Bummer... Woodford Snowshoe Race Postponed
Wednesday, December 21, 2011

In the words of Woodford RD Jack Quinn -

As you suspected, “I Love Woodford” will be postponed to later in the season. (TBA). I’m sorry to disappoint you all but Woodford without sufficient snow would tear hell out of everyone's equipment. If you pre-registered, please mark your check void. It will not be cashed. Thanks for your support of the Woodford race. For many of you, it marks the northern boundary of your racing season. Merry Christmas, Felice Navidad, Happy Holidays, Seasons Greetings! Pick the one that is politically correct for you and delete the rest. May your life be healthy and happy in the New Year with race finishes in front of five people who normally beat you.

I did indeed suspect that's what would happen but had hoped that maybe Woodford had a little more snow than everywhere else around here (ie. more than none.) Woodford holds a special place in my heart, because it's the first snowshoe race I ever did (and my first time snowshoeing on snow more than a couple of inches deep) and I always look forward to running/walking/staggering my way through the course. On the other hand, this makes my travel plans a lot less complicated, since it will save me a trip from Rochester to Albany and back.

With luck, if Woodford does get rescheduled it will be for a day when I can be there...

JMH

POST-50k TOLL - Day Two
Monday, December 19, 2011

Legs not as tired today, but stiffer - so's my upper body.

Plantar fasciitis continues to holler, but not quite as loud as yesterday.

I think I'll take tomorrow off from running too...

JMH

POST-50k TOLL - Day One
Sunday, December 18, 2011

Ow. Ow. Ow.

Legs are fried and initially didn't want to completely straighten. Tired muscles aren't doing as much to stabilize my knees, so they're twinging when I move certain ways. Sore quads, tight sore hamstrings. Sore torso and arms. Bruised toes and toenails.

Plantar fasciitis in my left foot is hollering big time... ironically, I think it was all the walking I did in the last 10 miles that aggravated that the most.

I'd still do it again, given the choice. But not for at least a few months, please...

JMH

Two and a Half Days...
Wednesday, December 14, 2011

... and I'll be once again launching myself into the great unknown... first by driving down to Virginia, a state I've never visited before, and second by attempting the Seashore Nature Trail 50k.

I have to admit, I'm more than a bit intimidated by this one... especially given my DNF's earlier in the year at Sehgahunda and Finger Lakes, and my lack of time running over the past month or so. But hopefully that mostly means I'm going in well-rested (at least in terms of my legs) and able to keep to an average pace of about 16 min/mile, which will allow me to squeak in under both the 7.5 hour (for 27.5 miles) and the 8.5 hour (for the entire distance) cutoffs.

Of course, the 9+ hour drive each way is not inconsiderable either...

JMH

Aaargh... Plantar Fasciitis...
Monday, November 21, 2011

For a while now I've had some minor heel pain, usually when I first get up in the morning... initially I thought I'd just bruised it, but the fact that the pain would disappear once I'd walked around a bit suggested that wasn't the case. Instead, it's probably a mild case of plantar fasciitis - an inflammation of the plantar fascii, a band of connective tissue that runs along the bottom on the foot. There are all sorts of reasons it might have happened - increased running mileage, decreased flexibility in my lower leg, or even the weight I've gained over the past couple of years. On the plus side, it's been very minor and most of the time I don't even think about it.

Except of course that this weekend I managed to aggravate it more than usual, possibly by pushing hard for the 2nd half of the Lil Rhody or possibly because I've put too many miles too quickly on the new Adidas trail shoes I've been using, after running mostly on Vasques for the last few years. All I know for sure is that it was sore walking around after the race, and really sore when I got up this morning.

Which is more than a bit worrisome, given that I've plunked down the registration fee for the Seashore Nature Trail 50k in mid-December. So no running for me for the next few days at least, while I see how it responds. I'd been planning to do a long (20 or so miles) run Wednesday but clearly that's not a good idea now - also worrisome since my window of opportunity for a last long run is shrinking rapidly. I may have to go into the 50k trusting my previous training (which hasn't been what I'd wanted it to be, but was enough for me to finish Stone Cat with my fastest time yet for a trail marathon.)

Oh, well, nothing to be done for it other than to try to be sensible and hope for the best...

