Overall Rating
Overall Rating (2 Reviews)
2.5
(2 Ratings)  (2 Reviews)
DIFFICULTY
4.5
SCENERY
4
PRODUCTION
2
SWAG
1
The Run Emigration Half Marathon & 10 Miler course comes down one of Utah’s jewel’s-of-a-canyon and finishes at Research Park. Run one of the most beautiful and pristine courses on the Wasatch Front, from the start of the race to the summit at Little Mountain. The course goes downhill on … MORE
Local Historical Weather (Jun 17):
  2023 2022 2021 2020 2019
 
H (°F)  78  99  94  63  80
L (°F)  52  74  69  45  62
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Recent reviews

    esevern FIRST-TIMER '22

    Taking the bus to the top of the course went well. The first announcement they made to us on the bus after instructing us which bus to take for the … MORE

    Taking the bus to the top of the course went well. The first announcement they made to us on the bus after instructing us which bus to take for the 10 mile or the half marathon was that the food had been stolen the night before which of course was disappointing. They let us stay on the bus to keep warm until close to the start of the race and that was nice. They gave us race bibs with chips and had a mat at the start and finish so it had good timing. The bibs however were very generic and had nothing on it about the race or the year or anything else, just a number. The first 4 miles of the course are up a mountain and quite difficult. The remainder of the course was down Emigration Canyon and this was okay. Utah has many canyons. This one has few trees, it has homes, and it does have a stream running down the canyon. I did like running down the canyon with the sound of the stream and the birds in the morning. That was very nice. I would have to say some of the other Utah canyons that don’t have homes and do have lots of trees are much prettier than this course was. Most of the canyon simply had a few scrub oak trees near the stream and a lot of sagebrush. The race itself didn’t have that many runners. Once we got to the top of the mountain at mile four the race really thinned out and there weren’t very many other runners around as I ran. This is personal preference, of course, but it is nice to have at least a few other runners around as you run just to get a sense of the race. This one didn’t have much of that. Being a smaller race there really weren’t very many people cheering at all. There were just a very few cheering for family members at the finish. As I crossed the finish line a volunteer practically knocked me down trying to grab the tag that was attached to the bottom of my bib. Looking around after crossing the finish line there was no finisher metal being given at all. This was pretty disappointing because typically it’s very standard to receive a shirt and a metal for a race like a half marathon and this one just didn’t have one. It was doubly disappointing because there are pictures on the website of runners with metals around their necks, giving the impression that metals would be given out. I had to go back to the website and see if there was any mention of metals being given at the race and I didn’t find any but I did see pictures of metals around people’s necks so this was completely misleading. As far as the shirt it simply had a logo and it was a short sleeve gray cotton t-shirt so pretty bottom of the line type of shirt. After the race it looked like there were just a handful of volunteers trying to keep track of things. Unfortunately, I didn’t find a place where they were posting any results. Only the race director seem to have any results in hand. After some time they announced the winners of the races and the age groups. When they gave the results for the 10 miler they skipped over the men and went straight to the half marathon. It was a simple mistake but I think it was par for the course on this race in terms of the way it was organized with things just falling through the cracks. I hung around for the awards and was fortunate to win first in my age group for the half marathon, however the metal was very cheap and didn’t note my age group. I was thinking that if I got a medal for my age group that it might be a nice one since there were no finishers medals given out and they should have had enough in their budget to handle better metals than they ended up giving out. This metal had a very cheap ribbon for the neck and didn’t really have a metal it was actually a piece of glass with the name of the race and year on it and that was it. Overall my impression of this race was total disappointment. On the bright side I got another workout and the canyon was pretty good but beyond that the overall experience of the half marathon was pretty poor. If you were looking to only run a couple of half marathons a year and wanted it to be a great experience this is not the one to pick. It wasn’t organized very well. It was pretty small. The shirt wasn’t very good. There was no finisher metal. In addition even if you win your age group or the overall race the metals for that were pretty bad.

