St. Croix 40 Winter Ultra Report
“Hey Jami, want to do a 40 mile winter ultra overnight in January in Minnesota?”
“Ummm, what are you talking about??? NO.”
“Cassie (Greg’s personal trainer/running coach) said we should do this.”
“Why?”
“Because we should do HARD things.”
“Hmmm.”
When my husband popped the question, I was a bit hesitant to accept the challenge. My husband has finished two 50K ultras, but my longest distance at one time was only 15 miles, running trails in the summer. And why on earth would I want to do something overnight?
“But Jami, you love winter, and winter at night, and doing things in the cold and snow…” Why yes, this is all true, but FORTY MILES on FOOT in ONE NIGHT in JANUARY in MINNESOTA? NO!
But my husband persisted, and I became more curious. Maybe I could actually do this? Every week Greg would come home from his workout with Cassie with more info about the event and training.
Once I learned that I didn’t have to RUN 40 miles and that the training wasn’t super intense, I agreed, and signed up for the St. Croix 40 Winter Ultra.
Its not a half-bad idea when you have to sign up in August and its 80⁰and sunny. But, as the nights grew colder and darker, I began questioning my judgment.
It wasn’t until the week of the race that some of that “what in the H did I sign up for” started to dissipate and I actually had some excitement for the challenge that this was going to bring.
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What is the St. Croix 40 Winter Ultra?
The St. Croix 40 Winter Ultra is a winter survivalist race in the same spirit as the Arrowhead 135 and Tuscobia 160. Participants travel roughly 40 miles through St. Croix State Park on foot, ski, or fat bike, carrying all essential survival gear through a cold Minnesota night.
St. Croix 40 Winter Ultra
Preparations
So how do you prepare for an over night winter ultra? Well, I had no clue but Greg learned a bit from Cassie and we combined that with a little research and some previous race knowledge and managed to survive.
Training
Greg’s trainer Cassie wrote up a plan for us that was a mixture of running and hiking. Running a few days a week with a long run and a longer hike on the weekends.
Unfortunately, the training plan didn’t go quite as planned and training for an ultra with kids, is not easy, especially when the peak weeks happen to be the weeks of Christmas and New Years.
A little more time with pulling a sled would have also been helpful, but lack of snow didn’t allow for a lot of sled training.
Gear
In order to start the race, you have to do a mandatory gear check. There are required items that you MUST have to start the race. And then there is everything else we packed “just in case.”
Turns out when you are pulling a sled, you feel like you have a lot of room for all the things, in reality it probably led to a bit of unnesscary weight. Thankfully, snow has low friction and the extra weight didn’t matter a ton, but we definitely over packed.
Required Items:
These items are required for each participant at gear check-in, the race start AND finish.
We had most of the required items except for bivys, sleds, and smaller things. Thankfully we were able to borrow two bivys from Cassie and we purchased the Paris Expedition sleds “for the girls” for Christmas.
- 0⁰F Sleeping bag – Greg had one, I borrowed from my brother-in-law
- Bivy sack – Thankfully we were able to borrow 2 from Cassie
- Sleeping pad – We utilized our Therm-a-rest Z-lites so there was no need to inflate or deflate and we would have an insulated spot if we needed to sit along the trail to change socks or take a break.
- Stove – Greg used his JetBoil and I used a MSR Pocket Rocket
- Fuel – Needed at least 4 oz. of fuel remaining at the finish.
- Pot or container – 1 pint minimum
- Firestarter – We carried lighters
- Headlamp – We both used the Petzl Swift RL and carried a Black Diamond Storm as a backup.
- 3 individual flashing red LED lights (2 in back, 1 in front)
- Must carry backup batteries/lamps to last 20 hours
- At least 20 square inches of reflective material, 10 front and 10 back
- 3000 ready-to-eat calories at the finish – We each carried a 28 oz jar of PB (4560 calories). We could have used the 16oz jar (2660 calories) instead because we had other extra food.
