November 10, 2025 • 39 mins
We hit the road to Lincoln for the Good Life Halfsy and… let’s just say the weekend had range. From an expo with unexpected vibes to a race morning that felt like winter crashing the party, nothing went quite by the book—in the best “you had to be there” way. Kyle shares the little pre-start misadventure that nearly derailed his calm, the mid-race surprise that changed his game plan, and the finish-line moment that still made it all worth it. There’s talk of medals, community, and a frozen twist you won’t see coming. Plus, a quick peek at what’s next for The Pack (including a challenge weekend and a very intriguing themed race tip). Bundle up and press play.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:11):
Hello, everyone, greetings and salutations. Welcome back to another episode
at the Back of the Back podcast. I'm youro Skywalker.
Thank you so much for tuning in. We are going
to start this podcast in the same way we start
every podcast, after a weekend out of town working at
one of the expos and meeting the people. If you
are someone that we met this past weekend at the
expo for the Good Life havesy up in Lincoln, Nebraska
(00:33):
and you are checking us out for the first time,
I want to say thank you. Thank you so much
for at least giving us a quick look. Whether you're
here thirty seconds or you become a lifelong listener, I
really do appreciate you taking the time to check us
out after meeting me and us hopefully at the expo
at Good Life HAVESI. It is very much appreciated that
you even gave us a shot. I hope you enjoy it,
(00:55):
Hope you like it, Hope you will watch forever and ever. Amen.
If there's ever anything that you want to see, gust
are covered. We love my favorite episodes. Our listener request
please send us a message, let us know what you
want to talk about. And I am totally here. For it,
because that's the best is answering questions and talking about
things that runners want to talk about. That's what we love.
So anyway, because you hadn't noticed, it is good life
(01:17):
has the weekend. We are back from another successful run
in Lincoln, Nebraska, and holy cow, what a weekend. This
was rather unexpected turn of events for a lot of us.
I would I would venture to say, so here's how
it went down. Saturday morning was the day of the expo.
Saturday morning, just to save myself from a night in
the hotel, I get up at the crack of dawn
(01:39):
here in Kansas City. I load up the car and
I am hammered down up to Lincoln, Nebraska. Not a
bad drive. Not gonna lie when you're like driving at
five o'clock in the morning and still dark and it's
a Saturday morning. The only other people on the roads
were truck drivers and that was it. They were just
plugging along in the right lane and I was flying
around them in the left. Made great time getting the Lincoln, Nebraska.
(02:01):
Not a whole lot of traffic out there. It was lovely.
It was just me my radio with some other podcasts
that I listened to and a big cup of coffee
from court trip. Oh yeah, one hundred percent. I had
a big old honking cup of coffee and it was wonderful.
So we get up to Lincoln, Nebraska. We go just
straight to the event center where the expo takes place. Now,
(02:22):
this year the expo was on the other side of
this event center, sand Hills, I think it's called from
where it was last year, So thankfully, I saw how
crowded the parking lot was where it was last year,
and I'm thinking, Okay, this can't be right. I know
there are not that many vendors at this race expo.
It'd be cool if there were, but I know there's not.
And then I see a bunch of kids walking in
there wearing wrestling singlets and their hoodies from schools and
(02:46):
Whatnot'm thinking, okay, we're not there. So I drive around
the complex until I see the signs and then I see,
you know, hey, good Life haves the expo here. I
actually really liked the part of the the event center
that we were in. I think it worked well. You
entered as a runner to get your packet. You got
your packet first, and then you continued on around the
corner and into the expo hall where all the vendors were. Now, A,
(03:10):
I think it's great, it was a good setup, But
B I know there were a lot of people who
are kind of doubling back and just kind of leaving,
or they would circle in and then just b line
for the exit door. There still wasn't a whole lot
of motivation or reason for people to go through the
vendors unless they wanted to. Again, I'm still telling you
that Mo cow Bell had it right. Where you entered.
(03:30):
You had to wind through every aisle of vendors before
you got to your packet pickup, so at least you
were more inclined to interact because as a vendor there,
all I want are for people to I desperately want
people to come and talk to me. Please come talk
to me, say hello. And then I know there were
some people who missed us completely, who were like, oh,
(03:50):
you were at the expo. We didn't even see you there.
It's just kind of a big circle. If you didn't
kind of go up and down the middle aisles, there
was definitely some people you could have missed. And it
sound like I kind of got missed by some folks,
But I was next to a chiropractic place. They were
perfectly lovely. Not the most chatty group of young people,
but they were cracking backs as they so desired. And
(04:11):
then next to me, I was right next to the
folks from the Lincoln Track Club and they are the
ones that do the Lincoln Marathon and half marathon that
we did back in May. So again didn't get to
chat with them very much. Apparently they've got a new
race director coming in, not the gentleman who was on
the podcast last year, but they were out there trying
to get people involved in Lincoln Track Club and they
were also showing off next year's medal for the Capital
(04:34):
City Challenge. Now, the Capital City Challenge is what we
just completed this past weekend. But it is running either
the full or half in the Lincoln Full or half
marathon in May, and then finishing up at the half
marathon for Good Life Havesie in either late October or
early November wherever it falls where there's not a Nebraska
Cornhusker football game, and then you get your Challenge medal
(04:55):
and next year's medal. A lot of people said that,
and I'm glad they did. I'm glad it sounded like
there was a lot of buzz for it, because again
I was right next to them, so I heard them talking,
you know, all day long. A lot of people thought
it was really cool. Personally, I preferred this year's. I
like the twenty twenty five. I'm sure twenty twenty six
is gonna be great and they are going to have
(05:15):
wonderful time. I was not as big on the Capitol
City Challenge Metal, and you can go out online and
see it. It's out there. It's not like they're trying
to keep it a secret. They actually had a demo
of it right there at their booth. It's good size,
it's a pretty big honkin metal, but I like this
year's better. This year's had more of kind of an
Olympic metal look. It's big and shiny, where the other
(05:37):
one is more of a dull golden color. But I'll
show you this year's Capital City Challenge Metal later. But
I was next to them, had a good time, had
a lot of friendly faces come over and either learn
about the podcast or people who already listened who came
and said hello. Even got to take some pictures with
some folks. And then of course we had a lot
of the Kansas City folks coming up there to do
(05:58):
the race as well. Finished sixth in the team's placing.
We had forty runners who signed up for the back
of the back podcast team for Good Life Hasie. I'm
in on that. Like, forty runners, that's great. We had
sixty last year. And then however, many people just kind
of went up the year before just by you know,
word of mouth. I didn't have a team my first
year up there back in twenty twenty three, but I
(06:20):
know a lot of people went up there as well.
So hey, you know, for what it's worth as a
Kansas City based podcast who of course travels around as
much as we can. The fact that we have brought
in the last three years well over one hundred runners
to this race, I think it speaks volumes speaks volumes
to how good the race is. All the credit in
(06:41):
the world to Good Life Havesie. But then, you know,
we have people on here, we talk about it. You
listeners kind of believe in what we say and you know,
trust us even a little bit. And so if I say, hey,
we're getting a team together, come do Good Life Hazey
because it's a good time. You believe me. You trusted
us enough, and you sign up and we show up.
We've brought well over one hundred people to this race
over the course of the last few years, and I
(07:02):
think that's really great work. This race has done nothing
but grow over the last three years. They maxed out.
This year, they were sold out. They had over nine
thousand runners. That's great work. And I feel like, and
this can just be my ego talking, I feel like,
this much, this much right here, look at your screen.
This much, and if you are only listening, you need
(07:24):
a tiny bit. This much of their success is because
of this podcast. This much. Okay, I'm not saying a lot,
but this much. And so to all the listeners out
there who have gone up there and done good luck
Patsy over the course of this last three years, while
they have grown exponentially, thank you very much. I think
it looks good on us, it looks good on you,
and I hope you've enjoyed that event because it is.
(07:44):
It's a good time. And I still really liked this
half marathon despite how this year went, So let's keep
diving into it, all right. We finished up the expo.
The expo went from ten to six, okay, and that
was it. It's not a two day expo in you
got to get you gotta get your stuff, and you
gotta be ready to rock and roll. There are a
lot of other vendors there. They have a merchandise stand there.
(08:06):
If I'm gonna complain, good life havesie, and I know,
I know, heaven forbid. I complained because I got a
two star review on Apple for complaining months and months ago.
Still annoys me. If I'm gonna complain that DJ was
the most unnecessary thing I have ever seen at an expo.
This guy playing the dance music for eight hours. It
(08:29):
was like a rave for eight hours. And thankfully they
turned it down a little bit because my old soul
was gonna lose my mind listening to that stuff fump
inside my head all day. But thankfully they turned it
down just a hair, but still all day long, it's
these dance techno remixes of popular songs ish. And then
(08:52):
as the day went on, they even got away from
the popular song remixes and just went to straight up
techno dance music. And that was enough to hurt my brain.
