5 painful lessons from Iditarod mushers

One musher bonked his head and will never again race without a helmet. Another found out it's hard to stop when you strip the brakes off your sled to go faster.

As 75 mushers sprint across Alaska, here are five of the painful lessons from the past that are changing the way they race the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race this year:

1.) Don't forget your head gear

Scott Janssen, an Anchorage undertaker known as the Mushing Mortician, left last year's Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race in inglorious fashion: He was lifted off the trail by a rescue helicopter.

Conditions were horrible in last year's race because of a lack of snow. Janssen's sled overturned and he hit his head on a tree stump, and was knocked unconscious long enough for 3 inches of snow to fall on him. After he got back on the trail, he broke his ankle trying to retrieve a loose dog on ice.

This year's race is being run on more than 600 miles of river ice. His daughter and son-in-law presented him with a snowboarder's helmet for Christmas.

"I think it was a subtle hint, but it was a pretty good one," he said.

2.) Don't wait too long

Jeff King has relived last year's finish many times, and knows he'd do things differently.

King was easily in the lead of the 1,000-mile race at mile 975 when a sudden blizzard came up. He stopped his dog team, and said there was no way he was going to ask the dogs to run again. He caught his breath as they waited for the wind to die down.

But it didn't die down. He dropped out that close to the finish line with a snowmobile rider offered him a ride.

King said neither he nor other mushers would ever put their dogs at undue risk, but he adds: "I can tell you that there'd need to be a meteorite hit me not to end up in Nome this year."

3.) Don't forget the brakes

Musher Aliy Zirkle, who has finished second the past three years, said she's learned there's a limit to how far you can strip down a sled to make it lighter.

There are several ways to stop a dog team, and last year she removed most of them. That left her in "quite a pickle" in controlling her sled dog team.

"Now I would say last year taught me, don't leave behind the important parts of your sled, even if it means saving 8 pounds or 10 pounds," she said. "You really still do need a vehicle that is controllable to get to the finish line."

4.) Keep something in the tank

Two-time champion Mitch Seavey says if last year's race taught mushers anything, it's "keep a little gas in the tank."

He said no matter what the forecast says, mushers should expect a snowstorm.

He says his son, Dallas Seavey, kept some in reserve, and that enabled him to win the race. Mitch Seavey and Norwegian musher Joar Ulsom also had a bit of a reserve, and it helped them get third and fourth places, respectively.

Mitch Seavey said it's betting against the odds for a musher to think they will skate through the race and Alaska without coming across a snowstorm. "Keeping something in the tank, in reserve, like Dallas and myself and Joar powered through the storm, you got to have some power left to do that."

5.) Leave the iPod at home

Musher Brent Sass is already starting on a "Lessons Learned" list for next year, and it starts with being totally off the grid.

Sass was disqualified from this year's race because he had an iPod Touch to listen to music and watch movies as he mushed a thousand miles across Alaska. But it's illegal to have a device that is capable of two-way communications, and the device has a wireless option that could be used at checkpoints.