Iditarod Means: IditaRead Challenge Time!

They will race 1131 miles, through temperatures reaching 80º below zero Fahrenheit and blinding blizzards, with nothing save what their sixteen dogs can pull piled on a sled.  It is known as The Last Great Race.  One of the final places on earth where men and women can test their mettle.  Welcome to Alaska.  Welcome to Iditarod 2011.


I don't know about you folks, but I completely lack the kind of mettle to even contemplate mushing a team of sled dogs through the wildest, frigidest territory in the United States, for a distance roughly equivalent to that between Los Angeles and Oklahoma City.  Alas, it is plenty exciting to track my favorites on my laptop while tucked cozy beneath my down comforter in my own homey bed.  And so, I have a challenge to issue to my fellow readers.  One which can be accomplished beneath your own comforters or from your favorite armchair.  Join me for IditaRead 2011!


How it works: You read until you hit 1131 pages.  Whoever gets there first wins.  Pretty simple, but it would be pretty boring if that were it, so we do dress it up a bit.  A new page, titled IditaRead 2011 will be posted on my blog.  All of the checkpoints on the Iditarod trail will be listed, along with the milage between each one.  As you "reach the next checkpoint", ie: read the number of pages to equal the number of miles since your last checkpoint, you post a comment on the blog page telling what you are reading and a bit about what is happening in your book.  I will keep a master tally of who is at which check point at the top of the blog page.  The Iditarod generally wraps up in about ten days, but I will continue to run the challenge for as long as you the readers keep posting.


Prizes:  Since I live in the beautiful Last Frontier, I am able to get some fun prizes for my winners.

First Place: THE LANCE MACKEY STORY (a book about four time Iditarod winner and cancer survivor Lance Mackey, who is, incidentally, going for win number five this year) and an official 2011 Iditarod t-shirt.
Second Place: THE LANCE MACKEY STORY and an official 2011 mug
Third Place: THE LANCE MACKEY STORY


All you have to do to join me is comment below that you are "in", and begin logging your "miles" at 10am Alaska Standard Time (one hour behind Pacific for you Lower 48ers) on Saturday, 5 March 2011.


To my fellow book bloggers: I would love to create some blog buzz through this challenge, to generate interest in my blog and to introduce me to others' book blogs.  If you are willing, I would appreciate it if you would put a post on your blogs advertising my challenge!  Thanks!