SARANAC LAKE — Registration for the fourth annual Saranac Lake 3P race opens at noon on Monday, as do the raffle ticket sales for a pair of hand-painted, 3P-inspired skis.
To register, go to runreg.com/saranac-lake-3p. Race tickets are discounted for the first month, rising in price on Jan. 1.
Currently, registration costs $86.45 for a single racer to $319.25 for a team of six adults, and $59.83 for a young adult racer to $49.18 for a young adult team.
Race co-organizer Joe Williams said he’s been thrilled people have decided to have fun with the event year after year.
Last year, 159 racers downhill skied, cross-country skied, kayaked, biked and ran in the 13.4-mile multi-sport event.
The event has also raised tens of thousands of dollars for local youth outdoor recreation organizations, Saranac Lake Innovative Cycling Kids, Friends of Mt. Pisgah and Dewey Mountain — nearly $35,000 in its first three years, Williams said. This year, the race will benefit the Saranac Lake Youth Center. Williams said youth from the center might help the young racers in the Kids 3P decorate their sleds for the final leg of their race.
He said organizers wanted the 3P to be a charity event, not a race that feeds itself. It does this through local sponsors who cover race costs so they can work to raise additional dollars for charity, as well as through a raffle.
“The raffle is one way we are able to run the race as a charity while still keeping entry fees low,” Williams said.
Race co-organizer Scott McKim reaches out to outdoor equipment manufacturers to donate gear each year. This year, they got a pair of brand-new white Icelantic Maiden 102 skis. To read more about the skis, go to tinyurl.com/ynfdv95n.
With the blank canvas on the planks, McKim recruited Saranac Lake-based artist Sarah Calzada-Cain, of Acrylic Earth, to spruce them up. He said her work “paints a really awesome community story.”
She adorned them with a colorful, 3P-inspired collage of mountains, woods and waves, with people skiing, pedaling and paddling among them.
Calzada-Cain said this was her first time painting skis. They’re an odd canvas, she said. She designed the layout on her phone and then painted them freehand.
She described her style as “abstract realistic,” doing nature landscapes with abstract elements to express subjective human emotions.
Last year, she had painted a sea kayak paddled by her friend Jim Sausville in the race with “groovy, trippy” vibrant swirls.
“It was gorgeous, and it blew everyone away,” Williams said.
Raffle tickets for the skis go on sale at Coakley Home and Hardware on Monday, and will be sold at the race.
The race is scheduled for March 7. It starts at 9 a.m. at Mount Pisgah and follows the same course as previous years — downhill at Pisgah, bike ride to Dewey Mountain, Nordic ski at Dewey, bike to Saranac River, kayak to Saranac Lake Fish and Game Club and run back to the finish line at Pisgah.
To learn more about the race, go to saranaclake3p.org.