Another No Race Report

I'm thinking about racing a lot, so it seems odd to be posting about training. But, here goes. In short, knock on wood, things are going well. I've been feeling good and somewhat frisky on most of my runs, and the pace has reflected that. And, right now, we have a sleeping child and I'm drinking a Shipyard Prelude. Ahhhh....things are good.

I ended up running in the dark twice this week. I replaced the batteries in my headlamp, which made a big difference. In other words, I could actually see where I was going. Not certain how good my headlamp would be for anything technical, but it's been fine on the road and snow covered/icy dirt road I ran on this week. Running in the dark makes me feel like I'm flying, even though I'm not. Not sure if it has anything physical to do with the limited field of vision, or if it's all ego based since I feel hardcore for running in the dark. Either way, it's odd.

The bigger news from this week is that I did my first snowshoe run. Ever. I borrowed D's snowshoes, and since they're made for little people, they were decent for running. Although, I was running in fresh, wet snow, which made the going tough and slow. I ran a 1/2 mile loop around the Mt. Ararat trails three times, and I was pretty happy with that. Luckily, a snowmobile had already been through earlier, so about 1/3 of the loop was packed. I was very pleased to see how comfortably I was able to move along on the packed snow. It was a good run, even though I was out in the wind-driven snain. Snain is gross. I carried the shoes the 1/2 mile to the trails, but realized on my way back that there was enough snow packed on the roads to leave them on the whole way home. Overall, it was a great first snowshoe experience. Obviously, I need to increase the distance, but it was too gross to be out any longer the other day.

And, really, my entire focus right now is on snowshoeing. Specifically, the Granite State Snowshoe Series. I've never raced snowshoes before, but I think it will be a blast. Painful, but a blast. And, as I've mentioned, way better than running on roads all winter. Blech. And, as you see at left, my new snowshoes arrived the other day! I'm going to wait until we get more snow to give them a try (or go somewhere that has enough snow), so I don't mangle them on a rock the first time out. Hopefully, I'll be able to get some time on them before the first race of the series, which is on Jan. 2. I'm even more hopeful that a couple Trail Monsters will join me in the suffering. So, like I said, snowshoe racing is my focus right now, and part of the plan is to race myself into shape. The final race of the series in a 10k on March 14 (hosted at a place I know fairly well), and it's going to be a really, really tough race. That's the focus. But, I'm not really sure how to focus. That's the trick. Once I get a couple races under my belt, hopefully, I'll have a better idea how to train. In the meantime, I'm going to throw into the mix a couple workouts that focus on suffering. I think suffering will be the key to successful snowshoe racing. Mmmmm...suffering.

Of course, as I write about snowshoeing, it's raining. I think I need to get screw shoes ready to go...