Polar Hero 2014 Race Review by Brittany Pollock

Polar Hero Montreal

Commando Paintball - Sainte-Julie Quebec

February 22nd, 2014, 10 am open heat

Registration: $86.78 with tax - registered only 1 month in advance, there was much better early bird pricing.

Parking was free and about 7 min walk from the festival area.

The festival was small but lively. Arrived a few hours early to see some friends off in the elite heat, the event seemed a little disorganized still there was a large truck offloading equipment in the middle of the festival for a good portion of the morning. There was a heated change tent and if I recall correctly a $5 bag check.

Kit pickup was very fast and easy, you were basically ticked off a list and given a wristband. No timing chips.

The start “line” was a heated tent. The pre-race briefing was completely in French so I only got about 50% of it.

The elite heat left about 45 min late as the course was still being marked. The added challenge of the elite heat was that they had to break the trail, a foot of snow at some points. The open heats left about every 15 min after that to try and catch up.

There were no hills per say (my GPS said 25m climb total), but some sizeable snowbanks, and running on snow is challenging. Obstacles were standard OCR fare, lots of walls: little hurdle type walls, ladder walls, 6 foot walls and 8 foot walls (which were tough with snow filled treads). There were some of the maze and tunnel obstacles from the paintball course. There were also some winter obstacles, a snow filled tire pull, a sort of traverse where you pulled yourself on your back with a rope through the snow, some rope unders and a tarp “crawl" which could be cleared with a running dive. There was a snow bucket carry, which was not open when I got there, and the hardest obstacle, a Polar Hero exclusive, the planche Polaire which can only be described with this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-uBhAsqrIL4. This was the penultimate obstacle and the only obstacle that foiled me and I had to get a boost. 15 obstacles advertised and I counted 14 since the buckets were missing when I got there.

Finish line featured mulled wine and hot chocolate.

My GPS (runkeeper on a phone, not 100% reliable), clocked it at a little over 4km, which was short of the advertised 5 km.

Swag: “I am a Polar Hero” tshirt and a medal at the finish line. The website had published that there were finishers hats and no medals. When I reached the finish they were handing out medals, but some of the early finishers got hats and medals (really cute hats!) I inquired and an organizer told me that there was so much call for medals that they switched out hats for medals, but there was a mistake and the first couple dozen finishers got hats. They were selling the hats for $12 (and medals for $5?), in hindsight I should have bought one, but was disappointed with the switcheroo.

Most importantly, the cold:

The historical weather says it was 2degC at 8am and was up to 4 by the time I ran at 10. It was beautiful and sunny without much wind.

I wore: Icebreaker 260 base layer leggings and long sleeve shirt, CMQ long sleeve (red) and last years resolution run jacket which is pretty much a windbreaker, Nike pants (loose fit), a hat/facemask/scarf combo deal, CMQ BondiBand, cyclecross gloves (which I took off promptly and did not use because I’m not a gloves person), wool socks over reebok compression socks and New Balance minimus 1010s which were passably grippy in the snow, but the treads filled with snow and made wall climbing hard. I was very warm once I got running, and could have done without some of the layers.

Overall impressions: for a first race it was okay. Other than the planche Polaire obstacles weren’t “new”, and they tried to incorporate snow and winter into the obstacles, mostly successfully - but there could have been more. Organization was not great, but forgivable for a first time race, there were very very few volunteers/staff on course, but the obstacles were mostly self explanatory. The course was poorly marked, basically spray painted snow, and it was very easy to go off or skip part of the course, but with no timing I guess that wasn’t a worry.  I would do it again as a fun run, and as something to break up the lack of OCR in the winter, but it’s not something I HAVE to do again. It would be a great beginners race. That being said it was the first year and if the one obstacle they “invented” the planche Polaire, is any indication, I have high hopes for more exciting challenges in 2015.

Event photos:

 https://www.facebook.com/media/set/set=a.232652046858778.1073741832.221870764603573&type=3

Event Website: www.polarherorace.com

Registration is open for 2015 now with 25+ obstacles - Montreal February 21, Quebec March 21. Elite, Individual, team (3+) resigistration, Kids race is listed but not open for registration - registrations are transferrable