It has been a looong time since I put on a pair of snowshoes and raced. My last memories of snowshoe racing were entirely negative. I remember coming into the race a little banged up and out of shape with the first, what I would call, major injury of my professional career. Mentally and physically, I was not ready to race let alone run in snowshoes. Since then I had developed a sort of fear of snowshoeing. Afraid I'd get hurt, afraid to lose, afraid to try something I wasn't good at. Snowshoeing itself feels a little wonky and certainly doesn't fit every running style.
At the time of my first event in snowshoes I found that I had problems clipping my inside legs and hitting my shins frequently. I also had problems with my back and SI joint. Some of that may have happened just before the snowshoes came into play, but in all honesty it was so long ago I cant separate the 2 so for the last years I blamed it on snowshoeing. To some degree, even following this past weekends adventures, I feel snowshoeing can be detrimental based on your individual form. Similar to the idea that downhill running doesn't fit every runner and leaves many injured. The difference this time around in my opinion was that my form is slightly better along with my gait as compared to a much younger and injured version of myself 7 years ago.
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| To the right: My welcome crew of local future stars! |
This year the 2017 World Snowshoe Championships were to take place in the USA in the beautiful mountains of Saranac Lake, New York. The event brought a lot to the table for me in terms of challenges and adventure. I love the Adirondacks and Dewey (race site) mountain was nestled right in the middle of them in a small town known for great mountain running and skiing. One of the most intriguing factors behind my decision was that the Championship would be in the USA for the first time ever! I wanted to make sure we had some USA athletes competing for medals in our home country. Most of all I wanted a new challenge for the 2017 season, a true challenge in that I really didn't want to give snowshoeing another try. I was uncomfortable with the idea of competing in a snowshoe World Championship with little experience but, for some reason, I love putting myself in odd positions where I'm forced to find a way to overcome mental and physical road blocks. It is always tough to try something that you feel you do not have the best skill set for. This winter I had started to notice that I enjoyed running over snow. Not something I've ever really enjoyed so this was truly out of the norm. I started wondering what snowshoeing would be like if I picked it up again. Battled the idea in my head for some time and eventually just went to the garage, found my old snowshoes, and headed to high country in search of snow. Right off the bat, snowshoeing felt way more comfortable this time around. The decision was made. I was heading to World's to see what I could do..
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| Photo by Saranac ADK, edit by Thomas G. |
Upon arrival I noticed it was unusually warm, as much of the USA has been this winter. I ended up staying with the Mallach family, which ended up being a sign of good things to come. Not only were they extremely down to earth, but they could BAKE! Not like your favorite boxed cookies and brownies, but like homemade goodness on par with Jewish bakeries I've been to in NYC. Even baked some Challah bread (Jewish Ceremonial bread), which I demolished!
Eventually after the baked goods and of course scallops, I scoped out the course. Noticed lots of ice all along the trails. Thankfully I have been bringing along either my Merrell All Out Terra Ice with tungsten spikes already in the outsole or my Kahtoola Nano Spikes for extremely icy conditions. I tested out the course with no slips, but many concerns for snowshoeing. There was a lot of melting going down along with shear ice for a good chunk of the backside of the loop we were to run 2 times for a total of 8k. With warm temps all the way up until race day, I started to wonder if we'd even have a race.
Thankfully the local community at Saranac worked countless hours shoveling snow and bringing in snow from other locations, piling it on the trails to rid some of the ice and create snow covered paths for race day. However, after trying my snowshoes out on the course I was still concerned about the challenge of now having to run steep terrain atop ice in a few spots! I was a complete rookie, but again, I love challenges so I came up with some race strategies hoping I could just stay on my feet. If that was not enough drama, with the recent changes to immigration and visa's to America, the Indian team lost their visa status and were not able to race. Again, the community showed their heart and children in Middle Schools, locals and even the extremely charismatic Mayor Clyde Rabideau of Saranac got together sending letters to Congress and aiding our fellow snowshoe athletes. The week before the race I recall seeing a post that the Indian athletes would be allowed to come to the race! I truly believe without the Indian athletes there, the event would have lost a lot of excitement, at least for me. Deep down, I felt embarrassed as an American that these athlete had to experience something like this ahead of competition in the country I call home. Needless to say, I felt so much more excited about the event once I got word they'd be on the line. Thank you city of Saranac and Mayor Rabideau for the hard work you all did to get our International field together.
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| Photo by Saranac Lake ADK |
One reassuring idea that I had to tell myself as I was sliding around was that "we all had to deal with the same conditions". I came in mentally and physically prepared for running on powder. I knew that I was now at a disadvantage going up against veterans of the sport including highly decorated Josiah M., and 2-Time Champions David L. (Canada) and Stephane R. (France). The race also had a good buddy and training partner Zach M. whom I ran on snowshoes with recently. I knew he'd also be a contender with how well he handled powder. There were a few athletes that would be stronger over the ice so it was important that I stay on my feet to give my self a shot at a medal. I also noticed on race day, lots of guys with great foot speed and trail running credentials toeing the line. Of course this meant the race would be honest from the gun. The race went out blazing, we were all pretty much within 4 seconds coming into the first kilometer.
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| Photo by Saranac Lake ADK |
Once the climbing started the field strung out quick. The climbing was tough with lots of snow caving in from the warm temps and switchbacks.. Ugh those hurt. I had a scare early around 3k where I stepped and my snowshoe caved into some deep snow/foliage and my foots' position shifted slightly to an awkward position. I slowed for a few steps to see if my foot placement would improve. Thankfully, I was able to fix it as the pack was starting to pull back some time. As I neared the ice section, nervous, I braced for impact. I was pretty confident I would fall, but I knew if I could slow a bit that if I fell it wouldn't be too bad. The snowshoes held up fine and it seemed nobody really was able to run on the ice any better than anyone else so it became more of a barrier than an area where a decisive victory could be decided. I came around completing lap 1 with a decent lead that could easily have been eaten up in 1 lap. So, I had no time to fall off pace
Lap 2 started off much the same as Lap 1 except now the crowd had gotten far more energetic as the race was 4k from finishing. I got a huge jolt from the crowd cheers and shot up Dewey one last time. Took a look back as we hit the peak, then stayed on my feet across the ice. A sigh of relief as I knew I had overcome a challenge and a fear of snowshoe racing that had bogged me down for years. The crowd was so loud that I could even hear myself breathing as I hit the line leading Team USA to Gold in the United State of America's first time hosting the Championship!
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Merrell Athletes take home the Gold for Men and Women
Photo by Marcus |
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Photo by Marcus
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Huge thank you to my sponsors Ultimate Direction, Merrell, Kahtoola, Fuel 100, Garden of Life, and Action Potential PT! Also, huge thanks to the community of volunteers at Saranac Lake for working hard to make sure we had a course. Without you guys there would not have been a race!
Stay tuned for a short video catching some views from my experience this past weekend, including the scariest airplane ride of my life! I think I will invest in some adult diapers in the future if I ever get on a plane like that again. Seriously, don't judge me!!!
1 comment:
This athlete is a class act. the other Joe G.
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