So there we go. There's my one beef. I really
just wanted to take over like the bluetooth on that
and just you know, start playing like some classic rock
or something that would have made me happy. It's gonna
be It's not gonna fire up the crowd, but I'm
(09:13):
not at the expo to be fired up. Well as
a vendor, I'm there to talk to people, and when
there's loud, dumping music over my shoulder, talking is more
difficult than it would be if it was just some nice,
mellow rock in the background. But yes, I'm old, I
get it, I understand completely, I acknowledge it fully, but
that music was gonna drive me insane. AnyWho, there's my
one beef, all right, and good life as you guys
(09:34):
can just laugh at me and be like that guy's
stupid anyway, and you're not wrong. So we got done
with the expo, thank goodness for that. It was a
long day, but it was great to meet a lot
of people. Seemed like it was a lot of waves,
just wave after wave of people. It wasn't like steady
last year. It was steady the entire time, I think
because they expanded it two extra hours and then outside
there were different waves of weather going through. Then it
(09:57):
seemed like we got waves of runners going through. So
there'd be some dead times where I was just kind
of standing there twiddling my thumbs. And then there's times
where the line was two three people deep and I
couldn't get around to everyone. If I was not able
to talk to you, I do apologize, trust, and I
didn't want to leave you hanging. I also don't want
to just interrupt the conversation I'm in, but a lot
of people just would you slide a little flyer off
(10:17):
the table and I try and hand you a stick
or if I could so again, thank you so much
for at least checking us out. It is super great.
We finished up the expow I am out of there.
I problem I had. I went to my hotel. I
wanted to DoorDash some Italian food the Italian place I like.
I could not find any way to get it delivered
to me, and I was already in my hotel room.
(10:38):
It had been a long day standing on my feet
talking everyone at the expo. My voice was gone, my
feet hurt, my knee was killing me. I just wanted
to sit down in my room. So I ended up
having to order a pizza and uh, I'm not going
to say the brand that I got every time I
get this brand of pizza and it's a national chain,
I almost hope it's gonna be good, and I'm always
(10:59):
just appointed. Now it's better than some other options, I think,
because I think some of the old school options of
pizza have really gone downhill over time. Of course this
brand probably has too. But man, I got this pizza.
It was awful. I would have rather gotten pasta. I
should have just gotten chicken wings, to be real honest,
(11:20):
But you know what, it was a little bit of
carbs before the next day. I didn't have to leave
my hotel room to get it, and I was able
to just chill. Our boy, Cody did come up. He
needed a place to stay that night, so he crashed
with me. It was nice having someone just kind of
shoot the breeze with. We talked a lot about the race,
kind of what was coming up, what to expect, how
we were feeling, you know, just that sitting around even
(11:41):
though you know, Cody and I haven't hung out in
a while. Now he's all, you know, got a lady
and whatnot, and so we barely see him. Now you're attacked.
But it was nice and to just shoot the breeze
and catch up with him, and we were just sitting
around runner stocking and running, which is like all this
podcast does, well, we sure as heck we're doing it
there in the hotel room, just going over all sorts
of different stuff. I'm talking about Good Life has he
(12:03):
talking about Lincoln, talking about what was coming up for us,
and different you know things going on. It was it
was fun. It was a good time. But then it
was lights out and off to dreamland. Even though the
night before big race, did any of us actually get
me sleep? I don't think that we do. Next morning,
here we go. Now here's the biggest problem we had
with Good Life haves the weekend, and anyone who was
(12:24):
up there knows exactly where I'm going with this. So
while we're at the expo, and again I drove up
that morning. I drove up, it was about forty four degrees,
It was overcast. It sprinkled on me a couple of times.
It was very early November, seasonal kind of fall weather.
No big deal. I get into the expo, no problem.
(12:45):
But I'm in there all day. I'm isolated. All I
hear are people talking about what it's doing outside. The
rain picked up, so the rain was definitely an issue.
The wind picked up, so the wind was definitely an issue.
The temperatures dropped, so by the time I left the
expo at six point twenty let's say Saturday evening, it
(13:07):
was cold, windy, and rainy outside. It was nasty, gross yew. Well,
that was the tip of the iceberg because the temperature
was going to drop all night leading up to race morning.
What I had heard in what my weather app on
my phone was telling me was that the expected real feel,
(13:29):
you know, that's the temperature plus the wind chill, what
it actually feels like outside. The real feel when we
started the race was supposed to be between nine and
eleven degrees. That a freaking cold, man. That is cold. Now.
Why was it such a big issue. A lot of
people are like, well, yeah, you know this, It's Nebraska,
(13:49):
can be cold. Well, you know it's Midwest, it could
be cold. Yeah, it's November, it can be cold. Here's
the problem, as I see it, and I think as
a lot of us saw it, there has been no acclamation.
No one has been this cold. No one's been within
thirty degrees of this cold. When I left Kansas City,
like I said, it was around forty four degrees. The
(14:10):
day before it had hit seventy. So on Friday, the
friday before going to Lincoln, Nebraska, it was in between
sixty seven and seventy degrees here in Kansas City. It
was still lovely. It was like a perfect day. We
haven't had sustained days of cold weather. In Acclimating to
the weather, whether it be hot or cold, is imperative
(14:32):
to running a good race in my inestimation. All right,
we've gone over this before. We've done episodes several times
on acclimating the heat and acclimating the cold. There was
no acclimation to this cold. It just hasn't happened yet.
So I'm trying to think, all right, what do we do.
Last weekend we didn't have a race, which was amazing,
it was astounding two weeks before that, what do we
(14:53):
do Garman Kansas City Marathon or no, it was Monster
Dash Monster Dash five k, the Monster Dash five k
my last race before Good Life Has Me. Temperature was
in the fifties. Okay, so it was a late October race. Yeah,
I remember being kind of a cool morning, but again,
temperatures in the fifties, like mid fifties. It was in
the sweet spot of running. It certainly was not an
(15:14):
eleven degree real feel, so we knew it was coming.
We didn't We didn't know until very close to race data,
and it was coming, but we found out real quick.
So anyway, get up on Saturday morning. Thankfully the hotel
I stayed at they had their continental breakfast all set
up by six am, which was lovely. So got up,
got dressed, got everything packed up, headed downstairs. Breakfast was
(15:36):
already sitting there waiting for us. We had a nice
little bite of food and then we ventured out. And
the moment we left the hotel and that cold wind hit.
Oh baby, that was that was cold. That was cold.
So thankfully it did not get all the way down
to about a nine degree real feel. The real feel
I think I saw was eighteen. Hey, you know what,
(15:59):
it makes a big difference. It makes a big difference.
I think it was twenty two outside real feel of eighteen.
But the wind was definitely howling. It was very windy,
and again it was overcast. It was still dark at
that point. It was just a cold, miserable morning. So
we head off, We head down. It was a fifteen
minute drive to go from hotel to start line. Credit
to Good Life Hazie and to all the people involved.
(16:22):
However they did it, whether it was, you know, this
was a happy accident, or they had planned on doing
it this year, or it was a last minute decision,
whatever it was. The high school, I believe that's a
high school. It's a big building. I'm assuming it's high school.
The high school was opened up that morning for the
runners to stay inside, so you had the option you
could sit in your car or you could go into
(16:42):
the high school. Inside the high school, of course, they
had the restrooms, they had a gym where everyone could
sit in, and then there were people just littered all
throughout the hallways. Now when I got to when I
got there, oh boy, I it must have come in
a back rounde. It was not the way that I
normally go. I went the way my GPS told me,
but it wasn't the way I normally get there. Well,
they ended up flagging me into a parking lot. Well,
(17:05):
it was not the parking lot that I've been in
the last previous two years. It was a parking parking
lot on the other side of like the whole stadium
structure complex that is on this property. There's like high school.
Then there's their stadium, and then there's like the softball fields,
and there's other stadium and a park, and like I
was way on this other side. It was weird, not
where I'm used to parking. That's going to come back
(17:25):
into play later. But I park, I get out, I
walk all the way around this complex and I get
to the start line where everything is set up, and
of course there is nobody. There is no one. There
is a whole bunch of people off from the distance
walking up to the school, but there's no one just
hanging out to the start line. I felt so sorry
for the PA guy who just kept making announcements to
no one in particular because there was nobody there. Good
(17:46):
restroom spots were available, though, as there was no one
at the Portajon's. Everyone was up in the school trying
to use the indoor warm high school toilets. But anyway,
Cody and I we meet up there. We go into
the school, we find this spot in a in a
random hallway where thankfully, I mean there were certainly people,
but it wasn't that crowded, and we just we sit
(18:07):
on the floor, leaning up against the lockers. It felt
like high school all over again. As we're sitting there
just trying to be the cool kids, while everyone's walking
up and down the hallways, are getting in line for restrooms,
and then it's just wait. It's just wait and kill time.
So got there probably around seven, and you know, the
race doesn't start until eight thirty, so a lot of
time to just kind of wait. So we're sitting there,
(18:28):
shooting the breeze, getting messages from folks. Hey, where you're at?
Are you here? Everyone's here? Okay, We're good, everyone's staying warm,
wherever you're at in your car, whatnot. We get up
to leave, okay, And so we get up to leave
at eight fifteen. Race starts at eight thirty. I realized
that I still had my wallet in my pocket. Oh no,
I don't want to run a half marathon with my
(18:49):
wallet right here in my pocket. You know what if
it falls out? What if you know, you could get
sweaty and gross. I don't know, you have just in
its extra week. You don't want that to just be
bouncing in my pocket as I'm running. I don't want that.
