Farrokh Safavi is now well into his 70s, but still runs every other day and on Sunday handled the downhill run segment of the annual Ski to Sea race in Bellingham, Washington.
The race, more than 90 miles in total, had to be reformatted this year as the lack of snow pack in the West meant there was no skiing segment and the race didn’t end at the Pacific Ocean as usual. But the Sea to Ski name remained. The race includes not just foot races, but canoeing, biking, kayaking and skiing (when there is snow pack).
Safavi is a marketing professor in Western Washington University’s College of Business and Economics. He began competing in Ski to Sea in his late 40s. Sunday was his 23rd consecutive race and 21st as captain of the college‘s “Diminishing Returns” team.
The team was founded in 1992 by the late professor David Merrifield, who recruited a bunch of aging professors and then chose the name on the argument that each year would see them getting slower and producing diminishing returns in the race.
But that hasn’t necessarily been true. “The other six members are all students, so the team changes every year,” Safavi told The Bellingham Herald.
Safavi joined the team in 1993 and took over as captain in 1995.
A senior faculty member, Safavi runs three miles almost every other day, year-round to stay in shape for his leg of the race, the 8.6-mile downhill run.
As far as Safavi knows, he is one of just four faculty and staff members who arrived at Western Washington U, as early as 1969. He began teaching there in the summer of that year, 46 years ago.
Safavi can enjoy the attention he attracts from students, who sometimes look at him in awe when he works out at the campus fitness center late in the evening.
“I started racing in Ski to Sea because of a sense of adventure in my blood,” said Safavi, who obtained his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Tehran University and his doctorate from the University of Southern California.
Since the team’s makeup changes so frequently, Safavi said this year’s historic lack of snow didn’t bother his spirited bunch.
The 2015 Ski to Sea organizers scrambled to add two legs to replace the downhill and cross-country skiing ones. This year will see an alpine run to start the race and a mountain bike leg to conclude it.
So the seven-leg relay race went alpine run, downhill run (Safavi), road bike, canoe, cross-country bike, kayak, and mountain bike.
About 350 teams competed. Most had eight members (two in the canoe), but some team members took on more than one leg for their team. Diminishing Returns did not win this year, preserving its perfect record.
