Utah County Crossroads Half

I love exploring the beautiful things that Utah has to offer. There are so many of them, from the mountains to the trails to
the many events going on in the valley. When they are running related I try to post them here for all of you so you can enjoy
them too.
One such event is the Utah County Crossroads half. https://crossroadshalf.com/ One thing that is pretty cool about this race is that as you are running the
race you will come to a crossroad and you can choose which path you want to take. One of the paths has more of a dirt trail
mixed with asphalt and the other is completely asphalt. Each has unique attributes that make them worth choosing and they both
end back at the same place.
This race is intriguing to me because both routes are on a trail albeit different t
ypes of trails. So I like that it is surrounded
by the types of things you would find on a trail, and that it allows me to go exploring all while running a race.
Some other cool features of this race is that there are two different finishers medals. one is for those who run the hollow trail,
and the other is for those who run the Murdock canal trail. Another cool feature is that the shirt highlights the trail you chose
to take.

Overall I think this race will be awesome and I hope to see you all there!
Check out their website and be sure to register. https://crossroadshalf.com
I will be visiting the course hopefully this weekend and taking pictures, but in the meantime all of the photos I used here are from their website.

Boys chase girls half marathon

I have to tell you about my first ever half marathon. It was the boys chase girls half marathon in Hunstville, Utah. This was a great experience for a first half marathon. I really just stumbled on this race when I was searching for something else and when I read the name of the race I thought it was funny so I decided to sign up.
I had a couple goals for this race. They were to make friends, to come in under three hours and to enjoy the scenery. I am happy to report that I accomplished all three of these goals, and I even found another trail that I would like to try out in the future.
The first mile of this race was all up hill, but then the next eight miles were down hill. It leveled out for the last 4 miles with the occasional rolling hill.
I honestly loved the scenery that was on the trail there were some springs of water scattered on the trail which is always invigorating to me, and there were some incredible mountain ranges. Aside from the scenery I think my highlight of the race was at the 1.5 miles left where the aid station was Hawaiian themed and they rang the cattle bell signifying the final stretch of the race.
Everyone who ran got a medal, but I thought I would mention the youngest runners and also the fastest runners. So the youngest runner on the course was a 12 year old boy. My sister watched the race and apparently he came in so fast that they thought he probably ran the 10k. However I can attest that he ran the half since I saw him pass me and I was quite surprised. He came in with a time of 1:39.09! He kicked my butt that's for sure; then the youngest girl to race was 18, there were actually two 18 year olds to race. I ran with one of them and the other was significantly faster than me with a time of 2:07.40.  The fastest man to race got a time of 1:17.59, and the fastest lady was 1:34.39.
So there were definitely some awesome stuff going on in the half marathon.
The 10 and 5k were significantly less represented since there were less than 20 runners in each of those races. If you are looking for a race to medal in these ones would be the perfect choice.
One thing I really liked about this race was the comfortable environment. I would recommend this race to anyone that is looking for an enjoyable first half marathon and to anyone that wants to enjoy the scenery and the views.