Eric Kelly has always had a taste for adventure.

But Kelly experienced the ultimate test when, at 52, he decided to enter the 50th Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race earlier this year. It was his first time running the course with his team of dogs, and the 938-mile trail from Anchorage to Nome nearly did him in at times.

Still, Kelly persevered, and he finished 34th in a field of 37 who crossed the finish line.

But his place in the race was not what mattered. Finishing the grueling, hazardous trail where he faced winds of up the 75 mph was his goal, and he reached it. But not without a struggle.

"It all started on a beautiful day in Anchorage, but by the end, I faced some of the most brutal windstorms you could imagine,” said Kelly, owner of Daybreak Kennel. "When you go through that, you know you can conquer anything that happens out there.”

Kelly is a Vermont native who moved from Arizona to Alaska after visiting The Last Frontier in 2007 and fell in love with it. He and his family sold everything they had and moved to Alaska in 2008. They now live in Knik, along with the 30 dogs in his kennel. 

"We were looking for a change, and we showed up with our kids and our suitcases and started over,” he said. "It was a pretty cool experience, but I never even thought about being a musher until 2015.”

Then, Kelly met Jamaican musher Newton Marshall (who in 2010 became the first Jamaican to compete in the Iditarod, finishing in 12 days, 4 hours and 27 minutes.) and helped him prepare for "The Last Great Race on Earth.” Smitten by the experience, Kelly developed a passion for sled dogs and mushing.

The flame was lit, and Kelly determined that he should run the race with the dogs from his kennel. That decision would provide him with the adventure he sought when he came to Alaska.

"I guess I was always a superfan of the race before getting into it,” he said. "I saw some older people do it, and it became something I loved. I had my own team. I’m not an amazing athlete or anything like that, but I had confidence we could finish. My goal was to finish, not wind up in the top ten or anything like that.

"Newton is still a good friend. He really helped me out.”

In the abstract, the idea of running the race was a good one. But Kelly had no idea what he was in for once he left Anchorage. He was only able to snatch sleep a few hours at a time, and he avoided getting too comfortable at the checkpoints along the trail because he feared he wouldn’t go back out in the snow and wind.

But even at rest, he knew he had to keep going.

"There are times when you question what you’re doing, but I loved every minute of it,” he said. "You’ve got to keep the team moving forward.”

Kelly began with a race with a team of 14 dogs, but he finished with 11. He sent dogs home both as a precaution and also because they were getting tired. But it’s not easy parting with a dog in the middle of a race, even when you’re doing it for their own good. 

"There’s a little emotion when you part with a dog,” he said. "It’s hard to leave a dog behind, but you know they’ll be well taken care of.”

Although the other dogs did well, Kelly found out quickly what an endurance test the race could be.

"In the middle of the race, I felt worn out,” he said. "I just couldn’t stay awake. I kept falling off the sled. By the end, I felt better than I did in the middle. But there are times when you hallucinate from lack of sleep. You’re so tired you see what you want to see. You keep seeing things on the side of the trail. Once I thought I saw a cabin, but it was a tree. 

"I was tired and stressed and fell off my sled. The dogs were fine, but I said, ‘Man, what am I doing?"

Although this year’s race was a bit warmer than usual, Kelly still had to fight blinding winds and snow while protecting himself from getting frostbite. He still has frostbite, but while he has recovered, he knows he will always be vulnerable to losing a toe or other extremity if he’s not careful.

Finally, he reached Nome, and his feelings swelled when he saw his wife, Laura. 

"When I finally made it to Nome, I can’t even describe the feeling,” he said. "You’re glad it’s over. I hadn’t seen my wife in two weeks. It’s like, I can’t believe I’m doing this. I saw my wife and friends; I saw the race officials, and the first thing I thought was, ‘I’ve got to do this again.’ 

"You think you’re only going to do it once, you get muscle strains and muscle pulls, but even with the struggle, you keep coming back for more.

"I’m going to try to do it again next year.”