I'm like, okay, I'm gonna run this to my car
before the race starts. After we go outside. So we
leave the friendly confines of the high school where it
was nice and warm because we had thousands of runners
(19:10):
in there warming the place up quickly. And we go
outside and you know, boom, there's the cold. Still cold,
still windy, still overcast, still gross. I'm like, okay, guys,
I'm gonna go off to the left here, i just
need to go around this field and I'm gonna get
to my car and I'm gonna throw my walle at
my car. Okay, So I'm going and this walk is
taking me three times as long as that I thought
it was going to. I go around the left side
(19:32):
of the stadium. When I go around the left side
of the stadium, I'm expecting to see my car. No,
that's where you see more of the stadiums. Do you
see the softball field and you see the other side.
Long story short, I could not get to my car
in the manner in which I needed to get there
or the time I needed to get there, because it
still wanted me to keep going around all these complexes
(19:52):
to finally get to my car. I finally said, screw this,
I can't do that. They're supposed to have the complexes
open for people to warm up in on the fields
and on the tracks and whatnot. I couldn't find an
open door, so I end up hopping an eight foot
high fence. I am forty five years old. I have
a terrible knee situation going on right now. What's a
(20:13):
last thing on God's green Earth I need to be
doing hopping an eight foot high fence, so I get
in there. After this hop, I rip my bib. My
bib gets ripped off of three of the four safety
pins holding it on. So I rip my bib. It's
now trash. I'm inside this complex now, hoping that there's
(20:34):
just an open gate somewhere to let me out into
the parking lot. Nope, I can see my car. I'm
staring at my car. I'm staring at my car on
the other side of yet another eight foot fence. I'm
looking all around for an open gate somewhere. Is there
an open gate anywhere? Oh? Look, that looks like an
open gate. Oh. This open gate leads to another area
(20:55):
that's fenced off and closed. I finally said, screw it. Look,
I'm running out of time. At this point, it was
like eight twenty seven and the race is supposed to
start at eight thirty, and I'm all the way back
over here on the other side of the complex where
my car is, and the race is way over there
getting ready to start. So what do I have to do?
Climb yet again another eight foot high fence and get
(21:18):
over to my car. Now the problem with climbing eight
foot high fence. I make it up to the top, okay, thankfully,
I still have a little upper body strength left, not much,
but a little. It's the eight foot drop coming from
the other side. So there I am terrible knees old
man flying over eight foot fences. The landing the second
time did not feel great. My knee, which is already
(21:38):
bad that's well documented, was not happy. So I make it.
I throw my wallet in the car, and then now
I have to go all the way around the complex
again like I did when I first got there to
get to the start line. Now, thankfully, because of the
way that the crowd lines up, I know that when
I get around it, I'm going to run into the
back of the runners who are lined up to start,
And thankfully it's not gonna feel like it's as far.
(22:00):
But it was aggravating. It was a terrible way to
start the race. I'm doing things to my body I
should not be doing. I'm already huffing and puffing because
I'm trying to climb eighteen foot fences like an idiot.
But anyway, I get around, I join everybody. Thankfully the
race had not started yet. Now the other complain, I'm
gonna have And you guys know, this is my biggest
(22:21):
pet peeve in life is when a race starts late.
Good Life Haves he started ten minutes late. I don't
like it when races start late. To their credit, they
did announce we're starting late because we don't have the
all clear yet from the police department. Okay, that I
am okay with. I want to make sure the cops
are in position. I want to make sure the roads
(22:42):
are closed. I want to make sure that we are
all of us runners safe and good to go. So okay,
I am not marking off. I'm not bagging on Good
Life HAVESI for starting late because the cops need to
be there. So at about eight point forty we start
all right. Thankfully, This year, no wave starts. Oh, thank
(23:03):
you good Lord above. I hate wave starts. They are
the bane of our existence as runners. This year, no
wave starts because they have I think more of a
police presence. They've widened the course in areas to be
able to handle more runners. Again, they're sold out, biggest
has the ever. You have to accommodate for the amount
of numbers of runners you're about to put down your streets,
and so they were ready for it, and so thankfully
(23:26):
no waves start. They blew the whistle as best they could.
Their MIC's kind of cut out, at least for us
in the back. But the race gets going this time.
Where it was last year it took thirty five minutes
for me to get to the start line. This time,
I only think it took maybe fifteen, because you know,
that's just a sheer volume of people trying to get
through the start line. It was still kind of narrow
at the start, which is fine, but it clogs a little.
(23:47):
But we finally get there and we begin the race.
The race is pretty much everything it's been the last
few years. You start going around the very same high
school that it kept us nice and warm before the race,
so you know, you could kind of wave goodbye to it,
thank you, high thank you for keeping us warm. And
then we empty out onto the streets. The only two
big hills you have are right there within that first
(24:07):
mile of the race. Everything after that is pretty downhill
to flat. There's maybe a couple mounds a couple humps
along the course, but not a big deal. It's certainly
nothing like some of the other races out there that
are some hilly sons of guns. Good Life HAVESI is
definitely a net downhill course. So if you like the
net downhill courses, and I do, then Good Life Haves
(24:31):
You is for you. Again, it is cold, miserable morning.
It is just nasty. The first aid station doesn't come
along and tell about mile three, so just know if
you go up there, you're not getting your first slug
of water until you're almost a five k done. But
it's nice when you get there, and that's after you're
running through some nice neighborhood and so it's really not
(24:52):
that bad. After the five k station, you turn around,
or you make this right turn, you're back on some
main roads and then you go up into a park.
In this park is about where you're gonna hit mile five.
Now in this park, I don't know how they avoided
it at the first aid station, but they didn't at
the second aid station. Maybe it was just colder there,
but the aid station in the park is where I
(25:12):
got my first aid station shot of gator slushy. It
was getting frozen. The gatorade was freezing because of how
stinking cold it was out there. So I go to
take that normal drink and you get that that ice
slush hitting your right in a face. It's like, great,
thank you, thank you so much for that. Thankfully did
not spill out and make a mess. But when you
(25:34):
get that hit in your face, you're like, ah, I
know exactly what that was. But I got my first
Gator slushy right there in the park. That kind of
cracked me up, made me laugh a little bit. But yeah,
there were certain aid stations, and again it just it
had to have been maybe how long they had that
cup sitting on the table before you got it, or
maybe just the way the wind was hitting things. But
(25:55):
there were some aid stations where the drinks were starting
to freeze. It was that that's cold. It was nasty.
I'm going to talk about the cold until the end
of this review, but that one was I mean, that
was kind of funny, but you know, we continue on.
You were still able to get a drink. You just
had that top layer of slush on it. We eventually
leave that park at mile five and then you get
(26:16):
this great like five k that is mostly downhill. This
is where years previously I had talked about how congested
it was because you had one lane. You had this
one lane on the right side of the road, and
that was all you could do, and then there was
traffic going, you know, both ways in the other direction.
This year they expanded it. You got both lanes. There
were two lanes there on the right side, leaving traffic
(26:38):
to go one lane one each way on the other
side of the road, which was great. The runners got
the two lanes. It made a huge difference on that
big stretch from like mile five to mile eight that
we had all lanes, or we had the two lanes
of traffic two lanes on the right side of the
yellow line put it that way, so that was really great.
I loved that we had expanded room on that court
(27:00):
made a huge difference. We're continuing on now. I'm not
going to talk about me personally much for this race.
I'm just kind of talking to race in general. Me personally, though,
you guys know, I've been going through it with the
knee issue having serious problems, and I think good Life
has he definitely has accelerated the problems with my knee.
There's going to be some more stuff that I'm going
to have to get taken care of. But it was
(27:23):
about mile seven where I've told you guys, I had
that Baker's cyst behind my patella, so behind the kneecap
there's the cyst that has developed, filled with fluids and
nasty stuff. I felt it. I'm pretty sure at mile
seven it tore that cyst, tore open the sending all
that nasty down my leg. And I've read about it
(27:48):
before because I wanted to make sure if that happened,
it wasn't like a critical, crucial, life threatening thing, and
it's not. But what did they do say is it
is going to be uncomfortable. It leads to swelling, it
leads to pain. My body will eventually reabsorb all that
nasty and so it won't be an issue. But for
about four to five days, very tender, very warm, very painful,
(28:12):
very swollen. And it all happened at mile seven and
I could just feel it, and then all of a sudden,
my calf felt like it feels like cramps and Charlie horses,
like from the very top all the way to the bottom.
I could feel it going, that stuff going into my foot.
I could feel it on the top of my kneecap
where the petella injury is and where all that cartilage
has gone. I could just feel that fluid filling everything
(28:35):
basically from the knee down and it was crazy painful
and crazy disgusting. So while I was doing pretty well
for the first seven miles, I was staying with the
two forty pacers. I was right there with them, no problem.
Two forty as soon as that happened, slowed down, slowed
(28:56):
a way, the heck down, could not keep a consistent
run going the pain. I would run until the pain
was too much, then I would stop until the pain
went away, and then I'd run until the pain was
too much. Then I'd stop and the pain run away.
And so I'm cruising along as best I can. But
I knew at that point I was doomed. Remember this
was my pr last year, my only sub two and
a half hour half marathon. Yeah, there was no repeat
(29:18):
performance of that this year, which was definitely a huge bummer.
But I did the best I could with what I had,
fighting through injury, fighting through pain. The two forty five
paced group passed me with like two miles left, and
then okay, so as I'm continuing on, you know, we've
gone down this five k stretch where the roads were widened.
