I loved the idea of everyone running a race in costume, so I decided to sign up for the Provo Halloween Half Marathon. When all was said and done, I did actually enjoy running the race, but I did not enjoy everything leading up to it! It was one of the most unorganized, chaotic, and frustrating events I’ve taken part in (in terms of the race organization and logistics).

To start off with, it was really expensive. I wasn’t hesitant to sign up for that reason, but assumed that for that price, it must be a well-organized race. On Friday evening I went to pick up my race packet at the mall. I left Tom and Lilah at home because I was just planning on running in, grabbing it and leaving. We had a party to get to that evening and a babysitter to pick up by 7. Well, when I got there I found a line that ran down almost the entire length of the mall! I could not believe it! Some people walking by even said they had to wait 2 hours to get their packets! I definitely didn’t have 2 hours…I arrived at the mall at 6:35 and was hoping to be back to pick up the babysitter by 7. Luckily I only had to wait for 40 minutes, but the actual room where the pick-up was located was a total mess. Many people’s packets were missing, names switched, and there were additional lines for certain names, missing t-shirts, etc. In their defense, there were 4,000 runners…that is a lot of people to keep track of.

Now skip forward to the morning of the race. We were told to arrive at the mall parking lot between 5:30 and 6am to ride a bus to the starting line. I arrived at 6 remembering the delays from the night before. Then I sat in another line on the cold concrete from 6am-7:45am! Not one bus showed up in that time. Finally the buses rolled in around 7:45 and tried to get us to the starting line. Our bus almost took a wrong turn and many others actually did end up in the wrong place. Some runners finally asked their bus driver to just pull over and they walked the half mile to where they knew the starting line would be.

After getting dropped off, the morning was pretty uneventful. We were lucky that the start time was scheduled for 9am. I was confused as to why they had it start so late when they wanted us at the buses so early, but now I wonder if they knew they were unorganized and knew they would need the extra time.

I lined up close to the front of the pack and they fired the gun soon after 9am. A lot a people go out really fast on a downhill course and I was quickly passed by many many people. About 1/4 mile in I ran into a friend, the daughter of Hawk, who ons Runners Corner (the store I run for). We ended up running together through mile 8. It was really nice to have someone to chat and run with. I had decided before hand that I wanted to go out conservatively for the first downhill portion of the race. We kept our pace between 6:05-6:30 for the first 4 miles. It felt like we were crawling along, but I was sure that a lot of people would die at the bottom of the hill and we’d be able to chase them down if we saved our energy and legs.

Pretty quick after we got down the canyon we were passing people right and left. We tried to keep our pace under 6:30 with the plan that we’d speed up for the last 5 or 6 miles. Everyone’s quads seemed to be suffering from the quick descent down the fist long hill, so I was able to continue passing people till the end. My friend and I split up about mile 8. She ended up doing amazing and taking 3rd overall with a 1:23 finish! My legs were a lot more tired that I had hoped they would be by mile 8, and I wasn’t able to kick it up a notch like I wanted to at the end.

I kept my pace between 6:25-6:40 from 8-13.2 miles. I was able to sprint down the last stretch, but that was all I had left. I finished with a 1:25:21 and 1st place in my division. I was happy with my time, but wish I could have closed out the race a little stronger. Seeing all the hilarious costumes along the way made the whole event a pretty unique experience!