The Pocatello Idaho Half Marathon

It's Kristin.

This weekend I ran the Poki half with my sis, Karin.  It was our first race together (well, we did a family 5K once, but didn't run side-by-side). 

This race has some great swag- you actually get a bag of Idaho potatoes- how hillarious is that?  They even threw in 2 cartons of dehydrated hashbrowns.  We got nice black backpacks as our drop bags instead of the usual disposable plastic.  We also got a technical t-shirt (women's fit!) and a tube of rub-on sunscreen in addition to the usual race-related coupons and sample packets of stuff.  Oh! And the aide stations were sometimes run by local businesses, so like the Ogden half, they had lots of good stuff, like candy, multiple gels for each person (at each aid station! We totally stocked up.), etc.  It was, unfortunately, a brand I don't like.  Too potent-tasting.  Kar and I gagged 'em down.  At the end of the race they served stuffed baked potatoes (ha ha again!) which totally hit the spot.  Let's face it- all food seems to hit the spot after a race. 

The race weather was perfect!  A nice little breeze.  Another lovely aspect of the race is that it started at 8am.  You who read my blog know how I loathe race mornings usually, but this wasn't bad at all!  Kar and I decided to get all gussied up- wearing big dangly earings (very light-weight and didn't bother us at all) and flowers, colorful headbands, and braids.  We were hot.  Most people cheering cheered for the flower girls, or the dairy girls (braids?) or the earring ladies.  We started off pretty wild and crazy- shouting lot's of "Woo!"s and "Yeah!"s.  Karin thought it would be fun to run all serpentine for a bit.  I wonder if that would make it a full marathon?

Here are some of the things from the race that stick out in my mind. 

• The hills!  It was hilly.  Waaa.
• My cute nephew at the end so excited to see us and reaching out for me.  Love him!  We took him to the "bounce house" they had at the finish line adn he went nuts.
• I thought racing with braids in your hair would wap against you but they didn't
• A few of Karin's friends from church were biking and spotted us.  They rode with and encouraged and chatted with us providing excellent entertainment and distractions.
• I never donned my sunglasses since the sun was always behind us- lovely!
• We witnessed a car accident!  One of the high school teens running the aid station pulled out and was cheering for a runner as he was slammed into by on-coming traffic.  Whoops!!  We think everyone was okay, but of course it scared the crap out of us (SCREEEEEEEEEEEEEEECH!!!! ....BOOM!).  We didn't know what to do.  do we run back?  Let the others just help?  Keep going?
• We picked up 3 gels off the ground.  Unopened and good as new, thank you! :)
• We whinnied at horses and did that blowy cheek thing they do, and they talked back to us.  They seemed very excited about the race (seriously- they were dancing and prancing and watching everyone).
• We held hands over the finish line- sweeeet.

Thanks for reading!
Happy running!
XOXO
~K