Sunday was Jeff Wells' second Iditarod start of the weekend, but after years of dreaming, he was finally on the trail to Nome.

Wells, a UAF student who took a year off from school to run "The Last Great Race," has been running dogs since he was 11 years old. He started out in sprint races in Minnesota, but his dream has always been to run the Iditarod.

"I couldn't tell you an exact moment," he said of when he decided his goal, but it came before he even started racing, when he was about 8 years old.

In 2003, when he graduated from high school in Fergus Falls, Minn., Wells came to Alaska and worked as a dog handler for Jeff King, the current four-time Iditarod winner. He put off attending UAF for a year for that experience.

It was his first time in Alaska, and Wells wasn't that impressed.

"That first August it rained every day," he said.

But as winter rolled around, and he stayed with the Kings in Denali Park, he came to love it.

Wells' team for this race is a puppy team from King's Goose Lake Kennel in Denali. Of the 16 dogs on his team, there are 10 yearlings. Only 12 dogs can start. His favorite dog is one of those yearlings, his leaddog Klarney, a small black female. His youngest is just 17 months old.

His favorite thing about mushing is "working with the dogs and bonding with them," Wells said.

He especially likes working with the young ones because they have so much to learn.

Since late September, Wells has run his team 2,250 miles in training. Lately, the load has been lighter, he said, but in November and December, his heaviest training months, they were running up to 150 miles per week.

Some of his most memorable mushing moments came during overnight camping trips on the trail with nothing but the dogs and the northern lights.

Wells' training came during a year he took off from school to complete his dream. He came to UAF as a freshman in the fall of 2004. For the next two years, he was active in the honors program, wildlife society, and intramurals. He will return to UAF in the fall as a junior.

Running the Iditarod is no minor undertaking. Not including the training, there are injured dogs to mend and lots of gear to carry. Wells has sent 1,500 pounds of gear ahead on the trail, including dog food, people food, sled parts, and dog booties.

His sled is the one King used last year, and it's not an old-school wooden sled. It's lightweight aluminum, made from walkers for the elderly.

Wells also had to qualify. To run the Iditarod, a musher has to have run a 200-mile and a 300-mile race earlier in the year. Wells raced the Cantwell Classic and the Kuskokwim 300. Although he entered in the Iditarod in late June, those races had to be completed before he could race.

This year's trail will take Wells and the 82 other mushers 1,131 miles over the southern trail, passing through Iditarod, Shageluk, Anvik, and many other checkpoints, a total of 24, before finally reaching Nome.

"I'm really excited, but it won't hit me until Sunday at the start," Wells said last Tuesday, just before heading to Anchorage to prepare for the start. "It's something I've been dreaming of for 15 years."

When asked his goal for the race, Wells jokingly answered "the finish line."

He then continued, more seriously, "I think just making the trip with the dogs, and that will be our life for two weeks. Just me and them getting to Nome."

Wells plans to take it easy and rest a lot throughout the race. With young dogs, he doesn't want to push them too hard.

He predicts that the biggest challenge in this year's race will be a lack of snow near Unalakleet, which is on Alaska's western coast. There are huge sections of trail without snow near there, he said.

After Wells crosses the finish line, he plans to return to UAF to finish his degree in Wildlife Biology.

"I'll probably run it again sometime," he said, although he wants to finish his education first.

Wells jokingly said that when he graduates, he wants to become "a professional dog musher," then added that it would be a dream come true if he could, but he'll likely end up working for the Departments of Fish and Game or Fish and Wildlife somewhere.

At press time Sunday, Wells was ranked 82nd, last in the race. He had not yet made it to the first checkpoint in Yenta, though the race had only begun at 2 p.m.