We go to that trail that goes along the aqueduct system,
(29:42):
and that's all great. We go around the Nebraska Complex,
I think, where the basketball team plays, and so there
was less than a mile left, far less than a mile,
maybe a half mile left. Were almost to the bridge
that takes you over the highway down to the finish line.
The two fifties catch up with me, and I looked
at my up and there's the two fifty pacer and
I look at my watch and I do the mental math.
(30:03):
They're fast. The two fifty was fast, but to piss
me off because I'm like, look, I at least want
to be in front of two fifty. Come on. I
wanted to stay at two forty. The knee issue, the
cyst breaking was not gonna happen. Two forty five got
away from me, but I knew I wasn't gonna be
a two to fifty. So the two fifties catch up
with me, and I stay with them. I stay neck
and neck with them going up that walking path and
(30:24):
up to the top of the bridge. Now I heard
the pacer tell the person with her when we get
to the sea, because every pillar on that bridge has
a letter on it spelling out Lincoln. So like, when
we get to the sea, we're gonna go. And I'm
thinking to myself, Okay, well, if you guys are gonna
wait till the sea, then I'm gonna go at like
the I all right. So like, as soon as we
get to the top, as soon as we're al we've
almost crested that hill on that bridge, I'm going because
(30:47):
I know it is all downhill from there. That is
not an expression, that is the truth. It is all
downhill from that bridge. And thankfully with my experiences, I
knew that, and so I was able to take off
ahead of them. I fit forty eight to like two
forty eight oh six, and they are right behind me,
So I know they were just a hair fast. And look,
I'm not ragging on the pacer. There's a reason I'm
(31:08):
not a pacer. I would be wrong one percent of
the time at every race that I do, I would
not be a good pacer. But anyway, so I finished
at two forty eight, came across with Joe. We had
a great time. Another Kansas City running guy who moved away.
No wonder, I don't see you what races anymore? You
moved to Iowa. I had no idea until now, but
it was good to finish with him. So finished with
(31:29):
a friendly face, suffered through the pain, and got it done.
So here we go the metal Good Life has He.
So you'll see, Oh that's funny. So the parts that
look see through, that's actually green. But I have a
green screen behind me. Let's see. If I put in
front my body, can you do? No, No, it's still
just gonna be the green anyways, right, Good Life has
He does a good job with their medals. They are
very simple, all right. I'm not gonna say they're basic,
(31:51):
because I guess basic is a bad word these days.
Their metals are very simple. But I like the simplicity
of them. You don't need to be over the top.
This tell the story of the race. And they had
this very logo right here, like dead center, right before
the finish line. I don't know if that was a
chalk logo that someone drew or you use pain or
what it was, but it was very impressive. The big
(32:12):
one of these is a big logo of this right
before the finish line and then on the back they've
got their sponsor. I'll give a shout out to Mercado
and then says two twenty five twenty twenty five a
half marathon, Lincoln, Nebraska, and then it says big HAVESA
in energy. Now you're not gonna be able to see this,
I won't don't imagine very well on the camera. Yeah,
there we go. If I get a glare on it,
(32:33):
you can kind of see it. But yeah, So again,
these are simple medals, but I like them. They're not basic,
but they can tell the story of what this race is.
And I think anyway, and so kudos to them. I
like this medal. I actually think this is a really
cool metal. It will hang on the metal wall with
all my out of town races proudly. And again it
(32:54):
was another successful year of running the Good Life HAVESI.
Our only issue, of course, was the weather. The weather
was absolutely atrocious. It was cold for me maybe two
miles left when the sun finally broke through the clouds.
Anytime you could be in the sunlight. It helped. It
helped a lot. It wasn't perfect. It was still very cold.
We're not used to the cold, not acclimated, but we
(33:15):
got it done. Means I definitely did not hang out
the finish line very long, though I kind of wish
I'd stayed a little longer, but I didn't need to.
I didn't stay to take the picture. I did get
my other medal. You know, we get another medal for this.
If you remember doing Lincoln in May, and now this
the Capital City Challenge. We talked about it earlier. Let
me show you this metal. This is the metal for
the Capital City Challenge. Look at that. I like this medal.
(33:39):
And then on back to just as downtown Lincoln. I'm
sure a sponsor of it. But gold shiny you see
the white like it had last year. Next year's metal
does not resemble this at all. It is dark. It's
just got a corn stock in the middle with like
an ear of corn pop it out the top. And
I mean some people liked it. I felt it was cartoony,
(34:00):
just to throw a word on it. This like. I
like this metal a lot. I like this fanned look
it has with the shiny gold in the white and there,
I think it looks really slick. So I was very
glad to get this again. Capital City Challenge. This year's
metal for twenty twenty five, I've got twenty twenty four
and twenty twenty five. I like them both very good medals.
So credit to all the folks this year the Lincoln
(34:23):
Half Marathon. They always have cool metals. Good life has
he always has cool metals. And then I've really liked
the last two years of the Capital City Challenge. I
think they all do a very good job. So that
is really it. After that, I got the hell out
of Dodge. I went to the gas station I will
stop at. I got the coffee that I always get,
got a snack or two, changed into some dry clothes.
Then zoom, I was on the road back to KC
(34:45):
where now I'm dealing with this knee issue full force
because I can't even hardly walk at this point. It's
it's that painful. But for me, and again, if you're
tired of listening about me, you know, then thank you
for listening. But uh, for me, it might be a
good thing that that syst broke. If I can get
through these initial you know, three four, five days of pain,
(35:06):
it might actually help, like things might actually get a
little more back to normal. I've been reading about it.
There is that chance. So here's hoping. Here's hoping by
next weekend I'm feeling much better and can get through
next weekend's races. If not, I'll have to miss them.
Speaking of next weekend, next weekend, we are in Lease Summit,
Missouri for YETI Challenge weekend. So Saturday is supposed to
be the five K I imagine, no matter what, I'm
(35:28):
gonna do that really to kind of test things out.
And then Sunday is another half marathon, and then if
you do them both, that's completing the YETI Challenge this year.
Your prize is to swear a pair of sweatpants. That
is what you get for completing the YETTI Challenge. I
personally would would have preferred a third medal. I understand
that third medals cost what they call money, and so
(35:50):
maybe we're not gonna get that. We're gonna get some
sweatpants if you complete the challenge. And that is next
weekend again YETI Challenge weekend in Lease Summit, Missouri at
Longview Lake. So that is next for the podcast. I
want to give a shout out to one of our
listeners who pointed out to me that there is a
Dolly Parton themed race that just launched that takes place
(36:10):
at Dollywood out in Pigeon Forde, Tennessee. Looks like an
absolute blast. If I can at all make this work
between Tokyo and Sydney, I want to go do that.
But again, shout out to you for giving me the
heads up on that they have a challenge, and their
challenge isn't just five K or ten K then half. No,
it's five K and ten K and half to complete
(36:31):
this challenge. But again, all Dolly Parton themed stuff like
it sounds like an absolute blast. If you need Tennessee,
maybe you give that a look. It looks like it's fun.
They might cap at twenty five hundred, he said. If
that's the case, then okay, I'm hoping I can buy
myself a day or two to see if this is
something I can swing, if I can make it work.
But it sounds like fun, So again, shout out. I
love when people tell me about races I don't otherwise
(36:53):
know about, because that's the way I find out about them.
And I might be able to go do them and
cover them for the podcast and then everything's great. All right,
Well listen, that's gonna wrap it up for this weekend.
This week's episode. If you were someone I met, thank
you so much. If you made it this far and
you enjoyed the episode, thank you very much for listening.
I hope you enjoyed it. To the folks and the
(37:13):
Good Life HAVESI and Pink Gorilla Running or Pink Gorilla Events,
thank you all very much. You guys are always so
nice to me anytime I'm up there as a runner,
as a vendor, just as a basic human being. So
I want to make sure you guys know how much
I appreciate you. I appreciate your kindness. You guys have
been great to me over the last couple of years
as we've worked together. It was my pleasure to have
(37:35):
you on the podcast this year and talk about your events.
Good Life Havesie is still one of my favoritest half
marathons ever. It is still my pr from twenty twenty four.
That record is in no danger right now, but it
is something I highly recommend to anyone who wants to
go to Nebraska. If you need Nebraska off your list,
then go do good life havesie. It's either going to
(37:56):
be in late October or early November. What every year
you can make it up there, but absolutely worth it.
A great race, a great course, great finish line. They
do it well. They do it well, and I know
a lot of other people have been singing their praises.
Congratulations to anyone who did what was it the Indianapolis
Race this weekend as well. It's a line of crossroads.
(38:18):
There are people running all over the place. You all
did great work, good job. Congratulations to those I know.
We had several first time marathoners out there who were
maybe a little worried, but crushed their races. So there
are people now in the one percent club from the
full marathons. There are people getting their half marathon states
all over the place. Everyone is just absolutely rocking it
right now. I love seeing it. So anytime you do something,
(38:41):
if you accomplish something, put it on our Facebook page
and let our community love on you a little bit,
because that's what we do because we have the most
supportive runners around. So there we go. I've been yapping
for almost forty minutes. I'm going to shut the heck
up and let you get on with your day. But again,
thank you to everyone, thank you to Good Life Havesie,
thank you to Pink Gorilla Events, and yeah, this was
another very successful year, heading up not once but twice
(39:03):
to Lincoln, Nebraska, and I appreciate all of it. So
that's gonna do it. For this week's episode of the
Back of the Pack podcast, I'm your host, Kyle Walker.
