Ririe Days is a great event! The town of Ririe really puts on a good party, and it made the race something that my whole family could enjoy and not just me. Ellie got to jump on bounce houses, play on a playground, eat free snow cones, and ride a horse-drawn cart.
The race itself was fun, and was good training in many aspects. First, it drops almost 900 feet in the first 2.5 miles, and then is relatively flat, with a few small hills, for the rest of the race. Miles 3-5ish are on gravel roads. Also, a special feature in this year's iteration was an incorrectly pointed sign at the end of the gravel road. So a few of us ended up running down another gravel road (i.e. the wrong direction) for varying distances. I figured something was wrong when I ended up at a dead end with a nice farmhouse, and saw the guy who WAS in first place turning around to go back... He actually ran several directions around the house looking for the path and ended up with 14.99 miles total on his watch at the end of the race. I had 14.43. We were able to turn several others back around before they got too far down the path. Also, the arrow that was placed to direct runners was a sticker attached to a road sign, so nobody attempted to turn it the right way. I still pushed my hardest, and decided this would at least be a very good training run. Around mile 10 I could see a guy ahead of me, and I tried to reel him in. He ended up finishing 30 seconds before me and got the 3rd place medal. Only the overall winners got medals, so shucks! I barely missed it! The guy who would've undoubtedly gotten first place ended up getting second place so kudos to him. The guy who officially got first place turned out to be a veteran to this race. Overall, very fun time for everyone. I also don't feel too wiped out, and I even played on the rock-climbing wall rented from BYU-I. I highly recommend this race to those looking for something that the whole family can enjoy. Did I mention there was a free community breakfast as well?
(14.43 in 1:44:20)
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