by Kevin Robinson –

Honestly, I was a bit worried about the snow shoe race at Bradbury. I would surely not be racing and actually would be happy just to finish. I ran in snowshoes only once this year, a couple weeks ago and experienced a very painful left ankle and archilles.

I am not sure if I did something while running…..no memory of twisting it ……but the next day it was swollen, black and blue, and very painful. I suspect it was more the aftermath of the snowboarding incident, or possibly the zero rise runners I wore with the snowshoes, but not really sure.

The ankle plus the fact that I have only been getting in about 6-8 miles a week (on the road) for the last month and a half, would affect my capabilities at this race …..and running 8 miles on Saturday might leave me with pretty dead legs.

Was there anything positive to say for this first snowshoe race of  the year? Actually, yes. The conditions were pretty good, the weather was darn near perfect, it was the normal great group of runners and the Trail Monsters (including volunteers) put on such a fantastic race.

I arrived about an hour early and tried a short half mile run on the shoes to see how thing would feel.
The left archilles felt very tight and the last thing I wanted to do was injure it. So my battle plan was pretty simple, this would just be an easy showshoe jog with little expectations and I would pay close attention to the archilles……aborting the race was surely an option.

I lined up somewhere near the back and settled on four goals……..start slow and give myself time to warm up. Keep the heart rate around 80-85% max, run the whole way and finish strong. Though these goals sounded awful good in my imagination, I suspected they would fall apart fast and the realization of how out of (running)  shape I was would hit me in the first mile.

Ryan said some funny stuff (as usual) and we were off…….I settled in to a spot after the turn onto single track behind a couple other runners and actually was feeling pretty good. I passed a few runners early and was not passed by too many in the first mile ( maybe three or four).

The second mile was more of a steady slight climb and though I slowed some, I managed to pass three runners without pushing the heart rate past 85%.  After mile 1.5, I had no issues or scares from runners behind me and my pace keep getting faster.

I was a bit worried in mile three that I would hit a wall, but it just never happened and I was able to really pick up the pace in the last half mile of the race. I finished strong to surprisingly reach all of my prerace goals.

I am not sure what happened here because dispite the fact that it felt like I was running with sandbags on my feet, My body just never gave in. It doesnt make sense because I was not trained or race ready at all…….but I had a fantastic race…..go figure.

3.5 miles @44:37  (12:45 pace)
39 th place