As I lay awake in my tent the past couple of nights listening to the thunder shake the skies and the rain pelt our shelter, I pondered the upcoming race.
One week.
The Kansas City half marathon is Saturday October 20.
We’re about to see what can come from training through the summer, focusing on the goal and then getting to the starting line.
We took the Ozlings into the wilderness over the weekend for a little cross-training expedition we call camping. We drove north and some of our longtime friends from Nebraska came down to meet us at Indian Cave State Park in southeastern Nebraska.
Good times. Wet, make that extremely wet, times. But good times, nonetheless.
The forecast said we could get hit with some rain on Saturday afternoon and Sunday. The forecasters were close. The torrential downpour of near biblical proportions arrived about 3 a.m. Saturday.
It was kind of strange to see the tent completely illuminated as if someone were shining a floodlight just above us. Then a few beats later, “Ruuumble! Rummmble! Crack!”
Our tent did its job. The wet was on the outside. We were dry on the inside.
One week.
The Kansas City half marathon is Saturday October 20.
We’re about to see what can come from training through the summer, focusing on the goal and then getting to the starting line.
We took the Ozlings into the wilderness over the weekend for a little cross-training expedition we call camping. We drove north and some of our longtime friends from Nebraska came down to meet us at Indian Cave State Park in southeastern Nebraska.
Good times. Wet, make that extremely wet, times. But good times, nonetheless.
The forecast said we could get hit with some rain on Saturday afternoon and Sunday. The forecasters were close. The torrential downpour of near biblical proportions arrived about 3 a.m. Saturday.
It was kind of strange to see the tent completely illuminated as if someone were shining a floodlight just above us. Then a few beats later, “Ruuumble! Rummmble! Crack!”
Our tent did its job. The wet was on the outside. We were dry on the inside.
It was actually kind of cool to experience a thunderstorm with only a narrow nylon barrier separating us from the raging wind, rain and lightning outside.
The rain eventually let up Saturday enough for us to take a hike. That was about the extent of the exercise over the weekend. I squeezed in an 8-miler on Thursday, knowing that our camping trip would mess with my running schedule. It was my final semi-long run before the half marathon.
Thinking about the Chicago Marathon survivors, I am a little anxious about the conditions on race day. Kansas City has a wonderfully scenic course, but it certainly isn’t as famously flat as Chicago’s. So let’s be clear, we don’t need any excessive heat.
The forecast at the moment calls for a high of 69 and a low of 55 next Saturday. Shouldn’t be terrible, but a few degrees cooler would be nice.
Not that I really trust a forecast this far out anyway. Those meteorological jokers told us we were going to have a clear first night of camping this past weekend.
After we got home this afternoon, I had a front yard full of drenched gear to prove otherwise.
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