The 2011 Sandia Snowshoe Slog.

Me and Mo.  The only time I see Mo is
before I start or after I finish, when she's 
long done and all refreshed.  She's crazy fast.

Dear Diary,

Yesterday, I "ran" the Sandia Snowshoe race.

I wrote about this when I did it the first time and finished it in 1:17.  It's a 5K.  On big slippery clown feet.

In 2009, I had bad IT band stuff and it was sandwiched in between Bandera and Ghost Town, where I DNFd.  I didn't go.

 In 2010, it was called on account of snow.  No, I am not making that up.  So this year, they had it, and a bunch of my New Mexico Outlaws peeps were there.

I dressed in a Buff Band babushka.  I hadn't put on the snowshoes since 2008, and wasn't sure how to put them on again.  I have RedFeather racing snowshoes, which is pretty damned funny considering it takes an hour or more for me to do these 3.2 in them.  That's, like, a 19-minute mile.  Of course, I have the same size of showshoes as Dread Pirate, and I outweigh her by a good 15-20 pounds.  Luckily, the snow was pretty hard and crunchy.

Being as I was actually trained for this, and was 30 pounds lighter this time, I figured to do better, even given my crappy asthma stuff going on.  I wore a neoprene face nose mask thing, which rocks for asthmatics in very cold dry air.

The first mile kicks ass.   It's mostly downhill.  The loop course drops down about 300 feet.  You don't even notice the whole lack of oxygen thing.  I found out how deep the snow was the only time I fell over - I put my hand down to stop myself and it went in all the way past my elbow.

The second mile: not to much. This is when it turns and starts to head back up the hill.

The third mile: well, you Hate. Everybody.  especially the spry elderly people with walking sticks that can hike on snowshoes way faster than you can.  It's tempting to trip them, but don't.  It's not nice.  And there's witnesses.

One thing to the guy that kept stopping to sit down and rest and then shouting "on your left" so that everyone would step aside after every single rest when he started blazing down the trail again: The reason I didn't move the third time you did this is because I was tired, and when I'm tired I'm a bit of a bitch.  Learn to pace yourself better next time.

Ahem.

Ninja snow-shoe warriors: DP and me.
Like all Outlaws, she was done far
ahead of me.     

As exhausted as I was a week after my last ultra, I did it 17 minutes faster than last time I did it.  I believe I was the last of the Outlaws to finish.  But then, the other Outlaws didn't run 38.5 miles less than a week prior, so suck it.

This is a cool little race.  It was freezing-ass cold up at 10,000 feet and the wind was blowing, but there was donut holes, hot coffee, and cheese.  There was other stuff, too, but hey: DONUT HOLES. HOT COFFEE.  CHEESE.

Totally worth the breathlessness, freezing cold, and hard 5K hike.  Mind you, I knew this would be hard.  I did it, as always, to challenge myself.

Later, I made sweet potato and red bean chipotle chili.  And tater tots.  I ate it in front of a crackling fire, watching The Lake House with my Sweet Baboo.  Feel free to hate me.

Life should be an adventure.  If it's not, go figure out how to make it one.  Right now.  Adventures aren't easy, and sometimes they aren't fun.  Sometimes, even the short ones, you go into knowing that they are hard.  But then you look back on them and feel satisfied, and worthy of whatever awful thing you decide to eat afterward.

"There is a limit to how much the body can endure.  Go find it."

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