Jennifer's report from the Pittsfield VT snowshoe marathon

I was just the dopey girl at the back (were we the only two who did the full marathon?) I was telling my friend Frida --fellow adventure racer and the one who won the marathon for the women-- that the only time I get that "killer instinct" is when I'm at the front. Other than that, I just have fun. So, after I followed a group of people that went off course up to the top of the sledding hill right at the start-- D'oh!-- I just had fun.

Between the extra distance and the confusion, that had to be 1/2 an hour lost. Oh well. I just chalked it up as a training day and it's a good thing or I would have gotten even more frustrated when my snowshoes started balling up with packed snow since it was so warm. It was awful. I should have hit them with PAM before the start. Urgh! I almost turned around before mile 2 of the second lap they were so bad, but reminded myself that "I was just putting in training miles" and kept going. I was so exhausted from the balled up snow that by the time I reached mile 4 (of 2nd loop or ~17 miles) that I was walking even on the road. Luckily, the sun eventually
went behind the clouds and by the time I got to the last 4 miles (after the
road sections), the snow was colder and no longer balling up.

The course was probably a mile or so short, but plenty of elevation gain kept it solid. There were a lot of snowmobile trails or even dirt roads, so not much of the singletrack that many snowshoe racers love, but finishing times would have been quite a bit different if that was the case.

Paul Low broke 4 hours with a 3:58 finish, Leigh Schmitt was 10 minutes back, then Todd Walker and Chad Denning. I think Frida was about 5 hours? I was closer to 6 hours or even over (I haven't seen official finish times yet).

My a$$ hurts from "sledding" on my butt (not a sled) on mile 25-26. Heehee. Pretty funny actually. I did my first self-arrest using my finger nails. I overheard a couple of young men who looked like they probably own both JackAss movies on DVD reporting to Andy, the RD, that, "Yeah.... that's pretty sketchy, actually."

I am thrilled out of my mind for Frida. She totally kicked butt and even had non-racing snowshoes on. She's amazing. We had a ton of fun over the weekend. It was a real "destination" type event-- you want to go and stay for the party.