personal schedules, so he was hoping to get them all on one schedule it makes life easier.