Based on statements made at the start of last year’s Brave the Blizzard (which featured cooler, cloudy weather and mud, mud, and more mud) today would be the 13th running of this race, which has roughly a 50% success rate for being held on snow. Two storms in the last week and a half dropped 18″-24″ of snow on the Albany area, and Tawasentha Park maintained its snow cover incredibly well – less than 10 miles away my small backyard was more bare ground than snow on Sunday morning.
Ask a dozen snowshoe runners what perfect conditions are for snowshoeing and you’ll probably get a dozen different answers. The snow cover today wasn’t perfect – there were a few patches of nearly bare ground and some very wet spots – but for me there’s something about running through the snow on snowshoes on a gorgeous sunny day with temperatures nearing 50 degrees that made today, if not perfect, pretty darn enjoyable, albeit about as far from actually braving a blizzard as you could get.
The 5k runners split off from the 5.5 milers a couple of tenths of a mile from the finish line, with the 5k men’s and women’s races won by Shaun Donegan and Megan Boyak respectively. Tim Van Orden not only finished 1st in the 5.5 mile race, he did so roughly 15 minutes faster than the 2nd place finisher, women’s winner Jamie Woolsey. The results from both races are available on here; note that the 5k results have been combined with the 5k splits to allow long course runners to earn series points for both distances. Results with only the 5k runners can be found on the AREEP’s site.
Huge thanks to the ARE and their abundant volunteers for not only organizing another excellent race but also for providing plentiful pancakes and refreshments afterwards.