HEAT

I spent Saturday and Sunday at Arrowhead Provincial Park on the ski and snowshoe trails. Lots of classic and skate skiing and snowshoe running and racers and race officials out training for upcoming races.

Neil Jefferson and I ran the Hardwood Hills 3km loop in snowshoes on Saturday afternoon. It was absolutely beautiful with temperature of -14 °C and sunny blue skies. His running snowshoes being much smaller than my more traditional snowshoes seemed to be of some advantage, not to mention is long Kiwi legs propelling him in huge leaps down the hills Looking forward to participating in the upcoming Snowshoe race on January 24th. Nothing like snowshoe running to pin your heart rate in the upper 90%.

I also got a short skate ski in and ran across a few racers getting ready for the local Muskoka Loppet and Canadian Ski Marathon in Quebec. Jimmy Brendish was out on his skate skis as well, and Dave Gibson put in a huge effort with 80km on his classic skis. Of course, the ever present Steve Jones was out instructing for the Arrowhead Nordic Ski Club Ski for Fitness class on Saturday.

Sunday morning, the Six Feet Under adventure racers got in a 11km run and crossed paths with the 9am Sunday morning running group that meets at the Tim Hortons on Hwy 60.

Sunday afternoon, the Ontario Winter Games crew were out doing a dry run for the games next weekend. The sprint races are on Saturday Jan 16th, while the distance races are on the morning of Sunday Jan 17th. (Draft Schedule) This had the Arrowhead Race Centre team out to race the new Sprint loop – an exciting, fast paced event to watch.

Register now for the Muskoka Loppet or the Snowshoe Races.

Hope you had a great weekend!

Rob Horton