Frozen Heart Race Recap

**9 March 2015, edited to add:**  Oops, thought I already published this. That explains why no one has viewed it. :-)

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My main contribution to last year's Frozen Heart 50K came from my kitchen. Well, and on the interwebs, designing and buying custom CBRC Frozen Heart M&Ms. Thank you, Amazon local deals. I also spent about two hours at the mid-way aid station, giving high-fives and food to the runners, and eating aid station food. Sharing is caring, right?

Delicious fresh or frozen, With or without a frozen heart.

I had to order a 2 lb bag to get custom M&Ms, so was under the mistaken impression I'd freeze the rest of the M&Ms to bake cookies for the February 2015 Frozen Heart race. Yeah, right. Those M&Ms were gone by April.

Didn't last long in my freezer.

This year, I decided to run the race. I'm not real into trail racing, as I prefer to run / walk / hike trails (less prone to tripping over tree roots that way), but my trail running friends assured me trail racing isn't really racing. So I signed up for one loop of the Frozen Heart 50K, and was ready to do 10.5 miles of trails on race day.

I merrily did the 10.5 mile course a week before race day. The ground was frozen solid with just a few icy patches. Frozen = no mud. Pretty good trail conditions.

Then this happened.

Crappy picture of lots of snow.

What to do, what to do? I knew I'd be near the back of the race pack, so the 8"-10" of snow would be nicely tamped down into a single track trail by the time I came through, but where's the fun in that? I decided to bring my snowshoes on race morning for a little something different, and recruited two random, but enthusiastic, strangers from the race's Facebook page to join me. I was pleasantly surprised to see a friend in the parking lot with borrowed snowshoes, so had company for the whole loop.

10.5 miles on showshoes? Sure. No problem.

10.5 miles in snowshoes was ambitious. I think the farthest I'd previously snowshoed was about 4 miles. The much anticipated tamped down single track trail wasn't all that tamped down due to powdery snow, and proved to be a bit narrow for snowshoes. As my legs got tired, I found myself kicking the insides of my ankles when I tried to go faster. Still great fun, though, and I'd do it again, given the opportunity. When I saw two of my friends walking about three miles from the end, I took off the 'shoes and had a nice snowy stroll to the finish with them. 

Bottom of my snow-caked showshoe at the mid-course aid station.
We were full of zest and zeal at that point, and posed for photo in some sort of lunge / squat / dip pose.

Same as last year, the aid stations at Frozen Heart were well stocked. Baked goods, candy, hot soup, hot and cold drinks, you name it... The race director and volunteer bakers and soup chefs outdid themselves. As expected, the volunteers were also wonderfully enthusiastic, especially given the frigid temperatures, even chillier when standing still. This year's race premium was an insulated travel mug, I'd take a picture, but then you'd see the water spots because I lazily put it in the dishwasher instead of hand washing it, Overall, Frozen Heart was a good experience. I definitely recommend this race if you're in the mood for a well supported winter trail run.