Provo 1/2 Marathon

Linda and I walked the 1/2 marathon for the second year on Saturday. It is my favorite run. You start at the top of South Fork, where they drop off the horses. If you have ever been up there you know where I am talking about. I left at 4:45 a.m. to pick up Linda. For once I was on time and we headed down to the shops at the Riverwoods to park and get on the bus. We got to the top of South Fork and it was really cold. We got to the top @ 5:45 a.m. and the race didn't start until 7:00 a.m. Our toes and fingers were numb and it took me until around mile 9 before they warmed up.
Last year they had us go out on the road between Vivian and Bridal Veil because part of the trail was closed because of fires. Linda and I would cheat and walk past the security tape in the mornings. We almost got caught once but the officer didn't say anything. Liked it better this year when we could stay on the trail.
There were two girls that were running and walking. I don't know how to say it politely but they were heavy and had big seats. That's as polite as I know how. There was no way they were going to beat us. We passed them early on at the first park up South Fork. So we are going along, talking as usual but picking up our speed for the race and holding about a 15 minute mile pace. We get down by Bridal Veil and you can see the other runners across the river heading up the road. There are also a couple of bridges that you can sneek over but if you are running 13.1 miles why cheat. We get down to Bridal Veil to make the turn and start heading up the hill and we see those two girls. Cheaters! They didn't even head up the hill but crossed and headed down. They cut out over 2 miles. One said something to us about being confused - yea, whatever. We saw them again at the finish but don't think they completed the race. Last time we passed them was at Timpanogos Park.
Same thing happended to us last year. There was this girl who we were determined to beat and we were way ahead of her and towards the end there she was in front of us. So we had to race to pass her again.
It was a great walk and I felt really good. Not a bit sore. We did run into the finish line, which felt kind of funny. My legs didn't know what was going on with that. We are hoping to do it again next year. I'm busy trying to recruit more people from the office.