Tour of Anchorage

Last weekend Jeff participated in his first x-country skiing race. I believe this one is the biggest race in Alaska. There were 1500 skiers. Jeff skied the 25k race. There were also 40k and 50k and 25k classic. Jeff did freestyle a.k.a skate skiing. I believe 25k is 15 some odd miles. It was a beautiful day. Sunny, blue skies, and about 22 degrees. His start time was 10:04am. There were many waves to accommodate so many people. He had been training for months and sometimes he would pull the girls behind him even making it a harder work out. I do skate ski and let me tell you, it is a FULL BODY workout. I can't imagine doing this full body workout for as long as 15 miles or longer. The race came. Jeff was excited and nervous. I watched him take off from the starting line and knew I wouldn't see him for about 1 hr. 45 min. I drove to the finish line and waited for him. I waited and 1 hr 45 min. passed. I wasn't too worried, but when 2 hours passed I was now worried. I thought maybe his knee gave out on him because the day earlier he messed it up. Finally, I saw him come over the hill. I cheered for him, but when I got a closer look, I knew things weren't good. He was so pasty white, pale, and looked worn out. He finished and then proceeded to tell me that he collapsed at the 22k marker because he had no energy. Jeff has hypoglycemia and due to that he didn't have enough sugar in his blood and fell over. Because this is a huge race, people did not want to stop. I can understand that. Jeff guesses at least 75 people skied by him before a selfless woman stopped and gave him a bag of jelly bellies. He chewed the whole bag and was finally able to get up and finish the race. The woman is a wonderful example of a good samaritan who stopped. She sacrificed her time to stop and help Jeff who looked like and needed some help. We both were humbled by this experience and learned a life lesson that we will always remember.