Registration for the 2020 running of the Horsetooth Half Marathon will open on Labor Day, Monday September 2 with door-buster pricing. The 47th running of the 13.1 mile race will take place Sunday, April 19, 2020, starting to the south of the former location of Hughes Stadium on Dixon Canyon Road and finishing by New Belgium Brewing on Linden Street in Old Town Fort Collins. Registrations will be capped at 2,500 on a first-come, first-served basis.

Prices for this year’s race will remain the same as they have for the last four years. Registration will once again open with one-week-only, door-buster pricing of just $65. Regular early bird pricing of $75 will run through to the New Year.  

“It’s our great honor to continue the grand tradition of the Horsetooth Half Marathon. Now in its 47th year, the race has a proud history as Colorado’s oldest road half marathon, and has been a longtime staple of the Fort Collins running community. We’re constantly looking for ways to improve and also to make sure that we offer fantastic value for money by making the race as accessible and affordable as possible,” said race director Nick Clark, owner of race management company Gnar Runners which began managing the race on behalf of the Fort Collins Running Club in 2015.

“All members of the Running Club receive a $20 discount on their registration, which means a $45 race entry if purchased in the early bird window. We don’t think you can find better value than that in Colorado – or across the country – for a major running event. In 2018 & 2019 we saw record crowds with upwards of 2,100 registrations, and for next year’s race we expect to be at our 2,500 runner capacity,” Clark added. 

“The Horsetooth Half is a wonderful community event that celebrates many of the things that make Fort Collins such a great town to live in and visit. We’ve got unbelievable scenery on a challenging course, a wonderful in-race atmosphere,incredible crowd support, the deepest elite field in Colorado half marathoning, and a memorable finish line party at New Belgium Brewing, the epicenter of the Fort Collins craft brewing scene,” Clark said.

“We’re also really excited about the great community partnerships that we’ve been building over the last couple of years among our sponsors and non-profit partners. It was fantastic to be able to make financial contributions to over a dozen non-profit groups and school cross country programs this year through the help of our corporate partners, and we plan to grow both the corporate and non-profit partnerships in 2020.”

The Fort Collins Running Club will support runners training for the race through its Horsetooth Half RunningU program, a free 15-week training program beginning in early January and leading up to the race. The training program includes weekly long runs every Sunday. A number of those runs will start and end at New Belgium, with presentations and drink specials after each one. The group training runs are open to everyone, whether registered for the race or not.

Along with the Horsetooth Half Marathon, the Fort Collins Running Club also puts on the FireKracker 5k, the New Year’s Eve Resolution Run 5k, and the Tortoise and Hare races, a series of seven handicapped races beginning in October and ending two weeks before the Horsetooth Half. The races range in distance from 4k (2.5 miles) to 12k (7.5 miles).