Whoomp, there it is

Ah the white stuff is on the ground at last and a middle aged man`s mind turns to one of his more masochistic pursuits. The Mad Trapper Snowshoe series!

http://www.synergyark.com/mad-trapper.html

The running man and I did this last year and it is buckets of fun. Highly recommended. Especially if you are one of those people who enjoys occasionally coughing up a lung. There are four races this year with the first being December 13th so I`m going to have to start my training program right away.

Snowshoeing is a lot like hiking but much harder. The big shoes mean a wide leg stance which means discovering muscles you didn`t know you had. So for snowshoe running last year I worked out a program to help create stability and hit those `new` muscles in the gym. Nothing complicated really - wide stance squats and leg presses. Lunges and the ever hated core work focusing on the stabilizing muscles of the lower abs and obliques. The snow is not a very stable running surface so you have to make up for that with your own muscles. And yes, that is as exhausting as it sounds.

This year I am adding `barefoot` treadmill running. I`m not actually barefoot I`m running in these:

http://www.vibramfivefingers.com/

Yeas it hurts the feet. Well, tires them out anyway. I`m up to about 20 minutes now before my arches get tired.

You might be wondering what all this madness has to do with the AT. The Mad Trapper Series gives me motivation to keep training in crappy weather and I think in the long run it will make me stronger overall therefore decreasing the physical adjustment period to the AT.