Yesterday, Ed and I headed up to Wolfeboro, NH, with his sister Paige for the Abenaki Winter Triathlon. It was my third time doing that race. As we drove up, the thermometer in the car told us the outside temperature was somewhere between -2 and 0 degrees F (that's -19C for our readers abroad). Yow. After a misunderstanding of the directions which had us covering the same stretch of Rt 16 in NH three times in each direction, we made it up to Wolfeboro. (Seen along the way: Ammo Dump gun shop, Six Gun City Amusement Park.)
We got all our equipment set up and got ready to start. Ed and I were using plastic snow shoes we got for $18 at our local sporting goods superstore. Mine stayed somewhat attached, though sloppily. Ed's came completely undone while he was running up the ski slope, and he had to run down the ski slope in his cross country ski boots. (Paige said some other spectators were incensed at Ed's "unfair advantage.") I was fine though--I didn't really attempt to run, as merely shuffling uphill had me anaerobic.
After a slow transition to my skis, I struggled up the longish first climb behind three women on classical or back-country skis who were just crawling. One woman was in the middle of the skate lane, making it difficult to pass. (I hate that!!) Fortunately I only encountered lone classical skiers after that and didn't have much trouble getting by. I spent the whole time concentrating on relaxing, as I was probably constantly around 200 bpm. The high point though was catching a glimpse of Ed's jacket about 3K into the ski. I bided my time and tried to pass as dramatically as possible (I'd started two minutes after him in the women's wave).
We entered the skating arena together. I struggled into my skates; my legs were shaking from the exertion of the ski section. Ed lapped me twice, making up about 1:30 of the lost time. We ended up both winning our age categories (men 18-29, women 18-29), although Ed didn't have any competition. =) I was the third woman overall, having had my ass handed to me by two women in their 40s. At least it gives me something to look forward to. The fastest woman was also the fastest person there, finishing in about 29 minutes, ahead of all of the men. My time was 45:25 and Ed's was 45:58.
Paige overheard the two women talking sometime after the race. It went something like this:
1st place woman: I won this race 15 years ago, back when there were only 11 people from the town competing. Now there are all these strangers and foreigners [sic] from out of state showing up and using their fancy clip-on blades. It's so unfair.
2nd place woman: Yeah, it all goes to hell once it's on the Internet.
Did I mention that Wolfeboro is near Lake Winnepesaukee and seems to have a primarily tourism-driven economy? They do have a Wickers distribution center, but as Ed said, "A town cannot subsist on long underwear alone." Anyway... they're welcome to spend their money in my town ANY TIME THEY WANT.
That being said... everyone else was super nice. It was a really fun, well-organized race. The promoters were awesome and I look forward to returning. But, as I'm sure those two women will be glad to hear, I think Ed and I will not be moving our yuppie asses to New Hampshire any time soon, even if the Free State Project decides to move there...
We wrapped up our visit to the South of the North with a visit to the Remember When Diner. Ed enjoyed tasty Salmon Pie while Paige dined on an undercooked egg-white omelet. The diner was cute, but contained diner-themed decor (a poster of a diner with neon lights, a planter shaped like a diner), definitely another pet peeve of mine, as I had already been tipped off by several other clues that we were in fact in a diner.
After that, we zipped up our yuppie Gore-Tex jackets and hopped into our yuppie Subaru sport wagon and high-tailed it back to our yuppie state to get ready for our yuppie dinner party where I made sure all the yuppie guests knew that I kicked Ed's yuppie ass. =)