Continuing our now annual tradition of adventure racing from Mt. Baker to Bellingham Bay over Memorial Day Weekend, Seattle ICO again fielded two teams in the 2015 Ski to Sea Race on Sunday, May 24. For those unfamiliar, Ski to Sea (S2S) is a 7-leg adventure relay race that follows a 99-mile course from the slopes of Mt. Baker to the saltwater of Bellingham Bay. Event legs traditionally include Nordic and downhill skiing, road running, road biking, canoeing, xc biking and kayaking. Overall race time is calculated from an electronic timing chip worn by the initial racer and passed forward at the exchange between each leg. Participants can register in several different divisions based on gender and skill and Olympic athletes are not uncommonly found in the competitive divisions. Those who lack natural god-like athleticism but bring a ton of grit and fun to the event should consider the ‘Recreational Open’ division, our category of choice.
The historically low snowpack in the Cascades this winter affected several legs of the race, prompting many competitive teams to withdraw from the event and thus paving the way for recreational sleeper teams to quietly crush their way to the top. (The 2015 S2S race featured just 349 teams as opposed to the regular 500+). The storied shot-gun Nordic ski start was replaced with a 'mountain trail run', downhill skiing was replaced by a mountain bike leg to conclude the race and the mighty and fearsome Nooksack river was inching along between 3-4 mph, resulting in a longer than average 18-mile haul for the canoe leg. None of this fazed our ICO Teams though. Robed in the gloriously fabricated scales, slime, feathers, fur, exoskeletons, skin and membrane of our chosen spirit animals, we were ready to compete and ready to have a blast.
To say we dominated the costume game would be an understatement. Though several other teams showed sparks of creativity, no other team came close to our dual-team dedication to motif and enthusiasm. Our theme was 'Spirit Animals' and our chosen totems spanned every earthly environment as well as evolutionary time. Not all of these embodiments complemented the environment of their event; in fact most did not. Dinosaurs, a bunny and a penguin paddled the Nooksack; a banana slug kayaked through choppy waves and harrowing headwinds; sloths charged up mountain trails; eagles and whale sharks ripped brown pow down; a jelly fish ran 8 miles faster than several humans; and a narwhal and dragonfly set road cycle records for their respective species. A lion, tiger, panda and rat were also spotted along the wooded mountain trails, which makes sense though how the latter two learned to xc cycle with such speed and accuracy is anyone's guess. On one occasion though, the event, environment and spirit animal aligned so perfectly that they could not be captured on film; kayaker Shawn Dahle was a pacific sockeye salmon and he paddled so swiftly that he eluded the professional event photographers. There is no evidence of his race leg; only legend. As a result of our stellar costuming, ICO was again featured in the Bellingham Herald as well as on the local radio station.
Team All of the Spirit Animals placed 193rd (15th in Open Recreational division) with an overall time of 9:52:11 and Team Seattle ICO Nothing Rhymes with Blorange finished 218 (19th in the division) with a time of 10:03:50, giving Team Captain and Seattle ICO Co-Chair Kirsten Gardner a much-needed victory over her arch rival, fellow co-chair Jay Bradshaw. (Jay's team captured the faster finish in 2014 largely due to Kirsten's inability to xc ski and near last-place finish in her opening event leg which was extensively documented by the local media because she was dressed as a hammerhead shark.) The weekend was extremely fun and much celebrating accompanied the athletic feats. Special thanks to the Georgetown Brewing Company for donating liquid fuel to our cause as well as Gray Diebolt for opening up her Bellingham home for use as 'base' and seeming to enjoy the weekend takeover by kingdom Animalia.
Think this sounds fun? Join us next year for Ski to Sea 2016 – May 29th. Only 346 days until the race….time to start thinking of costumes!
Kirsten Gardner
Seattle ICO Co-Chair