JMH

SUCCESS!!!!
LONG DISTANCE 2011 - Race #28
Stone Cat Trail Marathon
Saturday, November 5, 2011

Success! After two DNF's at long distance events earlier this year (Sehgahunda and Finger Lakes) and a couple of missed long runs, I really wasn't sure how today was going to go... especially since Stone Cat is a loop course and I find those to be mentally challenging (it's awfully easy to convince myself that I really don't need to do another loop...)

Made it to the Doyon School in Ipswich and checked in no problem, though finding a place to stash my gear in the very crowded gym was a challenge. Waited in the very long line for the men's bathroom only to get inside and find the urinals free... sigh. Then I gathered up my gear and headed outside to put it somewhere convenient and wait for the start, along with about 300 other people walking around with headlamps on their heads. It was very strange to look up at the sky and see stars shining brightly before a race...

Didn't hear much of what the RD said before the start, just waited for the siren and then followed the line of marathon runners across the athletic fields. The Stone Cat course is a 12.5 mile loop, so we needed to do an extra 1.2 miles before heading out on the "normal" loop - we ran around the school property, then up the road a ways, before turning around and heading out on the trails into Willowdale State Forest. This led to another first for me - being in a race where my fellow runners were heading back toward me with their LED headlamps shining brightly in the dark.

I was determined to keep to a nice, easy pace on the first loop - to increase the likelihood that I would want to do a second loop. The initial trail was a jeep road through the woods, alongside some marshy areas - apparently there are a lot of wetlands in this state forest. Couldn't see much beyond the circle of light ahead of me and the lights of a couple of runners bobbing off in the distance, though the sky was starting to get lighter. Switched to singletrack after a bit, twisting and winding through the woods, uphill and downhill... walked the uphills and made the best time I could on the downs. By the time I reached the next jeep road it was light enough that I was able to ditch the headlamp and switch to my usual running hat... yeah!

The rest of the course into the 1st aid station was much the same... stretches of singletrack, stretches of jeep road, lots of woods, some wetlands... pretty much rolling terrain overall and pretty runnable to boot, albeit a fairly slow run for me. Just before the aid station there was a section of the trail that was flooded - man that water was cold! But it did encourage me to run a little faster afterwards to try and warm my feet back up.

Folks at the aid station were great, topped off my water bottle and then headed back out to more of the same, up and down through the woods, running pretty consistently on the jeep roads and mixing running and walking on the singeltrack. My favorite stretch was a section of singletrack on the hillside overlooking a large beaver pond, with nice views of the pond through the trees. Eventually I came out at the 2nd aid station, and the folks there were as great as the first one. Refilled the bottle, chatted a bit about hydration (people always want to know what the dark brown fluid in my bottles is - Kona Kola Nuun) and then took off for the 5 miles to the end of the first loop. It was long this stretch that the front runners for the 50 mile race passed me while completing their 2nd loop of the course... those guys were moving! And a few miles from the transition the top marathoners also passed me, pretty much on schedule - I had anticipated that I was moving a little under half as fast as they were, though it seemed like a lot slower when they blew by me. I was getting a little tired of meandering mountain bike trails by the time I made it back to the jeep road we'd run in on, and I was also just plain getting a bit tired - didn't have any juice at all for running uphill, and the level stretches and downhills were starting to hurt a bit too. It definitely didn't help that I was getting some chafing from my compression shorts and my right little toe was getting ground into hamburger for some reason. But overall I was in reasonably good shape for having covered 13.7 miles, and at 3 hr 21 min anticipated somewhere around a 7-7.5 hour finish, a definite improvement over my best time at Nipmuck several years ago. On the way in I also saw a number of runners I knew - Rich Busa, Karen McWhirt, and one of the faster folks from the snowshoe series, Amy Lane (who was doing the 50mi.) Always nice to see a friendly face...

