01-31-2011 Run

After the race yesterday, I drove an hour South of Mt. Shasta to the Palm trees, 70 degree temps and Shorts wearing people in Redding, California.

Today I ran at the Whiskeytown Lake National Recreation Area. It is gorgeous here, I ran the Davis Gulch trail, a steep twisty turny rocky trail that winds its way in and out of a bunch of waterfall filled gulches that drain down in to the lake.

Here is picture I took from the trail that shows generally what the area looks like

Here is a pretty average shot of the trail, probably one of the easier parts.

Here is a picture of some Wild mistletoe that lines much of the trail, there are also a lot of wild California grapes along the trail.

I had a nice two days off, but now I have to head back to work. My boss warns me that I may be here until next Christmas. Hopefully my house will be sold long before then, and Rebecca will be out here with me! I think we are both done with the Midwest. Why would you stay in that cold, snow infested flat land, when you could be in a place like this??

Mt. Shasta Snowshoe Race

So this was a Western regional qualifier for the US snow shoeing Championships that will be held this coming March in Northwest Wisconsin, right near the Minnesota border!

This was my first time ever running in my new Crescent Moon - Gold 12 Racing snowshoes...

It was fun, my lungs are still burning 5 hours later. I wasn't sure what was gonna happen with this race, I had no clue how I would pace myself. There was fresh powder falling and it was on the side of a huge mountain. I ended up starting really slow and quickly realized that the main pack was way too slow for my liking so I just kinda took off, my legs ended up feeling like they were full of concrete pretty quickly, but the fact that I knew there were only 2 people in front of me gave me some motivation as I attempted to chase them down. I closed the gap pretty good, but my "normally devastating finishing sprint" was hampered by the approximately 200 lb snowshoes that I felt like I was wearing, I ended up with 3rd place over all, missing 2nd by probably 10 seconds and first by probably less than 20 seconds. Not sure when final results will be up somewhere, but I will link them when they are.

There weren't as many people in the race as I thought there would be, I think the fact that tire chains were required to get to the race site might have scared a few people away, but I like snow shoe running, and I did qualify for the National Championships so I might make an attempt to get back home for that.

01-28-2011 Run

01-26-2011 Run

01-25-2011 Run

01-24-2011 Run

It was 46 below zero in Minnesota yesterday. Working outside in that for 14 hours would have been a little uncomfortable. I guess for that reason I should be thankful that I'm working in Oregon!

01-21-2011 Run

This might go down as my weakest month for running since 2007. I'm feeling a lot better, so maybe things are looking up.

I did see this guy today though..