Constitution Hill 3.7 mile snowshoe race

Snowshoe double – part 2

The second part of the first snowshoe season was a return to Lanesboro MA for the Constitution hill 3.6 mile race.  I had a lot of fun at this one last year, taking it out hard in the 3’ of un-tracked snow and working with Tim Van Orden and Tim Mahoney.  This year there was less snow but it was similarly untracked for long stretches.

I hit the road for a longer warm-up to loosen up a bit from the race on the previous day.  After that I switched into snowshoes and headed out for another mile and packed out a little path where I planned to go at the start.  The first kilometer of the course looped a big field and was essentially untracked.

When the horn sounded I immediately found myself in the lead, which was fine by me because it meant I could keep the pace slow.  I threw in some fast running on a little snowmobile track but TiVo then went by when we got back in the deep snow.  Tim M then took the lead for a little and we sat behind him until the loop was completed.  At that point I took off at a pace I knew I couldn’t maintain but I wanted to put some distance on Tim (M).  TiVo came along with me and very much like last year took the lead at 14 minutes in.  By the time we hit the base of the hill he had 13 seconds on me.  About ½ way up the 500’ climb I took the lead and he tucked in.  I snuck a look back to see Tim M and Ross Krause (both CMS teammates) not far behind.  Breaking trail is a lot of work!  TiVo said he’d take over whenever I wanted and just as we reached the summit ridge I waived him around.  He was off like a shot!  The ridge was untracked but nowhere near as deep as last year.  He motored away and I just tried to stay on my feet on stay in second place.  Not much changed in the last ½ mile of descending and TiVo took his first win of the year and I took second.  CMS took the first four places.

We grabbed a few other runners and headed out for a nice easy road run warm-down to close the books on my double-race weekend.  Well, I still had over 150 miles of driving to go!

Weekend totals

Drive – 500 miles

Snowshoe – 15+ miles

Results

1 Tim Van Orden            32:58    m 43 CMS

2 Dave Dunham              33:40    m 47 CMS

3 Tim Mahoney              33:58    m 32 CMS

4 Ross Krause                34:18    m 32 CMS

5 Dave Merkt                 34:23    m 28

6 Steve Dowsett             34:55    m 23

7 Rich Teal                    35:08    m 33

8 Ashley Krause             38:16    f 34 CMS

9 John Agosto                38:37    m 47

10 Erik Wight                 38:52    m 52