Snowshoe Race II, by Dave

Dave and Steven travelled to the second snowshoe race this past weekend and it looks like they had a great time! Big thanks to Dave for helping me keep this blog thing going for races I can't make it to!

Snowshoe Powerade Race #2 July 25-27:

Oh yeah.......Snowshoe #2! This time I was really stoked because I had the family coming up with me! We left at 5am on Thursday morning and I was swimming with my son at Split Rock Pool by 1pm.

Friday morning I decided to take it easy and go down to the lake on the Basin side for some hiking with the family. Around noon I headed back to the condo and then out to the Western Territory to check out the race course for the first time. After my first run I was smiling ear to ear......the track was SICK! The course had a bit of everything.......road gap, off camber traverses, step downs, steeps, rocks, super steep sections with multiple turns, gnarly rock gardens (lower Hare Ball), rock drop to flat, and a brand new section that was wide open high speed with a couple of jumps! After run number one I hooked up with my riding partner in crime Steven T. We proceeded to do runs almost up until the bus stopped at 5pm. Headed back to the condo to get cleaned up and then took Tami and Ryan out to dinner. After dinner they were playing The Fantastic Four on a big screen in the village and since my 4 ½ year old is in a "super hero phase" right now it was a must see!

Woke up Saturday to some more spectacular weather. Infact, it didn't rain all weekend with the highs being in the mid 70's.......nice! Headed out to the race track of course to keep turning runs out. The Western lift was running so you could get in more runs than you could handle. I was feeling really comfortable on the course and having a good time and then......SLAM! I piled it up pretty good in some rocks hitting my right knee and hip (my hip is a nice shade of purple as I type this haha!). I was hurting pretty bad and actually sat on the side of the trail for about a half hour before I decided to continue. Eventually I was able to get back on the bike and continue practice. It took a couple of runs, but I got comfortable again and by the end of practice was having a good time again. After practice I decided to ice down the knee and then headed over to the pool to swim with Ryan and Tami.

Sunday morning I woke up and was really feeling my age! It was pretty funny actually......I had to soak in hot water for about 20 minutes to loosen up my hip. By the time I got suited up and down to the track I was about 40 minutes late for the 9am-11am practice session. The pedal from the village down to the race track actually got the knee and hip feeling pretty good. I took the first run at a pretty chilled out pace, but I realized that the injuries weren’t going to affect my race run much at all. Practice ended at 11am so I headed over to the start shack to see my start time.........3:26 pm!! So I headed back to the condo for some food and to elevate my right leg. Was pretty cool too because I got to see Carlos Sastre take the top spot on the podium for the Tour de France. At about 1:30pm I headed back over to the trails to warm up. I heard things were running ahead of schedule and start times were pushed back around 25 minutes. So Tami and Ryan took the chairlift down to the finish line and I went to do a few warm-up runs. I was using a new trail called Ninja Bob and was linking it up with Powerline sometimes and Sweet Dreams sometimes. Got back to the top just as they were lining up my class....so I had about 20 minutes to race time!

My race run went pretty well. There were several places where I knew I needed to concentrate to make my lines and I did in those places, but got off track in a few places where I wouldn’t have expected it......I’m learning thats racing! Anyways, I crossed the finish line and was greeted by my wife and son! And Tami told me that I had the quickest time in my class.......for the moment! They lined us up from last place to first from the race the previous month which I finished 6th. So the 5 fastest guys were still to come. Needless to say that the start order pretty much held true to form because I ended up in 5th place and only 6 seconds off the podium. I was definitely stoked to move up a place and actually have a more competitive time from the previous month, but I still wanted to get on that podium! I have one more chance next month.......so we shall see!

As for SEI "young gun" Steven T.......another very impressive performance! Steven ended up flatting in the rock garden and had to finish the race on a flat. Despite the flat Steven still got on the podium in 3rd place and only two seconds off of second place! So big props and congratulations once again to my young badass teammate!

Totally looking forward to the finale in August.......Snowshoe is putting together some awesome race tracks this season!