Pine Belt Pacers Forum

I am in the mountains of Northern NM at an elevation of 8000 feet, visiting a friend, Mary Ruth, that I knew when I lived in Houston. She was one of my running buddies and qualified for Boston the same year that I did. Over the years, we have had many adventures. This year is no different.

As I sit here looking out her bedroom window, there is a young buck eating alfalfa which Mary Ruth spread on the ground just below the window. This is the third different deer that has visited within the past 30 minutes. The area where Mary Ruth lives is surrounded by a state park where hunting is not allowed, so these deer feel pretty safe.

Northern NM has had quite a bit of snow. There's probably 2-3 feet on the ground is some places, but the main roads and those leading to her home have been plowed, although there are some areas which still have several inches of packed snow. This morning I ran/walked 5 miles, wearing YakTrax which are placed on the bottom of the shoe and provide very good traction. The temperature was 19 degree when I started and 29 degrees when I finished. The sun was very warm and there was very little wind. This was a new experience, having never run in snow.

This afternoon we went cross country skiing. This was the second time that I have done this and it is so much fun. We were out for about an hour and I'm sure my arms will be sore tomorrow. I wish I had worn my Garmin so that I could know how far we went.

I'm sure that tomorrow will be a new adventure about which I will report.

On Sunday I am going to do a non-competitive cross country or snowshoe event which is a part of a much more competitive festival of races to be held about 10 miles North of Chama, NM. While reading about the event, I followed a link to this article about a similar event that was held last year. This is absolutely nuts! Can you imagine how the people felt when they got to their bikes and they were totally trashed? Read on...

Charges Filed in Mt. Taylor Quad Accident
Written by Bruce Daniels - ABQnewsSeeker
Tuesday, 04 March 2008 00:30

Forest Service worker accused of DUI after plowing into 23 bicycles last month.

The Mount Taylor Winter Quadrathlon is grueling enough -- it starts with a 13-mile bike race from Grants, a 5-mile run on graveled roads, then a 2-mile cross-country ski over a rugged course, a climb on snowshoes to the 11,301-foot summit, and then all over again.

But there was an unexpected wrinkle for the 25th running of the Mount Taylor Quad last month -- 23 bicycles owned by competitors were damaged when a green truck plowed into them, narrowly missed volunteers and crashed through bleachers before coming to an abrupt stop at a large tree, the Cibola County Beacon reported.

Miraculously, no one was hurt.

But the driver of the truck, a U.S. Forest Service employee named Craig Trinkle, has been charged with driving under the influence of intoxicating liquor or drugs in connection with the accident, the Beacon reported.

According to a report filed by the New Mexico State Police, Trinkle was found to have alcohol, marijuana and several prescription drugs in his system, the Beacon said.

When the runaway truck finally came to a halt by slamming into the tree, the wheels were still spinning, so State Police Officer Santiago Grijalva reached inside and turned off the ignition, according to police reports.

Trinkle appeared to be having a seizure and was taken to a hospital by ambulance where he was released two days after the Feb. 17 incident, the Beacon reported.

"We will just have to wait and see how that all ends up in court," District Ranger Chuck Hagerdon told the Beacon. "We're just thankful nobody was hurt."

Hagerdon said Trinkle remains on medical leave and that his office will be conducting its own review of the incident.

Athletes whose bicycles were damaged in the incident have been advised to call 1-877-372-7248 and ask to be connected to the claims staff, the Beacon reported.

The Mount Taylor Quadrathlon Web site also lists an e-mail address for those with damaged bicycles.

Becky Ryder
Hattiesburg, MS
hryder29@comcast.net

You have the wildest adventures!! I want to be like you when I grow up!!

Today's weather was absolutely beautiful. Even though the temperature was below 10 degrees last night, once the morning fog cleared, the sun was very warm. I think the high temp was about 40 degrees, but it felt a lot warmer.

The adventure of the day was to snowshoe. I have tried this a couple of times before, but only for relatively short distances. The friend, Mary Ruth, that I am visiting plans to do a 5K competitive snowshoe event on Sunday and she wanted to see how quickly she could cover 3 miles.

Prior to starting, I had already run 4 miles on the treadmill and I quickly determined that snowshoeing was not something that I would want to do for fitness. First of all, it is so equipment intense. I had to borrow boots from Mary Ruth. Her foot is about one size larger than mine so I had to wear two pair of thick socks. Then it takes forever to adjust the snowshoes so that they fit properly. Lastly, I had to use ski poles and the ones that she had were too difficult to adjust so I just used them even though they were too tall. All of this fooling around with equipment made me appreciate how simple running can be---if you want it to be.

