Snowshoeing race 2:58:24 [4] 17.25 km (10:21 / km) +577m 8:52 / km
shoes: Saucony Razor
Snowshoe raid with Hingo who came out of AR retirement for this.
We started up the escarpment climb wearing spikes, and using carbon poles, with snowshoes on our backs. The combo was perfect- the climb felt easy. We ran to the aid station and dropped the poles there. After a short road run we switched to snowshoes probably too early, as there was a solid path to the control South of the road and lots of mud. Switching to snowshoes took longer than expected, but we were glad to have them on the SE controls.
Nav was right on, (the research trip helped a lot) but Hingo realized we didn't have the speed to execute our plan and we switched to plan B, dropping 225 points in the SW.
We put on the tow and covered trail well, but we missed our planned cut-off for the high pointers in the NW as Hingo realized we'd be late, so we hoofed it back to the aid station via controls on flatter routes. We'd been running with Hammer/Tarno, but they went for the bigger controls. (Hingo was right.)
Snowshoes off again and picked up the poles, but Hingo's spikes had frozen up so it was a slow change-over. In hindsight, it may have been better to stick to spikes given the time for change-over.
Poles, tow and spikes made for a fast run back and a bomber descent to the finish with just under 2 min to spare.
Our modest plan B didn't have a ton of points, but thanks to lots of top teams being overtime, some waaay over, we made the podium and overall top 10. Hingo was solid on the big-picture strategy, I did the nav, and we did our plan to the best of our ability. Enjoyed racing with him again.
Looking back after we could have gotten 100 more points with a different route choice, but that wouldn't have changed our standings.