Wednesday, March 12, 2014

Leaving Safety Behind - an update and correction

Leaving Safety Behind - an update and correction

First, I need to clarify that it's not my intent to post a new entry to this blog on a daily, or even regular, basis. If life worked out that it happened, then that would be a blessing. I'm hoping to share what I can, when I have to / want to / have time to, and that what I share will be relevant and helpful, and may even stimulate thought.

Secondly, I need to correct an impression I gave yesterday, which was based on experience and expectation, but turned out to be wrong.

I was pretty sure that Dallas Seavey would have been told that he could pass Aliy Zirkle for the lead of the 2014 Iditarod sled dog race when he arrived in Safety, Alaska yesterday morning.

After reviewing his comments caught on camera, it turns out he was just trying to stay in front of his dad. He seems to genuinely not know that he had won the championship (when he arrived in Nome), and during the live broadcast I watched, he asked, in effect, "Where's Aliy? Where's Jeff?" when told he had won. He left Safety after 3 minutes not to become the champion, but to beat his dad, who had been champion the year before. He accidentally became champion, by trying to beat the defending champion.

It could be inferred, then, that the only piece of information that helped Dallas Seavey win the championship was that he was ahead of Mitch Seavey. Had he known that Jeff King had scratched, had he known that Aliy Zirkle was inside the checkpoint, trying to decide whether to venture out into the cold, he may have made a different decision. He had his focus on beating dad, he knew dad was behind him, so he kept moving.

When Aliy Zirkle, who has to be the most graceful runner-up I've ever seen, was interviewed after the race, she said:

"It's been tough for 8 days. It's been tough. But this afternoon was the toughest mushing I've ever done. It was... it was life or death mushing. So, it was incredible. I got to Safety and he [Jeff King?] was missing. I had never been on the trail. I was lost most of the time. So, I got to Safety and had to take care of my dogs. And myself. And then there's snow machiners there saying they're flipping their snow machines. The weather says it's going to get worse, so what's a gal to do? So I had a cup of coffee, then Dallas [Seavey] went through and I had to follow him, so there you go."

For those of us not from Alaska, "snow machines" are what I grew up calling a snowmobile.

To me, the important thing here is that Aliy Zirkle, who yesterday I proclaimed to be the best racer over the last 3 years, may have stopped in Safety for too long. Not because she ended up staying long enough that Dallas Seavey caught up with her, but - and I'm just guessing here - but what cost her the championship was the information she received by not getting back out onto the trail.

She knew it was life or death mushing, and instead of thinking, "I just put Mother Nature in her place in a way that not even 4-time champion Jeff King could do," she thought, when informed by weather experts, "It's gonna get worse."

I'm going to take Aliy Zirkle's 2nd place and file it in a category someone once labelled "paralysis by analysis." Dallas Seavey knew one thing, and that one thing was the location of his dad (behind him) and he focused on that and ended up champion. Aliy Zirkle knew that Jeff King was lost, snow machines were flipping, the weather was getting worse, and there was hot coffee inside the building.

When I look at a chart and try to decide whether to make a trade, I can get paralyzed by looking at too many charts. My (former stock-broker) brother has taught me, "you know, they could have drawn those lines in lots of different ways," when looking at wedges and trends and such. The data can tell you what you want it to. Are we bottoming? Is this a dead-cat bounce? Is there a trend change?

I've been in the ER looking at someone who's chart and rhythm strip and labs and everything else said "no operation necessary" and the look on their face told me, "go look inside." Can I reliably take everyone to the OR based on just looking at their face? Only if you're okay with a lot of unnecessary operations being done! But can you trade in the market today without over-analyzing each position? Yes, if you mind your stops, and hedge.

Dallas Seavey left Safety with the ultimate hedge - he knew his dad was behind him. Be that kind of dad, where your kid knows they can ride off into the night, in "life or death mushing" conditions, and they know they will be okay, because you are coming along behind them.

Alex Wade
3/12/14


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