On Saturday 21st of March 2020, the 2nd official Arctic Snowshoe Race takes place just outside the city of Tromsø. In beautiful arctic surrounds, snowshoe racers, runners and walkers from all over the world are invited to participate. We, the Midnight Sun Marathon (MSM) organization, are looking forward to seeing you!
There’s an old saying that Norwegians are born with skis on their feet. Snowshoes are to some extent used in Norway, but there are few, if any, events or races for snowshoe runners or walkers. So don’t expect it to be too crowded in the race course. And don’t be surprised if the share of international participants is high. It tends to be like that in the other events organized by MSM; the Midnight Sun Marathon, the Polar Night Halfmarathon and the Tromsø Mountain Challenge. The attractiveness of Tromsø as a destination, and the really good publicity we receive through our well-known events, make us believe in the opportunities for a new, exotic event in the high north. Snowshoeing gathers lots of people in the US, in Canada, in Japan and in southern part of Europe (the Alps).
We’re slowly building up the Arctic Snowshoe Race event and hope to grow to 1000 participants by the Arctic Snowshoe Race 2024. It means doubling the number of participants every year. We know that’s ambitious, but hey! Let’s try!
We are member of World Snowshoe Federation and in close dialogue with Norges Friidrettsforbund (NFIF), the national association of athletics, to get snowshoeing «up and running» as a sport in Norway.
World Snowshoe Federation (WSSF) is on Facebook. Source: WSSF.
If you feel like trying this out, we have weekly training sessions before the race. The training sessions are held on Tuesdays, in Tromsø, and they are announced on MSM’s Facebook page. Here’s a short video from one of the sessions this year:
If you happen to be in Tromsø on a Tuesday evning and want to try, let us know. You can borrow snoeshoes free of charge during the training session.
If you wanna race, go to MSM’s page about the Arctic Snowshoe Race. There you can see a really good video from last year’s event, and read more about the race course to the summit of Rødtinden!
Snow Regards,
Thomas K. Føre
Thomas K. Føre 