Feel Good Farm Snowshoe Race

Finally, enough snow on the ground to start the Granite State Snowshoe Series. After postponing the first two races to February, I was really looking forward to running at Feel Good Farm in Lyndeborough. Of course, i was not planning on catching a nasty cold the day before the race so this race was a no go for me. I could have probably been able to run most of the races, but seeing as this is the tuffest course on the circuit, there just was no way. It wasn't really a problem though, i seem to be a better photographer than a runner these days.

For the Tuesday Night Turtles, this was a big day. We had a bunch of newbies coming up for their first taste of snowshoe racing. This was supposed to happen at Beaver Brook a few weeks ago, but with the postponements, this was the one. A few of us "veteran" snowshoers in the Turtles have been talking up the GSSS series since last winter and we have quite a bit of interest this year, not bad for a bunch of flatlanders here in RI. Today, our rookie list was long, Jake Scheiffelin, Jackie Jackman, Martin Tighe, Warren Angell, Tara Cardi, Tony Wild and George Ross. We also had Bob Jackman, Dave and DJ Principe, Chris Jasparro with his wife, Vicki and myself on the DL list for the day. It should also be noted that Ben and Matt Keefe ran, but got to the race a half hour late and only did one lap.

I shot the start of the race and then hiked up Moose Mountain to get some good downhill running shots. First time by, Josh Ferenc and Kevin Tilton had a sizable lead on Ben Nephew, they were all moving pretty quickly out there. Bob Jackman was first Turtle by, followed by Dave Principe and surprisingly, his son DJ on his tail. DJ is 12 years old and he was hanging with the big boys on the first loop. As the rest of the Turtles made their way by, they looked pretty comfortable, well, all but one. George Ross was complaining his calf was cramping up, so he ended up bailing at the end of the first lap. George was listed in the Coolrunning results as finishing the 2.7 mile Wimp Run, as race director Mike Amorello calls it. At the brewpub later, George summed it up by saying it " Was the fucking hardest thing i ever did"

On the second time around, most of the TNT gang held their spot. DJ dropped of a bit. Martin and Warren were running a few seconds apart as were Jake and Jackie. Tara was enjoying her run, i think. She did yell to me to put that camera away, that ain't gonna happen. :) As a team, i would say we had a good day with ten Turtles finishing the two loops. It was a great start to the season. The next two races are a much longer drive for us, so i don't expect to see too many Turtles racing until February when the series gets back to southern NH. We will have some runners at Whittaker Woods and Sidehiller though.

Post race, we did the usual thing and went the local brewpub. This time it was a favorite, Martha's Exchange in Nashua. With a cold, my taste buds were a bit off, but the cask IPA was very tasty and would have been even better if they had filled the glasses up to a proper level. A good time was had by all.

See the photographs i took at the race here: scottmasonphoto.com 

Read Chris Dunn's race report HERE .