Aw, crap.

Susan Butcher died on Saturday.

If you don't know who Susan was, then you've missed a vital part of the history of the Great Race -- the Iditarod. Susan was an icon, a giant, and she owned that race -- one of the toughest endurance tests of human and animal you can imagine, that simulates the desperate dash across Alaska by dog sled made in 1925, to deliver diptheria serum to Nome -- for most of the 1980's.

I remember when her team tangled with a moose in 1985. Two dogs dead, over 10 injured. I'd say that moose is probably the only reason the first woman to win the Iditarod wasn't Susan.

But she came back and won the Iditarod four times -- three of them in a row, prompting T-shirts like

"Alaska: Where Men Are Men, and Women Win the Iditarod."

Susan retired in the mid-90's, but she left an indelible stamp on the race, the sport, and the state. Alaska's most famous athlete, she was tirelessly dedicated to good dog care, and a gracious, inexhaustible champion who deserved to be called "the toughest dog in the team."

Susan was one of my very first heroes. R.I.P.