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Utah > Salt Flats Running Festival Half Marathon, 10K & 1-Miler
Wendover, UT • Saturday, September 1, 2012 • Course Map
Set for its fourth annual running on Labor Day weekend 2012, the Salt Flats Running Festival Half Marathon will take runners on what is surely one of the most unique race courses anywhere on earth, for a 13.1-mile run across the world-famous Bonneville Slat Flats in northwestern Utah, the site of countless television car commercials and where many of the fastest automobile land-speed records have been set for the past several decades.
As its name suggests, the race follows an almost perfectly flat course across the Bonneville Salt Flats, which stretch across more than 30,000 acres (or nearly 160 square miles) and are made up of salt deposits that reach six feet in depth in many places. Along with the Great Salt Lake near Salt Lake City, the flats are the remnants of the ancient Lake Bonneville, which has receded over the past several thousand years since the last ice age.
Fragile and protected today by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, the flats are a geologic wonder that go through a continual process of wearing away and smoothing out thanks to the whipping winds and water that floods the flats each winter, and dries away in the spring and summer months. It is said that when you stand on the flats and look out over the horizon, you can detect the curvature of the earth thanks to the flats' tremendous expanse.
The course for the race will follow much of the same course used each year at the annual auto races, at which drivers compete for all-time land speed records (speeds of up to 600 mph have been recorded here). It's likely you'll recognize the terrain and the landscape if you've been to movies in the past several years as well, as popular films like 1996's Independence Day and 2007's Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End had major scenes filmed here.
Race
Weather & Climate
Located along the Utah-Nevada border in the northwestern corner of the state, the Bonneville Salt Flats lie just a few miles from Wendover, which typically sees moderately warm to mild weather conditions as summer is giving way to fall, and very little precipitation year-round. In September, the town's average monthly temperatures range between 77°F and 54°F, while rainfall totals average just over a third of an inch for the month. On the day of the race (Sept. 1), the average high is 84°F and the average low is 60°F.
Course Map
View the race route map for the Salt Flats Running Festival Half Marathon
Fees
$55 for the half marathon, if registered by August 19, 2012
$60 between Aug. 20 - 31
$65 on September 1
Registration
To reserve your spot in the late summer 2012 running of Wendover's Salt Flats Running Festival Half Marathon, 10K or one-mile race, visit the event website.
Official Race Website
www.redlinerunningcompany.com
Leave a Comment
Ever run in Utah's annual Salt Flats Running Festival Half Marathon? Share your impressions and read fellow runners' stories and tips for the event.
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