the Way of the Turtle

HARD-TRAVELLIN' TURTLE
1 WEEKEND, 4 STATES, 3 RACES
PART 2:
Season of the SnōShū 2008 - Race #8
Greylock Covered Bridge 4mi Snowshoe Race
Saturday, February 23, 2008

2008 Greylock Covered Bridge photo slideshow

Despite the grey skies and the cloud cover low enough to obscure most of Mount Greylock, the weather today was still better than last year, when I arrived at Greylock Glen to find bitter cold temperatures and a viscious wind whipping down off the mountain. Today was chilly but not too bad... checked in, geared up, and then stodd around chatting with some of the other runners while we waited for things to start. (And waited to find out where the start would be, since today's run would only be part of the old Greylock 3.5/8 mile race courses.)

A few minutes before the start Paul Hartwig gave us a quick breakdown of the course (lots of uphill for the first half, followed by lots of downhill for the rest, and keep your head low at the Covered Bridge, because apparently it sunk a bit) and then we headed off into the field to line up at the start - in the opposite direction from how we'd usually go. Once we got the signal to begin, that turned out to be a real plus, because it avoided the bottleneck that always slows things down when we run up the path toward the mountain.

I started out right behind Rich Busa, then he pulled aside and let me pass him a little ways in... that made me wonder if I'd gone out to fast, since I almost never finish a snowshoe race before Rich. Shortly after that the path headed downhill and crossed the bridge over Peck's Brook, then followed the winding singletrack through the Covered Bridge and over the bridge with all the plastic flowers before winding its way uphill along the brook. Up and up and up... I began having flashbacks to the end of the Greylock Half Marathon last year, when this section was at the end and it seemed like it was climbing forever... I'm not sure what was harder, trudging uphill then after having run 10 miles or so in the June heat, or trudging uphill today on snowshoes!

At various points I paused and looked back, and there were two runners not too far behind me - Rich, and an older gal, both of whom seemed to be struggling about as much as I was. One plus to having run this route less than a year ago - I had a vague idea of where we'd hit the top and start descending, and eventually I got there. Seeing that arrow pointing downhill along the Cheshire Harbor trail (a nice, wide snowmobile path) sure felt good!

Since I knew there were folks not far behind me, I did my best to hustle down the Cheshire Harbor trail - it felt good to be running instead of trudging uphill, though I'm always struck by the fact that on snowshoes, even running downhill is work! The bottom of the hill came all too quickly, and then the path took us along another snowmobile trail that wound up and down through the woods before finally hitting a long downhill stretch that I could pretty consistently run again. That finally deposited me back by the brook, where I crossed the several bridges and took a brief break to try to get my camera to work (the batteries were a bit zapped from the cold) - until I heard Rich Busa clattering across the Covered Bridge! I'm not sure how he almost caught up with me without me seeing him!

That lit a fire under my backside, and I trudged as quickly as I could to the top of the last hill and then ran down the last couple of hills as quick as I could. There were a few moments when I thought some folks who'd already finished might not get out of my way in time as I hurried back into the Glen, but everyone cleared a path and I hit the finish line to cheers from a couple of folks waiting there (RD Ed Alibozek, Curly's RD Beth Herder who was taking pictures, and ARE organizer and guru Josh Merlis.) I finished in 1 hr 5 min 28 sec... not a phenomenal time for 4 miles, but also not that bad, considering all the climbing I had to do in the first half of the race.

After that I cheered Rich across the finish, snagged a cup of chili, and headed to the car to change into some dry clothes. As I was getting to the road, Bill and Konrad were coming down the last hill too. Changed clothes, then wandered up the road a bit to snap some additional pictures before hopping in the car to begin to long drive to Madbury, NH, and race #2 of the triple-header weekend.

JMH

2008 Event Totals
Run 0 mi / 0 min
Bike 0 mi / 0 min
Snowshoe 30.1 mi / 7 hr 58 min

states visited: MA, NY