This weekend we move inside of eight weeks to go until the 2019 Steel Rail Half Marathon.
Before you know it, May 19 will be here, a scary thought to think when a season of sitting on chair lifts, with my feet up by lodge fireplaces, and the occasional downhill carve have left me in not-the-greatest of shape. But the grip of Old Man Winter still hasn't loosened entirely on Berkshire County, and my patience for the all-mighty Dalton CRA treadmills maxes out at around 30 minutes.
With this new batch of spring-enriched powder falling, I'm not particularly keen on pounding the pavement around the busy Dalton Avenue. Then, however, I remembered a Powder Report from last year with a few local athletes competing in a snowshoe race.
Since-graduated Owen Brandriss and Lilly Wells, and current sophomore Jackie Wells, all of Mount Greylock, picked up some snowshoes and earned spots on the U.S. National team at last years national championships at Prospect Mountain.
That gave them spots in the 2019 World Snowshoe Championships in the town of La Ciaspolada in Val di Non, Italy this past January.
"I didn't know there was a national team until right after that race," said Brandriss a few weeks ago. "When I found out the race was in Italy, I definitely wanted to go. It was a really cool opportunity."
Brandriss is now a freshman at the University of Vermont, but teamed up with his former classmates Lilly and Jackie Wells one more time earlier this year overseas.
"What really struck me was that it's this beautiful little mountain town," said Lilly Wells, who now runs cross-country and track for Williams College. "They have the race there every year and it's this huge tradition. There is the competitive race, which was great, but then there is this citizens race, which like 2,000 people come out and do. You can tell it's something the people in that area are really into. It's special that so many people are excited about getting out there and doing it."
This column can be read in its entirety on The Berkshire Eagle website, or reach out to me directly for a complete copy.