March 4, 2024 • 43 mins
We are back from the Little Rock Marathon weekend! What an amazing time we had working the Expo, running the 5k, and running the full! We have one TIRED podcast host here, but we're going to break down the weekend before the host can crawl into his bed! A huge thank you to all of the people we met at the expo in Little Rock. It was our pleasure to meet each and everyone of you! Now join us for a Dinomite edition of the Back of the Pack Podcast!
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Episode Transcript
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(00:12):
Hello, everyone, greetings and salutations. Welcome back to another episode of the
Back of the Pack podcast. I'myour host, Kyle Walker. Thank you
so much for tuning in. You'llfirst have to forgive me. I am
probably going to be loopy this episodeas I am just out of the car
and back from our weekend trip toLittle Rock, Arkansas. So, as
you could guess, this entire episodeis going to be all about the Little
(00:33):
Rock Marathon weekend. What a weekendit was. Oh my goodness. I
am exhausted, I am tired,but I also could not be happier with
how this entire weekend went down.It was great, and so I want
to lead off the show with this. If I do nothing else, if
I forget to mention anything else,I don't want to mention this. I
want to thank every single one ofyou who made the Little Rock Marathon expo
(00:58):
and race so much memorable. Itwill certainly go down as one of my
all time favorites. We had sucha great time in Little Rock. First
off, to all of the KansasCity Running team that went down there.
I'm not gonna try and name everyonebecause I would ultimately ultimately miss something and
feel terrible but to all of myKansas Citians who came down to Little Rock
(01:21):
for your first marathons, for yourfirst halves, for whatever distance you did
to just be there with everyone else, thank you guys so much. Like
honestly, I I was. Iwas super touched the entire weekend. Not
that you guys went down for me. I know that's not the case.
I am a part of the team, but I just I couldn't believe all
of us came together for such aworthy cause, and when our first time
(01:42):
marathoners were finishing the race, howwe were all there to cheer and scream
for them. It really was sucha such an awesome time and such a
great moment and a big shout out. I'm gonna name two Sherry and Jamie.
You guys you are now marathon finishers, And how freaking cool is that.
I almost got choked up cheering youguys across the finish line. So
(02:04):
I am so happy for you guys. My main man Cody another first time
marathon or great job, Stacey,I mean we again. I could go
on and on and I'm gonna misspeople, and so I'm gonna stop right
now. But man, you guysreally you did great, and I'm super
proud of you, all the firsttime marathon finishers, even the people I
don't know, a great job.If you went down a little rock and
you knocked out your first full marathon, and what a race to do it
(02:27):
in. Now, I'm gonna saythis that marathon course. That course was
no joke, man. I honestlyunderestimated it. I really did. I
underestimated that course. I underestimated thedifficulty of it. I knew that my
training had been el Garbaggio going intoit, but wow, that was a
humbling experience for years, truly.And you can see I'm rocking the shirt.
(02:47):
So I definitely finished the race,but it is not going to go
down as one of my finer performances. Shall we say I as the best
the Pack podcast guy. I judgemyself in full marathons as six hours.
Anything under six hours I have succeededin my task. Anything over six hours,
(03:09):
I have kind of failed in mytask, even though you do take
some solace in finishing a marathon,of course, but I set my mark
at six hours and I'm sorry.My glasses are sliding down my nose today.
I don't know why. Maybe maybeI lost weight from the marathon and
so now my glasses are slippery.We'll go with that, that's what we're
gonna do. But anyway, Igauge success or failure for me. For
(03:30):
me at six hours for a fullmarathon, I did not make my six
hours. I just barely missed it. Okay, so missed it by a
few minutes. But in my worldthat is deemed a failure. However,
I'm just gonna I'm throwing it outthere. You know, training first spring
race is always difficult. We knowthat, all right. You never know
what mother nature is gonna throw youin the wintertime. And while I feel
(03:53):
like we have had a very mildwinter because we are technically still in winter,
I have my window open here yearat home, and it's seventy seven
degrees outside. So like mother naturehas been all over the place. We've
had the frozen tundra of Kansas City, and now we have darn near summertime
weather, and it's just for us. It's going to be up and down
all week long. So weather equalsinconsistent training equals I should have tried harder
(04:18):
to train in some areas where Ididn't. But either which way spring marathons
can be difficult. I did notdo what I should have done, and
that race won. That race humbledme. It reminded me that training is
important and you cannot, under anycircumstances underestimate a full marathon. I can
(04:41):
now say this is the second timeI've done it. I'll tell you real
quick the story of the first time. It was after my very first I
ran the Route sixty six marathon intwenty eleven, and then I was going
to go do the New Orleans Marathonin I think it was actually twenty thirteen,
so like well over a full yearin between full marathons, and I
remember thinking to my I've done afull marathon. I know how to do
(05:01):
a full marathon. I'll be finein New Orleans and IRMUFS kids. I
half asked my training. New Orleanswhooped me, New Orleans, whoop me.
You just can't half ask train fora full marathon. Doesn't matter.
If it's an easy course, adifficult course, it doesn't matter. It'll
get you if that's what you do. So to all of you who all
of you who trained correctly, welldone, Congratulations again. I make the
(05:26):
mistakes so you don't have to.That's where we ended up. I did
not make my six hour benchmark formyself. I was over it by nine
minutes. So I gotta mark thisone down as a EH marathon, but
not the fault of Little Rock.Please don't do don't read into that.
They were great? So what Igot to quit saying? So I've noticed
this on my own podcast, Isay so too much, So no kidding,
(05:46):
all right, weird? I exchangedit for all right. I told
you, guys, I was goingto be loopy today. I warned you.
Let's do early on here what everyonewants us to do. The medals
are the metal for Little Rock,as cool as everyone will tell you they
are, or that you may haveheard we talk about medals on this show
because we're all ear MUCKs again,kids, we're all metal horrors, me
(06:11):
first and foremost. So let's dothis. I have signed up for the
challenge. So on Saturday we ranthe five k. On Sunday the full
marathon. Let's do our five kmetal and here it is. If you're
watching the screen, okay, it'sa nice metal. You know. We've
seen bigger, we've seen smaller,but it's got a little what is this
guy? He's a stegasaurus, littlestegasaurus on the on the five K metal,
(06:31):
So it was not perfectly nice metal. I've certainly gotten smaller metals for
a five K, so their fiveK metal is wonderful, very nicely done.
Because I did the challenge, Igot a metal for the challenge.
Let's do the challenge metal. Okay, roughly the same size you can see
here. Now this is the littlespinner dinosaur guy from Jurassic Park, the
one we all remember from the veryfirst movie. He's a big old yellow
(06:54):
spare guy, says challenge on it. So again it's about the same size
as the five K but pretty coolmetal. Okay, now let's do the
full Okay, yeah, hold on, I got a call in a crane
to get this bad boy up andhere's the fall yes, with mister t
(07:15):
Rex on it here. Okay,so let me just do a little comparison
here, full challenge. You seethat, you see that there is a
little bit of difference in size,and like I said, challenge metals in
five ks perfectly acceptable size. Thisis more than double tall, more than
double wide, actually probably three timestaller, three times wider, but that's
(07:39):
where this is. And people remarkedbefore about how I would make fun of
the size of my own head.Now you can see it. This is
bigger than my head. You seethis. Are you guys checking this out?
If you're watching YouTube video, youbetter be looking and marveling at the
size of this metal, which isactually making my arm tired holding it up
like this. This is the LittleRock Marathon metal. It is every bit
(08:03):
as big as they say it is. That's just what it is. So
if you were ever considering a marathonand you really like metals, Little Rock
is where you want to go.We've said it before, we'll say it
again, and now I have perfectlydemonstrated it. The size of this metal
is just obscene. Now let's rolldown this weekend. It was a great
weekend. Like I said, andI'm probably gonna say it more. I
(08:26):
rolled out of Kansas City early Thursdaymorning. Okay, the people at the
Little Rock Expo or the Little RockMarathon were kind enough to give the Back
of the Pack podcast a table atthe expo. Set up was Thursday,
so I wanted to be down thereand make sure I got everything set up.
I left Kansas City early in themorning, cruised on down a little
rock five and a half hour drivefrom where I was at, got to
(08:48):
the expo, lugged in all mystuff, set up the booth. Credit
if you saw the expo, andif you saw our booth, credit to
missus Back of the Pack podcast.The banner in the background, and that
tablecloth, and then all the stuffif we had on the table, the
little pamphlets, the stickers, thebracelets, all that stuff that was all
her, That was all her design, that was all her efforts. So
again credit to missus Back at theBack podcast for doing all that. We
(09:11):
got set up, leapt out ofthere, grabbed some dinner, took the
rest of the night off, andchilled back at the xpo ten o'clock on
Friday morning. Again, I hadno idea what to expect, and whatever
I expected, I had underestimated.Yet again, the amount of people who
came strolling through the expo was huge. The amount of people who came over
(09:33):
to the table and talked to mewas huge. And a huge thank you
to everyone on Friday who came andspoke to me at the table. You
guys, I really loved doing thisstuff. I love talking about the podcast.
I love telling people about the podcast, and I love that we just
stood around and talked about running.And that's what we do on this show
is just it's, like we said, it's runners talking running. So it
was so cool that we were alltalking about running, talking about races,
(09:56):
first marathons, cool metals, coolraces, good crowd ex experience. And
again, we're getting people from allover the country. I've talked to people
from New York. I talked topeople from Florida, from Louisiana, from
Oklahoma. There were some Kansas there, there was some Missouri there. There
was definitely some Texas there, someArkansas there. It was from all over.
(10:16):
So I'm hearing about these awesome racesthat I had never even heard of
before. People like, oh,you got to check out this race,
or oh, you should really golook at that race. And I want
to. Trust me, I wantto do them all because you guys were
saying how great they were. Butwe met a ton of people on Friday.
