Tour of Anchorage Ski Race for Brian

The big news this weekend, in addition to the Iditarod start on Saturday, was Brian's first ski race here in Anchorage on Sunday!  They had a 25k, 40k or 50k, and he decided to try the 25k this first year.  He didn't have any idea where to place himself, and he over-estimated how much time it would take him, so he started further back in a corral than he should have -- they had chips for the race in ankle bracelets.  I'll try to upload two short videos that I took by mistake trying to take pictures and see if that works here.  One is a warm up and the other is the start of his group -- they had 12 corrals, and he was in the 6th one I think - 2 minute intervals.  It's a beautiful route, taking in parts of the trails that we ski on most of the time, right through town and out to Kincaid Park, a world class ski area with a stadium finish.  He was pretty happy with the race, and it was a really sunny pretty day. 

We watched teams for a while starting the Iditarod on Saturday but the start from Anchorage through town is a ceremonial start, and they start again on Sunday from Willow, about 35 miles from here.  Still pretty interesting!  That will be on the news here for the next couple of weeks.  Brian and I are coming up to a year anniversary - it's been almost a year since we came up here for the interview at UAA - my interview was on 3/16.  We're going to go to dinner at Sak's Cafe on the 16th to celebrate, as that's where they took us last year for dinner that night after a full day of meetings and presentations with different groups at the university.   It doesn't seem possible that a whole year has gone by.  We miss everyone in NY though!