It never ceases to amaze me how independent an 8 year old can be. Although I rushed to put on my boots so that I could help Sierra register for the race, she managed to register on her own and was coming down the stairs by the time I got to the lodge. A few minutes later we were both on the snow, getting in some early runs before she met the team to preview the course. Jeff and I headed off for some skiing of our own, returning to the race course just before the event started.
Photographing a ski race with a DLSR is hard enough ... photographing a ski race with an iPhone or pocket camera is next to impossible! But I was determined to try to snap of photo of Sierra as she raced by, so I stood next to the race course, iPhone at the ready, waiting for Sierra to ski by. As soon as I spotted her, I snapped the picture and got a beautiful shot of ... an empty race course. Somehow I managed to snap the photo just after she skied past, and just before the other racer (skiing side-by-side, in dual slalom format) skied into my frame. But the race was dual slalom format, best of two runs, so I tried again. This time I tried to anticipate when Sierra would ski into the frame:
Sierra was excited about both of her ski runs. Of course, anything can happen in ski racing, and this race was not on the Live Timing website, so we walked into the awards ceremony not knowing the final results. I was just reminding Sierra that she should be proud of her ski runs but remember that even the best ski racers don't always win when Tom Cage (race announcer and owner of Kittridge Sports, sponsor of the race) announced "And in third place, Sierra Burror!"
