February challenge completed!

I'd been thinking about a snowshoeing challenge for the month of February, but then the weather derailed my plans. Rain, sleet, freezing rain, and the ever-popular ice pellets were more prevalent than snow this year in southwestern Vermont.

Friday we finally got 2-3 inches of white, fluffy snow. Yes, it was on top of ice, but it was still snow, and with snow comes snowshoeing. Mike agreed to snowshoe with me to Lye Brook Falls, a gorgeous hike within the Lye Brook Wilderness area in Manchester. The falls are about 160 feet tall, and used to be transversed by a railroad used for logging in the early 1900's.

The hike to the Falls is 2.5 miles according to the Forest Service sign. It took us 1 hour and 15 minutes , and we were the first ones to walk through the fresh snow for most of the way. Much of the path follows the old railroad bed, but there were many small yet fast-moving streams we crossed, and one particularly treacherous section that dropped off steeply just to the edge of the trail. I felt like a mountain goat for the last 30 minutes of the hike up to the Falls.

Usually you can hear the roar of the water as you approach the Falls, but yesterday it was eerily silent. We found out why when we reached the end of the trail: the Falls were frozen! Some water was running under all the ice, but not enough that you could see or hear. The frozen water was spectacular, and it made me wonder about the power that will be unleashed when it melts.

On the hike back down to the car we passed a couple snowshoeing up. They were the only people we saw the entire way on this usually popular hike. It was peaceful snowshoeing through the pine tree forest, stepping over downed trees, and looking for animal tracks in the fresh snow.

Challenges so far to celebrate turning 50 in June, 2008:

June 2007 - Green Mountain Relay (200 miles, 12 people, 2 vans, about 34 hours)

July 2007 - Rutland 5K trail race (with Mike!)

August 2007 - Olympic distance triathlon at Lake Dunmore, part of the Vermont Sun series

September 2007 - bike century in Saratoga (very rainy)

October 2007 - Cape Cod Marathon (no rain)

November 2007 - hike to the top of Mt. Equinox (again with Mike)

December 2007 - I love Woodford 4 mile snowshoe race (yep, running on snowshoes)

January 2008 - Chevron Houston marathon with my sister, Diane

I don't have anything specifc planned yet for March, but there are a few ideas perculating. I'm running the More Half-Marathon in NYC in April with my training team, and then don't have anything scheduled for May or June. I'm thinking about a possible marathon in June.....

If you have ideas or suggestions for a challenge, let me know!

December goal met

My challenge for December was the 3.5 mile "I Love Woodford" snowshoe race yeld yesterday in Woodford, VT. There was about 18 inches of snow on the ground, and it was fairly balmy with temperatures in the low 30's and no wind. 100 hardy people showed up to run the race through the woods of the state park.

Not only is Woodford a beautiful area, but running on snowshoes is a hoot. Once you get through the oxygen deprivation of trying to run (shuffle?) through snow on snowshoes, usually up hill, it becomes pure joy. When was the last time you went out in the woods to play? As I sped up near the finish, a photographer told me it looked like I was having a lot of fun. I couldn't stop smiling, because I was having a great time.

Of course, the knowledge that there was homemade, piping hot vegetable soup waiting at the finish helped enormously. Luckily I'm slow plus I stayed to help out at the finish line, so most of the cookies were gone by the time I got there.

That makes 7 monthly challenges I've completed since I turned 49 in June:

June: Vermont relay race

July: Rutland trail run

August: Olympic distance triathlon at Lake Dunmore

September: bike century in Saratoga, NY

October: Cape Code marathon

November: hike up Mt. Equinox with my husband

December: I love Woodford snowshoe race

Next up in January is the Houston marathon with my sister. Stay tuned!

Snowshoeing!

I live in Vermont, where winter just isn't any fun unless we have snow. Lucky us - Sunday and Monday we had our first big snowstorm of the year, and we ended up with about 10 inches of fresh powder.

Today was the perfect winter day: sunny, cold, and snow! It was 7 degrees when I woke up, but by the time I met my friend Fern for snowshoeing, we had a heat wave: 25 degrees!

According to the calorie burn estimator at http://www.calorieking.com/, I burned 460 calories during my one-hour romp in the snow. That's about 100 more calories than I would burn running for the same amount of time, because snowshoeing is hard work! Of course, we walked primarily on snowmobile trails, so only had to "break trail" as we call it, for a short period of time. Nothing in Vermont is flat, so we went up and down hills the entire way.

I'm looking forward to our running club's snowshoe race later this month. It's really difficult to actually run wearing snowshoes, but going as fast as I can through the mountains in Woodford, Vermont, is a great way to spend the morning. Don't let this picture fool you; on most of my snowshoe jaunts I'm following a trail that's only wide enough for one person, with trees all around. If you live where there's snow, grab a pair of snowshoes and start walking!