Sunday, January 06, 2008

No More Snowshoe Duathlon... Decisions, Decisions...
Sunday, January 6, 2008

Well, the official word came through today from Boots and Ellen at Yellowjacket Racing that the Lake Effect Snowshoe Duathlon scheduled for the end of January has been modified. The riding course had been moved from the local roads to into Webster Park (I'm not quite sure how they were going to get 10 miles of riding in Webster Park, but I have no doubt they'd have figured something out) and now the Parks Department has decided that riding in the park is off... so the "long" event that day has been re-tooled as a snowshoe half marathon, with crazy fools runners completing six loops of the approximately 2 mile snowshoe course. The sprints, 2 mile, and 4 mile snowshoe races remain unchanged.

Decision time is approaching... I enjoyed doing the duathlon because it was different, because the riding broke up the mutiple loop format a bit, and because I'm a crazy fool who thinks running on snowshoes and then hopping on a bike for a 10 mile ride in late January is a fun thing to do. I know I won't be ready for the half marathon by then, and the thought of running six loops.... ack. But I had thought I might go out Saturday morning for the Finger Lakes 7.6 mi Snowshoe Race... now, though, I'm leaning toward staying here and going over to Pittsfield for the Curly's Record Run race that's always scheduled for the same weekend as the du... which might also be a good idea since I'm potentially looking at double-headers the weekend before and the weekend after... as much as I'd miss doing winter races with both the Finger Lakes Road Runners Club and Yellowjacket Racing, both great groups of people. Of course, the weather might not cooperate and then I'll be trail running or bike riding that weekend regardless of where I am!

In the next couple of days I'm sending out race apps for the next month or so, so I guess my final decision will be made then... but right now I'm thinking Curly's is in and western NY is out for the end of the month.

UPDATE: Curly's it is! I hope we have snow!

JMH