We even had over the course ofthe full weekend. Again I blush
when I say this. Hopefully youcan't see it on the video. Two
(10:39):
people who had heard of us previouslywho wanted to take pictures with me.
Ah, they can't tell you howhappy that makes me. Not that you
want to take a picture with mebecause I have a face for radio,
as they say, but just becauseyou've heard of the show before. A
lot of people actually came up andsaid, oh, I've heard of you.
That is awesome. That is whatmakes me super happy that people have
heard of the show, liked theshow, didn't immediately throw something out of
(11:01):
my head saying, oh my god, you suck. So it was really
great. I said, so again, we're going to make it a drinking
game here pretty soon. But itwas great meeting the people who had already
heard of the show. And then, of course I hope, my hope
is that we have exposed a lotof people to the show. Okay,
we met at the expo. Igave you a little pamphlet, or you
(11:22):
scan one little barcodes. Maybe thisis the first episode you're going to listen
to. But I'm hoping that alot of new people hear this episode.
And you can go out on Instagramand Facebook, our two main social media
platforms, and you will follow,or like or subscribe and be a part
of our small but yet building community. For the new people. I know
(11:43):
that there are other running Facebook pages. They basically kind of take care of
themselves. Like everyone posts their stuffon that page. That's kind of what
we want to do here. Like, you don't have to wait for me
to post something. If you wantto post something, if you want to
just say hey I did this orhey I ran this time, and you
want to get some love from ourrunning community, you go ahead and post
(12:03):
it on that Facebook page. You'llget the love from our running community.
Because while we are the Back ofthe Pack podcast, we have listeners from
the elite at the front all theway to the final finishers at the back,
and we love everyone from start tofinish. That is what we are
about here, is just building upthe strength of the running community, the
love of the running community, andthe positive feelings from the running community.
(12:26):
That is what we do. Soif this is your first episode and you
met us at the expo, thenI want to welcome you and I thank
you for checking out the Back ofthe Pack Podcast. Saturday, we had
to get up and be up atthe expo a little earlier, reason being
we had a five k to run. So Saturday morning was the five k
for the Little Rock Marathon weekend,they ran the five k and the ten
k at the same time. Idid the five as part of the Challenge
(12:50):
Good Race. I really didn't mindthat race. When we started, there
were some dense fog in the areaand it was still dark outside. So
it was dark with dense fog.So I can even wear my sunglasses for
most of the five k, andI like wearing my sunglasses. It makes
me feel like I'm kind of inanother world and I can tune things out.
Couldn't do that for the five k, But I personally had decided I
(13:13):
wanted to take the five k atkind of marathon pace. I did not
want to overdo it. I didnot want to go out there and be
like, I'm gonna run a prfor the five k the day before a
full marathon. No, I wantedto get out there. I wanted to
get loose and run a consistent pacefor that race. So I think what
I did, I think it wasonly like three seconds off. In my
(13:33):
splits, I think I did likea twelve o five, a twelve oh
eight, and like a twelve ohsix something like that. So I was
very consistent, very happy. Wasit a pr absolutely not. Was it
even a time that I would bethrilled with nowadays? No, it wasn't.
But it's what I wanted to dofor that five K. So after
the five K was finished, Iran inside and I got immediately behind the
table, ready to greet everyone asthe expo opened on Saturday, Saturday,
(13:58):
that would be the day Saturday,great day, meeting people yet again,
and again I did eventually run tothe restroom. I changed clothes, I
got out of my sweaty five caseclothes. I took some dude wipes and
gave myself a little wipe down inthe restroom there so I wasn't stinky and
gross. Freshing up the do otorandt all that good stuff. I can
talk about this. We're runners.We've talked about way worse. And so
(14:18):
I worked the rest of the dayafter the expo was over, and again
met a ton of new people,hopefully exposed a lot of new people to
the show. And we're going tobe getting a lot of new followers from
all corners of the globe. Ihope that that happens. After the expo.
When we were done, that waswhen it was time to go out
to dinner with all the Kansas CityRunning people who had come down, and
again it was a great dinner.We actually rented out a room at one
(14:41):
of the local restaurants. Dugans,you know, little love to you of
Duggins, Dugans, whatever you callyourselves. I know I'm butchering your name
in showing you love because I'm justdifficult like that. Thank you for giving
us your room. Thank you forour waitress who was very lovely and enjoyed
talking to us and put up withour nonsense. And then all of us
for the Kansas City Running team whohad dinner together. That was a great
(15:03):
time. We took a group picture. Once I start dumping everything out on
social media, you will see ourpicture all of us wearing our Scott Green
T shirts, which is what Iwore the day of the Saturday Expo.
Again, much loved to Scott.We will be seeing you next weekend at
your race. Again. If you'relocal to in and around Kansas City the
Beard Run on Sunday, March tenth, sign up for it if you haven't
(15:26):
already. All right, everyone needsto be there for the Beard Run.
Okay, I'm just saying we're allgonna be there. For Scott's three hundred
th race. Everyone be at thatrun. The day before that we all
know is the Westport Saint Patrick's Dayfour miler. Following that race, because
some people didn't know, is theBack of the Pack podcast two year anniversary.
So we're gonna have a little gatheringat Kelly's Westport in after the Westport
Saint Patrick's Day four miler. That'sSaturday the ninth, and then this show
(15:50):
might as well just tell you rightnow this show right here, we're the
Little Rock Marathon. This is Backof the Pack Podcast number one hundred,
our one hundredth episode, so supercool. If it hadn't fallen on such
a big weekend, I would havedone maybe like a best of show or
something like that, but as itis, this was a big weekend,
(16:11):
so we're just gonna go and mentionit and say, hey, that's really
cool, and then we'll continue onwith Little Rock. So with the five
k done, with the expo done, then with dinner done, it was
time to boogie on out of there. We got out of our dinner and
everyone was back to the room becausethe next morning was the big morning.
(16:32):
For those who didn't know, they'vemade an executive decision either Wednesday or Thursday
leading up to the race. Becauseof the projected forecast, the humidity and
the heat that was coming for LittleRock, the start of the race was
moved from eight am to six am, so everyone had a very early wake
up call when it came time forSunday mornings marathon and half marathon. If
(16:56):
you don't know this about Little Rock, and I know I've mentioned it before,
I'll mention it again. Little Rockis one of the races that is
well known for having a two hourhead start for people who feel that they
need more than six hours to completea full marathon. Now, while I
am a person who did my fullmarathon in six h nine, I was
not one of the early starters becauseI always try and being around six.
(17:17):
No, this is for the peoplewho are looking more like six and a
half, seven, seven and ahalf or eight. And if you are
one of those people, this raceis made for you. So if you
want to start thinking about next year, if you have desperately wanted to get
that one full marathon to be apart of that one percent of people who
have completed a full marathon, lookat Little Rock next year because if you've
(17:38):
got to take seven hours or sevenand a half or eight Okay, I
can now tell you from experience youcan do it. And yes, there
will be people there with you atthe end. You're not going to be
left on the course by yourself.There are people who are going to be
out there with you. They aregonna be people that make sure that you
get to the finish line. Andif you can do it in eight hours,
(17:59):
they will be someone with you andthey're not going to just abandon you
out there. So Little Rock isawesome for this. It has allowed many
people to be, you know,first time and maybe just only time marathon
finishers because you have that head start. So with the moving up of the
start line from eight am to sixam, the folks who wanted the early
start, they started at five thirtyokay, so they only got a thirty
(18:22):
minute head start, but the timewas extended on the back end so they
weren't going to get cut off.So at five thirty am again, I
was there a few minutes before Igot to see my people in the purple
wave. They take off at fivethirty. Then we have a half hour
for all of us to kind ofget stretched out lined up and ready to
go for our marathon, and rightat six am, to lever Rock's credit,
(18:45):
boom, we were gone. Iwas actually laughing a little bit because
they did the opening prayer and thenational anthem like twenty minutes before the race
started, like they were getting allthat stuff out of the way, so
that when it was racetime it wasracetime. Credit to you for doing that.
So six am hits boom we go. There were thousands upon thousands of
people out there, but it onlytook me about five minutes to get to
(19:07):
the start line from kraald E whereI was at. I was in E,
and so away we went. Thecourse a lot of it just kind
of wraps around Little Rock at thebeginning there, just going up and down
some of the streets and downtown LittleRock, little hilly if you're a Kansas
Citian. Nothing scary, nothing big, nothing bad. Until we go out.
We go over a hill and thisis like, right, not a
(19:30):
hill, I'm sorry, a bridge. We go over the bridge and this
is kind of mile one and ahalf two one somewhere in there, and
we go down a nice hill.You do a little wrapping around on the
other side of the river, andthen you come back up and you go
back over the bridge and you're backin downtown. Now, a lot of
people were already starting to catch upwith the Purple Wave when you were entering
downtown right around the five k mark. So thankfully, didn't look like there
(19:52):
were any terrible collisions the Purple wave. They were kind of hanging to the
right, the elite runners and suchwere able to go around on the left.
Looked like everything worked out well.I know the purple runners probably did
not want the elites coming up onthem so fast, like you know,
it's like, hey, I juststarted this thing, and you guys are
already zooming around. But unfortunately,because of the only the half hour head
(20:15):
start, again, we had thetime on the back end, but with
the only the half hour head start, that was gonna happen. So we're
going around some purple folks. I'mcruising along. My pace did not do
what I wanted it to do,and I'm still not one hundred percent sure
why. I was running a goodmarathon pace during the five k, but
I could not find that groove forthe full marathon. So my first mile
(20:37):
again, I was hoping for liketwelve oh five my first mile was like
twelve thirty eight something like that.And then right there after that first one,
I'm already getting in my own headlike wait, why am I not
going as fast? What's this goingto do to my finishing time? So
I need to speed up? Andit just I never found my groove.
