First time Iditarod racer Eddie Burke Jr on Monday told KTUU he fell asleep and off his sled on Sunday during the Grayling to Eagle Island stretch of Alaska’s world-famously grueling annual dogsled race and – amazingly – his dogs found their way to the next checkpoint without him.

Fellow rookie musher Hunter Keefe came across Burke as he was walking along the trail after the unfortunately timed nap. “I thought I was catching a team because I saw a headlight, and then I realized that oh, it was a person walking,” said Keefe. “There’s the [International Trail Invitational] walkers and stuff, so I figured it must have been one of them. And hen he kind of stopped really close with trail and I was like, ‘oh, that’s Eddie.'” Keefe didn’t hesitate to give Burke a ride even if it would hurt his time, adding his dogs didn’t appear to notice the extra weight anyway. “It really showed how incredible my team was because he hopped on the sled, so we doubled the load, and you can ask him – not one dog ever looked back for even half a second wondering what was going on. They just chugged along like little freight trains they were,” said Keefe.

About 10 miles later a support staffer picked Burke up and drove him the rest of the way to Eagle Island where his dogs were waiting for him. It’s not clear why the KTUU article makes a bigger deal out of the sportsmanship and camaraderie between Keefe and Burke rather than the fact that these fucking dogs ran for about 15 or 20 miles by themselves in the dark to exactly where they were supposed to go. Maybe it happens more often than we think and the reporters on the Iditarod beat are used to it. Also unclear is which time counted. Was it Burke’s or his dogs?