Last year I had wanted to do a snowshoe event after having to run in my snowshoes a few times locally but one thing led to another and I never made it. This year when the Snowdog Events calendar was announced I registered right away for the Jingle Bells run to be held at the Sun Country Golf Course outside of Cle Elum. I figured it would be a great way to wrap up the racing season since I had to miss the Deception Pass 25k due to injury. Since my foot tendon is still giving me a bit of grief I registered for the 5k run figuring I could endure 5k of pretty much anything while 10k could be a bit much still since I haven’t gone more than 4 miles on trail or machine for months.
The weather couldn’t have been much better for this event. We had a ton of snow last week so there was plenty of snow and, as luck would have it, the hard snow stopped just in time for the roads to get decent to do the drive over the pass to Cle Elum. Yes it snowed quite a bit of the drive but it was light snow and not really sticking to the roadway.
My minimalist snowshoe setup
I had no idea what to expect of the run but luckily the race director, Cory, had sent out a great pre-race email with good information on how to dress and prepare. I decided to go minimalist in my snowshoeing so I wore Gore-Tex Merrell Gloves with two layers of thin wool socks – an Injini toe-sock layer followed by a SmartWool layer – topped by my Inov-8 gaiters. I used Atlas Run snowshoes which are very light and small and the Merrells fit in them very well. The weight was less than a typical pair of heavy duty trail running shoes and I found I could keep my ‘barefoot’ stride with the snowshoes easily. Clothing wise I used a pair of insulated CW-X tights on bottom and a long sleek and short sleeve tech top on top with my Mountain Hardwear Efusion jacket for a shell since it was snowing. This seemed perfect as I was freezing before the event got going but just right after I heated up and I could regulate my temperature by zipping open the jacket when needed.
The course was mostly single track snowshoe track and had a few hills to keep it interesting, my Ambit showed it at 335 feet of gain/loss. It was like trail running in a small tunnel really, the track was about 14″ deep in most places. A few times I had to jump into the deep powder to pass people, that was tough going. I felt that the course actually required a bit more concentration than a regular trail run due to the uneven nature of the packed snow and just the fact that everything was all the same color of white so the run seemed to go by very quickly.
After the last road crossing I was told it was all downhill from there and charged down the steep section and could see the finish line off in the distance. I kept moving and crossed over the line in 35:36 and finished in 2nd place overall for the 5k event, a full 6 minutes behind the winner. I was stunned, I had no idea how fast I was going through the entire thing and sure didn’t expect to finish in the top few except maybe in the 50-60 year old category. Felt pretty good to finish the season with a strong showing at my first ever snowshoe run.
I think this was the most fun I’ve had at an event this year, mainly because it was so novel. I hope to do at least one more race in this series this winter as a good alternative to running in the rain and mud in Seattle. Speaking of rain and mud, next up is the Bridle Trails Winter Running Festival in January.