The race wouldn’t have been possible without the hard work of volunteers, said brewery owner Todd Hoffman. Particularly the work of Dani Boivin and Paul Shea.

Shea was one of the brewery’s first customers when the brewery opened. It was then that Shea suggested building a snowshoe trail on the several acres of land behind the brewery. Shea’s brother had property adjacent to the brewery and with a donation of land from the MRC Pontiac, the stage was set to build a five-kilometre track for snowshoeing.

Shea started work on the project in September 2019 and wouldn’t finish building the trail until a week before the snowshoe race in February.

They had to cancel last winter’s snowshoe race due to COVID, so as restrictions began to ease in the lead-up to the summer, the group decided to give a trail run a shot.

All of 41 runners participated in last week’s race. The first place winner for the women’s five-kilometre race was Mary Thompson with a time of 23 minutes, 42 seconds. In an interview with The Equity, she described running the trail. She enjoyed the terrain, even though there was a point where the water came up to your knees “depending on how tall you are.”

The men’s five-kilometre winner was James Lemieux with a time of 26 minutes and 8 seconds; first place winner for the men’s 10-kilometre was Rodrigo Ideus with a time of 40 minutes and 13 seconds, and for the women’s 10-kilometre winner Elena Grimaudo finished with a time of 49 minutes and 28 seconds.

Prizes for the first place winners were a six-pack of Brauwerk Hoffman beer and a Brauwerk Hoffman t-shirt.

All that hard work has paid off for Shea. “We are very happy that our 1st trail race was such a great success. Everyone had a great time and asked whether we would have another trail race next year. We definitely plan on having yearly events,” he said.

“We are hoping to organize our second snowshoe race at the Brauwerk Hoffman brewery towards the end of January 2022, if the COVID situation permits us to have a big outdoor event,” Boivin added.

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