Tried my best not to hang around at the transition area for too long... ditched my double bottle carrier (which I used only so I'd have a place to stash my headlamp once it got light, it was cool enough that I didn't anticipate needing more than one bottle between aid stations) and pulled a dry short sleeve short on over my long sleeved one, then started the second loop. It was clear from the get-go that I would be doing a lot more walking on this one. Familiarity with the course was both a plus (I knew none of it was too awful) and a minus (I had a pretty good idea of just how far it was to the next downhill, the next aid station, or even the next section that I might actually be able to run. I tried to approach the loop as a series of shorter distances - to the first aid station (4.2mi), then the 2nd aid station (3.3mi) and finally to the finish (5mi) since I knew I could make it those shorter distances. The singletrack sections were particularly tough, with my legs getting tired I was reduced to walking a lot just to avoid tripping and falling. Walked with Art Gulliver for a ways into the 2nd aid station- he talked about some physical challenges he has since having a stroke several years ago and losing his wife of 50 years to leukemia back in the spring. That actually got me thinking about how good I've got it and motivated me to push myself a bit more over the last five miles - but it was still a long haul to the finish. But I made it there in the end, with a total time of 7:16:45 - on the one hand slightly disappointing (it took me just under 4 hours to do the 2nd loop, after completing the longer 1st loop in 3:21) but on the other hand very exciting because (1) I actually finished after multiple DNF's over the last few years at long distance events and (2) that's roughly 15 minutes faster than my previous best time for a trail marathon (OK, the Stone Cat course is easier than Nipmuck, but still...)

I had thought to stick around and down some free food, but they were cooking a new batch of burgers and I just didn't have the patience to wait. Didn't see any signs of a shuttle back to the marathon parking (at some athletic fields about 0.6 miles away) so I walked back to the car, took a painfully slow time to change into clean clothes, and then started the long drive home (punctuated by lots of stops along the MA turnpike to try to get my legs functioning again.)

Overall, I'd have to say this was a good day. Fantastic weather - not too cold, not too hot - and sunny, so the woods were gorgeous. I accomplished what I set out to do and had a reasonably good time doing it, even beating my anticipated finish time by a bit (I expected 7.5-8 hours.) I don't know that I'd want to run Stone Cat every year, but I can definitely see myself coming back again... with luck I'll even have more training miles under my shoes and will manage a PR. But for today - I'm happy with how it all went.

JMH

2011 Event Totals
Run 307.4 mi, 76 hr 31 min
Bike 57.7 mi, 4 hr 17 min
Snowshoe 74.3 mi, 18 hr 57 min

states visited: CT, MA, ME, NH, NJ, NY, OH, PA, RI, VT

OFF TO STONE CAT
Friday, November 4, 2011

In 14 hours I'll be starting the Stone Cat Trail Marathon with a couple of hundred other crazy runners who will be taking to the woods at 6:15 AM to run either 26.2 miles or 50 miles.

I have to admit to a certain amount of trepidation, since I dropped out of both of the previous long events I did this year - Sehgahunda at 15.5 miles and Finger Lakes after 1 loop, about 17 miles. Do I have what it takes to do the mini-loop and then two full loops at Stone Cat? Tomorrow afternoon I'll know the answer...

JMH

HAIRY GORILLA & SQUIRRELY SIX ARE ON OFF
Saturday, October 29, 2011

Just got word that the Albany Running Exchange's premiere trail races, the Hairy Gorilla Half Marathon and Squirrely Six Miler, have been cancelled for tomorrow due to weather by the venue, Thacher State Park.

While there will no doubt be wholesale vitriol directed at the park staff by some hardcore runners, the decision is really the most sensible one to make. Right now the Helderbergs are forecast to receive 8-10 inches of extremely wet, heavy snow. Trees will come down. Roads may be treacherous. There may be widespread power outages up on the ridge and in the hilltowns to the west - heck, it's already happening to the south, where the snow started earlier and is predicted to reach similar depths.

And what about the runners themselves? The word on Friday was to expect approximately 700 people on the trails tomorrow morning... many of them first time or at least inexperienced trail runners. I've been running trails for 14 years and have the gear I need to run safely in snow - and I wasn't looking forward to running tomorrow, especially if it is on the 10 inches end of the forecast. The likelihood is that someone (more likely several someones) would end up getting hurt. And this runner says - it just isn't worth that risk.

I've also heard the argument that runners should be able to decide whether or not it's worth the risk for themselves, and to a certain degree I agree. A couple of summers ago somebody berated the director of the Escarpment Trail Run for allowing the race to go on despite the threat of a severe thunderstorm (which did pound the mountaintops during the race and had runners trying to find whatever shelter they could from the lightning strikes) and the RD's response was that all runners in his race accept responsibility for their decision to run. And you know what - I agree with him. Escarpment is an insane event to begin with and has qualifying standards to try to keep out folks who are likely to be insufficiently prepared for the challenge of running 18+miles across some of the worst terrain in the Catskills. Hairy Gorilla is an entirely different beast and attracts an very different group of runners.

