February 28, 2009

Grand Pre-Opening tonight!


So there is a grand "pre-opening" tonight for the Rochester superstore for my title sponsor this year. It's supposedly a wine and cheese type event with the "big wigs" in the city of Rochester in attendance. I'll let you all know how it goes (and when the new Bert's in Henrietta is open to the general public...) Cheers! :o)

February 23, 2009

Snow Cheap Race #5 report

Just had to throw a photo of this in there. This is my college roommate of 3 years wearing a GXC shirt that on the back reads "Streaking our way across the US" because the men's and women's Geneseo XC programs often made it to Nationals and they had a tradition of streaking in the new states trying to get all 50... as you can see most of New England was already filled in. But, I digress...To let you all know, the streak is still alive. I truly believe that it shouldn't be, but I was lucky with a few things last Wednesday night.

The race was a trail race due to lack of snow, so I left the Crescent Moon's at home and brought the Kahtoohla's with me to Cobbs Hill on that evening. I was already in rough shape as that last week I crested almost 14 hours of training. So needless to say my legs were pretty smoked at the start of the race. Now the kicker of the evening came when a light snow started to fall around 5:15pm for a 6 o'clock race. Who knew that this dusting was going to have such an effect on the race?
Turns out that this dusting made a nice little blanket over all of the markers/cones that were out on the course. This added a new dimension of fun to the race as we were now tracking to see if we could even LOCATE a cone, let alone follow a trail.

The gun went off and we clomped around thru the base of Cobbs and immediately went up the nice big dirt hill leading up to the reservoir. I was letting Kurt Spacher take the lead but quickly realized that the entire group was bunching up because we couldn't locate a cone in the newly white field. There came cries of, "Anyone see a cone?" and with so many people it sounded vaguely reminiscent of a hash with other folks joking around and yelling out "beer near!".

Kurt and I tromped along though and managed to make it into the woods. Kurt was leading and on a sketchy, icy section of downhill he took a slide and his feet went right out from underneath him and I swear I almost saw his head bounce off the ground. He quickly clambered up to his feet as I passed, but I was asking him, "Man are you okay?!", and "you took a really hard hit there, you okay?" and I think he must've believed I was trying to get inside his head and freak him out, but I was genuinely concerned.

I led for a while after that and we made it out onto Washington Grove and had to walk to locate the markers for a bit. There were no headlamps in the woods behind us as we had distanced the field by a bit then. We finally located the trail again and took off. I passed Kurt in the woods and we just kinda went on until the switchbacks.
Again, as soon as I knew we were hitting the switchbacks, I turned up the heat once more and started going. I was scared to slip on the icyness, but I had faith in the kahtoohlah's and knew the spikes in them would keep me upright. I heard Kurt being a little more ginger after falling for a second time down the switchbacks and I just pumped it into the finish. This was win #5 for the series and there is only one more race left. Lucky for me, the penultimate race comes immediately after a rest week and will be a good night to see if I can sweep the whole Snow Cheap Series. (my goal from the beginning) This was a good one that I didn't think I was able to win at the start and likely probably shouldn't have, but conditions and equipment allowed me another small victory for the year. :o)

It's a rest week for me and it couldn't have come any sooner. The last 3 weeks were 12, 13.5, and 14 hours respectively so I could use the rest. Take care folks, now's the time of the season to hone in on the base miles and stay healthy. Don't overdo it, but still I implore you to get out there and JFT! Cheers.

February 12, 2009

47.....

So last night, I'm about to hop on the bike in my apartment and spin for a little bit. I have my heart rate monitor on and just punched the start button to get it warmed up and ready for me to start my workout.

I'm standing in front of my closet getting a bike jersey out to wear and I glance down to see a 47 on the screen. I thought it was broken.....

Until I walked into the kitchen to fill up a water bottle and it jumped up to a 55. :o) God I love getting a few months of base training under my belt in the wintertime :o) Happy training folks, get out there and JFT folks. Cheers.

February 10, 2009

Snow Cheap Race #4 race report

Well as you probably know by now, race #4 in the Fleet Feet Snow Cheap Winter Trail Race series is in the books last week on Wednesday evening. I was getting jazzed up to run it as I left work a little early to make sure I got there on time and didn’t get stuck in the ridiculous rush hour traffic. I was a little more nervous than normal at this race because I knew if I won the race that night, I would automatically clinch the entire series with 4 wins out of 6 races.

I got there right around 5:15 or so for a 6pm start and changed, picked up the packet, got the timing chip and chatted with a few folks. There was a nervous energy in the air and I saw Kurt Spacher there at the lodge before the race and we decided to go on a little warm up together. (Kurt’s been the one who has been chasing me down each race and I’m just waiting for the day that he blows by me and I can’t respond)

We headed out for a short 3 mile or jaunt down the street and chatted a little bit, he brought up the fact that a little birdie told him that I once ran a sub 2:00 half mile and I told him that was many moons ago and I was lucky to still have a sliver of that speed left. Maybe that’s the edge that I needed that night.

The race was another snowshoe trek thru the grounds around Cobbs. The “gun” went off and we tromped thru the now ankle deep sections and some where on trail shoes and some were snowshoeing thru the drifts. Race Director Greg put us up the “Rocky Hill” immediately and it was a good test to see who had legs that night.

There started out with a few of us out front but it quickly got whittled down to me and Kurt bombing thru the woods. I have a headlamp that is none too luminous and Kurt’s is about a bright as daylight. We were bombing thru the woods and I kept hearing him breathe over my shoulder and his lamp was flickering behind me as his head moved around. It seriously looked like a bad horror movie behind me (partly because I was running scared and partly because the “strobe” light behind me illuminating the woods)

About a mile and a quarter in, I eased up a tad. We were going uphill and I wanted a little reprieve. Kurt made a move to get around me and he went. I kept my sights on him and he only had the lead for about 4 minutes. We went up to the top off the reservoir and there was some deep stuff there and he was slipping around on his trail shoes. I took this as an opportunity to re-take the lead and went around him.

Unbeknownst to us, the course doubled back on itself and we were running the opposite direction of the people coming up the trail. We both eased up, Kurt was about 20 feet behind me and we both timidly went down the trail and I called out to see if we were going the right direction. I had no idea. I think we both eased up because neither of us wanted to go too far down a trail in the wrong direction. Suddenly, I saw cones on both sides of trees and realized that the course doubled back on itself.

It was at that point that someone yelled out, “good job, just down the switchbacks and to the finish” and in that instant, both of our efforts went from about a 5 to an 11 on a scale from 1-10. I knew the only chance I had to finish this race in first was to make it to the switchbacks in first place. So I gunned it for the trail. I had a little more traction than Kurt in the corners on the switch backs and pumped them for all I was worth. I think I got a little time on him and at the end when we crossed over a dirt road, I thought I was going to bottom out and fall flat on my face. I just couldn’t get my legs in front of me fast enough!
I barreled into the finish and Kurt was a mere 3 seconds behind me. This was the closest one yet and I can honestly say that I didn’t think I was going to take it. It was a great fun race and I’m glad for the series. It’s a nice way to have a low-key race midweek and hang out with some friends and play in the woods.

I’ve always wanted to win a series race and there seem to be plenty here in the Rochester area for people to choose from. We have the Polar cat’s races, the Freezeroo, the Snow Cheap Series races and I’m sure there are others that I am forgetting too. But the Snow Cheap will be special to me as it was my first series win. :o) Still 2 more races out there, so I hope to see you all on the trails. Cheers and JFT folks.