Finally, we got started and Mary Ruth who has had some experience with this activity, quickly moved ahead of me. After about a half mile we started up a pretty steep hill and she was long gone. I decided that I would turn around at one mile and we'd probably end up back at the house at the same time.

I now know that I much prefer cross country skiing to snowshoeing. The only problem is that it also requires so much equipment. Luckily, I have been able to borrow boots, skis and poles. I plan to try that again tomorrow and then I'll probably do that at the non-competitive event on Sunday.

I attempted to post this yesterday. Here goes again:

Tomorrow is the Chama Chili Ski Festival and from the first time I heard
about it, my original plan has been to do the non-competitive 1K
snowshoe event. Then on Wednesday I spent a couple of hours learning how to cross country ski and I thought maybe I'd do that. Yesterday I snowshoed 2 miles and decided I would stick with the idea of skiing.

Then, this morning we drove to the area where the event will be held. It is at the Cumbres Pass which is just North of the NM/CO border at about 10,000 feet. Once I saw how steep some of the course was, I quickly determined that I was in no way capable of skiing. After a bit of discussion, my friend and I decided to drive to Pagosa Springs and talk to some "experts" about snowshoes, technique, etc. We found a young man at a ski shop who was very helpful. My friend, who already has 5-6 pairs of snowshoes of various sizes ended up buying another pair and I got useful information that put me at ease with my snowshoe effort. So, on the way back to my friends house, we stopped at the place where they were having the event registration and I changed to the competitive 5K snowshoe event. The main reason I did that is that I know I can walk a 5K, so surely I can cover that distance on snowshoes. It also helped that I knew that last year there were no female entries in the 60-69 AG.

Throughout my life I have really enjoyed trying new activities and I always wanted to do some sort of snow related competition. This should be interesting.

It is now 8:00 am and the temperature is 6 degrees. The high for the day is predicted to be 45-50 degrees, but where we are doing the snowshoe event is about 2,000 feet higher in elevation, 10,000 feet, so it will be colder. The conditions should be OK as long as the sun is out and the wind is low.

We will first drive 25 miles to Chama to have a breakfast buffet with other race participants. This is certainly different from running where you wouldn't want to do all that eating prior to competition. We will then drive 15 miles to the pass where the first event is at 11:00 am. Our event starts last, so it will probably be at about 11:30-12:00.

Last night I finally got the snoowshoes and the poles adjusted so that I feel a lot better about doing this. It certainly requires more attention to equipment detail than does running.

A report to follow later today.

Here is a copy of the race report that I will be posting to the website:

I can now add completing a snowshoe race to my list of life accomplishments. The event was a part of a festival of races held at Cumbres Pass in Southern Colorado just North of the NM line. The elevation is about 10,000 feet. I live at about 200 feet so you can see what a change this was for me. Also I've only been on snowshoes 3-4 times and only once for a distance of over 2 miles.

There were 25 participants in the snowshoe event and about 75 in the cross country skiing. I am so glad I decided not to do that. I would probably still be out on the course.

The course was very well designed, with the exception that it is probably a bit long. According to my Garmin, the distance was 3.35 miles, instead of the 3.1. Many of the experienced cross country people also said it was long. The people who put on the race did a lot of work to make it possible to hold an event in such a beautiful area. At one point we went through Aspens and I felt like I was in a dream. That feeling only lasted until we immediately faced a very steep grade.

I have been running for over 40 years and have competed in hundreds of races. I think this was the first time that I finished last when I considered myself to be competing. My time for the 3.35 miles was 1:12:07. My excuses are that my running shoes did not work very well in the snowshoes, the snowshoes were too long and too heavy, and I was sucking air, trying to get enough oxygen, the entire way.

This is something that I'm glad I did, but I'm not sure I will ever do again. My friend did quite well, winning the 60+ age group. She's planning to start getting serious about the sport. Me---I'll head back to MS and run on my low elevation flat courses. I'll think twice before I ever again complain about the hills of South Mississippi.

This morning we drove 2 hours from Mary Ruth's house to Santa Fe. Then we did a 5 mile hike on a snow covered mountain trail. It was warm enough that the snow was melting in many places, so the trail was not too bad, except for being muddy in places. We wore the YakTrax on our shoes and that gave us good traction on the icy places. I had a hard time on the way up, probably due to yesterday's snowshoe effort. Going down the mountain felt good.

Tomorrow we will drive to Albuquerque for my flight home. I have learned a great deal about winter sports. Mostly I've learned that they require a great deal of equipment and planning. I prefer running in Mississippi.