Photos by KYLE GREEN The Roanoke Times

Borage, a sled dog owned by Karen Land (top), meets the crowd gathered to hear a talk Land gave in Roanoke on Monday evening.

Sled dogs work so hard during races that they burn 10,000 calories a day. A team of 16 of them exerts so much force that they can pull a tree from its roots, yank a light post from the pavement or steal a fully loaded van.

This was news to the likes of David McCurdy, a 9-year-old Cub Scout, who heard the touring slide show of three-time Iditarod racer Karen Land on Monday night at the Roanoke Main Library downtown.

"My mom and my sister are going to be pelting me with questions when I get home like they do when I get home after school," said McCurdy, who visited with two dozen Cub Scouts from Raleigh Court Presbyterian Church. "I'll have to tell them something."

The same details weren't so shocking to aspiring Iditarod racers such as Lucas Arnold, a fifth-grader at North Cross School who went to the library with his mother, Laura.

"I already knew a lot of the things she [Land] was talking about, but it was cool hearing her anyway," he said.

What the standard-issue canine lovers and the big-time racing fans had in common was they were dazzled to hear Land tell the stories about how her love for dogs and the outdoors pushed her to lead dogs from Anchorage over 1,100 grueling miles of mountains, lakes, rivers and fields to Nome, Alaska.

"The kids are usually really into this because they've seen 'Balto,' " Land said as she began her two-hour photo and illustration slide show. "When I told my parents I wanted to do the Iditarod, they thought I was crazy."

As Borage, her public relations Siberian husky, worked the crowd, Land talked about how her dream of sledding was born on a 1997 night she was hiking the Appalachian Trail and she read a book about the famous race alongside her dog Kirby.

She worked at the kennel of an Iditarod racer in Montana, learning about the race. She raced it for the first time in 2002. That year, she finished the race in 14 days. The next year, she scratched out after one day because of a last-minute change in the route, and in the third year she finished with 10 dogs because she had to send six home during the race.

During the races, she fed the dogs raw meat three times a day, calorie-rich dry dog food and snacks once an hour, she said. She would massage their legs at night, and bait their water with beaver broth so they would drink it instead of falling asleep.

At the kennel, she and other trainers typically give dog litters themes so it's easier to keep track of the lineage. For example, she has worked with dogs called Gouda, Feta, Munster and Stinky; Bart, Homer, Marge and Lisa; and Pork, Bacon and Sausage.

After her chat Monday night, people huddled around her to pose for photos with her, Borage and her sled. David, the Cub Scout, asked her if he could stand on her sled, which she approved, and then ate with the Cub Scouts the complimentary pizza that the library served.

Meanwhile, Lucas waited to talk with Land, who is based in Montana. He showed her a photo of him riding his sled as his German shepherd Schultz pulled him during this winter's snowstorm. Does he aspire to run the Iditarod someday?

"Oh, yeah."