The Haunted Half- Salt Lake City

I was so stoked when I found out that I made the pacing roster for the Haunted Half. I have been out at the Marine Corps Marathon in Washington, DC for the for the last 4 years and have have missed it. Now that they have the race in Salt Lake City and Provo, I was excited to be able to run at least one of them and I love pacing so it was a win win! 

When I found out that the race ended at Sugar House Park, I tried to talk my friend Rob into signing up for the race. He lives right around the corner from the park and had just done his first half marathon in August, so I thought it would be a good challenge for him. He got one look at the medal and signed up for the race only two days before! 

On Friday, we went to the expo and picked up our race packets. The expo was small, but decorated in the Halloween spirit of the race.

Packet pick-up

This course is fast!

This year's shirt was AWESOME!

The bag and gloves were cute too!

As a pacer, I needed to be on one of the first buses to the start. I got great parking near Rob's place and we headed out at 6:00AM to get the bus.

Rob showing me is scary costume, complete with a skull full of hooch! Ha Ha

If I am going to be bused to the start, I do like when the race hires nice coaches. School buses are OK, but they are so uncomfortable! I was not feeling that well, so getting on a more comfortable coach was a nice touch.

When we got to the start, I found the pace team, picked up my sign, and looked for other friends. I brought a million layers to put on for the two hour wait before the start. Anytime you go into the canyon past September, you can count on it being cold. To my surprise is was not that cold at all! I took out my sweatshirt and draped it over my arms when the sun came up, but I didn't even need to stand in front of the fire pits.

I pulled out my Donald Duck costume I made back in 2013 when I ran the Goofy Challenge. I love this costume and have not had the chance to break it out since. I made it out of mostly running clothes so it is easy to run in and super cute if I say so myself.

My best Donald Duck!

I was so happy to see my pals (and fellow Maniacs) Kim, Christina, Polli and Franz!

Don't kill me scary dude!

My friends keep me mooooooooving!

This scary dude was like 8 feet tall!

Ready for Octoberfest!

Right before the start they had a quick costume contest and we were off! I was pacing with a really nice girl named Ramie. We were pacing the 2:20 group.

Pacers ready to roll! (Photo credit: RYR Pacers)

All lined up and ready to start! (Photo credit: Rob Benson)

This course runs down Emigration Canyon for about 8 miles, so it is fast. Ramie and I tried to stay as close to our pace as possible, but when gravity takes over it can be tough to slow down. We tried to stay within 30 seconds of our elapsed time for the whole race. We did pretty good especially when the course leveled out a bit. If we got a little hot we backed it off. I love pacing with another person. I tend to speed up when I start talking to it's great to have some one to keep me in check. When I pace alone I have to be really conscious of that. I get so excited!

The last half of the course winds through neighborhoods and down into Sugar House Park. There were lots of aid stations and each one of them had Halloween candy on top of the normal aid station stuff. I was happy for that as I had forgot to bring a GU with me and Tootsie Rolls taste better any way.

The finish line was really cute with all these tombstones and blow up Halloween decorations. See my finish line tour here!

Ramie and I came in about 13 second under our 2:20 pace!

So great to see my friends at the finish!

I love skulls. I think this medal is one of my favorites! I LOVE it!

I will be running the Marine Corps Marathon for the 6th time next weekend or I would be in Provo for next week's Haunted Half. Runtastic does a great job. There was pizza, donuts, cake, chocolate milk and other goodies at the finish and everyone was really friendly. If you like running a fast half and you like Halloween. this is the race for you!