State 23 Kansas

Kansas was a last minute snap decision. I had took the week of August 6-10 off because I had signed up for the Rivercities Triathlon on the 5th and figured it would be a good week to take vacation. My choices are limited and it fit in so I took it. Back in March, when I registered for Rivercities, I looked for a race close to Shreveport, but at the time there wasn't any. As time went on I didn't have firm plans for the week other than the Rivercities Race. In the recent past, all of my trips have been to do destination races, something about the fact that when I am the only one voting, I ALWAYS win by a Landslide. Well there was this rumor going around that some people take trips that have NOTHING to with running or triathlons, they just do stuff like laze around, shop, and sight see. SO...myself and a friend had planned to go to New Orleans and hang out on Bourbon St for a few days after Rivercities. Right before August, those plans fell through, and I was left with a whole week of vacations and needing to find something to do with it. Naturally, I thought about doing a State and found a ace in Marion Kansas. It was the Saturday after Rivercities, so I would have Saturday and Sunday to return home. My Mom lives about half way between Marion and Houston, so it was a great reason to go and visit her. I talked to my coach about adding that race, and she said that any plan that made Mom happy, was probably a good one. I told her I was only doing it to make my Mom happy, with no consideration of myself. It turned out the name of the race was "Run 4 Your Momma", which clinched it. I signed up and the trip was on.

The race itself was a very "Plain Vanilla " event. It was very small (packet pickup was only on race morning). The course started at a very small lake (in Texas, it would have been called a pond), and then traveled down dirt roads in to town, and back to the lake with a final loop around the water. For the most part, I seem to have Great Luck with the weather, and that was so for this trip. High temperatures had been in the 100's for weeks. On that Saturday the race started at 6:30 and it was lows 60's at the beginning, and only a high of 80 for the whole day. There was breakfast food for the after race party, but I can never eat that soon after running that far. When I finished, they were out of medals and they said they would mail me one. I was talking to one of the women in charge and told her I really wanted one to go on my board for all 50 states. If I didn't get one, I would be forced to petition Washington DC to expel Kansas from the Union so I could still say I ran all the states and got a medal for it. She laughed and said she would see what she could do. they had a 5k as well as the Half Marathon, and while all the Half finishers got a medal, only the 5k'ers who won their age group got one. They had several age groups who either had no participants or no one claimed  the medal. She gave me the one for the Male 50-59 age group. So not only did I finish the half marathon, I was also the "Unofficial Winner" of the 5k Men's 50-59 age group. My first podium. Kind of !!!!