Friday, March 7, 2014

2014 US National Snowshoe Championships - Fast Eddie

Last weekend at Prospect Mountain in Woodford, Vermont the US National Showshoe Championships were held and the UPPRC was represented proudly by our very own Fast Eddie (Ed Rousseau).  At age 75, Eddie was able to capture a silver medal for 2nd place in his age group!


Here were some thoughts that Eddy shared with us (in his own words) that we wanted to pass along to you.

We had a perfect day on Saturday. Sunny, around 20 degrees at the start of my Men's National 10K event. There were 6 qualifiers in my 75 -79 Masters Division, several are veterans of running high altitudes and mountain races in Colorado and the Northeast.  The 10k race started above 2,000' and in the first half of the race, there were switchbacks with 700' of climb up the mountain.  The course was mostly on a single track snowshoe trail.  The second half of the race brought us back down the mountain on some very sharp switchbacks.

I walked fast on the real steep parts going up to preserve my calf muscles.  I could see that there was a guy ahead of me by only 4 minutes in my division.  Had I recognized him at the start it would have been interesting; I recognized only 2 of my 6 competitors.  The guy ahead of me was from New England and was familiar with this course. I did hold on for a silver medal and keep the other 4 guys in my division behind me.
My legs are a bit sore yet after two days, but I am excited to start with some long training runs up to 30 miles in the next few weeks in an effort to be ready for the 100km nationals on April 12 in Madison, WI.

Meanwhile, I'll savor this silver medal.

Cheers! Fast Eddie

Official Results


PLACETIMENAMEAGEDIVCITYSTATE
1921:27:26Ed Alibozek Jr75M7579AdamsMA
1951:31:48Ed Rousseau75M7579MinneapolisMN
2021:41:59Kermit Cadrette76M7579RomeNY
2081:55:39Jerry Levasseur77M7579BrunswickME
2101:56:10Jim Kauffold77M7579BelmontCA
2112:01:25Jules Seltzer78M7579PittsfieldMA