Race Report of Park City 5k Snow Stomp

Official Jadon Ross Report of the Park City 5k Snow Stomp:
I've been in the process of reporting on this race for the past few days and it seems like every time I sit down to finish something else comes up. But not today!
This was the first race for Audrey and I for the 2011 season and we were so ready to go. The night before Audrey ended up talking to some of our friends here in Kemmerer at the Rec. Center, Tim & Sandy (also runners), and said we were running a race the next morning. Well, as it turns out they decided to register and run the race too! Not much is better than running a race and having friends do it with you. So we met up the next morning and headed to Park City, UT, about an hour and a half from Kemmerer. We arrived in plenty of time and got registered and warmed up.
The race had two divisions: snowshoe or running shoe. We chose running shoe since we have never ran in snowshoes. Turned out to be a good idea. I would say there were probably about 100 people participating. The course started out on the Rail Trail, a good packed trail that was pretty easy to run on. It was an out and back with a section that went to single track off in some deep snow. This part of the course was supposed to be the "snowshoe" section, giving the advantage to those who had on snowshoes so they didn't sink knee deep into the snow with every step.
When they marked the course they went over this section with snowshoes so there was one skinny path where if you stayed on top of it you wouldn't crash through. Audrey and I started the race towards the front and after only a couple of minutes we were in 3rd and 4th place with only 2 guys in front of us with snowshoes. We kept a pretty good pace going for the first mile and we passed both guys before the 1.5 mile turnaround. After the turnaround was where the course veered up and into the single track. I went first and Audrey followed. I moved pretty good through the stuff, every once in a while halfway losing my balance and then losing half of my leg in a pile of snow. If you weren't paying attention you could easily misstep and be off the section that was packed down.
Being in first place overall I didn't want to look back through this section of the course, but as it came to an end and spit us back out onto the well groomed Rail Trail I turned around just to see where everyone was. Audrey was still in 2nd and she was a little ways behind me and that's all I cared about. I cruised into the finish with a time of 26:20, first place overall, and Audrey came in behind me in 2nd place with a time of 26:49. Here's a link to the official race results. RESULTS
Not a bad race day for the Ross's. We got medals for our placements. Tim and Sandy also placed in their age divisions; 1st for Tim and 3rd for Sandy. Pretty good for them too considering they ran 11 miles the day before! After we received our awards we headed over to Red Rock Brewing Co. for a celebratory lunch. A perfect ending to a great race!
Below are some pictures from the day in no particular order.

Audrey leading the pack.



Posing before the race start.

Our friends Tim and Sandy who decided last minute to run the race!

Looking back from the starting line.

We ran along the Rail Trail in Park City, UT.

The winning bib number!

Self portrait while running, not always the easiest thing to do.

It was a beautiful day to run: 40 degrees and sunshine.

Audrey receiving her 1st place female award

Audrey got 1st overall female and Sandy placed 3rd in her age division!

Me getting my 1st place medal.

The race was organized by Sports-Am, and their sweet red van.

Tim won 1st place in his age division!

1st place overall!

Telling the race director about how deep the snow was if you got off the track.

Park City, UT