Snowshoe Race and Crazy Day

We headed off to Beaver Creek yesterday for a snowshoe race, but ended up having an absolutely miserable day. We left the house at 7:15am. The race was at 11am at the Beaver Creek Ski Resort, and is part of the Beaver Creek Snowshoe Adventure Series. I signed up for the entire series, and this is the second of four races (In the first race my time was 44:42 and I was the 18th woman to finish the 5K). As we drove up there, the roads were a wreck. There was snow and ice on the roads, but the farther west we traveled the better it got. We were approaching Copper Ski Resort when our truck decided on it's own to drive off the road. It was a flat section of road, we had a car behind and a car in front of us, and I don't think either of them had to break...we just flew off the road. We crashed through the 5 feet of snow in the median, we bounced off the median railing and finally came to a stop at the bottom of the median ditch. We checked to make sure everyone (Annabelle) was okay. Troy and I were shaking a bit and Annie was totally fine, didn't even cry. She was acting like nothing happened. There was clearly no way we were going to get out of the 5 foot snow drifts by ourselves, we weren't sure if the car was even drivable after the collision with the railing. We glanced around and found a call box on the side of the frontage road so I put on a hat and some gloves and went to use it. At the call box the police transferred my call to AAA. They proceeded to put me on hold for 10 minutes, after which the call box discontinued the call. I never did get to speak with AAA. By then I was loosing feeling in my toes and fingers from the chilly wind and I headed back to the car. A passing snowplow called a tow-truck for us. The tow-truck driver winched us out of the ditch and towed us to the next exit. We got to ride inside our truck on top of the tow-truck...that was really cool! At the next exit he lowered the truck off and it turns out we just bent the bumper. Troy and him were able to bend the bumper back and get clearance with the tires so we were good to drive...yea!!!
Troy and I decided to continue onto the race. We arrived at the Beaver Creek resort at 10:50! I grabbed my stuff and ran to the starting line (with a quick bathroom break). And off went the race. The adrenaline helped me to run hard and fast. My recent training has been paying off b/c my body and muscles felt really strong and ready to put out a good effort. The course had lots of deep snow single-track, I love that stuff. The 5K course gained about 800 feet in elevation and there were a lot of racers. The race was awesome, the weather was great, a little chilly, but clear as a bell. When I came through the finish Troy was cheering with Annie, it felt great to see them there and I thought about how lucky we all were to be safe. Troy said it looked like I was the 11th woman, and the time on my watch was 37:25. We then went to the Beaver Creek Village for the provided post-race lunch, and then packed up and headed home. We left the parking lot at 2:15.
We then proceeded to sit in bumper to bumper traffic for a long time. At one point it took over an hour to go 3 miles. About 2.5 hours into our drive Annie started to fuss. The poor girl had been so patient today, but she was clearly mad at the situation. I couldn't seem to calm her down and then all of the sudden she threw up everywhere...all over the car and herself. She was choking b/c she was in her car seat which has a slight recline. I quickly pulled her out of the seat as Troy was frantically pulling the car over to the side of the road (we were only going like 10mph anyways). Needless to say everyone needed a change of clothes and there was lots of mopping up to do before we could continue driving home. After we got her clean clothes, a clean diaper, and a fresh bottle she fell asleep clutching her grinch stuffed animal tightly! We eventually made it home at 7pm. A drive that usually takes 2hrs 15 minutes had taken 4 hours and 45 minutes. Whew! Annie went straight to bed and Troy and I stayed up reading our books and reliving our crazy day!
The race in Beaver Creek next month should be a better situation. We are staying in a condo at Winter Park the Friday and Saturday before the Sunday race to have an early Valentines Day with our friends Chris and Taylor. Then the race will be Sunday and that evening we are tentatively staying at a friend of a friends' condo that my good friend Stephanie is arranging (can I say "friend" any more). So we won't have to drive in Sunday Ski Traffic barely AT ALL!!! Yea. I'm looking forward to the next race, hoping the course is good and I race well!