shaved ice

Organizers had to till the Chequamegon frozen waters to create artiicial snow for this edition of Book Across The Bay. A disgusting week of weather ruined the usually beautiful conditions found at this event! However, volunteers going around the clock pulled off yet another wonderful experience!! Skiers had it rather difficult but I felt the snowshoeing to be ideally fast. There was just enough underneath to provide fluff that kept our crampons from biting into the main ice too hard. A very firm course going straight for shore on the other side made it 8k instead of the normal 10k. I carpooled over w/Chris & Meg and we wondered what they did to preserve the famous ice luminaries during that heat wave because they were perfect. Local arena maybe!?.

As for the race, it couldn't have gone better for me. I've been struggling a lot of late w/an achilles injury which is new to me as this in an area that has never given me trouble. Stubborn as I am, it was impossible for me to not go over and compete even after hearing many caring friends advice to stay home. My fitness is coming on and I know it isn't even at its peak currently. In the first kilometer I noticed some twinges that seemed more in my head than physical so I remained back just in case. Slowly I pulled in another racer before the midway point and from there on chased the unknown darkness ahead of me. So exhilarating, being able to muster every bit of power you're worth in each stride. I'm certain my closing 3k were the fastest for me as it felt so hard but I was in tune w/higher cadence. I was cross-eyed and unable to walk a straight line afterwards. I finished 3rd overall and my friend/teammate Chris got 2nd which made us excited about the evening. Deserving more credit would be Meg.....who ended up second place behind a woman running in spikes & NO SNOWSHOES!!!