I never did. It was reallyweird. I was consistent for the first
half ish of the race, butI just never got into I never got
(21:00):
that groove that runners can get into. I know, our buddy Cody,
he said he found a groove atleast for a period in time. I
didn't get that groove. So itfelt like it was kind of a fight
for me start to finish. Butreally, you know, I was able
to get through the first half becauseI'm kind of half marathon ready. Yeah
they didn't full marathon clearly, notso much, but I'm kind of half
(21:21):
marathon ready right now, just intraining and stamina and pace and whatnot.
So doing the first half you getto see some cool stuff. Hey.
The volunteers and then the crowd supportingLittle Rock were great. They were all
wonderful. There were plenty of stops, both official water stations and unofficial water
stations. There were tons, ofcourse, there were mimosa stations, there
(21:44):
were beers, there were shots,you know, all that stuff. I
did not do nearly as much asI did in Memphis, but that's because
I was fighting it. I wasfighting the race, and so I didn't
want to stop for a whole bunchof extracurricular activity because I felt like I
was already fighting myself, and ifyou're fighting yourself, you don't want to
add in extra junk, shall wesay. I definitely did do the run
(22:06):
by offering. When we went bythe church, they had a run by
offering where they had the bread andthe wine, grape juice and you could
get a little bit of a blessing. Definitely did do that, and I
told the gentleman in charges that Ineed all the help I can get,
and at that point I did.So we get to the split, there
were actually two splits. Got throughthe first split. They have the half
(22:27):
marathoners around mile six, maybe alittle before that, they do this U
turn, but the full marathoners goaround and we just kind of do a
longer two mile loop and then wecatch up with the back of the half
marathoners. That was a little weirdbecause you're you know, however long it
takes you to do two miles,let's just say sixteen minutes, you know,
for lack of a better actually,for me, that's definitely not at
(22:49):
all true. However long it takesyou to do to two miles, when
you come back around, you're slamminginto the back of now slower half marathoners,
a lot of walkers at that point. So I had to do a
little weaving and out and again I'malready fighting it. I'm fighting my pace,
I'm fighting everything else. Now I'mweaving through all the walkers and kind
of in the back. It's fine, and again glad you guys are out
there. It just was interesting tome to have to do that. There's
(23:11):
been some races we've had to dothat. But so I'm going, I'm
going, I'm going. I gotto catch up with some of my friends
in the purple wave, so Imade sure everyone was cool, everyone was
doing great, probably better than Iwas at that point, and continued on.
We got to the second split,and so that's where the half marathoners
they were about finished and they're readyto go. Us full marathoners straight ahead
(23:32):
to continue to explore the sights andsounds of Little Rock, Arkansas. We
got to go up to the capitol, and everyone who did the race knows
where I'm going with this one.We went up to the Capitol and that
was cool. And you're going tosee a video I took of a Jamaican
guy playing steel drums, which isone of my favorite things. I think
steel drum Jamaican sound is one ofthe coolest music types ever recorded. Him.
(23:52):
You see the state Capitol behind.That was really cool. We go
down this little hill and then wesee it the mile fifteen uphill, and
I mean, like, straight up, man, it was giant. This
was easily the worst hill on thecourse. It was the most difficult part
(24:14):
of the course. It was long, and it was steep and it was
painful. And if you said atany point of that that's what she said,
you're not wrong. But that hillwas gnarly. There was an aid
station halfway up it and I saidjokingly to a lady, I said,
who brought all these hills? Andshe's like, oh, we just brought
it in for the race. Like, man, you guys, get it
(24:34):
out of here. I don't wantthis hill anymore. Finally got to the
top of it. But you knowhow it is when you go up a
hill, like it's hard for yourbody to kind of get back in its
groove. And I was already fightinggroove. I was fighting, pacing and
grooving all of it. So thathill did mean no favors. Went down
the other side of it, whichwas not nearly as pleasant as going up
of it, up of it,up it. Jeez, words are fun.
(24:56):
I told you I'm goofy today.And then we just did a lot.
I'm wandering around, did some somestreets, through some nice neighborhoods,
got to go through this nice treelined course. I'm gonna tell you about
one of my favorite cheer stations.I don't know where we were, I
want to say somewhere around miles seventeenor eighteen, and like tree lined course,
it's like we're going through a park, but it's a road just probably
not one that's used very often.And I see this group up there,
(25:18):
and there's a group of people there. I'm gonna say they're older than me.
I'm not gonna even going to guesstheir age, but they've got me
by probably quite a few years.And they're just standing there and they're looking
very solemn, and I'm running upto them like weird. Okay, I
guess we're gonna you know, I'lljust I'll give them a friendly little smile.
So right when I get up tothem in unison, they all go
(25:41):
well and scream and yell. Theywere having fun with it, and so
they were. And then they didit to the person behind me too,
like the next person comes along,they get real quiet, real quiet,
they get right even with them,and then they blow up. It cracked
me up because it really it gotme thinking in the moments, like what's
wrong with these people? Am Idoing something wrong? Like U? And
so that got in my head becauseeverything was getting in my head at that
(26:03):
point. But that was really cool. They were really funny. And then
we got a great downhill there.We came out of the park and we
took this left. Now taking theleft after mile eighteen. I know we're
getting close to mile nineteen really becauseeighteen comes after or nineteen comes after eighteen.
Yeah, I'm aware, Okay,I'm not doing math, I promise.
But the rule was if you werea yellow bibbed person, which was
(26:25):
the full marathoners who did not havethe head start. You had to be
past mile nineteen in front of theballoon people, and they were allegedly the
six hour pacers. We'll come backto them in a minute, but you
had to be in front of themby mile nineteen. Okay, well,
here's mile nineteen coming up. Theyare nowhere to be seen. They're not
behind me, so I know I'mdoing okay. For the longest time,
(26:47):
I had the five forty fives infront of me, and I made a
mistake. I made a mistake alittle bit after that hill. If I
can backtrack a little bit, youknow, there's a lot of twist and
turn, see you lose sight ofpeople. I lost sight of the five
forty fives for a while, butthen I eventually made a turn and I
saw pacer shirts in front of me, and I thought, oh, there
they are. Cool man. I'mhanging in with them better than I thought
I would. And I finally catchup to these people. I'm like,
(27:08):
oh, this doesn't seem right.How am I catching up to them?
Because I know I'm not running afive forty five. It was a pace
group for one of the purple bibs, so like they were like the seven
and a half or seven. Ithink they were the seven hour pace group,
and so I caught it to themthinking they were the five forty fives.
Like, oh okay, so I'mnot nearly in as much good shape
(27:29):
as I thought I was. SoI was like, okay, better keep
going. But anyway, I getto mile nineteen, the balloon people are
nowhere in sight. We go intothis kind of park. It's an out
and back in a park that isprobably four miles and I'm just trucking along
and I'm doing my thing. AndI finally get to the turnaround there and
I'm trucked along and I'm coming back. As I'm coming back, I see
two of my Purple People Purple Peopleleaders. Now I see them. I
(27:52):
walk over and make sure they're doinggood. I check on them. They're
doing great, and out I go. I make it out and I'm now
I'm like mile marker twenty three,and I finally saw balloon people. The
thing is and mall marker twenty three. After you had beaten them to mail
mark on nineteen. They cut theballoons off themselves and they just they were
running. They were just going now. So thankfully I didn't have to worry
(28:12):
about them anymore. I had beatthe cutoff, but apparently some people I
guess did actually have to get diverted. From what I was told. That
could be wrong because of time limit. I get that, but thankfully not
an issue for me. But ifyou do Little Rock understand you have to
beat the balloons by mile nineteen.I actually wanted to make it to like
twenty twenty one, just to besafe without seeing them anywhere near me.
(28:33):
Fortunately, I was able to doall that after I got out of the
park. On that long turn around. Again we're talking mal marker twenty three.
Coming up to twenty four, theclouds broke, and again I had
talked about the weather. They hadmoved it up because of weather, just
because of the potential for the heatand humidity. Look, that humidity was
no joke. From moment one,from crossing the start line, you could
(28:56):
have wrung my shirt out by miletwo. Now, thankfully I had no
dehydration issues. I mean I wasdrinking at every official aid station and every
unofficial aid station. I never stoppedsweating, so hydration was not my concern.
The concern, though, was atmile twenty four, when the clouds
broke and that sun came out,because then I had sunshine and humidity and
(29:18):
that, man, I'll take that, just drained it right out of me.
And again, I know I've gottwo miles left, but at that
point I was struggling. I wasstruggling something fierce, like I wasn't already,
but now it was getting even worse. But thankfully I'm trucking along mile
twenty four gets mile twenty five.Right before mile twenty five, though,
there was kind of a big cheerstation there. Going up a little bit
(29:38):
of a hill, and look,there's a lot of train track issues in
Little Rock, Okay. They havea little train that goes around downtown and
then a lot of train yards.I'm sure tracks in use, tracks not
in use, whatever the case mightbe. Going up this little hill right
before mile twenty five, I steppedover a train track that came down on
it awkwardly, and my right kneejust popped and it hurt like a son
(30:00):
of a gun. Like, man, you gotta be kidding me. With
this little left, this is whathappens, geez. But we play through
the pain. It's not like everythingwasn't already hurting on me. Anyway,
We make the left out of thereheading down a hill. Get to mile
marker twenty five right after malal Markertwenty five is the last and second worst
hill. So I'm going up thehill. I come in contact with another
(30:22):
runner there. I just I saysomething smart, alecy about this hill.
