Cool temps and great fall colors were the perfect recipe for last night's Snowflake Nordic race, the 5th in the NMTC fall race series. The 7.2k course was made up of 2 loops of the nordic trails near the Duluth Hermantown border. Snowflake is a ski, snowshoe, and biathlon center but also hosts other events through out the year including trail running races and cyclocross events.
At the 6:00 PM race start
The race was the last of the fall series to be at 6 PM on Wednesday. From here on out, the decreasing dayight means that the races will be at 2 PM on Sunday afternoons. Today's race started with Eric Atkinson surging to the lead, which he would hold for the entire race. Just behind I ran in the small chase pack. We ran together until the begining of the second lap when I opened a gap and moved into second place.
Just off the starting line, a runner's dog decided to join the lead pack
The chase pack, with me in the lead, late on the first lap
I carried and expanded my gap on the chase pack during the second lap and finish in second place. Heart rate average for the race was 175 beats per minute, which is right where I wanted it be in my anerobic threshold zone. It was a good run for me, and a great way to do a speed workout. Thanks to Austin Jarrow's for putting on the NMTC fall race series and to Eve Stein - a resident silent sports photographer - for taking the photos in this blog entry.
The next NMTC fall race series stop will be on this Sunday at 2 PM at Bagley Nature Center on the campus of UMD. I hope to see you all there. In the mean time, keep exploring the limits!
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