by Danielle Triffitt –
Ryan and Ian managed to pull together a really great course for the White Out today, especially given the less than ideal snow conditions here, and many places in the east. Nice work! And thanks too, to all the volunteers for standing out in the cold for all of us racers today!
My parents are in town, so they nicely agreed to watch Sam this morning so I could race. Thanks Mom and Dad! As I was heading out the door, Sam was waving to me, saying “have a good race, Mama!” So cute 🙂 I got to the park right around 10:00, said a few quick hellos to everyone and hopped back in the car to get warm. I decided to don my screwshoes and run backwards on the course for a bit, just to get an idea of what the final 1/2 mile would be like. Lanzo was in pretty good shape, with a few ice spots here and there, and it was good to visualize what the finish would be.
There was a good crowd at the start, but somehow as we jostled into position down the Knights Woods trail, I managed to get myself right behind Jamie as we made the first turn. Hmmm. That might be a bit aggressive! But slowly, he sprinted away, and I found myself at the front of a little caravan of people crunching and crashing down the trail (man, was the snow and ice noisy today!). The alternate course put us on a lot of single track, and we twisted and turned and wound through the park on some trails we don’t normally traverse. The snow was really pretty good out there in the woods, with even a bit of powder hidden in spots too (well, once it was churned up by the top guys, anyway.). I got passed by two guys on the Snowmobile Trail pretty early on, and although the first guy quickly pulled out of sight, I did manage to overtake the other guy somewhere on Ginn. At that point, I knew Emma was in close pursuit, so I kept on pushing. Luckily, the last mile was basically all downhill, so I picked up the pace as much as I could and crossed the finish line just ahead of Emma. I don’t quite know how I managed to win the woman’s race today. Had the race been any longer I would have had a hard time holding her off, so she surely provided some good motivation to keep moving as quickly as possible. Nice racing with you, Emma! (And nice job on your super fast 5k yesterday too! Impressive.)
As is always the case, there were a lot of great TMR results today, and lots of smiles at the end of the race. Emma, Julia and I headed almost immediately back out to pick up the flags and arrows on the middle section of the course. I hadn’t anticipated a 3 mile cool-down, but was happy to help out, and it was a nice chance to chat a bit with Emma and Julia in between the crunching of their snowhoes (I just wore my 315s and they were perfect on the now-packed course). We got back just in time for the awards and a bit of yummy soup from Frontier, after which I sprinted off to Kristen’s house for Morgan’s 6th birthday party. Thanks to Neenie and Pippi for transporting Sammy to the party! Sam had a blast racing around after Morgan and her friends, made a bit of a mess with the craft of the day and ate all the icing and sprinkles off her cupcake. I’d call it a successful birthday party, and a fun, if tiring, afternoon! 🙂