It is my pleasure as always. Hopefully we will see
you this weekend at YETI Challenge Weekend. If not, everyone
have a safe week of training and we will see
you next week.
Hello, everyone, greetings and salutations. Welcome back to another episode
at the Back of the Back podcast. I'm youro Skywalker.
Thank you so much for tuning in. We are going
to start this podcast in the same way we start
every podcast, after a weekend out of town working at
one of the expos and meeting the people. If you
are someone that we met this past weekend at the
expo for the Good Life havesy up in Lincoln, Nebraska
(00:33):
and you are checking us out for the first time,
I want to say thank you. Thank you so much
for at least giving us a quick look. Whether you're
here thirty seconds or you become a lifelong listener, I
really do appreciate you taking the time to check us
out after meeting me and us hopefully at the expo
at Good Life HAVESI. It is very much appreciated that
you even gave us a shot. I hope you enjoy it,
(00:55):
Hope you like it, Hope you will watch forever and ever. Amen.
If there's ever anything that you want to see, gust
are covered. We love my favorite episodes. Our listener request
please send us a message, let us know what you
want to talk about. And I am totally here. For it,
because that's the best is answering questions and talking about
things that runners want to talk about. That's what we love.
So anyway, because you hadn't noticed, it is good life
(01:17):
has the weekend. We are back from another successful run
in Lincoln, Nebraska, and holy cow, what a weekend. This
was rather unexpected turn of events for a lot of us.
I would I would venture to say, so here's how
it went down. Saturday morning was the day of the expo.
Saturday morning, just to save myself from a night in
the hotel, I get up at the crack of dawn
(01:39):
here in Kansas City. I load up the car and
I am hammered down up to Lincoln, Nebraska. Not a
bad drive. Not gonna lie when you're like driving at
five o'clock in the morning and still dark and it's
a Saturday morning. The only other people on the roads
were truck drivers and that was it. They were just
plugging along in the right lane and I was flying
around them in the left. Made great time getting the Lincoln, Nebraska.
(02:01):
Not a whole lot of traffic out there. It was lovely.
It was just me my radio with some other podcasts
that I listened to and a big cup of coffee
from court trip. Oh yeah, one hundred percent. I had
a big old honking cup of coffee and it was wonderful.
So we get up to Lincoln, Nebraska. We go just
straight to the event center where the expo takes place. Now,
(02:22):
this year the expo was on the other side of
this event center, sand Hills, I think it's called from
where it was last year, So thankfully, I saw how
crowded the parking lot was where it was last year,
and I'm thinking, Okay, this can't be right. I know
there are not that many vendors at this race expo.
It'd be cool if there were, but I know there's not.
And then I see a bunch of kids walking in
there wearing wrestling singlets and their hoodies from schools and
(02:46):
Whatnot'm thinking, okay, we're not there. So I drive around
the complex until I see the signs and then I see,
you know, hey, good Life haves the expo here. I
actually really liked the part of the the event center
that we were in. I think it worked well. You
entered as a runner to get your packet. You got
your packet first, and then you continued on around the
corner and into the expo hall where all the vendors were. Now, A,
(03:10):
I think it's great, it was a good setup, But
B I know there were a lot of people who
are kind of doubling back and just kind of leaving,
or they would circle in and then just b line
for the exit door. There still wasn't a whole lot
of motivation or reason for people to go through the
vendors unless they wanted to. Again, I'm still telling you
that Mo cow Bell had it right. Where you entered.
(03:30):
You had to wind through every aisle of vendors before
you got to your packet pickup, so at least you
were more inclined to interact because as a vendor there,
all I want are for people to I desperately want
people to come and talk to me. Please come talk
to me, say hello. And then I know there were
some people who missed us completely, who were like, oh,
(03:50):
you were at the expo. We didn't even see you there.
It's just kind of a big circle. If you didn't
kind of go up and down the middle aisles, there
was definitely some people you could have missed. And it
sound like I kind of got missed by some folks,
But I was next to a chiropractic place. They were
perfectly lovely. Not the most chatty group of young people,
but they were cracking backs as they so desired. And
(04:11):
then next to me, I was right next to the
folks from the Lincoln Track Club and they are the
ones that do the Lincoln Marathon and half marathon that
we did back in May. So again didn't get to
chat with them very much. Apparently they've got a new
race director coming in, not the gentleman who was on
the podcast last year, but they were out there trying
to get people involved in Lincoln Track Club and they
were also showing off next year's medal for the Capital
(04:34):
City Challenge. Now, the Capital City Challenge is what we
just completed this past weekend. But it is running either
the full or half in the Lincoln Full or half
marathon in May, and then finishing up at the half
marathon for Good Life Havesie in either late October or
early November wherever it falls where there's not a Nebraska
Cornhusker football game, and then you get your Challenge medal
(04:55):
and next year's medal. A lot of people said that,
and I'm glad they did. I'm glad it sounded like
there was a lot of buzz for it, because again
I was right next to them, so I heard them talking,
you know, all day long. A lot of people thought
it was really cool. Personally, I preferred this year's. I
like the twenty twenty five. I'm sure twenty twenty six
is gonna be great and they are going to have
(05:15):
wonderful time. I was not as big on the Capitol
City Challenge Metal, and you can go out online and
see it. It's out there. It's not like they're trying
to keep it a secret. They actually had a demo
of it right there at their booth. It's good size,
it's a pretty big honkin metal, but I like this
year's better. This year's had more of kind of an
Olympic metal look. It's big and shiny, where the other
(05:37):
one is more of a dull golden color. But I'll
show you this year's Capital City Challenge Metal later. But
I was next to them, had a good time, had
a lot of friendly faces come over and either learn
about the podcast or people who already listened who came
and said hello. Even got to take some pictures with
some folks. And then of course we had a lot
of the Kansas City folks coming up there to do
(05:58):
the race as well. Finished sixth in the team's placing.
We had forty runners who signed up for the back
of the back podcast team for Good Life Hasie. I'm
in on that. Like, forty runners, that's great. We had
sixty last year. And then however, many people just kind
of went up the year before just by you know,
word of mouth. I didn't have a team my first
year up there back in twenty twenty three, but I
(06:20):
know a lot of people went up there as well.
So hey, you know, for what it's worth as a
Kansas City based podcast who of course travels around as
much as we can. The fact that we have brought
in the last three years well over one hundred runners
to this race, I think it speaks volumes speaks volumes
to how good the race is. All the credit in
(06:41):
the world to Good Life Havesie. But then, you know,
we have people on here, we talk about it. You
listeners kind of believe in what we say and you know,
trust us even a little bit. And so if I say, hey,
we're getting a team together, come do Good Life Hazey
because it's a good time. You believe me. You trusted
us enough, and you sign up and we show up.
We've brought well over one hundred people to this race
over the course of the last few years, and I
(07:02):
think that's really great work. This race has done nothing
but grow over the last three years. They maxed out.
This year, they were sold out. They had over nine
thousand runners. That's great work. And I feel like, and
this can just be my ego talking, I feel like,
this much, this much right here, look at your screen.
This much, and if you are only listening, you need
(07:24):
a tiny bit. This much of their success is because
of this podcast. This much. Okay, I'm not saying a lot,
but this much. And so to all the listeners out
there who have gone up there and done good luck
Patsy over the course of this last three years, while
they have grown exponentially, thank you very much. I think
it looks good on us, it looks good on you,
and I hope you've enjoyed that event because it is.
(07:44):
It's a good time. And I still really liked this
half marathon despite how this year went, So let's keep
diving into it, all right. We finished up the expo.
The expo went from ten to six, okay, and that
was it. It's not a two day expo in you
got to get you gotta get your stuff, and you
gotta be ready to rock and roll. There are a
lot of other vendors there. They have a merchandise stand there.
(08:06):
If I'm gonna complain, good life havesie, and I know,
I know, heaven forbid. I complained because I got a
two star review on Apple for complaining months and months ago.
Still annoys me. If I'm gonna complain that DJ was
the most unnecessary thing I have ever seen at an expo.
This guy playing the dance music for eight hours. It
(08:29):
was like a rave for eight hours. And thankfully they
turned it down a little bit because my old soul
was gonna lose my mind listening to that stuff fump
inside my head all day. But thankfully they turned it
down just a hair, but still all day long, it's
these dance techno remixes of popular songs ish. And then
(08:52):
as the day went on, they even got away from
the popular song remixes and just went to straight up
techno dance music. And that was enough to hurt my brain.
So there we go. There's my one beef. I really
just wanted to take over like the bluetooth on that
and just you know, start playing like some classic rock
or something that would have made me happy. It's gonna
be It's not gonna fire up the crowd, but I'm
(09:13):
not at the expo to be fired up. Well as
a vendor, I'm there to talk to people, and when
there's loud, dumping music over my shoulder, talking is more
difficult than it would be if it was just some nice,
mellow rock in the background. But yes, I'm old, I
get it, I understand completely, I acknowledge it fully, but
that music was gonna drive me insane. AnyWho, there's my
one beef, all right, and good life as you guys
(09:34):
can just laugh at me and be like that guy's
stupid anyway, and you're not wrong. So we got done
with the expo, thank goodness for that. It was a
long day, but it was great to meet a lot
of people. Seemed like it was a lot of waves,
just wave after wave of people. It wasn't like steady
last year. It was steady the entire time, I think
because they expanded it two extra hours and then outside
there were different waves of weather going through. Then it
(09:57):
seemed like we got waves of runners going through. So
there'd be some dead times where I was just kind
of standing there twiddling my thumbs. And then there's times
where the line was two three people deep and I
couldn't get around to everyone. If I was not able
to talk to you, I do apologize, trust, and I
didn't want to leave you hanging. I also don't want
to just interrupt the conversation I'm in, but a lot
of people just would you slide a little flyer off
(10:17):
the table and I try and hand you a stick
or if I could so again, thank you so much
for at least checking us out. It is super great.
