Provo Monster 5K, and Annaleesa's Birthday

I had absolutely no Saturday race plans for today lined up, until......I got on Facebook last night and my running friend from RA (Runner's Anonymous) posted that she had a free 5K to give away.   Lori lives 2 hours away and didn't want to drive that far to run for a half hour and then turn around and drive back home for 2 more hours.  I don't blame her.  I probably wouldn't have done that either.  But since I live so close to the starting line I jumped at the opportunity.  You can't beat a free shirt and an opportunity to run with other people.

It was a super small race put on by some BYU students to benefit economic self-reliance at the Ballard Center.  Last year they said they had 160 people attend this race and this year only 26.  I felt a little sad for them. There was just too much competition with other races going on this morning. The race started about 10 minutes late because the bathrooms at the park were closed and so we were waiting for people to return who had left to find facilities.  This was a Halloween dress-up opportunity, which I decided not to do.  In actuality not even half of the people dressed up.  Yeah, it was a sad race.  The best part of the race was being able to run around a park that was almost a full mile around the loop.  We did the park loop 2 1/2 times along with a neighboring area across a cute wooden bridge over the Provo River.  It was a cool morning with fall leaves everywhere and the atmosphere was just pleasant and nice.  It was fun to talk to a couple other runners.  It's always nice to meet new people at races.  At the finish line they had a cooler of water, bananas, and some tootsie roll Halloween candy.  I finished up this 5K run with a time of 34:29 and then headed off to watch the other Halloween race going on this morning.  The Provo Halloween Run.  I parked over at the mouth of the canyon and headed up the Provo Parkway Trail in the opposite direction as the runners.  This race boasts a few thousand people and so I walked for 1.25 miles just having a blast seeing all the people in costumes going the opposite direction at about mile 11 to mile 10.  I then turned around and ran down the canyon for the 1.25 miles I had just walked up and then headed back to my car and zipped home fast.   My day had just begun!

(Pot pie and dinner made by our other good buddy Laurie and eaten on a separate occasion)

This cute little lady had a birthday last month and since she loves getting out of town and doing things I decided to take her to St. George and visit the Tuachan to see Thriller and stay overnight.  We were also going to do some hiking in Zion's to see the famous Angel's Landing but we had quite a few changes come up and ended up needing to come home right after the show.

We left home about 12:30 Saturday afternoon after my morning runs and spent our time getting down to St. George.  We headed West from Cedar City and checked out a little place called Iron Town, a little Ghost town about 22 miles west of Cedar. Then continued over the valley into Enterprise and then South to the Mountain Meadows Massacre area.  There are three different places in that area you can stop and see and read about the tragedy behind this whole ordeal. Such a sad series of events, definitely not a proud moment in Mormon history.

After leaving that area and continuing South on that highway we were on the exact road where the St. George Marathon runs.  We were able to drive the rest of the way into the city along most of the 26.2 miles course.  Someday I may decide to run the St. George Marathon and so to be able to drive that road with those thoughts in mind made me look at the area in whole new perspective.

We got to St. George and headed to dinner at Cafe Rio and then out to the Tuachan Theater.   We arrived with about 15 minutes to spare.  The show was spectacular!  Almost 3 hours packed full of dancing and singing, and film all with a Halloween/Scary theme.  At the beginning of the show, and at the intermission there were zombies/actors, actresses wandering the audience scaring people and climbing all over the seats and getting in peoples faces and sitting on their laps.  It was definitely freaky.  Fortunately, Annaleesa and I must have looked too happy or too aware and so we didn't have them bothering us.  A little girl a couple rows behind us just didn't stop crying the whole time they were walking around.  This was for sure not a show little kids belonged at.  I was a little baffled that parents would want to bring their children to something like this.  One act in the show had a woman dressed as a little girl singing "I Saw Mommy Killing/punching, stabbing Santa Claus" and giggling/laughing throughout the whole song.  I was a little worried that the poor kids in the audience were going to be scarred for life!!  The choreography and dance though with every single act were absolutely incredible and it made me long for my younger days of dance.  It was a fun show and very creative.  Can you picture Halloween Jason dancing with a real chain saw, while it was running?  That was pretty amazing!  There were mummies, zombies, Frankenstein and Bride of Frankenstein, a circus act, ghosts, skeletons, and so much more.  There was a lot of humor intertwined as well throughout the scary which kept it fun and entertaining. I Loved this whole production!

So after the show was over we hustled fast out of there and gassed up the car and headed on home.  I was so grateful for a few spots on the freeway allowing for 80 mph speeds.  I may or may not have been obedient with the speed limit law.  After a long whirlwind day I was sleepy and anxious to get home to bed.

(I'm still kicking myself for laziness in pulling out the camera-I guess that means we'll have to do it all again Annaleesa, what do you think?)