Monday was a busy day for Cathleen and Conrad Griffin. The couple left their Sebago home early in the morning bound for Boston and a flight to Anchorage, Alaska. By Tuesday morning, a mere 24 hours later, they were in Nome, Alaska, the terminus of the annual Iditarod Sled Dog Race.

“We’re hoping to beat the winner,” said Cathleen Griffin, a hard-core Iditarod fan who is making what she expects to be a once-in-a-lifetime pilgrimage to watch the legendary race.

“The really cool thing is, we watched the start on the Internet a week ago, and here we are flying up there a week later and we’ll see the first finisher in, and other teams will be dragging in for days after that,” she said. “I think that says a lot about the scope of the race, that nine days later you look for the finish. Isn’t that amazing?”

Cathleen Griffin, who works at a publishing house in Portland, would know what it takes to compete in the often harsh sport of dog sled racing. She and her team of beautiful, golden-haired Chinooks once competed locally and regionally until Cathleen started suffering from knee pain. But she loves her dogs-all dogs for that matter-and loves the sport of mushing.

“The sport is beautiful. When you’re out there on the trail, it’s just you and your dogs, and it doesn’t sounds like anything you’ve ever heard,” she said. “It’s hard to describe. Clean and crisp.”

While Conrad Griffin appreciates the mushers’ skill and perseverance and will just enjoy being in Alaska, it’s his wife that provided the spark to leave Maine for the even colder Alaska.

“I’m a Maine Guide. I do a lot of sea-kayak paddling trips, and to tell you the truth, I’d rather be in Cabo San Lucas or the Sea of Cortez. But for second place, I’ll love being up there,” Conrad Griffin said.

“He’s not so much a race fan, but he’s always up for adventure,” said his wife.

NOTHING LIKE NOME

Nome, at this time of year, is usually around 0 degrees with several feet of snow on the ground, Cathleen said. But those are perfect conditions for a 1,049-mile sled dog race across the frozen tundra, glaciers and mountains of Alaska. Especially, she’s a fan of the dogs that provide the power and trail sense that allows world-famous mushers like Jeff King and Lance Mackey, who were competing for this year’s victory at press time, to race to victory.

“I think it’s an incredible adventure. (The Iditarod) speaks a lot to the dogs. I’ve always been a dog person, and I just love watching dogs do what they love to do,” she said. “We all romanticize Alaska; I’m sure it’s cruel and inhospitable. But it’s also one of the most beautiful places on Earth. I picture it as otherworldly. And here are men and women and their dogs traversing this terrain.”

In the summer, she’s thinking about it, too. What separates her from other Iditarod fans – and here in the Lakes Region there are probably many, evidenced by the increasingly popular Musher’s Bowl at Five Fields Farm in Bridgton – is that she isn’t merely interested in watching the race on television once a year, as she’s done since the late 1970s. Instead, for about six years now, she has become wholly devoted to Iditarod Web sites and an accompanying message board dedicated to the Iditarod.

Throughout the year, Cathleen and a devoted cadre of Iditarod enthusiasts meet on www.mushing.bssd.org to discuss their favorite mushers or the latest news involving anything-Iditarod. The Web site is hosted by the Bering Strait School District. Over the years, the group of about 30 “regulars” has also grown close because of their common love of the Iditarod.

“Moose,” Cathleen’s online handle, has made friends on the Web site with others such as Jeanie B and Florida Dog Fan and Gatekeeper. She has met a few of her online friends in person, but is looking forward to meeting some for the first time in Nome.

“It’ll be like meeting best friends for the first time,” she said. “We know so much about each other, and we have so much in common.”

And then during the race, every waking moment, and that’s no exaggeration Cathleen will tell you, she is on the official Iditarod.com Web site, which she said has progressively gotten better over the years.

“The mushers now carry GPS, so we can track exactly where they are on a race map, which is tremendous,” she said.

And while the Griffins are going to witness the race’s end in Nome and meet up with Internet friends, they will also volunteer with the 70-plus teams of dogs expected to arrive in Nome needing a little tender loving care after the long journey.

“We’re volunteering in the dog lot, as they call it. Feeding, scooping, watering, laying down straw for the dogs. It’s a celebration of the dogs, and we’re going to join in the celebration,” Cathleen said.

But it won’t be all work and no play for the few weeks they are in Nome. Cathleen and Conrad plan to attend two banquets, one for the race’s award winners and another titled the Red Lantern Banquet, which awards a red lantern to the last team that arrives in Nome.

“Yeah, it’s nice to win, but everyone who finishes is a winner, and that part of the meaning behind the red lantern. It’s a tremendously hard race, and we’ll be there to welcome each finisher,” she said.

And then it’ll be back home to take care of their own dogs: Franky, Baboo, Dozer, Sandy, Tenny Klootchman and Hawkeye Laroo.

“Thankfully, we have a great dogsitter who will be at our home the whole time we’re gone. But our dogs will no doubt be glad to see us back. They’re great dogs,” Cathleen said.

Cathleen and Conrad Griffin try to herd some of their Chinook dogs for a group photo in the computer room of their Sebago home. The family’s six dogs tend to gather around Cathleen as she keeps up to date with the latest goings-on with the famous Iditarod Sled Dog Race in Alaska on several Internet sites. Fulfilling a dream of Cathleen’s, the couple is flying out to spend a few weeks in Nome, Alaska, to greet the finishers and help take care of the dogs. (Staff photo by John Balentine)