We finished up the expow I am out of there.
I problem I had. I went to my hotel. I
wanted to DoorDash some Italian food the Italian place I like.
I could not find any way to get it delivered
to me, and I was already in my hotel room.
(10:38):
It had been a long day standing on my feet
talking everyone at the expo. My voice was gone, my
feet hurt, my knee was killing me. I just wanted
to sit down in my room. So I ended up
having to order a pizza and uh, I'm not going
to say the brand that I got every time I
get this brand of pizza and it's a national chain,
I almost hope it's gonna be good, and I'm always
(10:59):
just appointed. Now it's better than some other options, I think,
because I think some of the old school options of
pizza have really gone downhill over time. Of course this
brand probably has too. But man, I got this pizza.
It was awful. I would have rather gotten pasta. I
should have just gotten chicken wings, to be real honest,
(11:20):
But you know what, it was a little bit of
carbs before the next day. I didn't have to leave
my hotel room to get it, and I was able
to just chill. Our boy, Cody did come up. He
needed a place to stay that night, so he crashed
with me. It was nice having someone just kind of
shoot the breeze with. We talked a lot about the race,
kind of what was coming up, what to expect, how
we were feeling, you know, just that sitting around even
(11:41):
though you know, Cody and I haven't hung out in
a while. Now he's all, you know, got a lady
and whatnot, and so we barely see him. Now you're attacked.
But it was nice and to just shoot the breeze
and catch up with him, and we were just sitting
around runner stocking and running, which is like all this
podcast does, well, we sure as heck we're doing it
there in the hotel room, just going over all sorts
of different stuff. I'm talking about Good Life has he
(12:03):
talking about Lincoln, talking about what was coming up for us,
and different you know things going on. It was it
was fun. It was a good time. But then it
was lights out and off to dreamland. Even though the
night before big race, did any of us actually get
me sleep? I don't think that we do. Next morning,
here we go. Now here's the biggest problem we had
with Good Life haves the weekend, and anyone who was
(12:24):
up there knows exactly where I'm going with this. So
while we're at the expo, and again I drove up
that morning. I drove up, it was about forty four degrees,
It was overcast. It sprinkled on me a couple of times.
It was very early November, seasonal kind of fall weather.
No big deal. I get into the expo, no problem.
(12:45):
But I'm in there all day. I'm isolated. All I
hear are people talking about what it's doing outside. The
rain picked up, so the rain was definitely an issue.
The wind picked up, so the wind was definitely an issue.
The temperatures dropped, so by the time I left the
expo at six point twenty let's say Saturday evening, it
(13:07):
was cold, windy, and rainy outside. It was nasty, gross yew. Well,
that was the tip of the iceberg because the temperature
was going to drop all night leading up to race morning.
What I had heard in what my weather app on
my phone was telling me was that the expected real feel,
(13:29):
you know, that's the temperature plus the wind chill, what
it actually feels like outside. The real feel when we
started the race was supposed to be between nine and
eleven degrees. That a freaking cold, man. That is cold. Now.
Why was it such a big issue. A lot of
people are like, well, yeah, you know this, It's Nebraska,
(13:49):
can be cold. Well, you know it's Midwest, it could
be cold. Yeah, it's November, it can be cold. Here's
the problem, as I see it, and I think as
a lot of us saw it, there has been no acclamation.
No one has been this cold. No one's been within
thirty degrees of this cold. When I left Kansas City,
like I said, it was around forty four degrees. The
(14:10):
day before it had hit seventy. So on Friday, the
friday before going to Lincoln, Nebraska, it was in between
sixty seven and seventy degrees here in Kansas City. It
was still lovely. It was like a perfect day. We
haven't had sustained days of cold weather. In Acclimating to
the weather, whether it be hot or cold, is imperative
(14:32):
to running a good race in my inestimation. All right,
we've gone over this before. We've done episodes several times
on acclimating the heat and acclimating the cold. There was
no acclimation to this cold. It just hasn't happened yet.
So I'm trying to think, all right, what do we do.
Last weekend we didn't have a race, which was amazing,
it was astounding two weeks before that, what do we
(14:53):
do Garman Kansas City Marathon or no, it was Monster
Dash Monster Dash five k, the Monster Dash five k
my last race before Good Life Has Me. Temperature was
in the fifties. Okay, so it was a late October race. Yeah,
I remember being kind of a cool morning, but again,
temperatures in the fifties, like mid fifties. It was in
the sweet spot of running. It certainly was not an
(15:14):
eleven degree real feel, so we knew it was coming.
We didn't We didn't know until very close to race data,
and it was coming, but we found out real quick.
So anyway, get up on Saturday morning. Thankfully the hotel
I stayed at they had their continental breakfast all set
up by six am, which was lovely. So got up,
got dressed, got everything packed up, headed downstairs. Breakfast was
(15:36):
already sitting there waiting for us. We had a nice
little bite of food and then we ventured out. And
the moment we left the hotel and that cold wind hit.
Oh baby, that was that was cold. That was cold.
So thankfully it did not get all the way down
to about a nine degree real feel. The real feel
I think I saw was eighteen. Hey, you know what,
(15:59):
it makes a big difference. It makes a big difference.
I think it was twenty two outside real feel of eighteen.
But the wind was definitely howling. It was very windy,
and again it was overcast. It was still dark at
that point. It was just a cold, miserable morning. So
we head off, We head down. It was a fifteen
minute drive to go from hotel to start line. Credit
to Good Life Hazie and to all the people involved.
(16:22):
However they did it, whether it was, you know, this
was a happy accident, or they had planned on doing
it this year, or it was a last minute decision,
whatever it was. The high school, I believe that's a
high school. It's a big building. I'm assuming it's high school.
The high school was opened up that morning for the
runners to stay inside, so you had the option you
could sit in your car or you could go into
(16:42):
the high school. Inside the high school, of course, they
had the restrooms, they had a gym where everyone could
sit in, and then there were people just littered all
throughout the hallways. Now when I got to when I
got there, oh boy, I it must have come in
a back rounde. It was not the way that I
normally go. I went the way my GPS told me,
but it wasn't the way I normally get there. Well,
they ended up flagging me into a parking lot. Well,
(17:05):
it was not the parking lot that I've been in
the last previous two years. It was a parking parking
lot on the other side of like the whole stadium
structure complex that is on this property. There's like high school.
Then there's their stadium, and then there's like the softball fields,
and there's other stadium and a park, and like I
was way on this other side. It was weird, not
where I'm used to parking. That's going to come back
(17:25):
into play later. But I park, I get out, I
walk all the way around this complex and I get
to the start line where everything is set up, and
of course there is nobody. There is no one. There
is a whole bunch of people off from the distance
walking up to the school, but there's no one just
hanging out to the start line. I felt so sorry
for the PA guy who just kept making announcements to
no one in particular because there was nobody there. Good
(17:46):
restroom spots were available, though, as there was no one
at the Portajon's. Everyone was up in the school trying
to use the indoor warm high school toilets. But anyway,
Cody and I we meet up there. We go into
the school, we find this spot in a in a
random hallway where thankfully, I mean there were certainly people,
but it wasn't that crowded, and we just we sit
(18:07):
on the floor, leaning up against the lockers. It felt
like high school all over again. As we're sitting there
just trying to be the cool kids, while everyone's walking
up and down the hallways, are getting in line for restrooms,
and then it's just wait. It's just wait and kill time.
So got there probably around seven, and you know, the
race doesn't start until eight thirty, so a lot of
time to just kind of wait. So we're sitting there,
(18:28):
shooting the breeze, getting messages from folks. Hey, where you're at?
Are you here? Everyone's here? Okay, We're good, everyone's staying warm,
wherever you're at in your car, whatnot. We get up
to leave, okay, And so we get up to leave
at eight fifteen. Race starts at eight thirty. I realized
that I still had my wallet in my pocket. Oh no,
I don't want to run a half marathon with my
(18:49):
wallet right here in my pocket. You know what if
it falls out? What if you know, you could get
sweaty and gross. I don't know, you have just in
its extra week. You don't want that to just be
bouncing in my pocket as I'm running. I don't want that.
I'm like, okay, I'm gonna run this to my car
before the race starts. After we go outside. So we
leave the friendly confines of the high school where it
was nice and warm because we had thousands of runners
(19:10):
in there warming the place up quickly. And we go
outside and you know, boom, there's the cold. Still cold,
still windy, still overcast, still gross. I'm like, okay, guys,
I'm gonna go off to the left here, i just
need to go around this field and I'm gonna get
to my car and I'm gonna throw my walle at
my car. Okay, So I'm going and this walk is
taking me three times as long as that I thought
it was going to. I go around the left side
(19:32):
of the stadium. When I go around the left side
of the stadium, I'm expecting to see my car. No,
that's where you see more of the stadiums. Do you
see the softball field and you see the other side.
