This race, man. When signed up, we had figured “Oh Zion, that’s only 2 hours from Vegas. It won’t be that cold.” Well – record-breaking weather in the area. Zion Park got more snow than it ever has, and it stuck to boot.  ⁣
⁣
The race was 6 degrees to start, warming up to a balmy 21 at the finish, with a headwind the whole way. ⁣
⁣
1:55:45, not a PR, but given the circumstances, I’m happy about it. And the views were unbeatable – chasing snow-covered mountains all the way as the sun rose. ⁣
⁣
I was also 23 seconds out of the medals (5th place) for my age group, which is a little maddening, especially since I recognized the girl’s name as the girl who finished just ahead of me. But also heartening, since I’ve never come close to placing in anything, ever. 139th place in all, out of 2200 people who started. ⁣
⁣
The course itself is unbelievable. Worth lining up at 6am in the freezing cold. You run from Virgin UT to Springdale, chasing the sunrise and, in my case, snow-capped mountains the whole way up to the park entrance.

Knowing I was unlikely to PR, I took the opportunity to slow down, really take in the sights, and even snap a couple photos. This mountain in particular was just breathtaking and I chased it down for the first 5 or so miles. I was sad to pass it by.

As a Boston girl, and someone who lives at sea level, I forget sometimes that higher altitudes are a thing, and Springdale definitely has more altitude than Boston: 3900 feet more altitude, to be precise. No one bothered to remind me of this until after the race, so I’m going to go ahead and blame my lack of PR on that too.

The strange thing that I haven’t been able to figure out is that the elevation map for the course is uphill pretty much the whole way – not significantly, but the course claims to gain about 200 feet of elevation from start to finish. I kept waiting for that to kick in, but I swear I was running downhill the whole way. Not that I’m complaining, it was a nice surprise.

Well, okay, not the whole way. When you hit the last 2 miles in Springdale, it’s all uphill to the entrance of Zion Park. That is definitely a rough way to end a half, but at least once you’re in the town, enough spectators have woken up and amassed to keep your spirits high to the finish line.

All in all, a great race. Vacation Races did a fabulous job putting the whole thing together, and I definitely look forward to running more of their races in the future!