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Quick, without cheating, take a shot at this GMAT (Green Mountains Aptitude Test) sample question: A snowshoe race is...
1. A great workout;
2. A contradiction in terms;
3. A point in favor of snowmobiles for all;
4. Proof that if it involves a stopwatch, a course, and a finish line, Dave Dunham
will find and conquer it;
5. All of the above.
Astute test-takers quickly recognize that option "5," whenever present, is always correct. Astute endurance athletes, on the other hand, faced variously but infrequently with mountains, trails, and even snow, are not as quick to understand an even more important point: Not all distance-running endeavors are created equal.
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Riding the crest of an avalanche that is sweeping through the CMS men's racing team with increasing force, I accepted an invitation from Mr. Dunham to accompany him to the
(10th Annual) Clearwater Sports 8K Snowshoe Race in Warren, Vermont, a town only a short distance from colonized territory. Before today my feet had never been encased in anything as exotic as snowshoes, excluding the various flippers and slippers that would have served me just as well on the hill-stacked and well-packed powder of the Blueberry Nordic Ski Center. Yet I was confident that because running is running, after all, I would fare just as well as ever; I'd just move a bit more slowly and look somewhat more foolish than usual in the process of gallivanting about the course. In this assessment I erred only in degree.
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Clearwater Sports
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Dave Dunham
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Dave (left) had helpfully brought along an array of snowshoes for me to choose from. After carefully evaluating all of them, I selected a pair completely at random and shoved my Reebok-clad pups into the straps thereon, hoping, for the most part, that they would not fall off in the race and cost me precious hours in re-securing them. The snowshoes, nothing like the ungainly wooden-wicker things our Neanderthal ancestors favored, measured about 24" by 9", give or take. They were within regulation but anything but regular. Still, as we joined teammate
Rich Bolt for a warm-up, I figured based on the quasi-efficient shuffle I quite naturally assumed that I would at least survive and, as a bonus, likely avoid torn ligaments, physical therapists and such in the bargain. On the whole the warm-up accomplished two things: It allowed me to acclimate to my newfound gear and it wore out my damn legs, already taxed by the burden of my highest-ever one-week mileage total over the past seven days. It was a reasonable-trade off. |
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About fifty of us lined up for the start at high noon. At the gun (and the starter, eschewing the traditional pistol, used a real gun; a 22-caliber rifle, I believe, pointed safely just over our heads) Rich took off with a vengeance, Dave and a few others gave chase, and I settled into a "pace" I had absolutely no idea would prove tenable or not. A quarter-mile into the race, Rich was a good thirty seconds ahead, and that was damned unfair, as was the fact that I was already tired as I duck-walked up the first of many inclines.
If nothing else the course was well-groomed and the footing, or shoeing, solid. I found myself alone after the first half of the first loop, at 5K the slightly longer of the two the course comprised. I quickly set aside any thoughts of "competing" and took comfort in any excuses I, as a newcomer, would be welcome to later employ. I passed by the clock at the 5K mark in 24:59, egged on by the rousing cheers of the finish-line personnel gathered around the lone finish-line landmark, a Port-o-Let, as a questionable source of warmth. |
Richard Bolt
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By now I was in a hurry to finish, but was hardly hurrying. I'd seen moss move through the forest at a faster pace than I felt I was managing. The frustration of racing in snowshoes once fatigue sets in is not unlike that of running uphill, which is especially vexing when one is in fact charging, or trying to, down a steep incline. My form was more or less the same as in conventional footwear but a bit more bow-legged, as I was being careful not to cross the shoes' heels or literally kick my own ass. With no one catchable on the horizon and no one in sight behind me, I took solace in the fact that I would not be forced to undertake the humiliating endeavor of sprinting in these gawdawful manacles. | However, I was wrong in this also, for as I approached the finish I could see the clock inexorably clicking its way toward the 40:00 barrier. Lunging along with the uncanny grace of a constipated woodchuck, I rambled across the line in 39:59, claiming, for all time, seventh place in the 2002 Clearwater Sports 8K, even splits, and a new dimension to my running. Rich took top honors in under 34:51 and Dave was about twenty-seven seconds behind; the two of them would head to Michigan for the National Snowshoe Championships the following weekend.
Hopefully, this foray into "alternative running" is as close as I'll ever get to
Penguinity. But will it be my last? Well, next time, I'd like to stay in the same area code as Rich and Dave. Doesn't seem like to much to ask, right?; after all, it's just running...
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THE Kevin Beck
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