HURRICANE – The Sand Hollow Marathon takes place on Saturday at 7:30 a.m., and people are still able to participate in the race.

The marathon’s founder and coordinator, Jason Smith, said people can still sign up until an hour before the race starts on Saturday.

“They do run a risk of not getting a T-shirt or a medal, which for a lot of people they might not want to run it if they don’t get that,” he said. “We only plan for a certain amount of runners, but they can still sign up.”

Smith, said about 100 people will be competing in this competition.

“I just looked at the map today, and most of our runners are coming from the Salt Lake area,” Smith said. “We’ve actually got some runners from Iowa and Montana.”

There has been a change made to the original course set out in Hurricane. (See the course video)

“There was a loop originally where we had to run up SR-9, but that’s really dangerous,” Smith said. “I really couldn’t feel good about sending runners up there for their safety.”

Smith said after some discussion with the Hurricane Police he felt it was best to make the change in the course. So now the course has been switched from a loop course to an “out and back” course—a course where the runners race to a spot and then turn around and come back the direction they came from.

“My goal is to provide a safe event first and then a fun event,” he said.

Smith said he usually looks at hills in an “out and back” course. He said when he races uphill he knows he gets to go downhill coming back. However, with the Sand Hollow Marathon Smith said there is a hill the runners initially will go downhill, but they will have to go uphill coming back, creating a bit of a challenge.

Smith will not be running in the marathon himself, but he said he has run the course numerous other times. Hurricane is Smith’s home area where he used train for other races, so this particular course holds a special place in his heart.

For those runner who have signed up already there will be a drawing on Friday night to decide one spot in the St. George Marathon.

“St. George is tough to get in to sometimes if you’re from outside of Washington County,” Smith said. “We do have one (spot) that St. George was kind enough to give us.”

For more information about the race go to www.sandhollowmarathon.com, or check the marathon’s Facebook page.

 

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