This weekend I had a chance to watch dozens of Treasure Valley residents jump into action and made me feel so proud to call Boise my home!

A few weeks ago, I told you that one of the fastest half marathons in the country was happening at Bogus Basin.  With over 3,000 ft in elevation drop over 13.1 miles, it truly lives up to it's name, The Freakin' Fast Half! (For comparison, I ran 1:55 at the Napa to Sonoma Wine Country Half Marathon on July 16th and 1:42 at Freakin' Fast Half on Saturday.)  The races is one of my favorites because you get to experience some of the most breath taking view in the city as you wind down Bogus Basin Road.  It's also one of my favorites because it's quick course draws people from all over the country to come and try to qualify for the TCS New York City Half Marathon. I love watching finishers' reactions as they come across the finish line knowing that they're going to New York. Except this year? That almost didn't happen!

Michelle Heart/TSM Boise
Michelle Heart, Townsquare Media
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This race starts two miles down the road from the main parking lot at Bogus, so there's not parking at the start if runners wanted to drive themselves up the mountain.  If you want to run the Freakin' Fast Half your only option is to take one of the shuttles to the start line.  I was running late on Saturday morning and thought I was going to miss the last shuttle, but when I pulled up to the finish line at Highlands Elementary, I was shocked to see a line of hundreds of runners stretch down the sidewalk.  As I ran over to the line, a few of my Team Run Boise teammates stopped me and told me that NONE of the buses had shown up.  A few minutes later, we got a status update from the race director.  There was a mix up at the bus company and there would be no shuttles available that morning.

Michelle Heart/TSM Boise
Michelle Heart, Townsquare Media
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With so many people visiting from out of state, cancelling the race wasn't an option.  The race directors asked Treasure Valley based runners to step up and help out.  If a local runner offered to drive participants to the start line instead of run the race that day, they'd be given a full refund, a chance to run the same course the day of the Freakin' Fast Marathon on September 9th and two free entries into a future Final Kick Events race.  That's when the line scattered and people started running for their cars.

Michelle Heart/TSM Boise
Michelle Heart, Townsquare Media
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A few of our Team Run Boise teammates took the option of driving runners up and had runners from everywhere from Eastern Idaho, to Nebraska, Wisconsin, New Mexico, Nevada and Pennsylvania in their cars.  When all was said and done and every runner who wanted to run that day had made it to the start line, there were still 15 cars of of volunteers lined up if needed.

Needless to say a lot of people qualified for New York this weekend and there were plenty of personal bests and smiles to go around! Thank you to the local runners that warmed all of our hearts this weekend!

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