Halloween Half Marathon

This Saturday Audrey and I ran in the Halloween Half Marathon in Provo, UT about 3 hours from Kemmerer. The course boasts 2,000 ft. of elevation loss over the 13.1 miles. We went down on Friday to pick up our race packet information. We got what we needed and went to our motel and went to bed early because we had to be on a bus by 6:45 a.m. the next morning. I didn't sleep very good; I never do anymore besides in my own bed.
We woke up at 5:00 and got ready. The temperature was supposed to be around 34 degrees when the race started at 9:00 a.m. They had to bus 2,500 people up to the start of the race which was located at Sundance Ski Resort. We made it to the starting area around 7:15 a.m. They had 2 large tents set up with propane heaters so everyone could stay warm until the race started. While people were waiting they had costume contests.
For this race they had pacers (people who hold a sign on the end of a stick announcing when they will be finishing the race). So if you wanted to finish in say 1 hour and 30 minutes you would find the pacer with that time on their flag. The last half marathon that Audrey and I ran we finished in 1:35:45, so our goal was to finish in under 1 hour and 30 minutes.
We made our way to the start line finally after waiting for what seemed like forever. The first 4-5 miles were incredibly steep. We even had a few switchbacks that we had to go down. We started out pretty fast and kept a good strong pace going. The actual course itself is really pretty as it starts up in the mountains and then runs down a canyon along a river. There is even a waterfall that comes down off one side of the canyon (Bridal Veil Falls).
We only slowed down in a few spots during the whole race, and we ended up finishing in 1 hour and 28 minutes. We beat our goal time by 2 minutes and improved our PR (Personal Record) for the Half Marathon distance by over 7 minutes. Our average mile splits were 6 minutes and 43 seconds. When we looked at the results Audrey had gotten 2nd in her age division and I had gotten 10th. We were 75th and 76th overall out of 2,500 people.

To see the results click here: http://milliseconds.com/races/detail/1387

It was a fun race, and the weather ended up being perfect warming up to around 60 degrees when the race was over. Here are some pictures from the race.