I wouldn't be surprised if the ARE finds a way to reschedule the race (though in all likelihood it will end up on a day when I can't be there due to a different running commitment.) Am I sorry it isn't happening tomorrow? Yes (I've run the half marathon 6 years in a row, including just 2.5 months after my '06 bike crash when I hadn't run for most of the time since the accident - I signed up for the 6 miler because I knew I'd miss it if I didn't, even though I'm supposed to be taking it easy in preparation for next weekend's marathon.) And no (run in snow? Been there, done that, I'd rather break out the snowshoes.)

Now to decide where I am going to run tomorrow once Ann heads back to Rochester...

JMH

ICE & SNOW... & MORE ON THE WAY?
Friday, October 28, 2011

I guess I shouldn't have been surprised to find everything covered in a coat of icy snow when I went out to go to work this morning, but I was. Thank heavens I'd dragged my scraper out of the trunk over the weekend (when I needed to scrape ice off my windows Sunday morning) - but it was still a chore getting the car to a point where I could safely drive to school.

It was bright and sunny so I expected the snow to disappear quickly... but this was the view out my classroom window until pretty late in the morning.



Now they're saying we'll be getting more snow tomorrow - possibly a foot or more in some areas (Thacher? That could make running Sunday's race interesting, to say the least... maybe I'll throw my snowshoes in the car...) preceded by rain and a wintry mix. Which has me wondering if I'll be doing the Ulstercorps Service Sprint after all; I enjoyed it a lot last year, but I don't think it's worth risking an accident to run a 4.7 mile race. Guess I'll just have to wait and see what the weather looks like in the morning.

And once this taste of winter is over - can we have fall back for a while?

JMH

The Josh Verdict

Tuesday, August 30, 3011

Here's the elevation profile for the Vermilion Harbor Olympic Du bike course, which kicked my backside big time:

Here's the elevation profile for the Josh Billings bike course:

And here are the two side by side (they start at different elevations, so not quite side by side...):

That just about says it all, doesn't it. No Josh for me this year... I just haven't put in the miles and especially hill work on the bike I need to. Sigh.

JMH

To Josh or Not to Josh...
Monday, August 15, 2011

Yesterday's race left me with serious doubts about doing the Josh Billings Runaground this year. The Josh starts with a tough 27 mile ride - lots of climbing, from what I remember from 1998 - followed by a 5 mile paddle around the Stockbridge Bowl (flat water, but sometimes it can get pretty windy) and finishing with a 6 mile run.

The bike course during yesterday's duathlon had a decent amount of climbing, but less than the Josh (from what I recall...) - and it thoroughly chewed me up and spit me out. I just haven't done enough riding in general and especially enough hill work this year, and it really showed.

I'm confident I could finish the Josh... but what took me a little over 4 hours back in 1998 will probably take me over 5 hours this time around... and I'm not sure that's fair to the race folks and especially to Ann (who'd be there to be my "helper".)

Guess I need to get my backside over to MA and ride some of the bike course - and see if it's as bad (or even worse) than I remember...

JMH

2 Days & 4 States...
Monday, July 25, 2011

... though, to be fair, I only drove through 2 of the states (NY & MA.)

Drove a total of about 700 miles over slightly more than 2 days (about 7 hours more.) Ugh.

Ran one race, 13.1 miles, at a glacially slow pace... sigh.

Walked 7.2 miles in 5 different parks in NH and 5.5 miles in 4 different parks in ME.

But it's still nice to be home again.

JMH

T-5 DAYS!!!
A Nervous Countdown to SEHGAHUNDA
Monday, May 23, 2011

Five days from now I will be waiting to start the Sehgahunda Trail Marathon at along the Finger Lakes Trail through Letchworth State Park south of Rochester. This will be the 7th marathon I've attempted and hopefully my 5th finish by the time Saturday afternoon rolls around. I say hopefully because Sehgahunda is different from every other marathon I've run in having a series of time cutoffs from mile 15.4 onward, and while I think I can make them, I'm certainly not sure... and my slow finishing times at the longer races I've done this spring don't exactly fill me with confidence. It doesn't help that I also didn't complete as many long runs as I'd hoped to, before going into rest/recover mode - and while I think the course will be easier than Nipmuck (the section of the FLT I ran two summers ago, as part of the Dam Good trail race, certainly was, but that's only the first seven miles of Sehgahunda) I won't really know until I run it. So in a lot of ways this race probably has me more nervous than any other I've run in recent memory.

