Buser says future Iditarod races will be more casual

NOME — After seeing his lowest finish in 33 Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Races this year, four-time champion Martin Buser said it may be time for him to give up the ghost of winning.

“I think we might be seeing the end of competitive racing and entering an era of fun running,” the 57-year-old said after finishing 37th.

Though the Big Lake musher has run slower Iditarods in recent years — in 2012 he finished 19th in 10 days, 18 hours, 10 minutes, 13 seconds, compared to this year’s 10:11:31:51 — he said this year’s race was more of a “camping trip” than anything else. Still, it wasn’t as relaxed as he had hoped.

“My health issues didn’t let me be as relaxed as I possibly could or have as much fun as I possibly wanted to have,” he said.

Buser said he came down with pneumonia just before the start, causing an inflammation of his lungs that “felt like I had four or five broken ribs,” he said. Then on his way into Unalakleet, Buser fell off his sled in a moment of distraction and bruised the back of his left thigh so badly that he said he passed out more than once from the pain.

“I’m still hurtin’,” he said on Thursday afternoon, about 15 hours after finishing the 2016 event.

Still, he said it’s all about perspective. Buser’s oldest son Nikolai was seriously injured in a Seattle car wreck in January, which was on his mind during the race. But Nikolai’s recovery was less a distraction from “racing” and more a reminder of who has it worse, Buser said.

“Here I’m trying to help a boy overcome nine or 11 life-threatening surgeries … with what will most likely be permanent residual pains for rest of his life. What am I gonna say? After signing up for a little event that nobody has a gun to my head (for), I’d be a fool to say I got it bad.”

Buser said Nikolai has progressed greatly, having regained his speaking and eating capabilities and most of his memories (with the exception of the crash itself, which the elder Buser said is “probably a good thing”). As last week, Nikolai was wearing a neck brace and walking with a cane on a therapy assignment to walk to the nearby grocery store and buy some food, according to a Facebook post by his mother, Kathy Chapoton. He was exhausted afterward, she said, but clearly miles ahead of where he was on the day of the wreck.

But those lingering, lifelong pains Buser talked about his son having are not totally unfamiliar to the musher. He acknowledged that running of 30-plus Iditarods may have had a lasting effect on his body as well.

“I don’t know if it’s because of Iditarod, per se, but yeah my biorhythms are pretty well shot. I have a hard time sleeping the whole night.”

While on the one hand the sleep issues could just be a symptom of “old man’s syndrome,” Buser said he suspects the effects of age maybe have been enhanced by the irregular sleep schedule imposed by running repeated Iditarods.

But physical deterioration is not Buser’s primary motivation for slowing down, he said — it’s also about better maintaining relationships.

“I’ve allowed myself to visit (at checkpoints) … ’cause I knew from the very get-go that was probably gonna be a priority more than trying to (finish) first,” he said. “I have lots of friends who deserve a visit or two up along the Iditarod Trail.”

Some of those visits will have more historical significance than others, like the few he’s had with one Alaska Native boy who has been a Buser fan since he was born.

Almost 20 years ago, that boy had his photo taken while sitting on Buser’s lap at an Iditarod checkpoint. Last year, they reenacted the moment, and Buser remembered it fondly.

“Not only do they make that 200-pound 18-year-old sit on my lap, but now he’s holding a 3-by-5 card that’s almost 19 years old of me having that same boy sit on my lap … when he was a baby,” he said. “You can’t make that (stuff) up.”

It’s moments like those, Buser said, that are what he remembers most about the race.

“A personal connection like that becomes the highlight of my Iditarod experience in 2015, but that boy will remember forever. … I come back there 3 or 4 years from now, and what are we gonna do? We’re gonna take a picture with his baby on my lap.”

Buser said he’s “probably got a story like that for every checkpoint,” and hopes to make more unique memories on the trail in the years to come.

His sled dogs will also be part of those memories, though maybe he’ll keep fewer in his kennel in the years to come.

“I wanna have a dog team, I love them, but I probably don’t need 80 or 90 dogs,” he said.

One of Buser’s remaining Iditarod goals is to have a team speed into the finish at 10 mph — a feat he has yet to accomplish — however slow they may go during the rest of the race.

“Once I get over with my personality issue with, ‘I’d like to win,’ once I get at peace with that, and just have maybe one of the best-looking finishing teams ever, that would be pretty cool.”

Contact reporter Caitlin Skvorc at 352-2266 or caitlin.skvorc@frontiersman.com.