I thought this was a fun race. It was supposed to be a point-to-point course but there were transportation issues with the bus company the day before the race. It then turned into an out-and-back up and down the mountain. I was planning on running this as a nice slow training run. It was nice a slow, but I couldn't hve gone much faster. THe road up the hill went on forever, but once I got up it, it nvere flattened out, and I guess because of the altitude, I never felt like I recovered. Miles 13-18 were the worst, but by then, I knew that I was almost to the downhill. The hill hurt going down but those miles were faster than most of my other ones. My knees and toes hurt. By the time I hit the pavement at mile 24, I was beat. By then it was hot. I made it to almost 25.5 adn had to walk across the bridge. I jogged back in the last 0.5 and felt really pretty good on the drive and flight home, and had minimal soreness Sunday.

nothing. It was much harder than I expected and harder than anything I have ever run before.

walked 1/4 mile back to the car, showered at the hotel and drove 3 hors back to Salt Lake City.


The hills were HARD. The altitude didn't bother me as much I expected. I never felt terribly short of breath, but I never felt recovered either.


The volunteers were great. THe whole festival thing was neat, especially watching the artists doing their things. The race was low-key, but good voluntters,plenty of water stops every 2 miles, beautiful scenery, a few wild horses off in the distance. The last minute course change made it tough, but it would have been very hard with the original course, too.

If you are looking for a nice, low key run to run easy or to really test yourself on the hills, this is it. This is not a course to try and go fast on.