On the other hand, I do have some positive indicators that give me hope I'll be successful. I've got years of distance running under my belt, even if I haven't always kept up my conditioning for longer distances. During some of my longer races this spring I've comfortably maintained an average pace a few minutes slower than the paces needed to complete Sehgahunda; if I can do the same on Saturday, I'll  have a decent time cushion built up by the first cutoff, giving me some leeway if things start to go south in the latter half of the race. And while I haven't done all the long training runs I'd wanted to, I did have a couple of tough back-to-back weekends that went reasonably well.

In the end, there's only one way to know how it's going to turn out - stay healthy this week, get to the race early on Saturday, try not to go out too fast, try to keep from blowing up before the end... and go the distance.

Five days to go...

JMH

Sleeping Through the Thom Bugliosi 26k Trail Race... Aaargh!
Saturday, May 7, 2011

Slept through my alarm this morning and woke up about 20 min before I was supposed to be on the road to Hammond Hill State Forest in Dryden to run the Thom Bugliosi trail race. If I'd rushed like crazy I probably could have made it... but I suspect I would have gotten there and found out I'd forgotten something important, like my shoes. And I was still pretty tired - staying up most of the night Thursday to grade exams took a lot out of me. So I turned off the alarm and went back to sleep, darn it.

It's particularly annoying because the race has a cutoff for running the 2nd loop, and I was planning to use it as a test to indicate whether I'm on track to being able to make the cutoffs at Sehgahunda in three weeks. Of course, if I hadn't made the cutoff (which happened a couple of years ago) I'd be spending the next three weeks worrying... so maybe it's for the best. But I'm still disappointed with myself for oversleeping and missing the race.

JMH

Sleeping Through the Platte Clove Mountain Run
Wednesday, May 4, 2011

I had planned to drive down to West Saugerties tonight and once again run the 1st run in the Catskill Mountain Spring Series - a relatively flat mile followed by 2 miles up the steep and winding Platte Clove Mountain Rd, through an area called the Devil's Kitchen. The road is sufficiently steep and treacherous that in the winter the twon closes it because it's too dangerous to plow. I've run Platte Clove twice - well, I ran the 1st mile and then power-hiked the last two miles - and I always enjoy the atmosphere of the three series runs: low-key and a lot of cameraderie among the runners.

Instead I came home and decided that between being exhausted and having quite a bit of work today - a nap followed by an evening working made more sense than spending most of the evening driving, running, and then driving again. A shame really - the cool weather might have helped me run better than I have previously. Then again, given how my legs felt going up the stairs at work today - maybe not.

JMH

No Paddling Saturday...
Thursday, April 28, 2011 

Recently Ann and I discussed how high and fast the Genesee River was flowing through Genesee Valley Park and wondered about the paddling portion of this Saturday's Flower City River Challenge Triathlon - today I got the answer, which is the paddle leg has been replaced by a 2nd running leg (so everyone is now doing a duathlon.) I'm not at all surprised - Yellowjacket Racing is always very concerned about athlete safety and it's clear that being on the river this weekend would be very unsafe. Not only is the water flowing almost 6 times faster than it was last year (11300 cfs compared to 1800 cfs) but there is also a good deal of debris moving in the water as well. As much as I enjoy the change of pace that the paddle leg offers, I really didn't want to be out on the water in current conditions, so I won't miss the paddle at all. And it has suddenly become a lot easier to prep for the race - I no longer need to mount the roof rack and load up the kayak and associated gear, drop all that off before parking the car, and then load it all back up after the race. All things considered, a very positive development on my end of things!

JMH

LONG DISTANCE 2011 - Race #1
Spring Forward 15k Road Race
Sunday, April 3, 2011


Back to beautiful Mendon Ponds park for my first race of the 2011 season, plus a few miles afterwards to build distance for the trail marathon at the end of May. While I can't say that the Spring Forward 15k is one of my favorite races (it is a road race, after all!) the course is nice and hilly for a good workout, the scenery can be really nice, and the folks at Yellowjacket Racing are always great.

