Race Recap - Bentonville Half Marathon

This past Saturday I took part in the inaugural Bentonville Half Marathon put on by Reinke Sports. It was an overcast and cold morning with temps in the high 30's and a slight spitty rain. My sister Lindsey and brother-in-law Tim came to visit and run the race with me. Over 1400 people were signed up for the half marathon and 5K event. We owe many thanks to Harps for not commenting on all the runners heading inside the grocery store for last minute potty stops. Of course, with 5 minutes to go before race start I was making a mad dash for the porta pottys!

The race start was so much fun with a downhill start that was a sea of people. It was so exciting to see this many people participating in a race in Bentonville!

Near Memorial Park we saw the Mulkey family cheering!


The race had lots of great volunteer support including a fun water/gel stop sponsored by PowerBar at mile 8. I got lucky and saw my friend Kyla here since this stop was just a few steps from her house!

My favorite part of the race was probably these middle miles from 6-9 miles! After that it was onto the city trail for the final 4 miles to the finish and I knew I would have to face the Crystal Bridges hill. I was excited at mile 12 to see my friends Lori and Amy at the start of the hill, I just wished there had been a water stop there. Next up at the top of the hill was Jon, Nikki, and Desiree with the encouragement to go the last .75 to the finish. Overall, it was a good race but that hill was just brutal. I was glad to finish and have a decent time for having missed several key long runs due to snowy weather. My official time was 2:26:06 but since I was using this as a training run, I could also go with my Garmin time of 2:23:20 which omits my stopped time while waiting for a bathroom at mile 9.5!