Long story short, I could not get to my car
in the manner in which I needed to get there
or the time I needed to get there, because it
still wanted me to keep going around all these complexes
(19:52):
to finally get to my car. I finally said, screw this,
I can't do that. They're supposed to have the complexes
open for people to warm up in on the fields
and on the tracks and whatnot. I couldn't find an
open door, so I end up hopping an eight foot
high fence. I am forty five years old. I have
a terrible knee situation going on right now. What's a
(20:13):
last thing on God's green Earth I need to be
doing hopping an eight foot high fence, so I get
in there. After this hop, I rip my bib. My
bib gets ripped off of three of the four safety
pins holding it on. So I rip my bib. It's
now trash. I'm inside this complex now, hoping that there's
(20:34):
just an open gate somewhere to let me out into
the parking lot. Nope, I can see my car. I'm
staring at my car. I'm staring at my car on
the other side of yet another eight foot fence. I'm
looking all around for an open gate somewhere. Is there
an open gate anywhere? Oh? Look, that looks like an
open gate. Oh. This open gate leads to another area
(20:55):
that's fenced off and closed. I finally said, screw it. Look,
I'm running out of time. At this point, it was
like eight twenty seven and the race is supposed to
start at eight thirty, and I'm all the way back
over here on the other side of the complex where
my car is, and the race is way over there
getting ready to start. So what do I have to do?
Climb yet again another eight foot high fence and get
(21:18):
over to my car. Now the problem with climbing eight
foot high fence. I make it up to the top, okay, thankfully,
I still have a little upper body strength left, not much,
but a little. It's the eight foot drop coming from
the other side. So there I am terrible knees old
man flying over eight foot fences. The landing the second
time did not feel great. My knee, which is already
(21:38):
bad that's well documented, was not happy. So I make it.
I throw my wallet in the car, and then now
I have to go all the way around the complex
again like I did when I first got there to
get to the start line. Now, thankfully, because of the
way that the crowd lines up, I know that when
I get around it, I'm going to run into the
back of the runners who are lined up to start,
And thankfully it's not gonna feel like it's as far.
(22:00):
But it was aggravating. It was a terrible way to
start the race. I'm doing things to my body I
should not be doing. I'm already huffing and puffing because
I'm trying to climb eighteen foot fences like an idiot.
But anyway, I get around, I join everybody. Thankfully the
race had not started yet. Now the other complain, I'm
gonna have And you guys know, this is my biggest
(22:21):
pet peeve in life is when a race starts late.
Good Life Haves he started ten minutes late. I don't
like it when races start late. To their credit, they
did announce we're starting late because we don't have the
all clear yet from the police department. Okay, that I
am okay with. I want to make sure the cops
are in position. I want to make sure the roads
(22:42):
are closed. I want to make sure that we are
all of us runners safe and good to go. So okay,
I am not marking off. I'm not bagging on Good
Life HAVESI for starting late because the cops need to
be there. So at about eight point forty we start
all right. Thankfully, This year, no wave starts. Oh, thank
(23:03):
you good Lord above. I hate wave starts. They are
the bane of our existence as runners. This year, no
wave starts because they have I think more of a
police presence. They've widened the course in areas to be
able to handle more runners. Again, they're sold out, biggest
has the ever. You have to accommodate for the amount
of numbers of runners you're about to put down your streets,
and so they were ready for it, and so thankfully
(23:26):
no waves start. They blew the whistle as best they could.
Their MIC's kind of cut out, at least for us
in the back. But the race gets going this time.
Where it was last year it took thirty five minutes
for me to get to the start line. This time,
I only think it took maybe fifteen, because you know,
that's just a sheer volume of people trying to get
through the start line. It was still kind of narrow
at the start, which is fine, but it clogs a little.
(23:47):
But we finally get there and we begin the race.
The race is pretty much everything it's been the last
few years. You start going around the very same high
school that it kept us nice and warm before the race,
so you know, you could kind of wave goodbye to it,
thank you, high thank you for keeping us warm. And
then we empty out onto the streets. The only two
big hills you have are right there within that first
(24:07):
mile of the race. Everything after that is pretty downhill
to flat. There's maybe a couple mounds a couple humps
along the course, but not a big deal. It's certainly
nothing like some of the other races out there that
are some hilly sons of guns. Good Life HAVESI is
definitely a net downhill course. So if you like the
net downhill courses, and I do, then Good Life Haves
(24:31):
You is for you. Again, it is cold, miserable morning.
It is just nasty. The first aid station doesn't come
along and tell about mile three, so just know if
you go up there, you're not getting your first slug
of water until you're almost a five k done. But
it's nice when you get there, and that's after you're
running through some nice neighborhood and so it's really not
(24:52):
that bad. After the five k station, you turn around,
or you make this right turn, you're back on some
main roads and then you go up into a park.
In this park is about where you're gonna hit mile five.
Now in this park, I don't know how they avoided
it at the first aid station, but they didn't at
the second aid station. Maybe it was just colder there,
but the aid station in the park is where I
(25:12):
got my first aid station shot of gator slushy. It
was getting frozen. The gatorade was freezing because of how
stinking cold it was out there. So I go to
take that normal drink and you get that that ice
slush hitting your right in a face. It's like, great,
thank you, thank you so much for that. Thankfully did
not spill out and make a mess. But when you
(25:34):
get that hit in your face, you're like, ah, I
know exactly what that was. But I got my first
Gator slushy right there in the park. That kind of
cracked me up, made me laugh a little bit. But yeah,
there were certain aid stations, and again it just it
had to have been maybe how long they had that
cup sitting on the table before you got it, or
maybe just the way the wind was hitting things. But
(25:55):
there were some aid stations where the drinks were starting
to freeze. It was that that's cold. It was nasty.
I'm going to talk about the cold until the end
of this review, but that one was I mean, that
was kind of funny, but you know, we continue on.
You were still able to get a drink. You just
had that top layer of slush on it. We eventually
leave that park at mile five and then you get
(26:16):
this great like five k that is mostly downhill. This
is where years previously I had talked about how congested
it was because you had one lane. You had this
one lane on the right side of the road, and
that was all you could do, and then there was
traffic going, you know, both ways in the other direction.
This year they expanded it. You got both lanes. There
were two lanes there on the right side, leaving traffic
(26:38):
to go one lane one each way on the other
side of the road, which was great. The runners got
the two lanes. It made a huge difference on that
big stretch from like mile five to mile eight that
we had all lanes, or we had the two lanes
of traffic two lanes on the right side of the
yellow line put it that way, so that was really great.
I loved that we had expanded room on that court
(27:00):
made a huge difference. We're continuing on now. I'm not
going to talk about me personally much for this race.
I'm just kind of talking to race in general. Me personally, though,
you guys know, I've been going through it with the
knee issue having serious problems, and I think good Life
has he definitely has accelerated the problems with my knee.
There's going to be some more stuff that I'm going
to have to get taken care of. But it was
(27:23):
about mile seven where I've told you guys, I had
that Baker's cyst behind my patella, so behind the kneecap
there's the cyst that has developed, filled with fluids and
nasty stuff. I felt it. I'm pretty sure at mile
seven it tore that cyst, tore open the sending all
that nasty down my leg. And I've read about it
(27:48):
before because I wanted to make sure if that happened,
it wasn't like a critical, crucial, life threatening thing, and
it's not. But what did they do say is it
is going to be uncomfortable. It leads to swelling, it
leads to pain. My body will eventually reabsorb all that
nasty and so it won't be an issue. But for
about four to five days, very tender, very warm, very painful,
(28:12):
very swollen. And it all happened at mile seven and
I could just feel it, and then all of a sudden,
my calf felt like it feels like cramps and Charlie horses,
like from the very top all the way to the bottom.
I could feel it going, that stuff going into my foot.
I could feel it on the top of my kneecap
where the petella injury is and where all that cartilage
has gone. I could just feel that fluid filling everything
(28:35):
basically from the knee down and it was crazy painful
and crazy disgusting. So while I was doing pretty well
for the first seven miles, I was staying with the
two forty pacers. I was right there with them, no problem.
Two forty as soon as that happened, slowed down, slowed
(28:56):
a way, the heck down, could not keep a consistent
run going the pain. I would run until the pain
was too much, then I would stop until the pain
went away, and then I'd run until the pain was
too much. Then I'd stop and the pain run away.
And so I'm cruising along as best I can. But
I knew at that point I was doomed. Remember this
was my pr last year, my only sub two and
a half hour half marathon. Yeah, there was no repeat
(29:18):
performance of that this year, which was definitely a huge bummer.
But I did the best I could with what I had,
fighting through injury, fighting through pain. The two forty five
paced group passed me with like two miles left, and
then okay, so as I'm continuing on, you know, we've
gone down this five k stretch where the roads were widened.
We go to that trail that goes along the aqueduct system,
(29:42):
and that's all great. We go around the Nebraska Complex,
I think, where the basketball team plays, and so there
was less than a mile left, far less than a mile,
maybe a half mile left. Were almost to the bridge
that takes you over the highway down to the finish line.
