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February 03, 2005
snowshoe shuffle
Simply put, last weekend was awesome, great people, good activities, beautiful non-urban scenery. Even the four-plus hour car rides were enjoyable. Knight, myself and some other team in training members headed up north to Traverse City for the annual Bigfoot Boogie snowshoe race put on by Running Fit, good guys. There were two main draws to this. First, I’ve lived in Michigan for over a year and a half and I’ve never been up to TC. Second, what better way to try snowshoeing for the first time than a race? I know, I’m sick.
Actually, snowshoeing wasn’t has hard as I thought it might be. Literally, if you can walk, you can snowshoe. And if you can run, then you can run in snowshoes, just a little slower. Within ten minutes of strapping on my rent-a-snowshoes, the race had begun. I use the term ‘race’ loosely. Pretty much, it was whatever you wanted to make of it. You could go fast and try to race if you wanted, or you could hang back and enjoy more casual paced hike. There were plenty of people doing both. There were also two distances to choose from, 5k or 10k. A few of us were talking big the night before and when morning came around Saturday, we couldn’t back down and signed up for the 10k. Great, my first experience on snowshoes is going to be a six mile race.
There were about a dozen of us goofing around before the start, so we found ourselves in the back of the back. No biggie, this is supposed to be fun. After making a few moves through the crowd [like ambulance drivers] a few of us found our way up toward the front, tromping through the woods. Unfortunately, within a half mile or so we were split up. Might as well keep pushing on.
The first loop seemed to go on forever. As I was finishing it, I seriously entertained the idea of packing it in and just doing the 5k, I was beat. Of course then I realized that if I did that, there would be great volleys of heckling and ridicule aimed in my direction, so I decided to trudge on.
The good thing about the second lap was that there weren’t as people on the trail, so you could settle in to a nice rhythm. I only think I passed three or four people the entire last loop. The real challenge was to hold back enough energy to finish strong and not bonk.
About a mile in to the second loop I spotted a lady running up ahead by about 80 yards or so. I figure why not try to reel here in. It took me the last two miles to finally catch up with her, she was bookin’. To top it off, she was running in the old-school style snowshoes. The one that look like tennis rackets. With about a 100 yards to the finish I finally pulled up even with her. I asked her how much gas she had left in the tank and she said I could pass her if I wanted. Yeah right, I could tell by the ease of her run that she could have out kicked me if she wanted to. Plus, she had pulled me along for the last two miles. I doubt I would have, or could have, ran as fast if I didn’t have a hare. I wouldn’t say I ‘let’ her finish before me, I realized that it would have been a shady ending and I’d rather concede. Final time, 68 minutes. Results are here.
After the ‘race’ we were hanging out at the clubhouse partaking in the free chili when they started handing out awards. Turns out the lady that I ran in with won the overall women’s race. She was also twice my age. I sure hope I’m in that good of shape when I’m her age.
A piece of advice to anyone thinking about trying snowshoeing, wear pads around your ankles. I lost count of how many times I clipped the inside of my ankles while running with those things. The first time is stung like crazy, but after awhile it went numb and didn’t hurt as much…until I stopped that is.
Afterwards, we bummed around Traverse City for a while. A few people (or maybe it was just one) wanted to go climb up some dunes in the area. Crazy folk, too much energy, bless their heart. Meanwhile, the rest of us complained about wet socks and feet.
We then cleaned up at Rick and Evie’s house (two very gracious hosts I might add) and then went wine tasting and grabbed some dinner. All of this was followed by a night on the town. We ended up at some local bar with a pretty good band playing. It was a bit loud, but a good time was had by all. Nice way to end the day. At 2:30 am, we all slept like babies.
Sunday was a bit more lethargic than I expected. The day before we had talked about doing some hiking or maybe some sledding before we headed back down south. It was kind of a sleepy late morning and nothing ever panned out. You’ll have that sometimes.
All in all, a very good weekend. Good for the soul and the body (with maybe the exception of Saturday night). Good company too. I enjoy meeting new people, especially when they share some similar interests with me. I met a few marathon runners and some fellow triathletes. One guy is even training for an Ironman this fall, rock on. Picked up a few new running partners as well. Some of which I ran with last night. And my roommate had some social victories as well.
Here are some photos that some of my cohorts took.
Can’t wait to go back up there this weekend for some skiing with Dave and Co.
Posted by ksmith at February 3, 2005 11:03 PM