Powder Keg Snowshoe Race

The Eau Claire Powder Keg was a race that has always been hosted at Lowes Creek which is a wonderful course. The route is a nice mix of singletrack and flat straightaways (with less of the singletrack this year as opposed to previous years). I loved the course and the race itself is held at a wonderful venue. The race ranks right up there with the top races in terms of course variety, quality of the warming house, the wonderful post race meal (which was pizza from Action City which is to die for), and proximity to me (less time driving to this race is definitely a plus). However, it is also a race of many unknowns. The race is a five mile race, but GPS estimates put the race at 5.4 miles (a previous year was reported as 5.8 miles) which didn't bother me much. I always figure a longer race gives you more for your money. Then came the timing system, which was way off. I finished the race in 2nd overall out of 31 with a time of roughly 46:30, but somehow I improved to a time of 45:11 in the final results. In fact, most people who finished around me had times that were incorrect. I am not sure where the errors came through, but it resulted in a long time to process the final results. This resulted in the final unknown of the day. Results were to be close to noon, but didn't happen until closer to 1 pm, which interferred with some racers ability to be at the award ceremony since they were either participating in the bike race to follow or left since they didn't want to wait that long for the results. I love the race, but the results processing needs to be sped up. My daughter has a wonderful attention span for someone so young, but with no postrace entertainment, the time following the race certainly drug on. My wife and Kaia worked to make Smores at the finish line of the race. I think she liked them quite a bit. I was hoping she would win the kid's snowshoe door prize. They would have been perfect for her. They are a lot more simple than my snowshoes. . .essentially a piece of plastic with a velcro strap to attach to your shoes. The same snowshoes would look cheap and dorky on any adult, but would be cute on a little 2 year old.