Plenty of mushers have competed in the Jr. Iditarod as a teenager and then went on to run the 1,000-mile race to Nome as an adult. However, one Caswell teen has the opportunity to run both races in the same year.
ANCHORAGE, Alaska - Plenty of mushers have competed in the Jr. Iditarod as a teenager and then went on to run with the big dogs in the 1,000-mile race to Nome as an adult.
However, very few have completed both races in the same year. The Jr. Iditarod, a 150-mile race for ages 14–17, is held in mid to late February, while the ceremonial start of the main Iditarod, with an age minimum of 18, is typically the first Saturday of March. That window is even smaller in 2027 with the Jr. Iditarod scheduled for Feb. 27 and the Iditarod ceremonial start scheduled for March 6.
However, the dates aligned for one Caswell musher, and she is taking advantage of the unique opportunity. AddieAnn Randall has signed up for both, running the 2027 Jr. Iditarod for a third and final time before turning 18, just ahead of the full race to Nome a week later. But Randall wasn’t just recently notified of this; it has been on her and her family’s radar for several years.
″I was between 9 and 12 years old, about that age range, when I started realizing that I could do Iditarod the day after I turned 18," Randall said outside of the race’s headquarters in Wasilla.
“I wanted to do Iditarod for longer than that, but that’s when we got dogs and began seriously starting to think about it. ” She opted out of the 2026 Jr. Iditarod in an effort to run a new Iditarod qualifier, the Su Dog 300. In a field of 19 mushers that featured multiple Iditarod finishers, Randall and her rock star dogs placed third overall at just 16-years old.
At least one musher to have accomplished this “double-sledder” is six-time champion Dallas Seavey, doing so in 2005, finishing the Jr. Iditarod in third before completing his first trip to Nome soon after his 18th birthday. The Randalls, including AddieAnn’s younger brother Thale, 15, lead “Rock on Racing,” home to about 50 sled dogs just north of Willow, dubbed “the mushing capital of the world.
” “We started running another musher’s retired dogs, and we’d put them in sprint races, and we got last in every race, but we had a ton of fun,” AddieAnn recalled.
“So we realized that the sport was for us if we could still get last and just love being out there with the dogs. ” Thale, the 2026 Junior Boys Mount Marathon Champion, will also be running the Jr. Iditarod alongside his sister.
“That is going to be pretty cool for her to do, and I am excited to help her out and meet that goal,” Thale said after signing up for the Jr. Iditarod. “She has been working towards it for quite awhile, so it’s going to be exciting. ” “We started at the same time our parents did,” AddieAnn added.
“So, it’s fun that my brother and I are able to start doing it at a young age and learn together and train the dogs together. ” At the Iditarod sign-up and volunteer picnic, AddieAnn had the opportunity to meet and mingle with her fellow mushers and future competitors on the trail.
“It’s really cool to be with all the other mushers that are here and Iditarod champions and people have done it for way longer than I’ve been alive, and you can learn a lot from them. ” The countdown to the 55th running of the Iditarod has begun as Randall, alongside the seven other rookie mushers to have signed up so far, will take on the historic trail for the first time in March.
“I’ve never been really on the trail with a dog team before,” she said, “I’m really excited to see all the places that I’ve heard about my whole life, read stories about, but never actually been there. ”AOTW: Obed Vargas’s World Cup run takes Alaskan soccer to new heightsAnchorage triathlon celebrates 25th year
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