The day started off with blue sky before the start, what a welcome change from the last few days. Kris drove James and I up there in her new car and we listened to some Christmas exchange tunes. We all started together and stayed that way for about a mile till Scott Jurick and the Seattle running co. group came storming by and James hooked up with them. I then took a potty break and took over an hour to catch up with Kris. The sky turned overcast but the weather was perfect, I even ran without a hat on (I never do that), however we soon were running in snow. The Tiger mtn trail just goes up and up then up some more, there was about a foot of snow on the ground for most of the race. But the footing wasn't too bad and it was beautiful winter wonderland in some places. Felt like cross country skiing through the trees in the Cascades! Unfortunately, the viewpoint at the top was socked in so no views this year. I was at my limit for climbing on the last hill, but I followed the same guy for the last hour and we were both very happy with reaching the 3 mile downhill to the finish. James finished in 3:08 complaining about some soccer injury(Scott Jurick finished in 2:38), I came in at 3:22, only a couple of minutes slower than last year, so I was very happy and I didn't fall! Kris finished at 3:40 and we headed down to the Issaqua brew pub, where we met a bunch of people that were at Orcas last year and Big Steve, who creates a party whenever he shows up! This is a great fat ass and now that we know about the brew pub, a must do for next year!