Seven teams mushed around the streets of Bend on Sunday, but this Iditarod wasn’t for the dogs.

The first Bend Urban Iditarod had shopping carts instead of sleds and costumed runners, joggers and walkers pulling the carts through town. The race course covered more than four miles of pavement, starting and ending at GoodLife Brewing Company on Century Drive.

Race day coincided with the start of the real Iditarod in Alaska, where more than 60 mushers ride dog sleds from Anchorage to Nome.

“Ours is a much shorter course, not a thousand miles,” said Roger Fox, Bend Urban Iditarod organizer. “We’re going through the streets of Bend, going from pub to pub, facing challenges along the way just as an Alaskan Iditarod would do.”

The challenges in Alaska range from staying warm in subzero temperatures to staying awake during long days on the trail. The challenges in Bend included shooting a paintball gun accurately and showing off the best dance moves. Racers shared suds at stops along the route at Crux Fermentation Project, Silver Moon Brewing, McMenamins Old St. Francis School and Riverside Market.

But the Bend Urban Iditarod wasn’t just about fun. It was also a food drive and a fundraiser for NeighborImpact, a nonprofit that helps provide food to people in need around Central Oregon. Each team, with three to five members, turned in 30 pounds of food as part of its entry. Each individual racer paid a $10 fee. Fox said he made arrangements with a grocery to supply carts to teams that bought their food there, and other teams tracked down their own carts.

In all, the event brought in 210 pounds of food, said Sandy Klein, food resource specialist for NeighborImpact. “It’s not your everyday, run-of-the-mill food drive,” she said.

It has been done elsewhere, though. Klein said there have been similar races that were also food drives in Portland and Boston.

This was the first year for the race in Bend, and Fox said he is hopeful it will be an annual event. He said he wanted it to be just as fun for those who saw it pass by as for those who competed. “We’re trying to put smiles (on faces) wherever we go,” he said.

The color and clatter of a band of racers pulling shopping carts around town likely did just that. Costumes included a team of Sasquatch hunters and their rival Sasquatch rescuers, classy dudes in suits and two teams of zombies that would hold their own at Halloween costume contests.

“In October I can get away with dressing like a zombie, but in March I can’t — except for this,” said Tracie Wrisley, 37, of Bend, who was dressed like a zombie and whose team pulled a cart loaded with fake hands, heads and a skeleton.

There was some zombie cart envy going on between the two teams. “They have all the body parts in their cart,” said Elisa Carroll, 32, of Bend. “I wish we had body parts.”

Wrisley’s team, Cart of the Living Dead, ended up winning the best cart and costume award, Fox said. A team from Riverside Market, called the Riverside Market Safety Committee, took home the title for fastest team, although Fox didn’t have a total overall time for them. “They were the first team in to each stop,” he said.

The race was a blast, said Cambria Bittinger, 24, of Bend. She said she used to live in Portland and saw the races there, but hadn’t taken part. She’s looking forward to the race becoming an annual event in Bend and wants to run in it again.

“I already have been planning my outfits for the next … ten years to come,” she said.