Kahtoola Uphill Race

At Snowbowl. Just ignore the gross snow.

Karl's first race of the season!

He did not even know it existed until 4 days before race day

but, hey, this family is always game for a fun, local, inexpensive race.

We also had never been to Snowbowl (the local ski resort) in the winter

and the kids were excited.

I had not taken them up there because, honestly,

how fun is it to be at a ski resort and not ski???

It kills me and I know the boys would be sad, too.

But there is just no way we can afford downhill skiing right now.

So I put on their cross-country skis, we hiked up the hill a little,

and somehow made it back down a few times.

Sorry. No pictures.

As you can imagine both my hands were quite full.

I am hoping to somehow be able to get Noah on skis or a snowboard

next year. He really wants to and I know he would love it!

Waiting for the finishers

Karl did great!

Despite the fact that his footwear did not work out so well.

Here he is putting screws into his trail shoes the night before:

Although he was slipping all over the place on the steepest part

and almost tumbled down the mountain,

he managed to finished in 4th place!

Nice work, Papa!

The race went somethinglike this:

Start at the bottom of the ski resort.

Run (almost) all the way to the top of the mountain.

Then haul back down.

Karl was on a team of 2.

His mate, Evan, had a great race as well.

Their team finished 2nd overall.

After plenty of cheering down at the finish line,

the boys and I headed up the hill a little to cheer some more.

They could not get enough of it. Whenever I wanted to stop,

Noah would say: "But what if there's another runner coming?"

So we just kept on cheering.

They are usually not that excited at the end of a long racing season.

We also found a steep little hill where Noah had a blast doing tricks.

He is still wearing his XC ski boots.

Max, of course, was getting very tired of his snow clothes.

It is the hardest thing to try to get him to wear anything but a light fleece

over his t-shirt. Long sleeves? No way! Never!

Then Karl shared some of his post-race pizza with us.

"The best pizza ever!" according to Noah.

Later that evening we found out

that both Karl and Evan won a pair of Microspikes!

Karl is super excited. Now can he run even faster next year!

What a great race!

Close, inexpensive, short, fun to do and to watch.

A great way to get to know the locals.

Awesome prizes!

We need more of these kinds of races!