She responds and she knew who Iwas, and she's from Minnesota, and
we talked going all the way upthat hill. She's a listener of the
podcast, so huge shout out inlove there. It was great to just
have that talking distraction getting up thatdarn hill, and because she kind of
knew what we did here on theback of the back podcast, we had
(30:44):
something to talk about and that wasawesome. So really helped kind of get
that knee pain out of my headand to get to the top of that
hill. After that, we justkind of had some downhill mostly and then
some rolling hills to the finish line. We crossed the finish line, the
Kansas City peeps were loud and proudand again, love you guys. Thank
you also very much. Across thefinish line, and you don't just turn
around and go talk to people.They had this whole finisher shoot that goes
(31:07):
inside the convention center, which isgreat. It's nice to get out of
that heat. And so you goinside. They give you your metal,
they take a picture, food,drink, other photo opportunities, medical tent.
They make sure you're okay. Butyou take care of all of this
and kind of go through the corralbefore you were sent out into the bulk
with the big convention center where theexpo was. Now it's all set up
(31:30):
with chairs and tables. Went inthere, saw a lot of the KC
peeps who were at a table,and so that is kind of when the
race officially ended. Now the medalsare huge. I just showed you the
experience was great. After I finished, we had a little bit longer and
again we were on the tracking deviceswatching our other Kansas City people as they
(31:51):
were getting closer. So we allwent back out to the finish line.
We cheered them on. We cheereda lot of other people on who were
kind of finishing around the same time. It was awesome again for me to
be there, just able to siton this nice concrete block and cheer on
all the people who are coming in. Because again I finished it six oh
nine. Let's say I got outsideto cheer people on at six twenty six
(32:12):
twenty five. We were out thereuntil the eight hour pacers crossed the official
last people. Once they crossed,that's when we left. But we're out
there cheering everyone on coming in atthat point, and that meant a lot.
Man. It's it's so cool againto see both the people I know
and the people I don't. Youcan just kind of tell who that first
time marathoner is or that person whowas riding that struggle bus since moment one.
(32:35):
But they persevered, they stayed withit, they fought through it,
and they're finishing a marathon. Itreally is one of the coolest experiences I
know. A lot gets made andthe lot gets said, and Runner's World
is doing a story about it.They keep reposting about the importance of the
people who stay in cheer for theback of the packers. Well, no,
dah, We've been talking about thatkind of support for two years now
on the Back of the Back podcasttwo years next week, one hundred episodes
(32:59):
this so it's nothing new to us. But the people who do this much
love and much kudos for those whowill stay and cheer until that last person
comes across the finish line. Itis really a cool experience when you see
the people who again went through itto make it to where they are,
So that is the little Rock experience. Afterwards, we all went out.
(33:20):
We had one more dinner. Forthose who remained in town, one more
night. Might have had a fewadult beverages to help you use the pain.
Definitely did. And then it wasbedtime. Up early this morning,
and now I am back here inthe podcast studio bringing you this episode.
So that will do it for thisNow I am going to attack here at
the very end some of the videosI took along the course, So if
(33:43):
you are watching on YouTube or Facebookor wherever you're watching, you are,
of course more than welcome to tunein. I tried to talk a little
more on these than I did inVegas so that it's not just weird background
noise for anyone who's listening on Spotifyor iTunes or whatever. I tried to
talk more because I know you can'tsee. Maybe I was perfect, maybe
I wasn't. I don't even rememberat this point because I was dying for
(34:05):
a lot of these videos. Butthat's going to do for this episode.
Stay tuned now for the videos Itook along the Little Rock Course. I
hope you enjoyed those. Remember thatSaturday is the Westport Saint Patrick's Stay four
miler. I will be at thatrunning that race slowly. And then we
have the Back of the Pack podcasttwo year anniversary at Kelly's Inn in Westport,
the moment you cross the finish lineand you get your metal head into
(34:29):
Kelly's because as soon as I getthere, whenever I finish, the party
begins. You guys can start theparty without me. You don't need me.
Shoot, just go in there andorder a drink, Order me one
two. And then the day afterthat is the Beard Run. I'll be
doing the ten k silly enough,or if I don't run the race,
I'm still going to be there.All depends on how my knees feel at
that point. But the Beard Runon March tenth, and then we continue
(34:51):
on from there and we're almost intoHeartland thirty nine point three series season and
everything else that we've got coming up. So again, from the very bottom
back of the put no, fromthe very bottom of my heart, thank
you all so much that I metdown in Little Rock, Arkansas for such
a great weekend. To the raceorganizers, volunteers, directors, and everyone
associated with the Little Rock Marathon.This was top notch, first class,
(35:15):
and I want to thank you guysvery much for a wonderful experience throughout the
entire weekend. To everyone we met, it was a pleasure to meet you.
Welcome to our little community. Ihope you enjoy it. Feedback is
always welcome. If it's bad,send it to Cody. If it's good,
give it to me. And otherthan that, we'll see you guys
next week. Everybody here, weare right at the back of the back
(35:38):
podcast booth here in Little Rock.So this is what it looks like.
This guy here, we're gonna beright next to the Volkswagen dealership, so
make sure you swing by and checkus out. However, this look this
will not do, so I'm goingto get to work. Let's see what
this looks like here in a littlebit. And now there we go.
Much better. We've now got thebanner up. Let's take a look here,
(36:02):
check it, check it. Hereis our sweet table. Oh yeah,
big shout out to our friends atthe Top City Half Marathon for joining
us on this little adventure. Buthere we go. It is already so
we'll see you guys starting tomorrow.Hey, everybody, we are finally done.
We are finished with a Little RockExpo. There is nothing left to
(36:24):
do now, but we're running marathonin the morning. But for anyone who
catches this on TikTok or Instagram orwherever else I might post it, I
want to say a huge thank youto the folks of Little Rock and everyone
who came out to the expo.We made a ton of new friends and
we had a really good time here. I just I can't form words right
now because I've been standing for sixteenhours over the last two days and we've
(36:45):
talked to a lot of people.But to everyone who joined us here in
Little Rock, thank you also verymuch. Now we're gonna run a race.
We're gonna go home. That driveback to Kansas City on Monday is
going to be a long one andI'm gonna be a little tired, but
that's all right. We will geta new episode out Monday evening, so
make sure you stay tuned for that. You know, it'll be all about
the Little Rock Marathon. So Eric, just give you a little spin around
(37:05):
there there we go, Seeing it'sstarting empty out in here. This thing
is about done. So everyone inuh at home, take care. Everyone
we met Little Rock. Thank youso much. Now let's go to a
marathon, right hey, everybody,we are just past mile to fourteen,
(37:35):
the Little Rock Marathon. I apologizeI have been terrible at video videoing things,
vlogging, if you will. Butas you can see, it is
they said it was gonna be reallyhot. It's not really hot, but
it is super humid, so verysweaty. Didn't even go with the head
piece today because I was really afraidof the heat being trapped on my head.
There's fag out here, but weexpect it's gonna burn off, and
(37:55):
so again we're already past halfway,which is good, but if this burns
off, it's going to be amiserable second half of this race. So
we'll be back here in a littlebit. As I about to get a
nice downhill, so I'm gonna takeadvantage of that. But I wanted to
bring you the Jamaican drums and thentouch base for the episode. But we'll
be back here in a little while, So thanks for sticking us with sticking
(38:17):
with us here and Little Rock.As you can see the capitol right over
my shoulder there pretty cool. Right, We're back in a little bit.
Okay, back again real quick,everyone, and I'm sorry for the traffic
noise. See if you can seebehind me, I am on the biggest
freaking hill I think I've ever donein a marathon except for the Baton Memorial
(38:38):
Death March, which it was upa mountain. But good god man,
we just keep going up and I'mnot even to the top yet. I
see the top. I ain't doit, so little rock. The people
at the A station said, youguys brought this in for the race.
I appreciate it, but you didn'thave to do that. So anyway,
we're about to crest ever here andwe're gonna continue on to mile marker fifteen,
(39:02):
so we'll be back all right.Everyone in the background. There is
mile twenty mile marker twenty now inthe rearview mirror. So we got people
heading back towards the finish line goingbehind me. I'm still heading out on
this little three mile out and back. So the humidity is big. We
got to be at ninety plus percenthumidity down here. Thankfully, still cloudy.
(39:25):
If only a ten k left,we're still cloudy, so you know,
thank goodness for small favors, right, But I can tell training not
good, hasn't been good. Knewit was going to be bad. Doing
okay though not great. The LittleRock Marathon has been super fun. The
crowd support is very good, andthat's something we always want to mention.
(39:46):
If I don't mention that in studio, let me mention it here on this
little live bit. The crowd supportfor a Little Rock is very very good.
So been a lot of eight stations, and not just official eight stations,
but you know, neighborhood made eightstations with drinks and maybe a few
adult beverages. Not doing nearly whatI did in Memphis, though, not
(40:07):
doing that. But anyway, allright, So we got a ten k
left and keeping an eye out thatpeople going back the other way. We
should see some more of our peoplejust past Terry a few minutes ago.
Should see Cody and Stacy at somepoint in time. So shout out to
you guys. You're all crushing it. Of all the Kansas City people,
I am the back of the packfor sure. So anyway, we're going
(40:30):
to keep going. It will beback a little later when I feel like
taking a break, and hello againeveryone. I'll know if you can see
it. But in the background therethat's mile marker twenty four, so twenty
four miles in the book. Sowe've only got two left. Slowly had
another finish line. This race hasgone from bad to worse for years.
(40:51):
Truly. I'm hurting, hurting bigtime. So mah, based on time,
I'm gonna be over six hours boom, but a lot of light paint.
So hello, we're gonna get herdone. See it's the finish line,
all right, everyone, you canhear the finish line coming here.
We are mile markers twenty six.Hooray, mile marker twenty six. Alright,
(41:20):
we'll be heading down the stretch ina second. Be ready yet you
come. I do not use ittime. Oh that's gonna go back.
