Junior 2005 U.S. Snowshoe Racing Champion Jason Ayr Interviewed

The 2005 Junior United States National Snowshoe Racing Champion, Jason Ayr of Westfield Massachusetts, was recently interviewed by The Republican, a MA newspaper. Below are excerpts of the interview. Jason Ayr recently won the championship title at the Nike ACG National Snowshoe Championship in Anchorage, Alaska after being a snowshoe racer with only two months of racing experience.

"My uncle is a rep for Atlas Snowshoes, so he sent me a pair, and said if I could qualify for the national race, he'd send me out there," stated Ayr, a Westfield High School junior standout on the cross-country and track teams. "I thought it might be interesting, so I gave it a try." Two months later Ayr finished in first place in the Junior men's 5K race at the Nike ACG National Snowshoe Championship in Anchorage, Alaska. "It was pretty cool," Ayr said, who completed the event in 23 minutes, 14 seconds. "It's a lot slower than running, and the courses are a lot harder."

Before Ayr's uncle, David Egan, suggested the sport to him, Ayr had never trained on snowshoes before. He got his first experience by training at Westfield's Stanley Park with Kyle Pierce, a high school teammate . "I did snowshoes every now and then to get a feel for it," Ayr stated. "I never did any really hard workouts on snow shoes. It was still indoor track season, so I was concentrating on that." The Atlas racing snowshoes, which weigh approximately 14 ounces apiece, didn't take that much getting used to. "The shoes I have are real light, so I don't even know I'm wearing them," Ayr added. "The first day was a real shock. I thought it would be pretty easy, but it was a lot different. You're up on your toes a little bit more to try and get your cleats to dig into the snow. So your quads burn a little more."

He qualified for the national championship by winning the 4.5 mile northeast qualifier at Northfield Mountain. In Alaska, Ayr discovered the steep terrain and his relative inexperience forced him to throw traditional racing strategy out the window. "It's not as consistent of a race," Ayr remarked. "You could be going very fast, and the next thing you know, you're near walking pace. I didn't run the whole course before the race, so when I got to the steep parts, it threw me back. During the hill climb, you just feel like you want to drop. At the beginning, I led up the whole race, seniors and all. On the hills, I dropped to fifth or sixth. At the split, where the seniors split off for the 10K, I could still see the leaders, but they had definitely run the beginning a lot smarter than I did."

The next day at the 10K relay race, Ayr also competed with three members of the Atlas Snowshoes racing team to place third. "I ran the first leg on the relay, and I won my leg," Ayr explained.

Jason Ayr concluded by saying that he is planning to compete in next year's 2006 National Snowshoe Racing Championship in Vermont.