Whelp. I should be telling you about my 30th state, somewhat of a milestone number. But instead I’m going to tell you about the adventure I had trying to get Wisconsin.

My sister and I picked out the Rockin Brews Half Marathon in Monona, Wisconsin. The fall is a tough time for me to get races as I try not to miss any of my son’s football games. Labor Day weekend provided the perfect opportunity to get a race since no games are played. We found this one and I was really excited. It was my first time to Wisconsin and I had big plans to hit up some Kringle bakeries after the run. (Trader Joe’s introduced me to this decadent pastry years ago and changed my life).

The morning of the race looked good. Decent temp, sunny, and a chance of rain later in the morning. We got started at 8am and things were going well until mile 3. There was a volunteer on the course who said the race was paused. To be quite honest I didn’t understand why, or how to handle that as it was a first for me. A lot of people kept running so I just kept going. Then at mile 6 we got stopped and told to go stand under a terrace.

The rain was coming in harder and there was lightning. I hung out for a bit and chatted with other runners and waited for my sister to get there. We checked social media and they said the race was postponed. A couple minutes later they said it was canceled. Then a few minutes later they said it was paused. I was confused and getting distraught. Finally, one of the race staff came over and told us it was in fact canceled due to lightning and we needed to figure out a way back to the finish line. I was pretty upset for a number of reasons. One- I thought the communication was confusing and unhelpful. Two- if it’s too dangerous to run, why weren’t they helping us get back to the finish line safely? Three- this is a big goal of mine and a lot of time and money goes into these races. Unfortunately for the club I’m in, if you don’t get an official finishing time, it doesn’t count.

My sister and I didn’t really have a way to get back, so we decided to just run back. Plus I had called my son and he told me “You can’t win if you quit.” He’s right. This goal is bigger than this individual situation and it’s not something I’m going to quit working towards.

It continued to rain but the lightning was intermittent. There were a half dozen other runners who decided to head back around the same time so we had a small pack. There were 7 miles to go at that point and it was tough to get my mind right. Luckily they had left up the water tables so I was still able to get hydration and there were a few random people cheering us on that really helped.

When I got close to the finish line I heard a band and lots of noise. Coming out of the neighborhood I saw that the finish line was still up. I was very confused. I ran through it and someone handed me a medal. It was one of the people cheering me on during the run, she said they thought we deserved a medal for finishing anyways. The race director had left up the beer tents and a band was playing. Not sure why that was okay to continue but the race wasn’t….but alas. It is what it is.

I was in a weird space mentally afterwards. Part of me was really proud that I finished the course. Part of me was dejected about how it turned out. But, life happens and all you can do is move forward. And that’s what I did. Straight to a cheese castle. Well, a shower and then the cheese castle.

And after that we went to a Kringle bakery. Pastries make things better. I got many souvenirs, aka tasty treats to bring home.

The good news is I still had a great time with my sister. We got to explore some of Wisconsin and went through the shit together. But the ordeal wasn’t over…

My return flight had a layover in DFW before ending in Tulsa. I never made it to DFW. We were somewhere over Texas when the pilot came on the speaker and started a sentence with “Whelp.” (that’s never a good sign). He announced that both Dallas airports were closed and he didn’t know what we were going to do. Eventually he let us know that we were being diverted to OKC. I text my sister the update when we landed (she was in OKC) and she offered to come get me and take me to the Tulsa airport. It ended up saving me several hours as the flight was delayed 5 times. I got deplaned out on the tarmac and got to see the behind the scenes of an airport which was kind of neat.

When she pulled up to the airport in her minivan it was like seeing a knight coming to rescue me on a noble steed. The clouds parted and angels sung. My hero had arrived.

I didn’t get a new state. And this entire situation can be summed up in one sentence: “Well that didn’t fucking go as planned.” But I did have an adventure. I got to eat cheese curds. And now this means State #30 will be New York (NYC Marathon) and that will be amazing.