(42:45):
I appreciate you. There you go, y'all. Let a rock is done.
Going nowhere near the pr bell becausethat would be wrong. Thank you
all so much. Sh
Hello, everyone, greetings and salutations. Welcome back to another episode of the
Back of the Pack podcast. I'myour host, Kyle Walker. Thank you
so much for tuning in. You'llfirst have to forgive me. I am
probably going to be loopy this episodeas I am just out of the car
and back from our weekend trip toLittle Rock, Arkansas. So, as
you could guess, this entire episodeis going to be all about the Little
(00:33):
Rock Marathon weekend. What a weekendit was. Oh my goodness. I
am exhausted, I am tired,but I also could not be happier with
how this entire weekend went down.It was great, and so I want
to lead off the show with this. If I do nothing else, if
I forget to mention anything else,I don't want to mention this. I
want to thank every single one ofyou who made the Little Rock Marathon expo
(00:58):
and race so much memorable. Itwill certainly go down as one of my
all time favorites. We had sucha great time in Little Rock. First
off, to all of the KansasCity Running team that went down there.
I'm not gonna try and name everyonebecause I would ultimately ultimately miss something and
feel terrible but to all of myKansas Citians who came down to Little Rock
(01:21):
for your first marathons, for yourfirst halves, for whatever distance you did
to just be there with everyone else, thank you guys so much. Like
honestly, I I was. Iwas super touched the entire weekend. Not
that you guys went down for me. I know that's not the case.
I am a part of the team, but I just I couldn't believe all
of us came together for such aworthy cause, and when our first time
(01:42):
marathoners were finishing the race, howwe were all there to cheer and scream
for them. It really was sucha such an awesome time and such a
great moment and a big shout out. I'm gonna name two Sherry and Jamie.
You guys you are now marathon finishers, And how freaking cool is that.
I almost got choked up cheering youguys across the finish line. So
(02:04):
I am so happy for you guys. My main man Cody another first time
marathon or great job, Stacey,I mean we again. I could go
on and on and I'm gonna misspeople, and so I'm gonna stop right
now. But man, you guysreally you did great, and I'm super
proud of you, all the firsttime marathon finishers, even the people I
don't know, a great job.If you went down a little rock and
you knocked out your first full marathon, and what a race to do it
(02:27):
in. Now, I'm gonna saythis that marathon course. That course was
no joke, man. I honestlyunderestimated it. I really did. I
underestimated that course. I underestimated thedifficulty of it. I knew that my
training had been el Garbaggio going intoit, but wow, that was a
humbling experience for years, truly.And you can see I'm rocking the shirt.
(02:47):
So I definitely finished the race,but it is not going to go
down as one of my finer performances. Shall we say I as the best
the Pack podcast guy. I judgemyself in full marathons as six hours.
Anything under six hours I have succeededin my task. Anything over six hours,
(03:09):
I have kind of failed in mytask, even though you do take
some solace in finishing a marathon,of course, but I set my mark
at six hours and I'm sorry.My glasses are sliding down my nose today.
I don't know why. Maybe maybeI lost weight from the marathon and
so now my glasses are slippery.We'll go with that, that's what we're
gonna do. But anyway, Igauge success or failure for me. For
(03:30):
me at six hours for a fullmarathon, I did not make my six
hours. I just barely missed it. Okay, so missed it by a
few minutes. But in my worldthat is deemed a failure. However,
I'm just gonna I'm throwing it outthere. You know, training first spring
race is always difficult. We knowthat, all right. You never know
what mother nature is gonna throw youin the wintertime. And while I feel
(03:53):
like we have had a very mildwinter because we are technically still in winter,
I have my window open here yearat home, and it's seventy seven
degrees outside. So like mother naturehas been all over the place. We've
had the frozen tundra of Kansas City, and now we have darn near summertime
weather, and it's just for us. It's going to be up and down
all week long. So weather equalsinconsistent training equals I should have tried harder
(04:18):
to train in some areas where Ididn't. But either which way spring marathons
can be difficult. I did notdo what I should have done, and
that race won. That race humbledme. It reminded me that training is
important and you cannot, under anycircumstances underestimate a full marathon. I can
(04:41):
now say this is the second timeI've done it. I'll tell you real
quick the story of the first time. It was after my very first I
ran the Route sixty six marathon intwenty eleven, and then I was going
to go do the New Orleans Marathonin I think it was actually twenty thirteen,
so like well over a full yearin between full marathons, and I
remember thinking to my I've done afull marathon. I know how to do
(05:01):
a full marathon. I'll be finein New Orleans and IRMUFS kids. I
half asked my training. New Orleanswhooped me, New Orleans, whoop me.
You just can't half ask train fora full marathon. Doesn't matter.
If it's an easy course, adifficult course, it doesn't matter. It'll
get you if that's what you do. So to all of you who all
of you who trained correctly, welldone, Congratulations again. I make the
(05:26):
mistakes so you don't have to.That's where we ended up. I did
not make my six hour benchmark formyself. I was over it by nine
minutes. So I gotta mark thisone down as a EH marathon, but
not the fault of Little Rock.Please don't do don't read into that.
They were great? So what Igot to quit saying? So I've noticed
this on my own podcast, Isay so too much, So no kidding,
(05:46):
all right, weird? I exchangedit for all right. I told
you, guys, I was goingto be loopy today. I warned you.
Let's do early on here what everyonewants us to do. The medals
are the metal for Little Rock,as cool as everyone will tell you they
are, or that you may haveheard we talk about medals on this show
because we're all ear MUCKs again,kids, we're all metal horrors, me
(06:11):
first and foremost. So let's dothis. I have signed up for the
challenge. So on Saturday we ranthe five k. On Sunday the full
marathon. Let's do our five kmetal and here it is. If you're
watching the screen, okay, it'sa nice metal. You know. We've
seen bigger, we've seen smaller,but it's got a little what is this
guy? He's a stegasaurus, littlestegasaurus on the on the five K metal,
(06:31):
So it was not perfectly nice metal. I've certainly gotten smaller metals for
a five K, so their fiveK metal is wonderful, very nicely done.
Because I did the challenge, Igot a metal for the challenge.
Let's do the challenge metal. Okay, roughly the same size you can see
here. Now this is the littlespinner dinosaur guy from Jurassic Park, the
one we all remember from the veryfirst movie. He's a big old yellow
(06:54):
spare guy, says challenge on it. So again it's about the same size
as the five K but pretty coolmetal. Okay, now let's do the
full Okay, yeah, hold on, I got a call in a crane
to get this bad boy up andhere's the fall yes, with mister t
(07:15):
Rex on it here. Okay,so let me just do a little comparison
here, full challenge. You seethat, you see that there is a
little bit of difference in size,and like I said, challenge metals in
five ks perfectly acceptable size. Thisis more than double tall, more than
double wide, actually probably three timestaller, three times wider, but that's
(07:39):
where this is. And people remarkedbefore about how I would make fun of
the size of my own head.Now you can see it. This is
bigger than my head. You seethis. Are you guys checking this out?
If you're watching YouTube video, youbetter be looking and marveling at the
size of this metal, which isactually making my arm tired holding it up
like this. This is the LittleRock Marathon metal. It is every bit
(08:03):
as big as they say it is. That's just what it is. So
if you were ever considering a marathonand you really like metals, Little Rock
is where you want to go.We've said it before, we'll say it
again, and now I have perfectlydemonstrated it. The size of this metal
is just obscene. Now let's rolldown this weekend. It was a great
weekend. Like I said, andI'm probably gonna say it more. I
(08:26):
rolled out of Kansas City early Thursdaymorning. Okay, the people at the
Little Rock Expo or the Little RockMarathon were kind enough to give the Back
of the Pack podcast a table atthe expo. Set up was Thursday,
so I wanted to be down thereand make sure I got everything set up.
I left Kansas City early in themorning, cruised on down a little
rock five and a half hour drivefrom where I was at, got to
(08:48):
the expo, lugged in all mystuff, set up the booth. Credit
if you saw the expo, andif you saw our booth, credit to
missus Back of the Pack podcast.The banner in the background, and that
tablecloth, and then all the stuffif we had on the table, the
little pamphlets, the stickers, thebracelets, all that stuff that was all
her, That was all her design, that was all her efforts. So
again credit to missus Back at theBack podcast for doing all that. We
(09:11):
got set up, leapt out ofthere, grabbed some dinner, took the
rest of the night off, andchilled back at the xpo ten o'clock on
Friday morning. Again, I hadno idea what to expect, and whatever
I expected, I had underestimated.Yet again, the amount of people who
came strolling through the expo was huge. The amount of people who came over
(09:33):
to the table and talked to mewas huge. And a huge thank you
to everyone on Friday who came andspoke to me at the table. You
guys, I really loved doing thisstuff. I love talking about the podcast.
I love telling people about the podcast, and I love that we just
stood around and talked about running.And that's what we do on this show
is just it's, like we said, it's runners talking running. So it
was so cool that we were alltalking about running, talking about races,
(09:56):
first marathons, cool metals, coolraces, good crowd ex experience. And
again, we're getting people from allover the country. I've talked to people
from New York. I talked topeople from Florida, from Louisiana, from
Oklahoma. There were some Kansas there, there was some Missouri there. There
was definitely some Texas there, someArkansas there. It was from all over.
(10:16):
So I'm hearing about these awesome racesthat I had never even heard of
before. People like, oh,you got to check out this race,
or oh, you should really golook at that race. And I want
to. Trust me, I wantto do them all because you guys were
saying how great they were. Butwe met a ton of people on Friday.
We even had over the course ofthe full weekend. Again I blush
when I say this. Hopefully youcan't see it on the video. Two
(10:39):
people who had heard of us previouslywho wanted to take pictures with me.
