No throwing up and no falling down. Two goals that I achieved without necessarily setting out to do so. The Feel Good Farm Snowshoe race is aptly named, as I was certainly feeling good when we finally left the farm. This was race #3 for the season and race #2 in the GSSS that myself and my teammates from
Acidotic Racing are competing in and it was a test.
Feel Good Farm in Lyndeborough, NH were our gracious hosts and both the setting and weather were great. Michael Amarello and his crew from
3C Race Productions knocked out another seamless event and made the grueling race a little more bearable.
This race was roughly an 8.5K comprised of 2 laps up and down Moose Mountain. The way up was steep and slow as the running was so difficult at times crawling on all fours might have been more effective. I had the pleasure of passing a few racers that decided to "lighten their load" on the way up - delicious!
As for the way down, calling the terrain treacherous would be a gross disservice to the word treacherous. Many competitors met the ground with more than just the bottoms of their cleats. I was thankful to have my
Dion 121's with the deep cleats in play, thanks Bob. If you have never snowshoed before I can only explain descending a trail like this as "organized confusion." You are throwing your feet so your tips don't drag while trying to center your balance all the while concentrating on your footing and maintaining a good pace. It is a relative pounding on the lower extremities and luckily I did not tweak anything
until (left ankle) the second descent. Acidotic Racing had a great showing in numbers and we were lucky enough to have Geoff Cunningham take a step on the podium when it was all said and done placing 2nd. The overall
results are here. Check out the view from the shoes of
Scotty Graham ,
Steve Wolfe who raced with a heavy heart (RIP Molly) and our captain
Chris Dunn in their respective blogs.
I had set one goal for myself in this race, simply to finish strong. I figured based on distance and difficulty the leaders would be in around the 35 minute mark. Sure enough 1st place went to Kevin Tilton from team CMS with a time of 37:19. I said to Gianina before heading to the starting line that she could expect me no later than 59:00 unless of course the first lap took me 55 minutes then she could adjust accordingly. When we finished our first lap I came out of the woods trailing Scott Mitchell from Team Blazing Turtles. He commented as we headed back in and up that we were horrifically far from done, I checked my watch for the first time to see that we were at the 29 minute mark and told him that we might want to pick it up. Not wanting to get much more conversational with him I made my move to pass and continue to push forward as we once again hit the delightful climb up Moose Mountain. The only benefit about lap 2 was we now had the knowledge of what was ahead of us. I hit the summit for the 2nd time at the 53 minute mark and knew that I had only 6 minutes to "get off" the mountain to maintain my personal goal. As I cleared the trees and the trail continued to wind towards the crowd and the finish we leveled out. A flat surface - what a treat! As we neared the parking lot I heard my son Aidan yelling GO DADDY! (audible on
this video at the 5:52 mark) It really doesn't get any better than that.
I pulled in at 58:12 which gave me 53rd out of the 104 that toed the line. Four runners finished that first lap and figured that was enough. We have enjoyed more
$upport from family and friends and thank you for visiting our donation site to benefit JDRF this winter. Next up on the schedule is the
Pooh Hill Snowshoe Scramble at King Pine in East Madison, NH. I am not sure of the distance on this one, but it doesn't really matter after this week I now know I can handle anything that is thrown my way. Thanks again to my amazing family and friends for all of your encouragement and my teammates for helping me in my training.
Timmy & Team Cameron
$upport JDRF here Thank$
"If nothing else this is beautiful!" I shouted to a guy out on the trail today, he laughed and we trotted along. This was race #4 for the season and race #3 in the Granite State Snowshoe Series. My team captain Chris Dunn of Acidotic Racing was not on the trail today as this was his baby and he did us proud. What a great event. I had never even heard of King Pine in East Madison, NH our hosts for the day. There is lots to do and see up there. Ski, ride, cross country ski and SNOWSHOE! It was a winding 8K course that lead us through some beautiful scenery and kept you busy on what seemed to be an endless roller coaster of mini hills. Chris took the liberty of creating some winding virgin single track in fields we could have clearly just run straight across, I'll have to ask him about that? :) As we neared the finish others let us know this was the last big hill. Excellent. Nothing better than cruising a downhill into the tape. Of course the tape was gone because Jim Johnson had already broken it minutes before finishing in 34:02. Congrats to Jim and the crew from Central Mass Striders for the log jam of racers in the top 5 - official results here. I pulled in at 51:41 which put me in 42nd overall out of a field of 82. Again a great race and after party thrown by my team captain Chris, his wife Karen and their family. Lots of great food and beer from our team sponsors at Redhook Brewery. A killer a grand prize in the post race raffle of some Kahtoola flightdecks that Scott Mason made off with in the end. Next up for the series is the Sidehiller 4 Miler in Center Sandwich, NH this coming Saturday. As always I am running to benefit children like my son Cameron with autism and juvenile diabetes. Thank you for your $upport.
Today was Team Cameron's first ever snowshoe race. Also race #1 for the 