BETHEL, Alaska – Theo Failor stayed up late Saturday night to welcome daddy home.
The 19-month-old was waiting at the Kuskokwim 300 finish line with his mom, Liz, when Mansfield native Matthew Failor crossed the finish line on Sunday morning, just after 4 a.m. AKST.
The 42-year-old St. Peter’s High School graduate finished in eighth place among the 17 mushers in the field, crossing the line in 39 hours and one minute with six of his 12 dogs that began the race on Friday.
He won the Kusko in 2019 and has finished second four times, including last year.
Interviewed at the finish line, Failor remarked on the continued unusual weather in Alaska this year. It was 37 degrees at the finish, compared to 24 back in his Ohio hometown at 8 a.m.
“It’s nice and warm out here,” he said. “It is strange. We raced in the Copper Basin (300) and it was raining at the end of that one and warm.
“As we were coming in (Sunday morning), it was like, ‘Oh, this is kind of the norm at the moment,’” Failor said.
The Copper Basin and the Kusko are training runs as Failor preps to begin his 14th Iditarod Sled Dog Race that begins on March 1. That nearly 1,000-mile race across Alaska begins in Anchorage and ends in Nome.
(Below are Matthew Failor and Alaskan Husky Adventures photos from the Kuskokwim 300. The story continues below the photos.)
Bethel musher Pete Kaiser matched the record for most Kuskokwim 300 Sled Dog Race wins. Kaiser secured his 9th K300 title early in the morning, finishing in just under 37 hours to claim at least $30,000 from the race’s $200,000 purse.
Kaiser joins Jeff King as the only mushers to win the Kuskokwim 300 nine times.
Failor said it was a challenging race for his sled dog team.
“There was a ton of wind, a lot of drifting snow coming back down and on our way up,” he said of the looping course that begins and ends in Bethel, turning around near Aniak.
“I thought we could stay (with the leaders). But for whatever reason, it just didn’t come together,” Failor said as his remaining dogs barked in the background.
“They’re obviously not tired and they’re happy. They just weren’t able to stay with those guys.
The Kusko is a fast-paced race with just 10 hours of rest along the way.
Mushers must rest their dogs a total of six hours along the trail and then all teams have a four-hour mandatory break and veterinarian check at Tuluksak before the final 48 mile trek to the finish.
It’s a race that doesn’t provide much rest for man nor beast.
“I mean, there’s sleep deprivation, just the typical stuff that we always deal with,” Failor said.
“The dogs got here a day later than I would have liked. They missed a flight due to the weather. They didn’t really get into a rhythm.
“It seemed like they didn’t eat or drink that first day. So going into the race, I don’t really feel we were where we needed to be. I wish they could have been here one more day. They were kind of empty on that first run,” he said.
At the end of the finish-line interview, the journalist asked Failor about Liz and Theo waiting for him at the finish.
The veteran sled dog musher and owner of Alaska Husky Adventures immediately went into husband-and-dad mode.
“Theo just broke into a fever, I guess,” he said. “So (Liz) has been running her own K-300 while I was gone … so I owe her big time.”
