The Races

I will not bore you with details, because to anyone other than moms and dads, these ski races can all seem the same! Sara and Sky had races on both Saturday morning and Sunday morning this weekend. Saturday was our Nation's Cup #3, an "in-house" race with just the racers in our ski club. The kids are split into teams, and each team races for a different country. Sara races for Italy and Sky races for Canada. The first video here is Sara, taking her first run of the day. She missed a few gates, but she was a lot more confident than the last race a few weeks ago. You can see the happy smile at the end!

This is Sky, with his second run of the day. A couple of missed gates at the end, but I liked this video because of the thumbs up at the end! Such a little showman! He would want me to tell you that on his first run of the day, he didn't miss any gates for the first time in a race!

Sunday morning, we had to be at the ski hill at 7:45 a.m.! This race was way bigger than just our little ski club. Our ski club hosted the race, but racers from all over the province could register to race. There were 300 hundred racers, which meant 600 runs because everyone does 2 runs! There were so many people in the lodge in the morning picking up their racing bibs, you could hardly even move in there!

We also had the drama of forgetting Sara's mitts. Joshua had the idea to go through the "lost and found" bin and we found a pair of mitts that Sara could wear! They were a little small, but kept her hands warm. Then, when the ski shop opened at 9 a.m., we bought her a new pair that fit properly, so she could race without that distraction.

Also, I forgot the camera... No biggie, I was thinking. I got plenty of good videos the day before, so I would just enjoy watching the kids without the camera always in front of my face. Well, our little man actually won an award and I didn't have a camera to record the moment! Sky finished 7th place in the 5 year old male division! He skied perfect runs both times, with a time of 41 sec. the first time and 40 sec. the second time. Anyone in 4th - 10th place got a special ribbon. The 1st - 3rd places get to stand on a real podium and receive medals! Sky's coaches were very proud, as most of the boys who placed in the top 10, were already in their 2nd year of ski racing.

Sara was even faster and more confident for the Sunday race than she was on Saturday! She missed gates both times down, but she was so much faster. For the first run, she ran over the last gate, caught her ski and it popped right off - about 2 feet from the finish line!! She sat there trying to figure out what to do and I was screaming, "Sara, get up, get up, get across the line!" The next racer actually came up and passed her, crossing the finish line before she did! If she hadn't missed any gates, she would have had the right to a re-run, but she was already disqualified. (We don't tell her that, by the way.) So, that added to her time, but other than that, it was probably her best, fastest run ever, only missing 2 gates! We were very proud of both kids!