"The Toughest 1/2 Marathon in the Northwest"

Natalie and I ran our first Robie Creek half marathon here in Boise on Saturday. This fun race is Boise's most popular running event of the year and claims to be the "toughest 1/2 marathon in the Northwest." I think Natalie and I would agree. The race is 8 1/2 miles up hill (over a 2,000 ft ascent) and then finishes with 4 1/2 miles downhill. The group that puts on the event, the Sailtoads, creates a fun theme each year for the race (see website http://robiecreek.com/ for more of the Sailtoads story). The theme they chose this year was to honor Scottish heritage. They put on a great show before the race with a bagpipe band and some weirdo chick riding a horse and cutting off the head of paper statue to start the race (they are known for their unique starts. You can check out the start and other videos here http://www.ktvb.com/news/robiecreek/ One of interesting features of this race occurs just before you hit the top of Aldape Summit. In all other aid stations along the race they have volunteers handing out water, oranges and bananas. On the last aid statioin just before you finish the grueling 8 miles up hill, and during the steepest part of the ascent when you are feeling the weakest, they have what is known as "temptaion station" -- the aid station with shots of alcohol, beer, spiked little jello cups, and ho-ho's. Some of the volunteers handing out the goodies were also dressed a bit unorthodox (we'll leave it at that). If nothing else it provided a nice distraction from the aching legs.

Natalie Finishing Strong

Scott Finishing Exhausted

In all, 2400 runners ran Robie Creek this year. It's fun to run races with that many runners. You always have somebody running with you. Natalie finished the race around 2 hours and 26 minutes and looked great in here plaid bandana. I finished the race in around 1 hour and 48 minutes. We'll post some pictures once we get them. It was a lot of fun running the race with Natalie. It's great that we have found something that we both enjoy doing. Now that we have ran Robie, we look forward to running it again. If your looking for a great quad cramping, calf burning, knees trembling good time, I recommend running Robie Creek. If nothing else, you'll appreciate your car more....