I ran the Gopher to Badger half in 2014 as an impulse race with my mother. We were looking for a race to do and we have family in the twin cities, which led us to this race. I really enjoyed the unique course, starting in a neighborhood in Stillwater, to country-esque roads kind of in the middle of nowhere, to crossing the St. Croix river into Hudson. There were a couple drawbacks to this however. First of all, when were were on the country-esque roads, there was construction going on and that was causing a lot of dirt to be barreled up for about a half a mile to a mile. Second, when we got closer to I-94 and the bridge we had to cross, there were a lot of bikers trying to use the same path that we were and were extremely rude about telling us to "get out of the way" and "move it". Also, as far as aid stations go, I was in desperate need of a port-o-potty, but the race only had one bathroom stop at mile 6.5. Many people ended up using peoples yards to go to the bathroom. I think at least one other stop would have been a little more convenient. Putting those issues aside, I would do the race again. I mean, the shirt and the medal were some of the cooler ones I have seen in a while. I would recommend this race to anyone looking for a summer half in the Midwest (but a final heads up for people who are not from Minnesota or Wisconsin, your bib sucks and you will be saddened to see that you do not get to pick a cool gopher or badger themed bib).

Check out my blog for more info and pictures: http://theracecritic.blogspot.com/2014/10/gopher-to-badger-half-marathon.html