A couple months ago a group of my deaf friends made the call for a deaf skier who could help their team out. I wasted no time jumping on board, joining the "DEAFinitely Awesome" team for the 100th anniversary race covering 100 miles through 7 different events from Mt Baker all the way to Fairhaven, a small town close to Bellingham. For the first time ever, there were 500 teams of 4000 participants from about 32 different states and 13 countries participating in this milestone event. For the first leg, 500 would go around 3 routes on cross country skis.


Each contestant would wear a timing chip that would be handed off to the next between events. I waited for mine to pass the chip before skiing down to the bottom of the hill where we had to start climbing 1500 feet to the top of the lifts, snap our skis on and ski down like madmen.

It was a TOUGH climb with inclines of 50 degrees in some places. I had no idea what to expect for my first time out. I managed to finish the ski leg in 39 minutes and 40 seconds. For comparison's sake, the top finisher finished this in 20 minutes. I hope to cut at least 10 minutes off my time next year!

Can you find me? I'm #58


I'd almost made it to the top at this point...I managed to snap a self portrait while moving


I handed off my timing chip to our runner who made it through a 8 mile course downhill (one of the toughest challenges I'm told) in 54 minutes and 13 seconds. At this point we were ranked 231st out of 500 teams. So far so good!

We made our way down the mountain after they reopened the highway to pick up our runner...#58.


She had our biker's gear with her because he had taken off earlier that morning. What's amazing is that our runner had passed 50+ runners on her way down. Our biker passed 124 riders! I don't have a picture of him because he was so far ahead of us. But I did see one of the "green" teams making his way down. This team did the entire event without leaving a carbon footprint meaning they rode up to the top on bicycles with trailers, double bikes, etc. carrying their equipment. Quite a feat. Especially since the road bicycling portion covers 42 miles.


The canoe team covered about 20 miles with the mountain bicycling course covering another 20. The last leg would be the ocean kayaking portion covering 5 miles. Here is our teammate making his way towards the finish line!


From the end of the route, he had to get out, run and ring the bell!


Our DEAFinitely AWESOME team finished 170th out of 500! Much better than last year when they finished 397th. I wasn't part of that team.

 

Freakin Awesome!!!

 

Congrats on the great finish.

 

Wow really cool! Congrats!

 

Very cool. Thank you for sharing.

 

Simply add tang and move up 227 places :-)

Nice work

 

That looks like an amazing event, thanks for sharing.

 

So very cool Jason!

 

Nice job Jason! Looks like a very intense race!