Number 47 was the Eisenhower Marathon on 30 April 2022. Here are the time and distance details.
| distance (miles) | time | pace (min/mile) |
| 7 | 1:10:19 | 10:03 |
| 13.5 | 2:13:57 | 9:56 |
| 20.2 | 3:37:57 | 10:48 |
| 26.2 | 4:57:07 | 11:21 |
We remember Abilene for the many times we drove through Kansas on the way to Colorado from Illinois. We would often stop for lunch and let the kids play in the park in Abilene. This time we flew to Denver, then Wichita, landing around 8 pm. On the same trip on the way back I was thinking as we drove home from the airport that every step on our path is part of the whole. The journey is not over until the end and each step is part of the journey. Kansas and Abilene seemed like a big part of our journey for the many hours we used to spend driving through, but of course we were interstate ghosts blowing by the local populace. As a group, however, such ghosts outnumber the locals.
All of the flights were bumpy and everyone was queasy. In Denver International Rachael watched a woman run off one of the planes and spew into a trash can. Happily I missed that event, although I did witness an unhappy couple fall down upon each other on the esacaltor and be unable to get up in the tangle with their luggage. Someone managed to stop the escalator. The journey we are all following is moments of tragedy and joy. Driving out of the airport in Wichita we found ourselves in the middle of an intense thunderstoram with pea-sized hail. We pulled over to wait for it to pass, worried that it was destroying the rental car. Later we heard that a tornado had touched down in Andover, near Wichita. At the marathon start the next day a man from Colorado that his new car had been damaged by baseball-sized hail while driving over. Later that day we heard that three meteorology students from the University of Oklahoma were killed when when their car hydroplaned while driving back from a trip to record the storm in Wichita. The journey we are all following is moments of tragedy and joy.
We stayed Friday night in Salina, where we arrived just after 10 pm. Happily, Applebee's in Salina is open til midnight, so we got a pasta dinner to go. We were off at 5:30 the next morning to Abilene. It was a breezy (maybe 25 knots) but clear morning. The planetary alignment in the predawn sky was amazing as we drove into town. We parked right next to Abilene Old Town and picked up our bibs. The restaurant adjacent to the start was open, but the cook had not shown up so the waitress was working double duty. There was one table with a group of 80 year old regular customers, they got up to help with sitting people down and taking orders. Here is a photo at breakfast
There was a bit of a line for the bathrooms in the restaurant, but not too bad. Extremely civilized for the start of a marathon. The start was brisk, breezy and bright with a nice live rendition of the National Anthem. Here we are at the start
The course heads south on the main highway out of town for a couple of miles and then turns east for a couple of loops of Brown memorial park. C.L. Brown founded the local telephone exchange in 1899 and got rich enough to make a public garden for the town. To this day Kansas is served by 30 local telecommunications companies. Crazy. But the park is beautiful, here I am entering it just before mile 17
The ripples on my shirt come from the wind. I ran fairly easy for the first half, as usual I had trouble in the second half. Really don't know if it is a mind over matter thing or not enough training mileage. I can't tolerate the training volume that I used to do. Right at mile 17 I had some bad cramps in the right hamstring, but they got better after a mile or two. The 4:30 pacer passed me around mile 18 and Dawna Garza, the 4:45 pacer, caught up to me at mile 20. She was so charming that I ran with her until mile 22.5, but then I said goodbye and walked the next half mile. I didn't see the mile 23 marker, so was happily surprised to find myself at mile 24. That got me so excited that I kicked reasonably hard to finish under 5 hours, here I am turning to the finish in old town
and here I am done
We spent Saturday night and Sunday morning in downtown Wichita, which is populated with kitchy bronzes like this one
Sunday morning there was half marathon and a rowing regatta downtown, here is the river view
Nice town, nice state, weird and precious life. Four more to go.
