Bryce Canyon Half Marathon

If you ever get the opportunity to run a race in or near a National Park, I think you have to take it. It’s certainly a nice change of pace to get out and run between huge red rock formations as opposed to the ever-​present city sidewalk running.
The race runs from Ruby’s Inn at the mouth of Bryce Canyon Park to the city park in Cannonville along Hwy 12. The pre-​race expo is at the finish line in Cannonville the night before. There’s also a 5k that runs around Cannonville at the finish line. The course can probably be broken down into three segments…
PART 1, DAWN START (MILES 0 – 5): The race starts at 6 am where you still have the dim lighting of the early morning which made the race feel cool, even though the temperature would reach 100 degrees this day. The first two miles are pretty flat along the highway and it’s a pretty easy start. It doesn’t feel that crowded, despite over 1000 runners in the race.
Once you reach the two mile mark, you’ve reached both the prettiest and the easiest part of the course. There are the towering pillars of red rock here and the course goes into a steep down hill for the next three miles.
And by steep, I mean cliff face-​type drop. I’m convinced I could have just put on one of those flying squirrel-​type suits and just base jumped from mile 2 to 5. It seemed like I’d just started when I passed the five mile marker. As an aside, I did like the cool iron mile markers that were attached to the side of the road.
PART 2, THE FLATTENING (MILES 5 – 8): After the steep downhill, the course flattens out until you get to the city of Tropic. It actually makes this part feel a little hard after the steep downhill, although this is a pretty easy section. The nice part of running next to a canyon is that it blocked the direct sunlight for a while. I’d almost finished this section before the sun first came over the top of the hills.
PART 3, ROAD TO CANNONVILLE (MILES 8 – 13): At the finish, people were complaining about this part of the course. The sun was out and it got hot quickly and the course is a little rolling here. I felt it actually moved reasonably quickly and there were some scenic farms along the way.
The course was also well organized with eight water stops and shuttles going from the finish back to Ruby’s Inn (as well as stopping in Tropic). I think getting a hotel at the start (near Bryce Canyon) is the way to do this although as an alternate, you could stay in Cannonville. Then you could walk to the expo and back to the hotel at the race. They had 4:30 am shuttles to the start from Cannoville also.
A recommended half marathon.