Sunday, February 10

11miS.S.* Prospect Mountain 5.4mile snowshoe race. It was a beautiful day for a snowshoe race. It was sunny and there was over a foot of fresh powder with no wind. TiVo made an awesome and challenging course that had a lot of climbing and single track with some groomed sections as well. I took the lead at the start and opened up a decent gap on the groomed section. Soon I was on the winding single track climb with deep snow. This section was tiring but highly enjoyable. I glance back on a few turns and could see Dave Dunham climbing well and making up ground on me. He's got a really good low gear and can climb the tough stuff ridiculously well. My new goal became just trying to beat him to the summit. I figured with my speed I should be able to outrun him down the mountain. I was able to get to the summit but he was very close. Glancing at my watch I think I was at 31 minutes. Time for some fast downhill to build up my lead again...or so I thought. Even though we raced downhill on groomed snow, it was being warmed up by the sun and was too soft to run fast on. I glanced back several times to see that I was putting no distance on DD. I was zigzagging all over the trail, desperate for firm snow. We then turned a sharp right into more single track that cut across the mountain. This was tough but really fun. There was a final short climb out of the single track and DD was really close. He told me he was 12sec back but it looked too close for comfort. Finally, we dumped back onto groomed downhill with firm fast snow. I took off and was able to build a safe lead and take the win in 50:35. DD ran a great race finishing 2nd and pushing me to a good effort. Tim Mahoney finished 3rd. Jen came to the finish smiling and saying she had a blast. I was worried because this was such a tough course. She seems hooked and wants to do more races which is awesome. I'm looking forward to the next one.