Beneath The Moon..... Epic Weekend, Part I

Envision this; running on snow covered trails beneath a canopy of snow covered trees. The night is dark but the snow bright, the luminance of headlamps lighting your way through hills and valleys and across flat trails. Showering down upon you is moonlight form the full moon above you. Just moving and breathing in a place of such beauty and peace, you hardly notice that this is your 5th hour into the race, you have fallen several times, you are tired, and it is zero degrees out. You don't notice at all. All you feel is serenity, peacefulness and as weird as it seems, love all around you.

Part I of Epic weekend went off without a hitch at the Cast A Shadow Snowshoe Race. It's a 6 hour event in which you can race as a solo, team of 2, or team of 3. Each person runs a 2.5 mile loop on their snowshoes, and you keep trading off for 6 hours. Those with the most laps win.

Train-This brought four teams. Vince, Shannon and Curt made up our A Team. The rest of us were there for some good old down home base miles. We wanted our long runs, and we wanted to have fun.

Goose racing drew a terrific eclectic group of people, with mainly the hardcore trail runners showing up. Chet Josefski was there, who is an ultra marathoner (with his wife Diane), and he ran the entire 6 hours. Alan Hatch did as well. Molly Huff and Michelle Weiler were on the winning women's team with Linda Grossman (I believe). The previously mentioned are some stellar runners.

I haven't seen or spoken with them in a long time, but Boots and Ellen were there also. It was really, really nice to see Boots in a race again. He's a former professional duathlete with a lot of talent and unfortunately some injuries. He was always fun to watch race. As I was out running I saw Ellen running the opposite direction, and it was great to see her getting some training in. We used to run together years ago, so it was good to see her getting back at it too.

The most memorable were the high school cross country runners, it was a male team who wore pink shirts. "Snow Princess" was across the front. On the back I saw the names "Ariel, Cinderella...." And I can't remember the third. While I ran my first lap in about 20 minutes they flew through in 13. Astonishing.

A man passed me on my second loop and said "It feels great to pass Mary Eggers, because you crush me in triathlon." I took it as a compliment.

My fastest lap was my fourth. I knew Eggers 1 (Curt) was starting his fifth lap 3 minutes behind me, and I was determined to not be caught. That was my fastest lap and it hurt.

One of the things I worked on was on certain laps, pushing it just a little harder for certain points, just for fun. And somehow, it was fun.

All of our teams did incredibly. Most notable was Tina Hayter's Dad, who stepped into their relay at the last minute, when one of the members got called into work. Imagine that, 10am on a Saturday afternoon, receiving a call form your daughter. "Dad, want to run a 6 hr snowshoe race with us today?" and have the ability to do it. It was his first time on snowshoes.

In fact, Marian who was on my team did her first snowshoe run today also!

I have to give the "Trooper of the day" award to our son, Luc. At the last minute the impending blizzard that was happening in Buffalo thwarted out Grandparent pick up. So we decided to bring Luc along to the race and see how it went.

Little Luc was absolutely wonderful! For 6 hours he ran through snow alongside the team members. He cheered everyone on. He played with a friend's son, he sat in the warm lodge with us. There were 2 times when Curt and I were running simultaneously and the entire team chipped in and helped. Luc never cried, never whined, he just smiled and had a great time. I was so proud of him. It made for a really awesome family day. When you can spend the day with your family having insane fun, it is the silver lining for sure.

The weather turned foul however as the night drew to an end. Interstate 90, the 60 mile stretch of thruway that connects Rochester and Buffalo was become a parking lot, as cars were unable to make the trip due to whiteout conditions and immense snowfall. As much as I hated to make the decision, I had to cancel our trip to Buffalo and the Spin a Thon. It was just too unsafe, and with a chilc in the car, well just out of the question to try to make the trip.

So Epic weekend changes a little bit, as I will ride the same amount, in the coziness of my house (not even the garage) on the Computrainer, and I will ride the Lake Placid bike course. Not the atmosphere I was hoping for, but the volume!

This morning I am a little bit sore, in my lower back, but my workout doesn't start till noon so I can kick back a little bit.

So congratulations to the four Train-This Teams who competed yesterday:

Curt Eggers, Vince Luongo and Shannon Manzo

Tom Reho, Marian Arcelay and Myself (Marian has never snowshoed before, what a time to start!)

Kitima B., Kevin Chartrand, Sherry Hecker

Tina Hayter, Alan Hayter and Dana Sharp.

Thanks to our support crew:

Rolando Rivera, Mrs. Hayter, Camille Good and Luc Eggers!

Tonight Epic Weekend culminates at the Train-This superbowl party, where I have been guaranteed Kevin's "man chair" to sit and relax and watch the Colts win!

Pictures coming soon!

:-) Mary Eggers