What wasn't great was how freakin' cold it was when I arrived at the park! Even though I knew I'd probably warm up a couple of miles into the race I didn't want to risk freezing for 2 hours, so I wore my jacket and gloves (and I was right, I tied the jacket around my waist at about the three mile mark and never needed it after that.

Didn't set any PRs today but I did keep to a nice steady pace that left me some gas in the tank for my post-race run and still mananged to pass a couple of other back-of-the-packers. Not quite as satisfying as pushing my hardest and ending fried... but that won't get me ready for the marathon. I also set a goal of running up all the hills and I pretty much accomplished that - walked a bit toward the top of the longest ones, but that's OK. It was definitely a good day for a medium-length run in the sun at a pace that was probably a bit faster than I'd have gone if I just headed out for a run.

I sometimes wonder if the other runners see some of the things I notice as I'm cruising along at the back... like the herd of deer running across a field in the distance as we were leaving the park... or the hawk perched in a tree just over our heads about a mile and a half from the finish. Wonderful sights like that help me appreciate being slow!

JMH

2011 Event Totals
Run 9.3 mi, 1 hr 57 min
Bike 0 mi, 0 min
Snowshoe 74.3 mi, 18 hr 57 min
Kayak 0 mi, 0 min

states visited: MA, NY, VT

1st Trail Race of the Season... NOT!
Sunday, March 20, 2011

I had signed up to run the Rockin the Ledges 12 mile trail race near Carbondale, PA, today... but yesterday it dawned on me that I really didn't feel like spending 6 hours in the car, despite looking forward to seeing the trails at Merli Sarnoski Park and kicking off my 2011 races. So instead of hitting the road at 6 AM for the drive to PA, I stayed in bed... the start of my 2011 racing season will have to wait until the Spring Forward 15k in two weeks. Though in all honesty I suspect many of my races this year will be training runs rather than actual racing attempts... but that's really nothing new, is it?

JMH

And the Results Are In...
2011 Muddy Sneaker Trail Race Lottery
Thursday, February 10, 2011

The Muddy Sneaker 20k trail race is held annually in mid-April at the High Tor Wildlife Management Area in Naples, NY. The race has gained a certain degree of notoriety both for being one of the more challenging trail races in western NY (actually, when it started, it was one of the only trail races in that area) and for the fact that only 150 spots are available, which had led the race organizers (the fine folks at Goose Adventure Racing) to hold a lottery to pick the lucky 150 + 25 for a waiting list. I tried to get in several years ago without success, and since then have been doing other races that weekend... but this year I decided to go for it and put my name in the hat. The lottery was tonight, and - I made the waiting list (7th on the list, in fact.)

So on the one hand its a bit frustrating (I still don't know if I'm running the race or not) but on the other there's hope that seven runners will drop out over the next month or so and I'll be moved to the event list. And if not - I'm sure I can find somewhere else to run that weekend...

JMH

Tough Decision...
Thursday, January 27, 2011

I've really been looking forward to running the Curly's Record Run 4 mile snowshoe race on Sunday. Saturday's races are too far away (3-4 hours, depending on which one) for the distances they offer (3-4 miles) so I had planned to spend Saturday in Rochester with Ann and then come back for Sunday's run in Pittsfield. I feel like I've been running fairly well for the last few races, plus it's a good chance to spend some time in the woods with my friends.

Unfortunately... whatever I did to my right knee Tuesday night is definitely still there. It's nothing major - an occasional twinge when I move certain ways - but I suspect the long climbs and the insane descent at Curly's could easily aggravate it into a more significant injury. And having already dropped quite a bit of money registering for some long races in the 1st half of 2011... I really don't want to end up where I was back in June 2009, when I tore up my left knee two weeks before the Finger Lakes Fifties and attempting my first 50k.

So as much as it's driving me absolutely nuts to do so... I'm going to stay away from Curly's this weekend. Ordinarily I'd go and offer to help on the course somewhere... but if I do that Sunday morning, I have no doubt I'll talk myself into running. And then all my friends will have to holler at me for doing such a stupid thing. And I may find myself limping around for the near and not-so-near future, wondering if my knee will bounce back enough for me to complete a trail marathon at the end of May in under 8 hours (as well as making a bunch of time cutoffs along the way.)

On the plus side - I'll get to spend more time with Ann this weekend, which doesn't happen often during snowshoe season.

But man is it going to drive me nuts Sunday morning...

JMH