    DIFFICULTY
    4
    PRODUCTION
    1
    SCENERY
    3
    SWAG
    1

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    seagroves87 FIRST-TIMER '21

    I decided to fly into Salt Lake City for my Zion 50K because I have never been and flights were much cheaper to SLC than Las Vegas. I was planning … MORE

    I decided to fly into Salt Lake City for my Zion 50K because I have never been and flights were much cheaper to SLC than Las Vegas. I was planning to spend a week exploring Utah before the 50K and thought I’d look for a 10K to 10 miler this weekend as a warmup run in even higher altitude than Zion to hopefully help me acclimate and I found this one. This race is a point to point race that mostly goes down emigration canyon road. There is a half marathon and a 10 miler option. The half marathon starts 3.1 miles away from the 10 miler and eventually converges. In terms of pre-race info I feel like the important things were covered but some minor details were missing. We also never got the “we are officially approved” email but that’s okay the race did happen. You have the option to either park at the finish line and get dropped off at the start or park at the start and be brought back at the end of the race. They do not provide shuttles. I parked at the start so I could wait in my car and also because day of packet pick up was at the start (they also had packet pick up Thursday and Friday). The volunteers seemed kind of confused at packet pickup but maybe it’s just because I was one of the first people to come pick it up that morning. Packet was just bib and T-shirt. The shirt is pretty terrible. Just a cheap grey shirt with the race logo but it does have the year. You could opt out of getting a shirt and save $5. That’s probably a good idea unless you need another pajama top or dish rag. It’s a cheap race though so wasn’t expecting a high quality tech shirt. The race was on the smaller side with maybe about a hundred or so runners in each distance so there weren’t any specific covid protocols since the size of the groups fit Utah gathering limits. The start wasn’t the greatest set up. There was just some cones indicating the corral. We were instructed to wear masks at start and finish. Not everyone was following the rules but there was enough area so everyone was at least 6 feet apart. This was again chipped time with a timing mat at the finish but not at start. The start was a little awkward because the announcer was on the phone with the person who was leading the half group to make sure we started the same time. It wasn’t the best start. I suspect more attention was spent on the start of the half marathon which is fair as they are running more. The first two miles of the course are rough and a steep uphill. I power walked the majority of this. I also just flew in last night and got in around midnight so was sleep deprived, not well hydrated and not acclimated to the altitude at all. So this was rough but the scenery was beautiful and a nice distraction. Also I appreciated they closed half the road so you didn’t have to worry about watching out for traffic. Once you get to the top the rest is almost all downhill and much nicer. I had a pretty fast 5 miles from mile 2 to 7 and then just bonked out at mile 7 due to the altitude. The entire course was quite lovely with mountain views. The foliage was a little brown due to the time of year but otherwise it was beautiful. Weather was also gorgeous. I didn’t like how they used shared mile markers for the 10 miler and half which meant the 10 miler markers were off by 0.1 miles i.e. you came to the 1 mile marker at 0.9 miles. A minor detail but annoying. I was also disappointed the aid stations had no electrolytes or gels/chews. I don’t think this was communicated with us and if it was it wasn’t clearly stated. There were 4 aid stations and they just had little Dixie cups of water. Maybe it was enough for acclimated runners who weren’t dehydrated from flying but I needed a ton more water and needed electrolytes than the race offered. Luckily I had my handheld water bottle but I would have brought chews with electolytes if I knew there wouldn’t be any on course and had some hand cramping. The volunteers at the aid stations though were excellent and wearing masks and gloves properly. As I said I bonked out at mile 7 and did run walk intervals the rest of the race. The finish line was nice with a big finish arch. There were lots of family members cheering runners on and it was on the more exciting side for a pandemic race. My time was terrible but I was expecting that going into the race. Also just a warning there is a tight 3 hour cutoff as they reopen the road and take down the timing mat at 11am (3 hours after the race). So not very turtle friendly for the half especially as it’s a tough race. I’m not 100% sure I could have finished the half today in 3 hours since the 3.1 miles added are mostly uphill. Also not so exciting is the lack of medals and food. This was not a surprise but I’d like at least a cheapo medal and a granola bar. The worst part was it took about 45 minutes to get an uber to get me back to my car at the start so I was starving (my first uber in nearly 13 months since the LA marathon crazy!). But my hunger did allow me to really enjoy my vegan breakfast burrito from Vertical Diner. Overall I did think this was a beautiful and challenging course. There were many things that could have improved the production but there were no terrible production mistakes. I would recommend this race to locals or if you happen to be in town like me but I would not recommend the half marathon for a 50 stater who is traveling just for this race and plans to only run one race ever in Utah given lack of swag unless you don’t care about those things at all. Just splurge and do one of the Zion races with Vacation Races for Utah instead even if they are like 3x the price of this one

    DIFFICULTY
    5
    PRODUCTION
    3
    SCENERY
    5
    SWAG
    1

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  1. Races
  2. Run Emigration Half Marathon & 10 Miler