Next up was The Mother Road Half Marathon. It starts in Baxter Springs, Kansas and ends in Joplin, MO. Two for one! And before anyone says that’s cheating I have two comments. 1 – I made up this challenge for myself so I make the rules and 2 – I am running this again in 2018 so I will cover both states again. Boom. (Edited to change this as now I’m just counting it as one state).

This race was 13 days after Washington so much less down time than I would normally like. However by doing this I would qualify for The Half Fanatics so may as well. It’s a group of people who love doing half marathons so I thought it would be fun to be a part of, plus it helps you get discounts for races and paying to run is becoming a large chunk of my budget so every little bit counts.

The race was fairly small and started before sunrise. Decent crowd support. Thoughts that went through my head during the race:

1. Why did I wake up at 4:30am for this?
2. Mile 5 – gently rolling hills my ass. I thought Kansas was flat. I asked some bystanders to give me a ride up the hill as they were sitting on the back of their truck. They laughed like I was joking. I wasn’t.
3. Mile 7 – the wind hits. I see a dude that is like 7 feet tall and try to catch up with him to block the wind. Too bad the 7 foot tall dude is faster than me.
4. Mile 8 – I’m getting used to the wind and treating it like nature’s AC. And then I see a sign from heaven – SONIC! I could use a tasty beverage. I feel around for my credit card in my runner’s pouch (aka a sweet fanny pack type getup). And then I see it…. “CLOSED FOR RENOVATION”……WHY?! WHY?! The injustice of it all!
5. Fine, whatever. Would have been hard to run with a 32oz beverage in hand. I try an energy chew instead. It’s gross and sticks to my teeth. More energy? Hard to tell. Fruit tasting burps? Check.
6. Mile 12. Almost done. There is a dude twice my age ahead of me. Need to pass him. Thankfully I do.

Overall it was a fun race. As mentioned earlier I have already signed up to run it again next year. Although this time I’ve already tricked my sister into signing up to do it with me! Bahaha…

A photo of the bling:

One thing I love about running, you meet all kinds of interesting people. Include those who like to smoke a nice cigar mid-run.

Whelp, not sure what to say about this photo. Maybe I was trying to fly up a hill? Or hallucinating?