- Insulated water containers
- Minimum of 75 oz. of water between containers and bladders
- We both wore bladders on our back and had water containers in our sled.
Everything else:
- Extra baselayers, socks, buff, hat, warmer gloves
- Puffy Jacket
- Softshell Jacket
- Insulated Pants
- Kula Cloth, Trowel, TP, Hand Sanitizer
- Body Glide, Omnifix, Leukotape, Bandaids
- Hydaration Vest
- garmin InReach (So our friends and family could follow us)
- Hiking Poles
- Powerbank and charging cords
- Phones
Food
We packaged snacks into (about) 400 calorie baggies. We were aiming to consume about 200 calories per hour, or one baggie every 2 hours. We tried to pick foods that wouldn’t freeze solid.
Things we packed and some we ate…
- Trail Mix with Cheerios, Craisins, chocolate chips, peanuts
- Oreos
- Snack sticks and Jerky
- Dried Fruit Bars
- Munchies Snack Mix
- Pringles
- PB & J
- Cup of Noodles
The Race
Getting Started
Before you start the race, you have to set-up your bivy system and crawl in. Once all the racers are snug and quiet in their bed, the race director rings the bell. Then you have to crawl out, put your shoes back on, stuff your sleeping bag and bivy back into its stuff sacks, load up and head out.
Bonus to this… you start this winter race nice and warm! I saw some racers leave their shoes on, put them in a plastic bag and then hop in the sleeping bag, saves time and cold fingers.
We started the race off in a little combo of walk and trot to keep the blood flowing, but limiting how warm we got to minimize sweat early on.
About an hour in I got real hungry, it was past dinner time after all. We took a quick break to grab the snacks out of the sled (since we forgot to put our starting snacks in our jackets). Trail mix for the first round hit the spot.
Just Keep Moving…
The whole race took place on snowmobile trails, although the only snowmobile we saw was the race support snowmobile checking on racers. Some trails were better to hike than others.
XC skis definitely would have been helpful on the less travelled/less groomed trails but I’m not sure I would have wanted to ski the whole thing. Those trails were like walking through loose sand and burned a lot of energy and motivation trudging through that.
We spent most of the race trying to find the path of least resistance. Sometimes we got lucky and there was some hard pack from the edge of the groomer and you felt like you were walking on concrete and cruising along. Other times it was like walking through sand and was so slow.
We arrived at the checkpoint at mile 24 – about 7:20 in. In order to leave the checkpoint you had to bring 12 oz of water to a boil and show it to the checkpoint volunteers.
It took a bit to get it to boil. The fuel was cold and the wind was decreasing efficiency of the stoves. After a bit, our water finally boiled, we got checked off and then used the water to make a Cup-o-noodles and ate it by the fire.
We were in the checkpoint a little long, almost an hour, but it felt so good to stop moving! After the rest, I actually felt pretty good. Fresh socks, warm food, and a little rest had me rejuvenated to finish the race.
Well, the rejuvenation only lasted a few more miles and then the “up all night” fatigue was setting in and I just wanted to lay down and sleep. So, we stopped and broke out the caffeine. I mixed up a batch of Ignite (which was really almost a slushy at this point since our water was freezing), but once that kicked in, it was the boost in energy I needed.
“Almost” there
The last third of the race had some pretty big hills in it. The ups and downs were both challenging. We were told the last 10 miles would be that hardest. That was no joke.
Constantly thinking you are getting closer, but the finish is still so far away. Time (and miles) seemed to stand still. Its like the reoccurring dream I have where I can just never get where I am going.
Eating was also becoming a challenge, nothing sounded good. You know that you need to eat, but those favorite Oreos still are not sounding good. My hydration bladder was almost empty too and I was too tired to get more water out.
One of the other mental challenges was knowing that you were not going to get any faster in this race, you were going to go slower and slower. Towards the end all I could think about was “if I was running, these last 3 miles would only take me 30 minutes” in reality it will take 1.5 hours.