Ah, they can't tell you howhappy that makes me. Not that you
want to take a picture with mebecause I have a face for radio,
as they say, but just becauseyou've heard of the show before. A
lot of people actually came up andsaid, oh, I've heard of you.
That is awesome. That is whatmakes me super happy that people have
heard of the show, liked theshow, didn't immediately throw something out of
(11:01):
my head saying, oh my god, you suck. So it was really
great. I said, so again, we're going to make it a drinking
game here pretty soon. But itwas great meeting the people who had already
heard of the show. And then, of course I hope, my hope
is that we have exposed a lotof people to the show. Okay,
we met at the expo. Igave you a little pamphlet, or you
(11:22):
scan one little barcodes. Maybe thisis the first episode you're going to listen
to. But I'm hoping that alot of new people hear this episode.
And you can go out on Instagramand Facebook, our two main social media
platforms, and you will follow,or like or subscribe and be a part
of our small but yet building community. For the new people. I know
(11:43):
that there are other running Facebook pages. They basically kind of take care of
themselves. Like everyone posts their stuffon that page. That's kind of what
we want to do here. Like, you don't have to wait for me
to post something. If you wantto post something, if you want to
just say hey I did this orhey I ran this time, and you
want to get some love from ourrunning community, you go ahead and post
(12:03):
it on that Facebook page. You'llget the love from our running community.
Because while we are the Back ofthe Pack podcast, we have listeners from
the elite at the front all theway to the final finishers at the back,
and we love everyone from start tofinish. That is what we are
about here, is just building upthe strength of the running community, the
love of the running community, andthe positive feelings from the running community.
(12:26):
That is what we do. Soif this is your first episode and you
met us at the expo, thenI want to welcome you and I thank
you for checking out the Back ofthe Pack Podcast. Saturday, we had
to get up and be up atthe expo a little earlier, reason being
we had a five k to run. So Saturday morning was the five k
for the Little Rock Marathon weekend,they ran the five k and the ten
k at the same time. Idid the five as part of the Challenge
(12:50):
Good Race. I really didn't mindthat race. When we started, there
were some dense fog in the areaand it was still dark outside. So
it was dark with dense fog.So I can even wear my sunglasses for
most of the five k, andI like wearing my sunglasses. It makes
me feel like I'm kind of inanother world and I can tune things out.
Couldn't do that for the five k, But I personally had decided I
(13:13):
wanted to take the five k atkind of marathon pace. I did not
want to overdo it. I didnot want to go out there and be
like, I'm gonna run a prfor the five k the day before a
full marathon. No, I wantedto get out there. I wanted to
get loose and run a consistent pacefor that race. So I think what
I did, I think it wasonly like three seconds off. In my
(13:33):
splits, I think I did likea twelve o five, a twelve oh
eight, and like a twelve ohsix something like that. So I was
very consistent, very happy. Wasit a pr absolutely not. Was it
even a time that I would bethrilled with nowadays? No, it wasn't.
But it's what I wanted to dofor that five K. So after
the five K was finished, Iran inside and I got immediately behind the
table, ready to greet everyone asthe expo opened on Saturday, Saturday,
(13:58):
that would be the day Saturday,great day, meeting people yet again,
and again I did eventually run tothe restroom. I changed clothes, I
got out of my sweaty five caseclothes. I took some dude wipes and
gave myself a little wipe down inthe restroom there so I wasn't stinky and
gross. Freshing up the do otorandt all that good stuff. I can
talk about this. We're runners.We've talked about way worse. And so
(14:18):
I worked the rest of the dayafter the expo was over, and again
met a ton of new people,hopefully exposed a lot of new people to
the show. And we're going tobe getting a lot of new followers from
all corners of the globe. Ihope that that happens. After the expo.
When we were done, that waswhen it was time to go out
to dinner with all the Kansas CityRunning people who had come down, and
again it was a great dinner.We actually rented out a room at one
(14:41):
of the local restaurants. Dugans,you know, little love to you of
Duggins, Dugans, whatever you callyourselves. I know I'm butchering your name
in showing you love because I'm justdifficult like that. Thank you for giving
us your room. Thank you forour waitress who was very lovely and enjoyed
talking to us and put up withour nonsense. And then all of us
for the Kansas City Running team whohad dinner together. That was a great
(15:03):
time. We took a group picture. Once I start dumping everything out on
social media, you will see ourpicture all of us wearing our Scott Green
T shirts, which is what Iwore the day of the Saturday Expo.
Again, much loved to Scott.We will be seeing you next weekend at
your race. Again. If you'relocal to in and around Kansas City the
Beard Run on Sunday, March tenth, sign up for it if you haven't
(15:26):
already. All right, everyone needsto be there for the Beard Run.
Okay, I'm just saying we're allgonna be there. For Scott's three hundred
th race. Everyone be at thatrun. The day before that we all
know is the Westport Saint Patrick's Dayfour miler. Following that race, because
some people didn't know, is theBack of the Pack podcast two year anniversary.
So we're gonna have a little gatheringat Kelly's Westport in after the Westport
Saint Patrick's Day four miler. That'sSaturday the ninth, and then this show
(15:50):
might as well just tell you rightnow this show right here, we're the
Little Rock Marathon. This is Backof the Pack Podcast number one hundred,
our one hundredth episode, so supercool. If it hadn't fallen on such
a big weekend, I would havedone maybe like a best of show or
something like that, but as itis, this was a big weekend,
(16:11):
so we're just gonna go and mentionit and say, hey, that's really
cool, and then we'll continue onwith Little Rock. So with the five
k done, with the expo done, then with dinner done, it was
time to boogie on out of there. We got out of our dinner and
everyone was back to the room becausethe next morning was the big morning.
(16:32):
For those who didn't know, they'vemade an executive decision either Wednesday or Thursday
leading up to the race. Becauseof the projected forecast, the humidity and
the heat that was coming for LittleRock, the start of the race was
moved from eight am to six am, so everyone had a very early wake
up call when it came time forSunday mornings marathon and half marathon. If
(16:56):
you don't know this about Little Rock, and I know I've mentioned it before,
I'll mention it again. Little Rockis one of the races that is
well known for having a two hourhead start for people who feel that they
need more than six hours to completea full marathon. Now, while I
am a person who did my fullmarathon in six h nine, I was
not one of the early starters becauseI always try and being around six.
(17:17):
No, this is for the peoplewho are looking more like six and a
half, seven, seven and ahalf or eight. And if you are
one of those people, this raceis made for you. So if you
want to start thinking about next year, if you have desperately wanted to get
that one full marathon to be apart of that one percent of people who
have completed a full marathon, lookat Little Rock next year because if you've
(17:38):
got to take seven hours or sevenand a half or eight Okay, I
can now tell you from experience youcan do it. And yes, there
will be people there with you atthe end. You're not going to be
left on the course by yourself.There are people who are going to be
out there with you. They aregonna be people that make sure that you
get to the finish line. Andif you can do it in eight hours,
(17:59):
they will be someone with you andthey're not going to just abandon you
out there. So Little Rock isawesome for this. It has allowed many
people to be, you know,first time and maybe just only time marathon
finishers because you have that head start. So with the moving up of the
start line from eight am to sixam, the folks who wanted the early
start, they started at five thirtyokay, so they only got a thirty
(18:22):
minute head start, but the timewas extended on the back end so they
weren't going to get cut off.So at five thirty am again, I
was there a few minutes before Igot to see my people in the purple
wave. They take off at fivethirty. Then we have a half hour
for all of us to kind ofget stretched out lined up and ready to
go for our marathon, and rightat six am, to lever Rock's credit,
(18:45):
boom, we were gone. Iwas actually laughing a little bit because
they did the opening prayer and thenational anthem like twenty minutes before the race
started, like they were getting allthat stuff out of the way, so
that when it was racetime it wasracetime. Credit to you for doing that.
So six am hits boom we go. There were thousands upon thousands of
people out there, but it onlytook me about five minutes to get to
(19:07):
the start line from kraald E whereI was at. I was in E,
and so away we went. Thecourse a lot of it just kind
of wraps around Little Rock at thebeginning there, just going up and down
some of the streets and downtown LittleRock, little hilly if you're a Kansas
Citian. Nothing scary, nothing big, nothing bad. Until we go out.
We go over a hill and thisis like, right, not a
(19:30):
hill, I'm sorry, a bridge. We go over the bridge and this
is kind of mile one and ahalf two one somewhere in there, and
we go down a nice hill.You do a little wrapping around on the
other side of the river, andthen you come back up and you go
back over the bridge and you're backin downtown. Now, a lot of
people were already starting to catch upwith the Purple Wave when you were entering
downtown right around the five k mark. So thankfully, didn't look like there
(19:52):
were any terrible collisions the Purple wave. They were kind of hanging to the
right, the elite runners and suchwere able to go around on the left.
Looked like everything worked out well.I know the purple runners probably did
not want the elites coming up onthem so fast, like you know,
it's like, hey, I juststarted this thing, and you guys are
already zooming around. But unfortunately,because of the only the half hour head
(20:15):
start, again, we had thetime on the back end, but with
the only the half hour head start, that was gonna happen. So we're
going around some purple folks. I'mcruising along. My pace did not do
what I wanted it to do,and I'm still not one hundred percent sure
why. I was running a goodmarathon pace during the five k, but
I could not find that groove forthe full marathon. So my first mile
(20:37):
again, I was hoping for liketwelve oh five my first mile was like
twelve thirty eight something like that.And then right there after that first one,
I'm already getting in my own headlike wait, why am I not
going as fast? What's this goingto do to my finishing time? So
I need to speed up? Andit just I never found my groove.
