Ski to Sea 2008

Kevin and I headed up to Bellingham for the 2008 Ski to Sea race. It is an 85 mile, seven leg, eight person race from Mt. Baker to Bellingham Bay, including cross country skiing, downhill skiiing, running, road biking, canoeing, mountain biking, and kayaking. This year the weather was incredible: blue skies and hot, which proved to be a blessing and a curse. Lovely to have nice weather, but with it the levels of the Nooksack River rose to dangerous levels, and the canoe leg, which Kevin and his brother Adam were suppose to race, had to be cancelled at the last minute. Though we're glad that safety came first, it was a bummer for the guys to not get to compete. Regardless, their team did really fanastic, coming in 123rd out of 450 teams! Wow! There were two members who actually finished in the top 100!

A Bold Move: Kevin Sm, Jerry, Adam, Bert, Jarrod, Kevin S, Rowan, and Dick

Jed, who is my future sis-in-law's younger brother, was recruited to a team that hoped to finish in the top 3 teams. Well, Jed started the team out with a fantastic cross country leg, finished in third place overall. From there, his team just continued to do awesome, and ended up winning the whole race! Such excitement! I've never known anyone on one of the top teams, so it was awesome to feel invested in the race so much more!

Adam, Jarrod, and Kevin after the pass off of the timing chip. Jarrod raced well on the road bike portion, and Adam ran his little heart out for 50 feet to get the timing chip across the line. They had to improvised a bit after the canoe cancellation.

Hanging out in Fairhaven in the sunshine.

We ate lots of good food, had great company, and got a lot of sun! We headed down on Monday after a pancake breakfast with Kevin's mom, took a quick nap, then headed down the the Mariner's versus Red Sox game with Adam and Erin, and Erin's family. It was her parents 35th wedding anniversary, and Erin got their names up on the score board, which was really nice. Sadly the Mariners lost, but that's nothing new this season. We had a good time anyway, and the Red Sox fans didn't gloat too much. What a weekend!

Kevin piled rocks on me while we were waiting in Fairhaven for the last leg of the race, the kayak! I did this leg last year, and may give it a shot again next year. We'll see!