I made it to about mile 38 before pure exhaustion really set in, I actually started crying a little on the trail due to the fatigue, discomfort, and overwhelming desire to be DONE. But I kept trucking along, I would fall behind Greg a little and then I would trot to catch back up and do it all over.
Finally, Greg said “Jami look, lights!” I started to almost cry again, I couldn’t believe it. We were almost there, just a few more minutes and then we can stop. We crossed the finish line together holding hands and then we stopped. I have never been more excited to be done with something in my life.
We FINISHED! 40 miles and 13 hours 20 minutes later we crossed the finish line at 7:20am.
Once we came to a halt, the race volunteers checked our required items to make sure we had enough fuel and calories, we passed. I asked the volunteer to take a picture of us. He asked if we wanted to go back down by the sign. I looked at it, it was about 20 feet away, I said “nope, I’m going to stand right here.” I wasn’t going to do any unnecessary movement.
We dragged our sleds their final stretch back to our car and unhooked. It was glorious. We grabbed our change of clothes and staggered back to the warming shelter where they had fires and hot breakfast.
I remember sitting down on the bench inside and just sitting there staring off into space, exhausted and undecided on what my next steps should be.
Eventually I found the energy to change my clothes and eat some breakfast. I warmed up by the fire for a bit before heading to the car to get some rest.
Lessons Learned
This was our first event like this that we have ever attempted, so of course mistakes were made and lessons were learned. Here are a few pieces of advice we would pass on…
Keep yours poles crossed!
Since we didn’t have a lot of training with the sleds, we didn’t get all the kinks worked out. We actually finished putting Greg’s poles together 2 nights before the race.
We started the race with our poles crossed behind us, but they were noisy! The aluminum poles would hit each other with each step. About 5 miles in Greg said he couldn’t listen to that for the next 35 miles, so we stopped and uncrossed our poles.
We quickly learned our mistake and the sleds were not tracking as straight anymore. And then we went down a big hill, and the sleds were off to the side of us on the verge of taking us out.
Once we got to the bottom, we stopped and crossed our poles, but took some extra rope and tied them together so they weren’t clanging the rest of the night. MUCH BETTER. Lesson learned, CROSS and SECURE your poles together.
Keep your water really insulated and check it
One of my biggest mistakes was not checking my water supply at the checkpoint. I apparently had faith in my insulation systems and I really didn’t want to take off my layers and take off my hydration vest to check.
I should have had my husband just pull the reservoir out so I could refill, but my brain didn’t think of that until after the race. My reservoir was empty with about 5 miles to go.
I had a Nalgene in an insulated sleeve, a hydro flask insulated bottle, and a camelback podium insulated bottle. About 28 miles in, I really needed some caffeine. That’s when I realized my insulation was not sufficient.
My Camelbak Podium Lid was frozen shut and mostly frozen. The Hyrdoflask was also frozen. The Nalgene was starting to get some slush, but was still liquid and I was able to mix up some Ignite to wake me up.
If I ever do anything like this again, I would use a soft cooler to help insulate my water and snacks. Some people even use chemical hand warmers in their “coolers” to help keep things unfrozen (snacks, water, fuel).
We also had some issues with our hydration hoses freezing, but keeping them under more layers and closer to our body thawed them back out. I didn’t have an insulated bladder, but used a bubble mailer on the outside for some “insulation”. My bladder never froze, ideally I would have used some heat reflective material, but I didn’t have any on hand.
Get a snack pouch!
I think having a little chest pouch for snacks would have been pretty awesome. I hated having the snacks in my jacket pocket as my pockets are about where my hipbelt hits, making it bulky and having to pull the jacket up when I needed a snack.
I also could have attached a little snack pouch to my hipbelt as well. We saw a couple racers with fanny packs too. Anything to make snacking along the way easier.
Our Layering was Perfect!
We were super happy after the race with how well we had layered. We stayed warm and didn’t sweat through too much.
