Winning the World Snowshoe Championships with Jennifer Britz

December 9, 2025·24 min

Jennifer starts close to home. On mountain trails near Bar Harbor, Maine, she runs Acadia National Park and spends half the year on compact racing snowshoes. The sport is still niche, but Jennifer has put in 10 years and won gold at the 2022 World Snowshoe Championships in Argentina. Shelby keeps the setup plain. These are not the long, wide snowshoes many people picture. They are lighter frames made for running. Jennifer's life stays local, too. Away from racing, she works at the YMCA, supports youth programs and fundraising, and coaches cross-country and track and field. The conversation opens up from there. Jennifer remembers her first world championship as electric because it showed her how seriously people in Italy, Europe, and elsewhere cared about this little sport. There is no tidy professional lane. USA Track and Field does not officially recognize it, and Jennifer says that means there is not really money in it. She keeps showing up anyway. Before the world shut down in 2020, she flew to Tokyo and raced in Miyoko in the Japanese Alps. The snow was almost absurd: village piles over first-floor windows, even while organizers worried there might not be enough. Then rain turned the course into heavy, wet snow, like mashed potatoes underfoot. Shelby asks the useful question. Jennifer explains that wet snow packs into the big metal cleats, refreezes, and steals traction. The episode ends with an invitation to try snowshoe running near Mammoth, Colorado, or anywhere with snow, while the show cheers Jennifer toward Wisconsin.

As heard by us

A world champion makes snowshoe racing feel serious, lightly funded, and surprisingly practical for winter runners.

Jennifer Britz's snowshoe racing story is a small-market case study in commitment. The episode follows a Bar Harbor runner who trains in Acadia, works youth programs and fundraising at the local YMCA, coaches high school cross-country and track, and has spent about a decade…

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Why you'd press play

The World Snowshoe Championships exist, a high school coach from Maine won gold, and she explains how.

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