Saturday, February 25, 2017

Skipping World's Was the Right Choice
Saturday, February 25, 2017

I'll admit I spent some time wondering if I was making the right choice to skip the World Snowshoe Championships in Saranac Lake - 1st time in the US, only 3 hours away, etc, etc. But I haven't had a good season (such as it was... I've done the majority of my snowshoeing in the last two weeks, and almost all of that was in races) and was pretty sure I'd be disappointed with how I ran. As this week progressed and it became clear I was going to need today to wrap up some work that I'd hoped would be complete yesterday morning, I was glad I'd decided to stay local today, especially when the weather was prefect for a couple of nice rides and a run.

Seeing the videos of the races I'm even happier... it looks like they lost the majority of their snow, had to shorten the races, and the long course became a two loop race... warm weather aside, it looks like a whole bunch of things I don't like in a snowshoe race.

We've got two more scheduled for the Dion WMAC series... I'll be surprised if next Sunday's 5k at Greylock happens, given the lack of substantial snow in the forecast. The RD for the Northeast Championships has been very vocal that Woodford won't lose all of its snow before March 12 - he may be right, but I suspect that one will still have less than ideal conditions.

My brain shifted away from snowshoeing to regular running about a month ago, after our mostly snowless January. And as I've mentioned previously, the exceptionally poor conditions last year combined with this year to have me mostly off my snowshoes for pretty much two solid years.

Perhaps next season will be more conducive to getting back into decent snowshoe running shape.

JMH
Posted by at