Gore Mountain 2.7mi Snowshoe Race
Sunday, December 15, 2019
It never fails to amaze me how much I've forgotten about how much snowshoe "running" sucks at the start of the season (and the whole time, if one doesn't work at improving, like I didn't last season.)
Good news, the "5k" at the Gore Ski Bowl reminded me today.
The pluses - there was a decent turnout (21 people.) It started out sunny and not too cold (mid-30's), The snow was in much better condition than I expected it to be. I was able to get some decent photos of the start and the runners coming off the 1st downhill before starting my own race about 5 min behind everyone else.
The minuses - I haven't been on snowshoes since late last February, and as I alluded to above, I was barely on them last season. So my legs are most definitely not in snowshoeing shape. I might be able to fake it if I were in decent distance shape (comfortable half marathon to 15 mile runs) but I'm not that either. So I walked everything even vaguely resembling an uphill on the first two laps. By the third lap my legs were finally starting to warm up and I was able to run more (albeit very slowly) but I can't claim I was upset that there wasn't a 4th lap for me to really cut loose on, because I likely would have either thrown up or been reduced to walking much of the course.
I have several colleagues who like to point out that one definition of insanity is to keep doing the same things and expect different outcomes. Clearly I need to do something different in 2020, assuming I survive to the end of 2019.
JMH
2019 Event Totals
Run 256.3 mi, 67 hr 57 min
Bike 0 mi, 0 hr 0 min
Snowshoe 19.0 mi, 6 hr 43 min
Kayak 0 mi, 0 hr 0 min
states visited: CT, MA, ME, NH, NJ, NY, PA, RI, VT
