Today I ran my second 50k. The Kahtoola Winter Snowshoe Festival. It was in Midway at Wasatch Mountain State Park. The entire race was in the snow in snowshoes. My first time running in snowshoes was the first step of the race. I don't own snowshoes, but Kahtoola, one of the race sponsors had several pair there for us to demo. OK, let me explain how this race works, pay close attention because this can get confusing. The course consisted of two loops, a 10k loop called the golf loop, and a 5k loop called the mountain loop. Each loop came back to the start. To complete the 50k the course was ran in this order 10k, 5k, 10k, 10k, 5k, 10k. The 10k course was a figure 8 loop on the golf course and had an elevation gain of 882 feet. The entire 10k was on a groomed trail that was about 12 feet wide.
 The 5k loop was a lollipop loop. It was a single track trail that went up the mountain a ways then did a large loop up and around the mountain. The 5k loop had an elevation gain of 1211 feet. Being that it was half the distance of the 10k, it had some difficult ascents.  Since we did these loops multiple times. It made the total elevation gain 5950 feet. This race is put on by the same race director who does Squaw Peak 50. After the pre-race meeting he asked if there were any questions. Someone asked "Why are we doing this?" His response "Because you're crazy." At 8:10 a.m. we were off. in the first half mile I released I didn't have my snowshoes adjusted right. I tried to fix them, but it didn't seem to work. I stopped several times in the first two miles to fix the snowshoes. At about mile 2.5 I stopped again. I happened to stop right by another runner named Brian. He helped me get them adjusted the right way. Thanks Brian. After that they weren't much trouble. Original I was planning on running each 10k in 1 hour. After my loop the time said 1:12. I guess 1 hour was a bit ambitious. Well, with one round of golf done, it was time to head up the mountain. I have done a lot of trail running in the past and have trained on lots of hills. I was thinking I could run the entire mountain loop. Not. I made it up the first mile, but as the hills got steeper and longer I had to walk them. I ran as much of it as I could. Towards the top it was really steep. The downhill was a blast. It was just as steep as the uphill. I think I might have been able to run the downhill faster without snowshoes, but I probably would have fallen a lot especially on the sharp corners. I completed the 5k loop in 38 minutes. At this point I had to go into the visitors center for a pit stop. Luckily there was an open stall. My pit stop cost me about 8 minutes. The second round of golf was more difficult than the first, but I was able to run most of it. The third round of golf was even more difficult. These 'lightweight' snowshoes that were strapped to me feet were starting to feel like giant ice blocks. I walked a fair amount in this loop. Towards the end of this loop I got passed by a girl who was moving at a fast pace. She didn't chick me though, because she was just finishing the 25k race and I was at 35k. So technically I was 6 miles ahead of her. At this point my feet were soaked. I stopped into the visitors center and changed to dry socks and dry shoes. I brought two pair of the same shoe for this race. This little stopped cost me about 15 minutes. I headed out for my second attempt at the mountain. Imagine running a marathon and after 22 miles you come to a hill that goes up and up and up for a mile and a half. I didn't go up real fast this time, but I was able to pass one lady who was from St Louis and was really struggling. After completing that loop I had just one more loop on the golf course. During this loop I crossed the marathon mark at 6:52. Not a PR by any means, in fact it is more than twice as slow as my PR. When I hit the 7 hour mark, I was thinking how crazy it was to run in snowshoes for that long. I finally made it to the finish and crossed the finish line at 8:04:18. So glad to be done. I don't know what my place was but there were 18 people that started the race and 6 of them dropped out after 25k. There were only twelve of us dumb enough to finish. There were at least 4 or 5 people behind me, so I came in in the top ten. I am pretty sore right now and have one toenail that is dark purple.
Q. Is this one of the craziest races I have ever done? A. Definitely!! Q. Would I do it again? A. You know it!!
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