2014 US Snowshoe Championships(or Snowshoe Couples)

Amber, aka the Chipmunk, aka Lil Chip, and I just arrived home from the US Snowshoe Championships held at Prospect Mountain in Woodford, Vermont. Tim Van Orden put on an amazing race and it was definitely worth the trip to our twin state. Amber should be writing up a blog all about how her race went, and I will try not to spoil it too much here but she did win her second gold!

She raced first and I was lucky to know the course well enough to be able to run around the course a bit and catch some video of her. It was amazing to see how strong she was running out there on the course. I put together the clips together into a little movie which you can watch below:

The men's race was after hers and unlike her race where she led start to finish, I started in the mid-pack. I'd like to blame all the running around I did cheering her on as the reason I didn't perform well but even if I hadn't, I probably would have only moved up a couple places in the standings(i.e. it didn't matter and was worth it to see her throughout the course). I started to think about how well she and I would hold up as a snowshoeing couple compared to some of the other ones out there.

Although Amber obviously held her own from the females side of things, I was definitely holding her back from the men's. That plus the thought of me having to cross reference all the racers ahead of me to see whether they had a significant other also racing was enough impetus to get me moving. These thoughts did get me to run the last few kilometers a bit faster to finish 36th overall but not good enough to be the fastest couple of the weekend. I've compiled a list of the top five fastest couples at Snowshoe Nationals. The Gall Family put the New England running couples to shame beating out the next closest couple by over four minutes. In NE's defense, both Sarah and Scott made the Nationals team so at least we were beat out by solid competition.

        Female Racer                               Male Racer                 Couples Time: 

1. Sarah Gall:  54:57                        Scott Gall: 42:37                    1:37:34
2. Ashley Krause: 54:44                   Ross Krause: 47:13                1:41:57 
3. Amber Ferreira 51:31                   Danny Ferreira: 50:58            1:42:29
4. Kristina Folcik  53:51                   Ryan Welts: 49:37                 1:43:28
5. Abbey Wood 55:01                     Sam Wood: 55:16                  1:50:17

Some caveats here: If Brian Rusiecki had raced with his wife Amy, Nate Jenkins with his wife Melissa Donais, or Abbey Mahoney with her husband Tim, I suspect the top five may have looked slightly different. 

Either way, a fun weekend and I am so proud of Amber's race performance. I suspect we will be seeing a lot more of those types of performances this year. 

Up Next:Amber heads to the Great White North to compete in a Winter Triathlon while I am sticking around to race the Granite State Snowshoe Championships. 

And if you haven't done so yet, make sure to follow Amber on Twitter at @ambertri and on Facebook at Amber Ferreira-Pro Triathlete for all the latest on her races as well as discount codes for her sponsors.