I'm involved in a lot of event production, primarily as a race announcer. Therefore, I like to think that I have a pretty good handle in understanding the in's and the out's of races. The Flying Horse Half Marathon is a race that I saw on the RunningintheUSA.com race calendar as it filled a hole in my calendar for the fall and early winter. Once I put all of the travel pieces together to come to the greater El Paso area from Houston, I registered at a very fair price of $65 (even more so in seeing what the traffic control costs might have been for this event.) I thought I saw that the race had race day packet pickup, but when I received the first of at least two race week e-mails I realized that I made an error. Graciously, the race director made a variance for me as I was coming in from out of town. (Thank you and I thanked her in person right before the race.) The race got started on time despite very high winds this morning in northern El Paso area. The temperature was in the low 60's, but the brisk winds kept it cool. The course is a mix of Anthony, Texas and Anthony, New Mexico city streets on the southwest portion of the two-loop course. The far west side, going south to north, puts you on an paved asphalt one-mile trail where you head east, staying on the shoulder of a west-to-east two-lane highway before turning south just after a mile on to a two-lane frontage road to I-10. This continues all the way until you return to Anthony city streets for about a mile or so. Two things really stand out: the volunteers were really incredible, positive and encouraging. They worked hard. I hope the organization(s) got a very fair charitable donation for their effort. They earned it. The other thing was the friendliness and corporation of local law enforcement. I understand that they take a big brunt of grief from residents and the like who are inconvenienced on a race morning, but everything single one that I was able to engage with was positive, supportive and encouraging and acknowledged the "thank you's" in their direction. I'm not a big fan of medals and I don't know what the view of them here in the greater El Paso area is, but an upgrade may be in order. The event production company encouraged companies to bring groups of people out in an effort to engage in the health and wellness arena. You can never go wrong here. Great job. I give this event a solid A.