Sand Hollow Marathon & Half Marathon

A Small-Town Race Staged From Hurricane

The Sand Hollow Marathon & Half Marathon calls itself a small-town marathon with a big-town heart, and Hurricane is the reason the line fits. Both distances start from the Hurricane Rec Center, a block west of Main Street, and the whole event is run from that one building. Runners wait out the cold desert morning indoors, in a heated room with restrooms, instead of standing in a dark parking lot. On a Saturday morning in March, when the desert is still cold at the start, that indoor wait is the detail the organizer leads with.

Two Distances, Two Different Landscapes

The marathon and the half do not share much beyond the start. The full course heads south out of town across the open benchland, then swings west and runs along the southern shore of Sand Hollow Reservoir, inside Sand Hollow State Park, where the blue water sits in a basin of red sand. It is the stretch that gives the race its name, and the reason to choose the long distance.

The half stays east of the reservoir. The organizer describes it as flat and fast: it runs out along the base of the Hurricane Cliffs and back, with a short loop partway to break up the out-and-back. Anyone who wants a quick time on an easy profile belongs here; anyone who came to see the reservoir should enter the full.

Back Roads, Open Traffic, No Rush

This is not a closed-road race. Both routes use rural back roads that stay open to traffic, so runners share the shoulder with the occasional car and need to run with some awareness. The payoff is a quiet course with none of the fencing and crowd noise of a big-city marathon.

The event is also unusually patient. The organizer says it welcomes walkers and has never closed a course, and asks anyone expecting to be out past six hours to let the team know so volunteers can plan around them.

A Long-Running Local Fixture

The race has deep local roots: its 2025 edition was billed as the 16th annual, a long run for a small-town race. It has kept the same character throughout: a volunteer-driven event with local sponsors, a finisher medal for every distance, and race photos handed to runners at no charge.

Making a Weekend of It in Hurricane

Hurricane sits about twenty minutes from St. George and roughly half an hour from Zion National Park, so a race here fits neatly into a longer trip. The Hurricane and La Verkin guide covers where to eat and stay in the host town. With legs to spare the next day, a day at Sand Hollow explains what the reservoir offers off the race course, and the Hurricane Valley Heritage Park and Museum covers the town's pioneer history.