Superior Hiking Trail on Snowshoes

Hola!
As they say, Minnesota weather is unpredictable. The warm temperatures and sunny days convinced me that it was time for early spring cleaning and say goodbye to some of my winter gear.  As I looked in my closet and contemplated on what I would gather to put away, I saw tons of leftover bars and gels from previous races.  I thought I should really use them on some mini adventure for I haven't been on the trail since the Arrowhead 135 race in which I dropped, unfortunately.
 
So...thoughts were racing through my head, as I wanted to challenge myself and test my limit, to see if I could accomplish an even longer distance than the last 300-mile run that I completed before the Arrowhead.  Immediately, the Superior Hiking Trail (SHT) came to mind. Due to the recent snow storm and temperature drop, the SHT would be a good choice for to snowshoe.  The SHT covers 280 miles from point to point with some areas where the trail stops when it meets with local towns and then continues. My plan is to snowshoe 208.5 miles from Two Harbors to the border of Canada and then repeat the course, which will give me a goal of 417 miles total, hoping to finish by Monday, March 25th. 

Once again, thank you to those who follow me. I will keep you posted. I have included the link below on the 300-mile run for those who are interested in reading for pleasure.  Special thanks to all the individuals who supported me all the way.  And, thanks to Phillip Gary who allowed me to relive the experience through his powerful storytelling.

 

Last snow storm?

I don't know if this will be the last snow storm but while I'm inside of my cozy sleeping system. Just another excuse for to test new gear.

The 300-mile man

It's almost two months since I ran the Tuscobia 150 miles, I came in 5th overall then next day I started the second 150 and I finished with a total time of 6 days 17 hours and 25 minutes.

Then a week later the Senior editor of snowshoe magazine contact me because he wanted to publish my Tuscobia adventure so I accepted and the article called "The 300 mile man" was published two days ago on www.snowshoemag.com

 I hope you enjoy it, as I did doing this race.

Click here 

Me during the winter storm

In the past days, I have been busy training and working with my gear, pretty much getting ready for my next race Tuscobia 150 miles. The race itself is semi self-support because we will have 2 Aid Stations along the way. The race starts from Parks Falls WI to Rice Lake, WI on the Tuscobia trail that is 75 miles, so we have to go back and forth. The final cutoff time is 60 hrs with two cutoffs in between -Birchwood, 86.5 miles at 6:00 on Sunday & Winter, 119.5 miles at 11:00 am on Sunday.

This will be my 3rd time, where in the last past two I finished second place in both, as I hope to finish again this year. During the Summer I have been thinking what if I try double, meaning 300 miles, where the first 150 miles will be the actual race and the other 150 miles will be my. In fact, that is what I will do this time. I'm going for the double 300 miles; it will be great to spend some time by myself on the trail during New Year's. For those who have been following me, I will keep you with some updates along the way. So far I plan to post once every 10 hrs or so if you think that it's cool, then that is what I will do. Please feel free to post comments. It'll be nice to know that someone is following & tracking me.

At least, winter shows up with snow storm. We got 12 inches of snow in 24 hrs. I didn't lose the chance to be outside, so I went for a 17-miles hike during the storm to try some waterproof gear. Overall, it was great experience to see and feel the power of our mother nature.

As a result of the big chunk of snow that we got already, I started to build an igloo outside my apartment. Hopefully I will finish by the end of the week and will spend some nights in there.

I hope you are having a great winter, go outside and feel the cold but be safe.

A week or so ago I went to see The Banff Mountain Festival film; it was great. I recomment it especially if you like the outdoors, then this for you. It is no your class Hollywood movie, instead it's a real deal. My favorite part of the film was the crossing the ice and climbing-hats off to the three guys who scaled the captain.