I never did. It was reallyweird. I was consistent for the first
half ish of the race, butI just never got into I never got
(21:00):
that groove that runners can get into. I know, our buddy Cody,
he said he found a groove atleast for a period in time. I
didn't get that groove. So itfelt like it was kind of a fight
for me start to finish. Butreally, you know, I was able
to get through the first half becauseI'm kind of half marathon ready. Yeah
they didn't full marathon clearly, notso much, but I'm kind of half
(21:21):
marathon ready right now, just intraining and stamina and pace and whatnot.
So doing the first half you getto see some cool stuff. Hey.
The volunteers and then the crowd supportingLittle Rock were great. They were all
wonderful. There were plenty of stops, both official water stations and unofficial water
stations. There were tons, ofcourse, there were mimosa stations, there
(21:44):
were beers, there were shots,you know, all that stuff. I
did not do nearly as much asI did in Memphis, but that's because
I was fighting it. I wasfighting the race, and so I didn't
want to stop for a whole bunchof extracurricular activity because I felt like I
was already fighting myself, and ifyou're fighting yourself, you don't want to
add in extra junk, shall wesay. I definitely did do the run
(22:06):
by offering. When we went bythe church, they had a run by
offering where they had the bread andthe wine, grape juice and you could
get a little bit of a blessing. Definitely did do that, and I
told the gentleman in charges that Ineed all the help I can get,
and at that point I did.So we get to the split, there
were actually two splits. Got throughthe first split. They have the half
(22:27):
marathoners around mile six, maybe alittle before that, they do this U
turn, but the full marathoners goaround and we just kind of do a
longer two mile loop and then wecatch up with the back of the half
marathoners. That was a little weirdbecause you're you know, however long it
takes you to do two miles,let's just say sixteen minutes, you know,
for lack of a better actually,for me, that's definitely not at
(22:49):
all true. However long it takesyou to do to two miles, when
you come back around, you're slamminginto the back of now slower half marathoners,
a lot of walkers at that point. So I had to do a
little weaving and out and again I'malready fighting it. I'm fighting my pace,
I'm fighting everything else. Now I'mweaving through all the walkers and kind
of in the back. It's fine, and again glad you guys are out
there. It just was interesting tome to have to do that. There's
(23:11):
been some races we've had to dothat. But so I'm going, I'm
going, I'm going. I gotto catch up with some of my friends
in the purple wave, so Imade sure everyone was cool, everyone was
doing great, probably better than Iwas at that point, and continued on.
We got to the second split,and so that's where the half marathoners
they were about finished and they're readyto go. Us full marathoners straight ahead
(23:32):
to continue to explore the sights andsounds of Little Rock, Arkansas. We
got to go up to the capitol, and everyone who did the race knows
where I'm going with this one.We went up to the Capitol and that
was cool. And you're going tosee a video I took of a Jamaican
guy playing steel drums, which isone of my favorite things. I think
steel drum Jamaican sound is one ofthe coolest music types ever recorded. Him.
(23:52):
You see the state Capitol behind.That was really cool. We go
down this little hill and then wesee it the mile fifteen uphill, and
I mean, like, straight up, man, it was giant. This
was easily the worst hill on thecourse. It was the most difficult part
(24:14):
of the course. It was long, and it was steep and it was
painful. And if you said atany point of that that's what she said,
you're not wrong. But that hillwas gnarly. There was an aid
station halfway up it and I saidjokingly to a lady, I said,
who brought all these hills? Andshe's like, oh, we just brought
it in for the race. Like, man, you guys, get it
(24:34):
out of here. I don't wantthis hill anymore. Finally got to the
top of it. But you knowhow it is when you go up a
hill, like it's hard for yourbody to kind of get back in its
groove. And I was already fightinggroove. I was fighting, pacing and
grooving all of it. So thathill did mean no favors. Went down
the other side of it, whichwas not nearly as pleasant as going up
of it, up of it,up it. Jeez, words are fun.
(24:56):
I told you I'm goofy today.And then we just did a lot.
I'm wandering around, did some somestreets, through some nice neighborhoods,
got to go through this nice treelined course. I'm gonna tell you about
one of my favorite cheer stations.I don't know where we were, I
want to say somewhere around miles seventeenor eighteen, and like tree lined course,
it's like we're going through a park, but it's a road just probably
not one that's used very often.And I see this group up there,
(25:18):
and there's a group of people there. I'm gonna say they're older than me.
I'm not gonna even going to guesstheir age, but they've got me
by probably quite a few years.And they're just standing there and they're looking
very solemn, and I'm running upto them like weird. Okay, I
guess we're gonna you know, I'lljust I'll give them a friendly little smile.
So right when I get up tothem in unison, they all go
(25:41):
well and scream and yell. Theywere having fun with it, and so
they were. And then they didit to the person behind me too,
like the next person comes along,they get real quiet, real quiet,
they get right even with them,and then they blow up. It cracked
me up because it really it gotme thinking in the moments, like what's
wrong with these people? Am Idoing something wrong? Like U? And
so that got in my head becauseeverything was getting in my head at that
(26:03):
point. But that was really cool. They were really funny. And then
we got a great downhill there.We came out of the park and we
took this left. Now taking theleft after mile eighteen. I know we're
getting close to mile nineteen really becauseeighteen comes after or nineteen comes after eighteen.
Yeah, I'm aware, Okay,I'm not doing math, I promise.
But the rule was if you werea yellow bibbed person, which was
(26:25):
the full marathoners who did not havethe head start. You had to be
past mile nineteen in front of theballoon people, and they were allegedly the
six hour pacers. We'll come backto them in a minute, but you
had to be in front of themby mile nineteen. Okay, well,
here's mile nineteen coming up. Theyare nowhere to be seen. They're not
behind me, so I know I'mdoing okay. For the longest time,
(26:47):
I had the five forty fives infront of me, and I made a
mistake. I made a mistake alittle bit after that hill. If I
can backtrack a little bit, youknow, there's a lot of twist and
turn, see you lose sight ofpeople. I lost sight of the five
forty fives for a while, butthen I eventually made a turn and I
saw pacer shirts in front of me, and I thought, oh, there
they are. Cool man. I'mhanging in with them better than I thought
I would. And I finally catchup to these people. I'm like,
(27:08):
oh, this doesn't seem right.How am I catching up to them?
Because I know I'm not running afive forty five. It was a pace
group for one of the purple bibs, so like they were like the seven
and a half or seven. Ithink they were the seven hour pace group,
and so I caught it to themthinking they were the five forty fives.
Like, oh okay, so I'mnot nearly in as much good shape
(27:29):
as I thought I was. SoI was like, okay, better keep
going. But anyway, I getto mile nineteen, the balloon people are
nowhere in sight. We go intothis kind of park. It's an out
and back in a park that isprobably four miles and I'm just trucking along
and I'm doing my thing. AndI finally get to the turnaround there and
I'm trucked along and I'm coming back. As I'm coming back, I see
two of my Purple People Purple Peopleleaders. Now I see them. I
(27:52):
walk over and make sure they're doinggood. I check on them. They're
doing great, and out I go. I make it out and I'm now
I'm like mile marker twenty three,and I finally saw balloon people. The
thing is and mall marker twenty three. After you had beaten them to mail
mark on nineteen. They cut theballoons off themselves and they just they were
running. They were just going now. So thankfully I didn't have to worry
(28:12):
about them anymore. I had beatthe cutoff, but apparently some people I
guess did actually have to get diverted. From what I was told. That
could be wrong because of time limit. I get that, but thankfully not
an issue for me. But ifyou do Little Rock understand you have to
beat the balloons by mile nineteen.I actually wanted to make it to like
twenty twenty one, just to besafe without seeing them anywhere near me.
(28:33):
Fortunately, I was able to doall that after I got out of the
park. On that long turn around. Again we're talking mal marker twenty three.
Coming up to twenty four, theclouds broke, and again I had
talked about the weather. They hadmoved it up because of weather, just
because of the potential for the heatand humidity. Look, that humidity was
no joke. From moment one,from crossing the start line, you could
(28:56):
have wrung my shirt out by miletwo. Now, thankfully I had no
dehydration issues. I mean I wasdrinking at every official aid station and every
unofficial aid station. I never stoppedsweating, so hydration was not my concern.
The concern, though, was atmile twenty four, when the clouds
broke and that sun came out,because then I had sunshine and humidity and
(29:18):
that, man, I'll take that, just drained it right out of me.
And again, I know I've gottwo miles left, but at that
point I was struggling. I wasstruggling something fierce, like I wasn't already,
but now it was getting even worse. But thankfully I'm trucking along mile
twenty four gets mile twenty five.Right before mile twenty five, though,
there was kind of a big cheerstation there. Going up a little bit
(29:38):
of a hill, and look,there's a lot of train track issues in
Little Rock, Okay. They havea little train that goes around downtown and
then a lot of train yards.I'm sure tracks in use, tracks not
in use, whatever the case mightbe. Going up this little hill right
before mile twenty five, I steppedover a train track that came down on
it awkwardly, and my right kneejust popped and it hurt like a son
(30:00):
of a gun. Like, man, you gotta be kidding me. With
this little left, this is whathappens, geez. But we play through
the pain. It's not like everythingwasn't already hurting on me. Anyway,
We make the left out of thereheading down a hill. Get to mile
marker twenty five right after malal Markertwenty five is the last and second worst
hill. So I'm going up thehill. I come in contact with another
(30:22):
runner there. I just I saysomething smart, alecy about this hill.
