Powersox United States Nationals Relay Races

The relay races were held on the second day of the United States National Snowshoe Races in Cable, Wisconsin. I teamed up with the Kann Clan, which consisted of my friend John and his two sons Brent and Jared (who tried snowshoe running for the first time that day). I tried to keep the pace strong early, and held second place throug the first couple of pictures which y wife was able to take for the first kilometer or so. Around the point of the big hill I gave up second place, but kept pushing the competitors. Our overall time was 51:54, which was 5th overall in the male open division. We almost could have participated in the family division. I am tall enough where I could have passed for one of the Kann family members. We posed for a picture following the event with Brent Kann, John Kann, Jared Kann, and myself representing the team (from left to right). On our way back to the hotel room following the event, I found a squirrel that must have froze over the night. It was solid as a rock and I found it along the road. This shows that we snowshoers must be crazy to be out there in the cold that was bad enough to freeze the squirrel into a popsicle. This is about as crazy as the photos get on this website.

Powersox United States Snowshoe Nationals

My family and I travelled to Cable, Wisconsin, for what would probably be the closest Nationals Snowshoe Race I will ever participate in. Less than a 90 minute drive brought me to the beautiful Lakewoods Resort for a wonderful weekend of snowshoe racing. As always, the race brings the best of the best to one location. Being that I was involved with helping to design the race course, I was sure to put in plenty of hills into the mix. To be honest, knowing that this would be a race that would be dominated by some of the country's top snowshoers, I felt that they should at least be challenged to the fullest extent and let them remember that Wisconsin actually does have plenty of hills. We may not have all of the elevation changes of the mountains, but the hills would provide plenty of challenge. I started off more conservatively this year. I didn't want to duplicate the feeling of going into oxygen debt and redlining within minutes of the start like I did at Nationals last year. My strategy was just to pick a few snowshoers and try hang with them. I also made a concerted effort to have a better second half. The race went through a checkpoint about halfway through. I passed four snowshoers in the final half of the race. Only five snowshoers made a bigger jump ahead of the competition over that same section of the race. My final time was 53:46, which was good enough for 9th in my age group and 49th overall (exactly the same place as last year). My time was significantly better this year, but my overall placing was exactly the same. I was proud to see that I knew some of the top racers personally. I have raced against the top snowshoer from the male race, Eric Hartmark. I also went to college with and attended the same church as the winner from the female race, Brandy Erholtz. My wife, daughter, and parents were able to attend to see the race. As a race director I received several complements about the 3-4 inches of snow we received the night before and during the event, as we had been having some warmer weather the week prior. Following my race, I got to watch my wife do the citizen's 5K race. She had a blast and ran for only the second time this winter. As you can see from the picture of her, she was all smiles. This tends to be the case when she snowshoes. She takes a pretty relaxed look at snowshoeing. My parents and daughter joined in watching the festivities as shown above. Some pictures were taken from local newspaper reporter from the Rice Lake Chronotype, Dave Greschner. Another friend, Adam Speer, took a few pictures for me to post as well.

Timm's Hill Trudge

This was a new race for me. I hadn't attended the Timm's Hill Trudge in the last couple of years, but have always heard quite a bit of fun stuff about the race. The race organizers did not disappoint. Timm's Hill Trudge is not a very accurate way of describing the race. The "hill" is actually the highest point in Wisconsin at 1,952 feet and the "trudge" is not the approach I used for the race. It was a fast paced run through the snow for 7 miles of beautiful wooded country. At about four or five miles into the race, you arrive at Timm's Hill and my only reaction to seeing this was "you've got to be kidding me. I was in for a long steep climb. By the time I arrived at the hill, I had settled into fourth place and I looked up to see the racers in second and third walking up the hill. When a hill is so steep that it brings good runners to a crawl, you know it is a tough race. The last 2 miles had snow that was powdery and sugary, reminding me of New York last year. The deep snow sucked the energy right out of you. . .well that and trying to dodge all the walkers still finishing up the three mile run. The nice part of the race is you finish on the lake and run through a corridor of snowshoes. I finished fourth overall (third in my age group) with a time of 1:03:58.0 and was a little over 4 minutes back of the winner. The post race meal was great. I helped myself to a couple of bowls of chili. There were also breadsticks, brownies, and other goodies.