The two fifties catch up with me, and I looked
at my up and there's the two fifty pacer and
I look at my watch and I do the mental math.
(30:03):
They're fast. The two fifty was fast, but to piss
me off because I'm like, look, I at least want
to be in front of two fifty. Come on. I
wanted to stay at two forty. The knee issue, the
cyst breaking was not gonna happen. Two forty five got
away from me, but I knew I wasn't gonna be
a two to fifty. So the two fifties catch up
with me, and I stay with them. I stay neck
and neck with them going up that walking path and
(30:24):
up to the top of the bridge. Now I heard
the pacer tell the person with her when we get
to the sea, because every pillar on that bridge has
a letter on it spelling out Lincoln. So like, when
we get to the sea, we're gonna go. And I'm
thinking to myself, Okay, well, if you guys are gonna
wait till the sea, then I'm gonna go at like
the I all right. So like, as soon as we
get to the top, as soon as we're al we've
almost crested that hill on that bridge, I'm going because
(30:47):
I know it is all downhill from there. That is
not an expression, that is the truth. It is all
downhill from that bridge. And thankfully with my experiences, I
knew that, and so I was able to take off
ahead of them. I fit forty eight to like two
forty eight oh six, and they are right behind me,
So I know they were just a hair fast. And look,
I'm not ragging on the pacer. There's a reason I'm
(31:08):
not a pacer. I would be wrong one percent of
the time at every race that I do, I would
not be a good pacer. But anyway, so I finished
at two forty eight, came across with Joe. We had
a great time. Another Kansas City running guy who moved away.
No wonder, I don't see you what races anymore? You
moved to Iowa. I had no idea until now, but
it was good to finish with him. So finished with
(31:29):
a friendly face, suffered through the pain, and got it done.
So here we go the metal Good Life has He.
So you'll see, Oh that's funny. So the parts that
look see through, that's actually green. But I have a
green screen behind me. Let's see. If I put in
front my body, can you do? No, No, it's still
just gonna be the green anyways, right, Good Life has
He does a good job with their medals. They are
very simple, all right. I'm not gonna say they're basic,
(31:51):
because I guess basic is a bad word these days.
Their metals are very simple. But I like the simplicity
of them. You don't need to be over the top.
This tell the story of the race. And they had
this very logo right here, like dead center, right before
the finish line. I don't know if that was a
chalk logo that someone drew or you use pain or
what it was, but it was very impressive. The big
(32:12):
one of these is a big logo of this right
before the finish line and then on the back they've
got their sponsor. I'll give a shout out to Mercado
and then says two twenty five twenty twenty five a
half marathon, Lincoln, Nebraska, and then it says big HAVESA
in energy. Now you're not gonna be able to see this,
I won't don't imagine very well on the camera. Yeah,
there we go. If I get a glare on it,
(32:33):
you can kind of see it. But yeah, So again,
these are simple medals, but I like them. They're not basic,
but they can tell the story of what this race is.
And I think anyway, and so kudos to them. I
like this medal. I actually think this is a really
cool metal. It will hang on the metal wall with
all my out of town races proudly. And again it
(32:54):
was another successful year of running the Good Life HAVESI.
Our only issue, of course, was the weather. The weather
was absolutely atrocious. It was cold for me maybe two
miles left when the sun finally broke through the clouds.
Anytime you could be in the sunlight. It helped. It
helped a lot. It wasn't perfect. It was still very cold.
We're not used to the cold, not acclimated, but we
(33:15):
got it done. Means I definitely did not hang out
the finish line very long, though I kind of wish
I'd stayed a little longer, but I didn't need to.
I didn't stay to take the picture. I did get
my other medal. You know, we get another medal for this.
If you remember doing Lincoln in May, and now this
the Capital City Challenge. We talked about it earlier. Let
me show you this metal. This is the metal for
the Capital City Challenge. Look at that. I like this medal.
(33:39):
And then on back to just as downtown Lincoln. I'm
sure a sponsor of it. But gold shiny you see
the white like it had last year. Next year's metal
does not resemble this at all. It is dark. It's
just got a corn stock in the middle with like
an ear of corn pop it out the top. And
I mean some people liked it. I felt it was cartoony,
(34:00):
just to throw a word on it. This like. I
like this metal a lot. I like this fanned look
it has with the shiny gold in the white and there,
I think it looks really slick. So I was very
glad to get this again. Capital City Challenge. This year's
metal for twenty twenty five, I've got twenty twenty four
and twenty twenty five. I like them both very good medals.
So credit to all the folks this year the Lincoln
(34:23):
Half Marathon. They always have cool metals. Good life has
he always has cool metals. And then I've really liked
the last two years of the Capital City Challenge. I
think they all do a very good job. So that
is really it. After that, I got the hell out
of Dodge. I went to the gas station I will
stop at. I got the coffee that I always get,
got a snack or two, changed into some dry clothes.
Then zoom, I was on the road back to KC
(34:45):
where now I'm dealing with this knee issue full force
because I can't even hardly walk at this point. It's
it's that painful. But for me, and again, if you're
tired of listening about me, you know, then thank you
for listening. But uh, for me, it might be a
good thing that that syst broke. If I can get
through these initial you know, three four, five days of pain,
(35:06):
it might actually help, like things might actually get a
little more back to normal. I've been reading about it.
There is that chance. So here's hoping. Here's hoping by
next weekend I'm feeling much better and can get through
next weekend's races. If not, I'll have to miss them.
Speaking of next weekend, next weekend, we are in Lease Summit,
Missouri for YETI Challenge weekend. So Saturday is supposed to
be the five K I imagine, no matter what, I'm
(35:28):
gonna do that really to kind of test things out.
And then Sunday is another half marathon, and then if
you do them both, that's completing the YETI Challenge this year.
Your prize is to swear a pair of sweatpants. That
is what you get for completing the YETTI Challenge. I
personally would would have preferred a third medal. I understand
that third medals cost what they call money, and so
(35:50):
maybe we're not gonna get that. We're gonna get some
sweatpants if you complete the challenge. And that is next
weekend again YETI Challenge weekend in Lease Summit, Missouri at
Longview Lake. So that is next for the podcast. I
want to give a shout out to one of our
listeners who pointed out to me that there is a
Dolly Parton themed race that just launched that takes place
(36:10):
at Dollywood out in Pigeon Forde, Tennessee. Looks like an
absolute blast. If I can at all make this work
between Tokyo and Sydney, I want to go do that.
But again, shout out to you for giving me the
heads up on that they have a challenge, and their
challenge isn't just five K or ten K then half. No,
it's five K and ten K and half to complete
(36:31):
this challenge. But again, all Dolly Parton themed stuff like
it sounds like an absolute blast. If you need Tennessee,
maybe you give that a look. It looks like it's fun.
They might cap at twenty five hundred, he said. If
that's the case, then okay, I'm hoping I can buy
myself a day or two to see if this is
something I can swing, if I can make it work.
But it sounds like fun, So again, shout out. I
love when people tell me about races I don't otherwise
(36:53):
know about, because that's the way I find out about them.
And I might be able to go do them and
cover them for the podcast and then everything's great. All right,
Well listen, that's gonna wrap it up for this weekend.
This week's episode. If you were someone I met, thank
you so much. If you made it this far and
you enjoyed the episode, thank you very much for listening.
I hope you enjoyed it. To the folks and the
(37:13):
Good Life HAVESI and Pink Gorilla Running or Pink Gorilla Events,
thank you all very much. You guys are always so
nice to me anytime I'm up there as a runner,
as a vendor, just as a basic human being. So
I want to make sure you guys know how much
I appreciate you. I appreciate your kindness. You guys have
been great to me over the last couple of years
as we've worked together. It was my pleasure to have
(37:35):
you on the podcast this year and talk about your events.
Good Life Havesie is still one of my favoritest half
marathons ever. It is still my pr from twenty twenty four.
That record is in no danger right now, but it
is something I highly recommend to anyone who wants to
go to Nebraska. If you need Nebraska off your list,
then go do good life havesie. It's either going to
(37:56):
be in late October or early November. What every year
you can make it up there, but absolutely worth it.
A great race, a great course, great finish line. They
do it well. They do it well, and I know
a lot of other people have been singing their praises.
Congratulations to anyone who did what was it the Indianapolis
Race this weekend as well. It's a line of crossroads.
(38:18):
There are people running all over the place. You all
did great work, good job. Congratulations to those I know.
We had several first time marathoners out there who were
maybe a little worried, but crushed their races. So there
are people now in the one percent club from the
full marathons. There are people getting their half marathon states
all over the place. Everyone is just absolutely rocking it
right now. I love seeing it. So anytime you do something,
(38:41):
if you accomplish something, put it on our Facebook page
and let our community love on you a little bit,
because that's what we do because we have the most
supportive runners around. So there we go. I've been yapping
for almost forty minutes. I'm going to shut the heck
up and let you get on with your day. But again,
thank you to everyone, thank you to Good Life Havesie,
thank you to Pink Gorilla Events, and yeah, this was
another very successful year, heading up not once but twice
(39:03):
to Lincoln, Nebraska, and I appreciate all of it. So
that's gonna do it. For this week's episode of the
Back of the Pack podcast, I'm your host, Kyle Walker.
It is my pleasure as always. Hopefully we will see
you this weekend at YETI Challenge Weekend. If not, everyone
have a safe week of training and we will see
you next week.
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