Whitaker Woods and GBTC Invitational

This weekend was my return to racing after not having raced since early December. Other than when I had a stress fracture before Leadville, this was probably the longest time between races since I've started running. The weekend would start out with Whitaker Woods Snowshoe Scramble on Saturday, the first race of the Granite State Snowshoe Series. Amber wasn't able to come up due to her training but I headed up with teammate and running partner, J Massa.

The field of racers was smaller this year than last likely due to the poor snow conditions in the rest of the state, but it was their loss as the snow in North Conway was great. Kevin Tilton put on another amazing race with really cool prizes(wrestling-style belts) for the overall WWSS winners. It was nice getting back into the snowshoe season and to see everybody but it was a rude awakening of my fitness.

I started out probably a bit too fast as it was but it felt comfortable for a while until it just fell apart and I pretty much had to walk it in. I thought I would be able to take a solid minute off my time from last year but instead took off a paltry twenty-something seconds. I will have to run a smarter race next week at Sidehiller if I plan on placing top ten there.

The start of the race



Amazingly, Whitaker Woods was actually my better race of the weekend. Amber and I headed down to Harvard for the Greater Boston Track Club Invitational Track meet where I was planning on running a fast mile. I had run a 4:49 at Reggie Lewis in early December and I was hoping to go under 4:40 at GBTC. For whatever reason though, I got caught up too slow in the first 400 and never could make up the time. Felt sluggish and like I had no turn-over. I guess that's what happens when I take time off running. However, Amber and Deidre joined me for a 10 mile run around the Charles River after the mile which with the post-run food at the Regal Beagle nearly made up for my poor performance.

We have Sidehiller this coming weekend and we may sign up for the BU Valentine Invitational for one more chance for me at the mile. Or I just might scrap it and start training for triathlons as we've got New Orleans 70.3 in April. I just really don't want to wake up early to get in the pool. Oh well.