This past Saturday I was running with a group of friends in an event called Fatass, organized by a local race director, John Storkamp. We started off with trail running in Afton State Park followed by food/drinks and raffles, usually I never win anything but this was my day and I got a certificate from TC Running Company for a pair of Montrail sneakers. Also I got a bag of 10 gels, a bottle of electrolyte, and a big bottle of Heed, all thanks to Hammer Nutrition. And I left the event with a T-shirt and leftovers of banana cake from my friend Nancy. It was a great time with friends, great thanks to everyone who made this event a success. And finally, I bought a smart phone. Before I had no reception in places where I'd race like Colorado, Arkansas,or even areas of Wisconsin and Minnesota, but now I will be able to send post and photos from my phone.

Off season?

After three weeks without running a single mile in order to rest my muscles and also to spend more time with my family, I began my training last Sunday for two races that I'll have this winter, Tuscobia 150 mile and Arrowhead 135 mile. My training includes obviously running, winter camping,testing new gear, fixing old gear, and also some Do it Yourself (DIY) projects.

As you know, I like to do most of the outdoors sports, and this winter I'm planing to do snowshoeing on the Superior Hiking Trail. I hear from some friends that the snow can be up to 40" deep, to be sure of that I will go there and get some fun.

Ice climbing. Oh yeah! This year I'm looking forward to attend some ice climbing workshop sessions with the purpose of improve my technique. It will be from December 16th - 18th the Sandstone Ice Festival, two weeks before Tuscobia 150, so I'll have careful and avoid any possible injury.

I also have not done country skiing, so this winter I will do that. I've seen some videos on You Tube, hopefully it will help me.

Do you know that I'm have a 2 years old boy? Well, this summer I took him to the trail, and in the coming weeks I will be working on my training sled to make it warm and comfy so I can bring my little boy and show him the beauty of winter.

Please do not wake me up!

       I was in somewhere in Mexico when I got a call from the Mexican Army. They told me that I had to report immediately to my very last unit -the Special Forces Air Mobile Group (GAFE), and without questions, I did, as when I heard about about it, it made my day.

At the base, I heard from someone that Mexico was in war with another country and needed every single soldier who had been in the Army in the past years to join the unit, but of course, we had to past once again some tests just in case. I didn't any problems at all. The only thing was I hadn't been in the Special Forces for a long time; therefore, I wasn't able to join anymore and I was placed in some conventional unit. And if I'm lucky, then in few years maybe I could re-apply, but I remember clearly that was not what they told me when I graduated from the basic training -once you became a Special Forces elite of the Army, you remain so until the day you die.

Suddenly, I felt something crawling on me, and when I opened my eye, guess? it was my baby. This couldn't be true this whole time I was dreaming. I checked my watch; it was 8:19 am on Saturday -Holly cow! I had to get up because last night I planned on getting up by 6:30 am to do some mountain biking (MTB).

So, I got ready and I drove to Red Wing Memorial Park, and my plan was to do 5 hours of MTB; however thing didn't work out well. I stopped for gas, for a 16 oz. Colombian coffee, and some teddy bear cookies for breakfast. At the park as usual, nobody was there; it was already late, weather was cloudy and chilly. Thankfully, I dressed warm and had my sip of hot coffee before headed off for the trail.

I've been on this trail before running, but never on bike. It took me a while to warm up, but after that, I got familiar with the trail and I went a bit faster on the trail. The trail is a single track with some technical areas of drops where I had to get off the bike occasionally. At the end of it all, I sure had a couple hours of fun with just me and the trail, so peacefully.

It was not time to come back to the Cities since I stayed in Rochester on Friday night. I was hoping to come back by 6:30 pm because I wanted to go see the Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) ceremony.
Once I got the ceremony place, I walked so fast because I had a feeling the ceremony was about to finish. Lucky me, I saw the last 5 minutes of it. I got a chance to see and talked to some friends, along with some yummy foods (rice,beans,chilli, and tortilla).

Now I'm looking forward to the Banff Mountain Festival Film, as I bought a ticket on Sunday.