Book Across the Bay

This year's Book Across the Bay was a little different for us in several different ways. We didn't spend the weekend in Ashland like we usually do. As a result, we typically have opportunities to bum around Ashland and Washburn before the race. Usually we have a chance to check out the Delta Diner which is a favorite of ours. The Book Across the Bay has done things differently in the last couple of years. They now start the skiers and the snowshoers at the same time. This is great way to do it so that everyone gets to start at the same time. Angela and I had a blast doing the race again. We both ran the event this year. Angela ran so fast that she developed not just one, but two stress fractures in her foot which required that she get a special boot to hold her foot from moving during the day. She now limps along for the next month. Angela completed the course in 1:12:56.2 and was 45th out of 816. I finished in 47:22.9 which was good enough for 5th place overall unofficially, but out of the male snowshoers I was 3rd overall. The guy who technically got third overall in the race decided he needed an advantage so he didn't wear snowshoes in the snowshoe race. I don't really understand why. He must have really wanted to cut some weight from his foot. It's always tough to tell, but assuming the race distance was actually 10K, this would have been my fastest time on the full course I have done. There might be some variation year to year based on available ice flows on the lake. The post race chili proved to be excellent as usual. We also got on the shuttle buses from Washburn to Ashland a little earlier this year, which meant we got a better parking spot. It didn't take long to get from the finisher's tent to our cars this year. Course conditions were beautiful for snowshoeing. I happended to see a few skiers that wiped out during the course, but I was surprised to see the amount of snow present on the lake.