This past weekend, Island School alumni, friends, and family gathered in Cape Cod to celebrate summer.  On Sunday morning, Maxey roused the troops and got a group of Island School staff to participate in the Falmouth Sprint Triathlon.  Chris and Pam Maxey, Christian Henry, and Karla Cosgriff braved the cold New England waters for a .3 mile swim, biked 9.6 miles along the coast, and ran 3.2 miles to the finish line.  Congratulations to everyone!

Following this morning exercise, a large group gathered at Woods Hole’s Marine Biological Laboratory for a tour of their facilities.  Alumni, future students, families, and friends all joined together to learn how the research they are doing at MBL is related to the work we do on Cape Eleuthera.  Thank you to Dan, our tour guide, for showing us all the amazing things going on at Woods Hole!

The day ended with an amazing cocktail party hosted at the Gibson’s home in Woods Hole.  The Island School’s trip to Cape Cod was a great success and we hope to make the Island School’s summer day on the Cape an annual tradition. Maxey is encouraging everyone to start training for next year’s triathlon now!

Students at the start line for their 2nd timed run-swim assessment

For those of you out there wondering what a run-swim is, I put together a few images to help you imagine it.  Essentially, a run-swim is the quintessential Island School exercise.  We just start running in a straight line, and as the land transitions to sea and then back to land, we follow suit by swimming and then running and then swimming again, repeating as the course demands.  The course is approximately 1 mile of running and 0.5 miles of swimming, making it a sprint event.  However, with obstacles like trees, rock and conch piles, “the wall”, and a 12 foot cliff along the way, it feels like Maxey might be trying to make Navy SEALS out of all of us

I hope you enjoy the images.