She responds and she knew who Iwas, and she's from Minnesota, and
we talked going all the way upthat hill. She's a listener of the
podcast, so huge shout out inlove there. It was great to just
have that talking distraction getting up thatdarn hill, and because she kind of
knew what we did here on theback of the back podcast, we had
(30:44):
something to talk about and that wasawesome. So really helped kind of get
that knee pain out of my headand to get to the top of that
hill. After that, we justkind of had some downhill mostly and then
some rolling hills to the finish line. We crossed the finish line, the
Kansas City peeps were loud and proudand again, love you guys. Thank
you also very much. Across thefinish line, and you don't just turn
around and go talk to people.They had this whole finisher shoot that goes
(31:07):
inside the convention center, which isgreat. It's nice to get out of
that heat. And so you goinside. They give you your metal,
they take a picture, food,drink, other photo opportunities, medical tent.
They make sure you're okay. Butyou take care of all of this
and kind of go through the corralbefore you were sent out into the bulk
with the big convention center where theexpo was. Now it's all set up
(31:30):
with chairs and tables. Went inthere, saw a lot of the KC
peeps who were at a table,and so that is kind of when the
race officially ended. Now the medalsare huge. I just showed you the
experience was great. After I finished, we had a little bit longer and
again we were on the tracking deviceswatching our other Kansas City people as they
(31:51):
were getting closer. So we allwent back out to the finish line.
We cheered them on. We cheereda lot of other people on who were
kind of finishing around the same time. It was awesome again for me to
be there, just able to siton this nice concrete block and cheer on
all the people who are coming in. Because again I finished it six oh
nine. Let's say I got outsideto cheer people on at six twenty six
(32:12):
twenty five. We were out thereuntil the eight hour pacers crossed the official
last people. Once they crossed,that's when we left. But we're out
there cheering everyone on coming in atthat point, and that meant a lot.
Man. It's it's so cool againto see both the people I know
and the people I don't. Youcan just kind of tell who that first
time marathoner is or that person whowas riding that struggle bus since moment one.
(32:35):
But they persevered, they stayed withit, they fought through it,
and they're finishing a marathon. Itreally is one of the coolest experiences I
know. A lot gets made andthe lot gets said, and Runner's World
is doing a story about it.They keep reposting about the importance of the
people who stay in cheer for theback of the packers. Well, no,
dah, We've been talking about thatkind of support for two years now
on the Back of the Back podcasttwo years next week, one hundred episodes
(32:59):
this so it's nothing new to us. But the people who do this much
love and much kudos for those whowill stay and cheer until that last person
comes across the finish line. Itis really a cool experience when you see
the people who again went through itto make it to where they are,
So that is the little Rock experience. Afterwards, we all went out.
(33:20):
We had one more dinner. Forthose who remained in town, one more
night. Might have had a fewadult beverages to help you use the pain.
Definitely did. And then it wasbedtime. Up early this morning,
and now I am back here inthe podcast studio bringing you this episode.
So that will do it for thisNow I am going to attack here at
the very end some of the videosI took along the course, So if
(33:43):
you are watching on YouTube or Facebookor wherever you're watching, you are,
of course more than welcome to tunein. I tried to talk a little
more on these than I did inVegas so that it's not just weird background
noise for anyone who's listening on Spotifyor iTunes or whatever. I tried to
talk more because I know you can'tsee. Maybe I was perfect, maybe
I wasn't. I don't even rememberat this point because I was dying for
(34:05):
a lot of these videos. Butthat's going to do for this episode.
Stay tuned now for the videos Itook along the Little Rock Course. I
hope you enjoyed those. Remember thatSaturday is the Westport Saint Patrick's Stay four
miler. I will be at thatrunning that race slowly. And then we
have the Back of the Pack podcasttwo year anniversary at Kelly's Inn in Westport,
the moment you cross the finish lineand you get your metal head into
(34:29):
Kelly's because as soon as I getthere, whenever I finish, the party
begins. You guys can start theparty without me. You don't need me.
Shoot, just go in there andorder a drink, Order me one
two. And then the day afterthat is the Beard Run. I'll be
doing the ten k silly enough,or if I don't run the race,
I'm still going to be there.All depends on how my knees feel at
that point. But the Beard Runon March tenth, and then we continue
(34:51):
on from there and we're almost intoHeartland thirty nine point three series season and
everything else that we've got coming up. So again, from the very bottom
back of the put no, fromthe very bottom of my heart, thank
you all so much that I metdown in Little Rock, Arkansas for such
a great weekend. To the raceorganizers, volunteers, directors, and everyone
associated with the Little Rock Marathon.This was top notch, first class,
(35:15):
and I want to thank you guysvery much for a wonderful experience throughout the
entire weekend. To everyone we met, it was a pleasure to meet you.
Welcome to our little community. Ihope you enjoy it. Feedback is
always welcome. If it's bad,send it to Cody. If it's good,
give it to me. And otherthan that, we'll see you guys
next week. Everybody here, weare right at the back of the back
(35:38):
podcast booth here in Little Rock.So this is what it looks like.
This guy here, we're gonna beright next to the Volkswagen dealership, so
make sure you swing by and checkus out. However, this look this
will not do, so I'm goingto get to work. Let's see what
this looks like here in a littlebit. And now there we go.
Much better. We've now got thebanner up. Let's take a look here,
(36:02):
check it, check it. Hereis our sweet table. Oh yeah,
big shout out to our friends atthe Top City Half Marathon for joining
us on this little adventure. Buthere we go. It is already so
we'll see you guys starting tomorrow.Hey, everybody, we are finally done.
We are finished with a Little RockExpo. There is nothing left to
(36:24):
do now, but we're running marathonin the morning. But for anyone who
catches this on TikTok or Instagram orwherever else I might post it, I
want to say a huge thank youto the folks of Little Rock and everyone
who came out to the expo.We made a ton of new friends and
we had a really good time here. I just I can't form words right
now because I've been standing for sixteenhours over the last two days and we've
(36:45):
talked to a lot of people.But to everyone who joined us here in
Little Rock, thank you also verymuch. Now we're gonna run a race.
We're gonna go home. That driveback to Kansas City on Monday is
going to be a long one andI'm gonna be a little tired, but
that's all right. We will geta new episode out Monday evening, so
make sure you stay tuned for that. You know, it'll be all about
the Little Rock Marathon. So Eric, just give you a little spin around
(37:05):
there there we go, Seeing it'sstarting empty out in here. This thing
is about done. So everyone inuh at home, take care. Everyone
we met Little Rock. Thank youso much. Now let's go to a
marathon, right hey, everybody,we are just past mile to fourteen,
(37:35):
the Little Rock Marathon. I apologizeI have been terrible at video videoing things,
vlogging, if you will. Butas you can see, it is
they said it was gonna be reallyhot. It's not really hot, but
it is super humid, so verysweaty. Didn't even go with the head
piece today because I was really afraidof the heat being trapped on my head.
There's fag out here, but weexpect it's gonna burn off, and
(37:55):
so again we're already past halfway,which is good, but if this burns
off, it's going to be amiserable second half of this race. So
we'll be back here in a littlebit. As I about to get a
nice downhill, so I'm gonna takeadvantage of that. But I wanted to
bring you the Jamaican drums and thentouch base for the episode. But we'll
be back here in a little while, So thanks for sticking us with sticking
(38:17):
with us here and Little Rock.As you can see the capitol right over
my shoulder there pretty cool. Right, We're back in a little bit.
Okay, back again real quick,everyone, and I'm sorry for the traffic
noise. See if you can seebehind me, I am on the biggest
freaking hill I think I've ever donein a marathon except for the Baton Memorial
(38:38):
Death March, which it was upa mountain. But good god man,
we just keep going up and I'mnot even to the top yet. I
see the top. I ain't doit, so little rock. The people
at the A station said, youguys brought this in for the race.
I appreciate it, but you didn'thave to do that. So anyway,
we're about to crest ever here andwe're gonna continue on to mile marker fifteen,
(39:02):
so we'll be back all right.Everyone in the background. There is
mile twenty mile marker twenty now inthe rearview mirror. So we got people
heading back towards the finish line goingbehind me. I'm still heading out on
this little three mile out and back. So the humidity is big. We
got to be at ninety plus percenthumidity down here. Thankfully, still cloudy.
(39:25):
If only a ten k left,we're still cloudy, so you know,
thank goodness for small favors, right, But I can tell training not
good, hasn't been good. Knewit was going to be bad. Doing
okay though not great. The LittleRock Marathon has been super fun. The
crowd support is very good, andthat's something we always want to mention.
(39:46):
If I don't mention that in studio, let me mention it here on this
little live bit. The crowd supportfor a Little Rock is very very good.
So been a lot of eight stations, and not just official eight stations,
but you know, neighborhood made eightstations with drinks and maybe a few
adult beverages. Not doing nearly whatI did in Memphis, though, not
(40:07):
doing that. But anyway, allright, So we got a ten k
left and keeping an eye out thatpeople going back the other way. We
should see some more of our peoplejust past Terry a few minutes ago.
Should see Cody and Stacy at somepoint in time. So shout out to
you guys. You're all crushing it. Of all the Kansas City people,
I am the back of the packfor sure. So anyway, we're going
(40:30):
to keep going. It will beback a little later when I feel like
taking a break, and hello againeveryone. I'll know if you can see
it. But in the background therethat's mile marker twenty four, so twenty
four miles in the book. Sowe've only got two left. Slowly had
another finish line. This race hasgone from bad to worse for years.
(40:51):
Truly. I'm hurting, hurting bigtime. So mah, based on time,
I'm gonna be over six hours boom, but a lot of light paint.
So hello, we're gonna get herdone. See it's the finish line,
all right, everyone, you canhear the finish line coming here.
We are mile markers twenty six.Hooray, mile marker twenty six. Alright,
(41:20):
we'll be heading down the stretch ina second. Be ready yet you
come. I do not use ittime. Oh that's gonna go back.
(42:45):
I appreciate you. There you go, y'all. Let a rock is done.
Going nowhere near the pr bell becausethat would be wrong. Thank you
all so much. Sh
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