Stomp the Swamp

My wife and daughter came down to see if I could "Stomp the Swamp" during this beautiful winter day. I love this course as there are some rolling hills through mostly single-track type of terrain. The race was dominated by a local runner Mark Beversdorf, who was so far ahead of everyone else that no one came anywhere close to him. I feel like the second half of the double-loop course went much better for me. I finished in 1:06:26 for a fourth place finish overall. I am not sure of how many competitors did the 12K race. As usually is found, the post race meal with Greek "Wedding Soup," Leine's 1888 Bock, Brownies, and other goodies proved to be more than filling. Race director Jay Punke puts out one of the best post-race food spreads I have seen for a race (especially a winter race). Following the race, my daughter helps me celebrate finishing second in my age group.

Book Across the Bay

Angela and I had a fun weekend with some friends of ours. We decided to celebrate our love for snowshoeing by walking the beautiful course together with our friends and taking in all the sights, sounds, and smells of the event. This is a great race, as the elevation profile is completely flat, other than a little pile of snow in the middle of the course. A truck fell partially into the ice in a weak spot during the set up for the course and made for some interesting pictures. My favorite was the one of the guy hitting the ice with the pick to see how strong the ice is. I wasn't prepared with any cold-weather diving gear to jump in and save the guy if he fell in like the truck. Although I missed the challenge of this race, I loved the opportunity to walk the course with my wife and participate in an event together with no stress at all to our day. It made for a wonderful weekend. My wife and I finished the race in 1:53:41.6 and enjoyed being in the middle of the pack

Boulder Lake 8K Snowshoe Stomp

John Kann and I travelled to Duluth to attempt to qualify for the United States National Snowshoe Championships. On a frigid cold day that saw race temperatures at the start below zero, it was a day that proved nothing but chilly. However, racers turned out in large numbers to attempt to qualify the the championships to be held in Cable, Wisconsin, in mid March. The course was sugary in nature, making it difficult to achieve fast times. It was a slow race by standards of some snowshoe races that I have been to. The deep snow just seemed to sap the energy right out of you. This course had the option of either a 4K or an 8K loop. Competition was stacked for the 8K qualifying race, with many well known racers from the Duluth and Twin Cities area. In a race that was only my third time on snowshoes this winter, I held on for 18th place overall out of 44 racers with a time of 52:56. It was a little bit of a wakeup call for my training, because I didn't know when I left if I had qualified or not. I had to wait until full results were published on the internet before I found out that I had qualified and would be heading to Lakewoods Resort for the National Championships.

New Richmond Decide Commit Succeed 5K

No pictures are available to prove my craziness, but the shorts were donned for one last winter race at the Decide Commit Succeed 5K race series. My wife told me someone she knows said to her one time that for as much education as I have had I should know more about dressing more warmly during the winter. My comment in return is that with as much heat as you generate in running, a little 20 or 30 degree cold doesn't even come close to chilling me off when I run. Granted I wouldn't run a marathon dressed like that if that was the temperature throughout the race, but it certainly is acceptable for a 5K. I even know a few friends that wear shorts while they snowshoe in subzero weather (probably just to show off how tought they are). At least I am not that crazy as I have only wore shorts into December, but not January or February, yet. I wore the Santa outfit I have worn so many times before for one last race of the year to bring my yearly total to 20 races, tying my all time high for a year. This was a low key course which was pretty loosely organized. My understanding of the event was they are trying to keep members of the New Richmond Area Centre (that's how they spell it) motivated. There are no prizes and they don't list any times. It is for your own benefit. They say the course changes from month to month. It was a relatively flat course other than a hill after the first half mile and since it was an out and back course, there was a hill a half mile from the end as well. I finished 2nd in a time of 19:37. I think there might have been about 19 or 20 runners. Angela would be proud in that I wasn't a race groupee after the race. From the time I got to the race, registered, ran the race, ate the post race food, and pulled out of the parking lot to leave for home, I was there less than an hour. I don't know if I have ever been in and out of a race that fast before.