TRAIL DES NEIGES-4TH FEMALE RUNNER

On March 15th, Nathalie, Steve and I (James) set off on a road trip to Mont Orford to take on the Trail des Neiges (Snow Trail) race. We had great weather for our travels and arrived in plenty of time to check in to our hotel and head over to the ski hills to get registered and geared up for the race start.

The start was at 7:30pm at the base of the ski hill. The challenge was pretty straightforward, but certainly not easy: Climb up and descend 3 peaks on skis, snowshoes or on foot. When I say climb up, I mean climb straight up the ski hills! I don't think much could have prepared us for the climbing we were about to do, but I am pretty certain that the 90+km Nathalie & I ran in the 2-day Snowgaine the previous weekend was probably not the best way to get ready for this race. Steve was also coming off a great but tough race at the first ever ITU Winter Triathlon in Quebec city the previous weekend. We all chose to do the race on foot, possibly out of the desire to have to carry the least amount of weight up those hills! 

The first climb was a bit of a teaser... a relatively steep climb up and a left turn, then downhill for a while to get to the start of the "real" first hill. Looking back at our heart rate monitor data, clearly we all completely redlined up this first teaser hill. Clearly this was going to be a long tough race! Steve led the way for our trio up the first hill, looking strong and steady. I struggled right from the start of the race and just did what I could to keep moving forward at a reasonable pace. Nathalie managed to recover nicely from her redline up the first small hill and then settled in for the rest of the race. Coming down the first hill was a bit of a relief, but still a fair bit of work trying to keep steady and fast under variable and changing footing. Nathalie decided that she would try to take the "easy" way down from the top - getting a running start and then sliding on her butt for about 10m past another competitor. But she was forced to get up and run the rest of the way down ;-)

The second hill had a nice surprise about 2/3 of the way up. There was an "off-trail" section that meandered through some woods before emerging back onto the ski trail. This was not a good place to be without skis or snowshoes... At times we were knee deep in soft snow with our poles buried up their handles. Steve seemed to fare a little better than Nathalie and I in this section. When I emerged at the top of this section, I learned a valuable lesson: look at the elevation chart before the race! I thought we were at the top - turns out we were not all that close at all. So up and up we went, into near zero visibility blizzard-like conditions, as the snow and wind whipped up on the highest climb of the race.  At times the only indication of where to go were the barely visible foot/snowshoe/ski tracks in front of you. It was a real relief and motivation to hear the voices and cheers of the volunteers at the top of the ski hill as we approached. But the 3.5km downhill made for some significant work to get back to the bottom of the ski hill. Thankfully there was an aid station at the bottom of the hill where we could grab a drink and some Fruit2 bars to refuel before heading up climb #3.

The third climb seemed to me to be the most tame of the 3 climbs. Perhaps my body was finally warmed up, or perhaps I was just too tired to notice anything anymore, or maybe I was just going so slow that it made things more bearable. Regardless, it was nice to be thinking that the end was getting closer with every step. Once again, it was great to hear the cheers of the volunteers at the top of the hill. As we got closer to the top, I noticed 2 other racers on foot just ahead of me. So I gathered up all the energy I had and hammered up and over the hilltop to try and get a little distance from them on may way down to the finish line. My strategy worked and I managed to keep both racers at bay for the rest of the descent. I crossed the finish line in around 1:44:00 and in 7th place on foot. I was met at the finish line by Steve, who already looked relaxed and refreshed - turns out Steve had a great race, finishing 4th of all runners on foot. Nathalie had a solid performance as well,  crossing the finish line in 4th place of the female runners on foot. After a few photos, we headed inside for the post race meal, drinks, and awards ceremony.  

This race was a great way for our team to cap off the winter racing season. The Trail des Neiges was a super fun and well-organized race that offered up one last (big!) challenge before we move on to our "spring training" schedule. It's really not like any other race we've done because of the fact that it's just straight up and down the wide open ski hills - no narrow trails where it's difficult to pass, no rocks and roots to slow you down. So, for me at least, it was more of a test of willpower than a test of strategy or technique. And what a great feeling to finally cross the finish line after braving all 3 summits and 1200m of climbing over 13km of race course. Congrats to the Endurance Aventure race organization for putting on another great race!

James     

SNOWGAINE 1st CO-ED 4th OVERALL

Team Raid International Gaspésie/x:act NUTRITION takes on the CNYO Snowgaine

On Friday March 7th, James, Nathalie, and John left Ottawa to meet Harper in Berne, NY, just outside of Albany, for the Central New York Orienteering Club's annual Snowgaine. The Snowgaine is a 2-day orienteering-style "rogaine" (meaning you try to get as many checkpoints as you can in any order in a specified amount of time) that allows the option of travel by foot, snowshoe, skis, bikes, or any other human powered mode of transportation. The rule though is that you have to keep whatever gear you take with you at ALL times (so you would need to bring your bike with you to go get a checkpoint that is in the woods). Since we are a running team, we chose not to bring our bikes with us to the race. As some members of our team had managed to clear the course for the last couple of years on foot with plenty of time to spare, we expected to be able to clear this course in the same way. But it seems the race director had other plans for us...

When we finally got our maps on Saturday morning (one hour before the 8:30am race start), we quickly realized that the course this year was really designed for one day of biking and one day on foot. Our only chance to clear the course was to attempt on Day 1 to run the same roads that many other teams would be biking, in the hopes that them having to carry their bikes in the snow to the off-road CPs would slow them down enough to give us a chance to keep pace. But mid-way through the day we realized that the course was just too long and we were forced to start skipping checkpoints and take the shortest route back to the finish line in order to avoid the huge penalties that come with arriving after the 8 hour cutoff. So we ended up doing a LOT of running and not getting as many CPs as we would have liked to. We covered almost 54km, most of which was on roads, and the rest was in thigh-deep snow. An exhausting day!

Day 2 went much more smoothly strategy-wise, but we were still pretty tired from the previous day's running. We managed to get lots of CPs and managed to cover another 37km on roads, snowshoe and snowmobile trails, and in deep snow (only this time on snowshoes). But ultimately we couldn't close the gap on the teams that used their bikes. We finished as the top co-ed team and 4th overall behind 3 teams that biked one of the two days (and only a few points out of 3rd place).

This was our first race together as a foursome for 2014 and it gave us a chance to test out our new Osprey Rev 18 packs, and to put our Nuun electrolytes and Fruit² Energy Fruit Bars to work for us. The Rev packs were really comfortable, whether running or hiking, and allowed all of us to have 8 hours of food and water right at our fingertips. We were also able to quickly and easily strap our snowshoes in/on our packs for the road running sections. The Nuun and Fruit² bars kept us going hour after hour out there as well. All in all a tough race but great early season training for the team.