Sarah F.  4/29/09

Drove the 6 hrs from Boulder to run this race. I stayed at the Red Cliffs Lodge which was out of the way from the crowds in downtown Moab and only 4 miles from the start line and they had their own shuttle to the start and one at the finish! Very convenient. The race started on a downhill and wound its way through the red canyons, adjacent to Arches Nat'l Park and the Colorado River. The first 11 miles in the canyon were awesome, then came the tough part - 2.1 miles alongside a busy highway on into downtown. The canyon provided shade and then the last 2 miles were in the sun and very hot. The last aid station was at mile 10, but it should have been at mile 11, just before you leave the shade. The last two miles are dusty, dry, hot and traffic-y. Not how I would have ended a race that was so wonderful - just 11 miles before. The finish was at a park and was well organized - good healthy food options like oranges, bagels, etc with an added bonus of ice cold chocolate milk (YUM!) and some easter candy chocolates (double YUM!). I think that if the race started at 7 or 8am (not the 10am we had this time) maybe the heat would not have been such a problem on miles 11-13. I will do this race again or maybe just The Other Half, which begins 26 miles up the canyon from Moab and starts and ends within the shade of the canyon and doesn't mess around with the downtown scene.

    Tre S.  4/24/09

I don't understand why this race is so popular. You have to drive 3-5 hours to get to Moab and then you end up paying about $200 for a hotel room. The scenery and course are nice but I didn't like waiting at the start line in the cold for 1.5 hours. If you do the race I recommend taking one of the last busses so you aren't waiting forever at the start. Another complaint is that for a race with over 4000 runners is pathetic that they don't give prize money.