Getting Ready for PPP!

I am so excited for the Pole Pedal Paddle this year.  I participated in this event two years ago as part of a team with Nikki, Maureen, and Jill.  It is an awesome relay race in bend.  There are six legs:

1. Downhill ski
2. 8K cross-country ski
3. 22 mile bike
4. 5 mile run
5. Kayak
6. Half-mile sprint

Last year little K was just a few months old so we skipped it, but this year the boys have a team.  C and K are going to do the Pole Pedal Paddle with their friends J and J this year.  J and J's mom, Jill, and I are going to do the relay as a two-person team.

Two weekends ago we went up to Bend for a crash course in skate skiing.  None of the boys has ever done it, and one of them will have to do it for the cross-country leg.

I am so bummed that I didn't take any pictures during our practice.  But here are the happy skiers in the parking lot at the end of a very hard day.

We signed up for a group lesson.  Our instructor was kind of Debby Downer...  but we did get the gist of how to ski.  The boys had nothing to associate cross-country skiing with other than downhill skiing which they love.  About five minutes after we started skate-skiing they all began to wonder why it is called skiing.  Cross-country/skate skiing is A LOT of work.  It is super physical, a really great workout.  So I loved it!

K actually really got into and C, who really didn't like it, is way too competitive to let K do anything without him.  When I asked C if he wanted to head back to the lodge for a snack he took one look at K and said, "No, I can do it!"  And he could.  He was much faster than me.  C and K both insisted that we take the hardest, longest trail.  I had already left my phone and my jacket in the snow about a kilometer back.  The trail was a loop so I decided to press on.

I should have brought water, and food...  We were so thirsty and so hungry.  The boys are so totally amazing though.  They didn't whine or complain.  They just kept going!  I love that they are such good sports almost all the time.  They came to skate ski and that is just what they did.