Linwood Fiedler's dog team arrived in Ruby without the musher, the Iditarod Insider reported.
"Apparently he fell asleep and fell off his sled," the Insider reported.
“I was fighting, fighting, fighting staying awake,” Fiedler, 63, told KTUU. “And I was doing a pretty good job, and then I lost.”
In a video posted to the Iditarod website, several people in the checkpoint can be seen gathering around the veteran musher’s dogs. "Where's Linwood?" someone asks.
"Now you've seen it all," a camera operator says at one point.
Fiedler arrived at the checkpoint an hour later, a little red-faced.
“From the minute my body left the sled until my face smashed into the snow, I was still asleep,” Fiedler told KTUU. “I was totally asleep.”
Fiedler has finished 18 Iditarod races and finished as high as second in 2001. Despite his snooze, Fiedler is still in the race. He was in 27th place after leaving Ruby at 11:37 a.m. Thursday.
"From the minute my body hit the sled, until my face smashed into the snow ... I was still asleep." https://t.co/mPiOrRiIGH#Iditarod2017 pic.twitter.com/kyJUqw6xEQ
— KTUU.com (@Ch2KTUU) March 9, 2017
Meet Rumble & Josie who - when their musher fell off the sled - ran the rest of the way to Ruby. #Iditarod https://t.co/mPiOrRiIGH pic.twitter.com/YS40P7B4mH
— Alaska's News Source (@AKNewsNow) March 9, 2017
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