Sunday, March 10 - Prospect Mountain Snowshoe Race

13miS.S./1:36 - Jen and I drove to Woodford, VT with the goal of playing one last day on our snowshoes. I had new Dion's that I was eager to test out as well. The weather was another gorgeous bluebird day with bright sunshine and warm temps. I'd be racing in short sleeves for the second day in a row. Ross and I took the lead at the start and my legs felt tired but the pace was ok. Once we hit the real climbing I found out just how tired my legs were from yesterday's race. They were dead. I had no power at all on the hills. I was reduced to walking and slow shuffling. Ross dashed away from me and DD caught me and passed without a fight from me. Time to just survive the climbs and enjoy the beautiful day and tough course. It really was an awesome course. Climbing, groomed trail and deep snow single track. It had it all. Mercifully I got to the top and TiVo said we had 2K of downhill. What he meant to say was there was a little downhill on single track with the deepest snow imaginable followed by up mountain traverses in more deep snow, with a couple of sadistic climbs thrown in for fun. I may have cursed about TiVo being some kind of sick course designer. Finally, I hit the real fast groomed downhill just as I was being caught by 4th place. I took off and my dead legs could turn over a little. DD and Ross were minutes ahead and had been out of sight since they passed me early on the climb. Just when I was getting in a nice downhill rhythm, there was one more climb that forced me to walk and to curse at TiVo again! After that hill it was through the slalom course in deep snow and then through the finish in 3rd place in 57:42. Wow! That was tough. I have to say it was fun it would have been interesting to race on fresh legs. Jen was all smiles at the finish. It ended a fun season of snowshoeing: Jen's first season racing, I got 3 wins, and I got to do a Harlem Shake on snowshoes!