Thanks for an incredible year. So rewarding to see you guys out there running in our neck of the woods. Can’t wait to run into many of you at future ultrarunning events near your home and share more beautiful trails together.

A GINORMEOUS THANK YOU TO OUR AMAZING VOLUNTEERS THAT MADE THIS YEAR’S EVENT SO WONDERFUL!!! YOUR SELFLESSNESS IN GIVING OF YOUR TIME TO HELP THESE RUNNERS PUSH THEIR LIMITS AND REACH FOR THE STARS WILL FOREVER BE APPRECIATED!!! On behalf of our volunteers’ tireless service in welcoming you to our community, donations have been made to the Virgin Town Old Church Restoration Project, Grafton Heritage Society, The Zion Canyon hiking/biking path project (to connect Springdale and Rockville), the Dixie Amateur Radio Club, and a local troop of boy scouts.

The tentative date of the 2014 Zion 100 will be April 4th-5th.

Here are some pictures that Zion Motion captured on race day that can be purchased for just $1 each at this website.

Overall, I was very pleased with the way the race came together. Still plenty of room to improve, but I felt that we stayed focused and addressed the bigger issues from last year’s event.

Thank you so much to those of you that helped carry a Boston baton along the course. Each time one came into the finish line I got a little choked up knowing that it had traveled the entire distance of the race, up and down each of those plateaus. The amazing Cory Reese (www.fastcory.com) is doing the follow up work with the Boston Marathon batons- getting them engraved, tracking down everyone’s personal contact info, etc. It has proven a bit tricky, but we’ll get them to their rightful owners one way or another. Please send any letters/thoughts that you’d like included with a baton to Cory at coryreese1AThotmail.com

Thanks for all of the valuable feedback. Things went well enough that 90% of the race experience will be on repeat mode for next year. All aid stations will remain the same in 2014. The course has been designed so that more singletrack can be added if/when it becomes available in the future without having to switch things around too much.

After listening/reading your thoughts, here are some things that we’ll be improving for next year:

– The rope WILL be long enough next year to scale the boulder on the face of the Flying Monkey trail (at mile 85ish) next year. That wasn’t a sadistic joke to try and increase the drop percentage. So sorry about that. We will have a thick rope that is long enough and has knots tied for aided grip and reaches to the BOTTOM of the boulder this time. My bad on that- I made the false assumption that the rope that I sent out was the same piece used last year. Hope nobody was too scraped up or traumatized.

– We already are working with the Ham radio operators on a tracking system that should be one of the most accurate out there next year, including exact time in/out of each aid station. It will require wearing a bracelet (or carrying it in your hydration pack), but should be well worth it.

– Runners that drop from the 100 mile the 100k will have a more accurate time reading next year. Those that took the 100k drop option this year will have times posted shortly. Please excuse the delay.

– A few junctions were not well enough marked. Those locations have been noted and will be fixed for next year.

– Some improvements in aid station food will be made per runner’s requests. Feel free to send your requests in at least 3 weeks before the race and we’ll see what we can do to get your favorite aid station item there for you.

– Pre race festivities will be moved to a Springdale location that can be moved indoors if necessary and is much closer to the majority of runners’ hotels.

– Running 100 miles and a post race party within a few hours after are perhaps not the best combination. Attempting to MC an awards ceremony totally deflated an otherwise beautiful weekend for me. We’ll just be handing out awards as runners cross the finish line in the future, barring a re-opening of Pah Tempe Hot Springs. Runners will now be given 2 gift certificates for Rise Up Pizza Company’s unbelievable wood fired pizzas, to be used however they’d like pre and post race. Feel free to swing back by the finish line any time we’re still open and hang around and get some more of Steve’s dutch oven potatoes and a drink. We’ll still offer the river float for anyone that’s up for it if conditions allow. We’ll have a designated hang out for anyone that would like to get together on Saturday night, but no official awards ceremony.

– We’ll be sticking with a Friday/Saturday event instead of a Saturday/Sunday event, based on your feedback.

– Please send me a copy or link of your race report if you have one to add to the others already on the race report page!