The temps were about what we wanted, not too cold and not too warm. We had temps about 5⁰F to 10⁰F over night. Here is what I wore:
- Smartwool Intraknit 200 Crew Top
- Smartwool Merino 250 Hoodie
- Smartwool Smartloft Hoodie Vest
- Marmot running jacket
- Brooks Dare Cross Back Bra
- Smartwool Merino 250 baselayers bottoms
- Title Nine Cold Killer Pants
- Smartwool Smartloft 60 Skirt
- Smartwool Run Cold Weather Socks
- Speax Underwear (learn more here)
Although we had piles of extra layers in our sled, the only thing we swapped at the checkpoint was our socks to make sure our feet were staying dry. My socks had a little dampness to them, but the rest of my base layers were dry.
Other Mishaps
My watch died about mile 31, so that was a bummer. However, I just copied my husbands activity and put it onto my Garmin Connect so I still got credit.
He has the Fenix 6x which has an Ultrarunning mode. I was using my Fenix 5s in trail run mode. I think I should have used my walk or hike mode and maybe got a little more time. I could have also put it on the portable charger for a while when we were at the checkpoint.
I thought I broke my foot. After the race I could barely put weight on my right foot, I thought I got a stress fracture in a metatarsal.
Turns out I just ended up with a good bruise on the top of my foot from my shoes getting tighter as the night went on. I was too exhausted to realize the foot pain was from the shoes being too tight. A simple re-lacing would have solved that problem.
Should have brought a FUD. I had my awesome Kula cloth with me, but I should have brought the pStyle instead. It would have been nice to not have to unhook everything when I had to pee, or find a tree that was close enough to the edge of the trail so I didn’t have to trek through deep snow in running shoes.
We didn’t have a DD to get back home. We laid out our sleeping pads and sleeping bags in the back of our Acadia and snuggled in. We had planned to sleep in the car for a few hours after the race and then drive the 5 hours back home.
Well, I think I slept a total of 10 minutes the 2 hours we were in the car. My legs were in such discomfort I couldn’t get comfortable and despite being in a 0* down sleeping bag, I was still chilled. Greg slept better than myself, but still not great.
After two hours, we got in the front seat and drove home, exhausted and sleep deprived. And then it started snowing which make the roads slick for a portion of the drive. THANKFULLY we made it home safe, but that was a DUMB mistake.
Had we had a driver, we could have left right after the race and slept or relaxed the whole drive home.
Our fuel was cold – which led to slow boil times. Next time I would make sure to keep my fuel insulated or put it in my “cooler” of warm things to speed up boil time.
Would we do it again
The most often question when people ask us about the race get is “would you do it again?” Both of us are pretty comfortable saying “No WAY!”
This was by far one of the most challenging things I have ever done. The mental fatigue, physical fatigue, and total body soreness was worse than giving birth to my firstborn!
I also hated that it was slow and got slower as the night went on. I like to move faster, I would rather run a distance than walk just to be done quicker.
There were parts of the race that I was ready to just quit…but there is no where to quit without having to walk back to the checkpoint or start/finish. You just have to keep going until the finish.
After we left the checkpoint and got and hour or so down the path, Greg and I both admitted to wanting to drop at the checkpoint. BUT we didn’t say anything to each other because we did not want to dissapoint the other.
I am glad we finished because I did not want any unfinished business and have to go back and try again. Once was enough.
We have discussed the race a fair amount this winter when we have been XC skiing and wondered if it would have been a little better on XC skis. I think I’ll try a normal XC Ski race before I attempt pulling a sled for 40 miles on them, so maybe I will return someday after I have forgotten the pain of this race?
However, if you are looking for a new challenge to test your girt, determination, and will power to keep going in the middle of the night… check out the St. Croix 40 Winter Ultra.
Registration opens August 15th, 2022 for the January 14-15, 2023 race.
Related Articles:
Night in the Life of Jami – A Winter Ultra
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