UPDATE: Got another round of text messages this morning. Mackey's dog, Girl, was found near or at the airport and is "OK."

"Lance is happy as a clam and took her off running local trails with the rest of his team. Happy ending," wrote Theresa Daily, a Mackey friend and sometimes-spokeswoman.

From Kyle Hopkins in Anchorage --

If you see a loose sled dog around the Millennium hotel in Anchorage today, call Lance Mackey.

Her name is "Girl," she's black-and-white with a red collar and Mackey got her from his brother Jason. (He mentioned her yesterday when talking about contenders for his Iditarod team.)

From Kyle Hopkins in Anchorage --

Three-time Iditarod champ and four-time Yukon Quest winner Lance Mackey said this is the last time he'll compete in both of mushing's biggest races in the same year.

Mackey finished second in this year's record-breaking Quest, after four straight victories, and is about to defend his Iditarod title. (He sat out the 2009 Quest.)

At the Alaska Sports Hall of Fame celebration Thursday night in Downtown Anchorage, he talked about the Quest, his health, the dogs he'll use in the Iditarod and this year's new drug-testing policy.

“I’m getting realistic to the fact my body’s going to slow down … it’s going to take away from the years on the back of the sled if I continue to do both races," Mackey said.

Here's a clip of the interview where he talks about his health and future plans:

From Kyle Hopkins in Anchorage --

If you get a chance to talk Iditarod with Dick Mackey, take it.

The guy was there at the beginning. His 1978 photo-finish with Rick Swenson is getting enshrined in the Alaska Sports Hall of Fame tonight, and he raised two future champions, including three-time winner and reigning champ, Lance.

Here's an edited interview with Dick at an Anchorage hotel yesterday. Mackey, who splits time between Alaska and Arizona, wore an Iditarod finisher belt buckle and a 2009 Las Vegas bull-riding championships T-shirt. Among the topics we talked about: His sons' victories, PETA ("Those people are just insane"), and how the business of mushing has changed.

Check it out:

Q. Where does the story of the photo finish start? Is it with the start of the race — or is it all about the final sprint at the end?
A. In 1976, the first year that Rick Swenson — he was a rookie that year, the first year that he ran, we traveled together some. And then in ’77 we traveled together quite a bit.
He was the young guy, I was the old man and we enjoyed each other’s company. And I thought he was a great up-and-coming musher and he regarded me as the old veteran, you know? And lo and behold if he didn’t win, in 77.
So in ’78, we just joined up together, just because of the position we were in at the Rohn checkpoint, and our teams were very comparable to each other ...
We ended up at the same checkpoints. We camped on the trail together. And we challenged each other and checked each other out. And as the race progressed, we got to Unalakleet.
And we pretty much decided that we’re not going to be quite so friendly: ‘You go your way and I’ll go mine.’ … Not in a bad situation. But we were competing. And by the time we got to White Mountain, we were dead serious. We weren’t quite so friendly at the moment.
And then we ran into a bad storm.
We forgot all about racing, and worked to keep our teams going. And at one point, it got pretty dicey. And we thought ... ‘maybe this is going to be tough.’
And so I might go a mile in the lead, then he might go a mile in the lead. And first one team would stop, then the other team would stop.
When we got to the Solomon checkpoint, I mean we were at the height of the storm and it was bad. And Swenson said, you know, ‘This is crazy, we’re going to die out here.’

From Kyle Hopkins in Anchorage --

While drivers are digging out from a snow dump this morning in Anchorage, it's been hard to read the stories about open water along the Iron Dog course without wondering about the state of the Iditarod trail.

"Trail conditions right now are manageable," spokesman Chas St. George said Wednesday.

"All of our breakers, trail breakers, they're out there working all over the place right now to get it to a place where it’s safe for these teams to travel."

With the race fewer than two weeks away, the trail is in better condition than in 2003, when organizers moved the start to Fairbanks, he said.

"Mother nature always comes through, somehow or another," St. George said. “Our greatest ally right now is cold weather, and we’re seeing that.”

From Kyle Hopkins in Anchorage --

The Mackey men will be in town today (Thursday) for the annual Alaska Sports Hall of Fame ceremony, where Lance is being inducted into the Hall and his father, Dick, is being honored along with Rick Swenson in the "moments" category for their 1978 photo finish:

By a nose: Dick Mackey, showing, and Rick Swenson sprint towards the finish of the Iditarod in Nome in 1978. (Alice Puster/Anchorage Times archive)

I’m hoping to post video of an interview with Dick Mackey soon.

The Hall of Fame event is free, but if you wanna go, go early. This thing fills up. It starts at 6 p.m. Downtown at the ConocoPhillips Atrium.

From the Hall of Fame Web site: New members of the Hall include Rosey Fletcher, Reggie Joule, Lance Mackey and Bradford Washburn. The Midnight Sun Baseball classic will be inducted as an Event. The Iditarod photo finish in 1978 and Noorvik's Elliott Sampson's upset victory in the 1981 cross country championships will be inducted as moments. The ceremony will feature enshrinement presentations, inductee acknowledgements and video biography viewings.

Meantime, an HBO crew has been following Lance Mackey for the past few days for an upcoming episode of “HBO Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel.” The segment’s expected to air in May, said Theresa Daily, who handles p.r. for Mackey. ESPN’s also planning on covering the first Iditarod bid by Jamaican Musher Newton Marshall, whose been training with Mackey, she said.