October 6, 2025 • 36 mins
This week on The Back of the Pack Podcast, we’re going the distance — literally — with a full slate of race recaps! Kyle dives into the Heartland 30K Series, covering the Plaza 10K, Woodstock 10K, and Boulevard 10K, sharing the highs, lows, and lessons learned from each stop along the way. Then, it’s on to new terrain with Kyle’s first-ever trail race, the Wilderness Trek 5K — a run that proves the dirt hits different. Finally, we close things out with the Martin City Wine Run 5K, where miles meet merlot in true Back of the Pack fashion. Plus, stick around for an important update on how to watch and listen to the podcast! It’s a jam-packed, fun-filled episode that celebrates the variety of running — from pavement to trails and everything in between.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:12):
Hello, everyone, greeting the salutations, Welcome back to another episode
of the Back of the Back podcast. I'm your host,
Kyle Walker. Thank you so much for tuning in. We
are in October, thankfully as I record this, the cold
front is supposed to be coming through right now. Again.
That's just going to get us down to normal October
temperatures instead of this heat wave that we've been in
here in Kansas City, which has been in the mid
(00:34):
to upper eighties, far later in the year than I
would like it to be, so hopefully we're going to
get to some good stuff here pretty soon. We are
going to start this week's podcast episode with an announcement
a decision I have made. I know this is not
going to be a popular decision, but it's a necessary one.
(00:55):
And again, I know I'm making this sound very dramatic,
and it's not nearly as dramatic as I'm making it sound.
I'm building suspense. I hope you're like leaning forward into
your listening device at this moment. This is going to
be the last episode where we feature the video on Facebook.
I have told you before. Facebook is absolutely a creator
(01:15):
black hole, and it just becomes more and more so
as we go along the videos that I post on here.
Other than making it more convenient for you all, which
I love to do, don't get me wrong, it does
Jack squat for me. So in a moment of selfishness,
we are going to stop putting the videos on Facebook.
(01:35):
Doesn't mean videos aren't available. I need y'all to go
over to the YouTube channel. We have got to get
YouTube going. We have got to get this puppy cranked up.
We gotta get this thing moving. And if you don't
want to watch videos, then just remember we're on every
single podcast platform you can possibly hope for. All Right,
if you want Apple podcast, we're there. That is our
(01:57):
number one podcast. Speed is the Apple Podcast. And we're
also on Spotify. I thought Spotify would be number one,
but it's not. It's Apple Podcasts. Then it goes Spotify.
We're on Spreaker, We're on iHeartRadio, We're on Podbeing. You
can even say and I know she's gonna chirp in
if I say something. You can say Alexa play the
Back of the Pack podcast and she will. So look,
(02:21):
I'm sorry, I know it kind of sucks. It is
me being a little selfish right now. But when I
think of like the potential earnings we could get by
getting a lot of the Facebook people over on the
podcast platforms or even YouTube. It's hard to just stay
here and lose money, as this podcast has been losing
money for three years now, happily happily losing money. Don't
(02:44):
get me wrong, I enjoy every second of it and
I love doing this, but we definitely do not bring
in what we put out as we're darn sure. So
I'll get you a deal if you want to go
to the Patreon pigs and if you want to have
the podcast out through financial givings. We just got someone
back on the five K tier thing. Thank you very
much for helping us out and getting us five dollars
a month. I don't think that's gonna break the bank.
(03:05):
That's like a coffee a month. But if we can
get to a certain dollar amount on the Patreon page,
then I'll gladly put the videos back on Facebook. When
we get to the point that we're not losing money
every month on this podcast, I will put the videos
back on the Facebook and everything will just be grand
and we'll all be happy. But as it is right now,
I'm giving you one week's notice this is gonna be
(03:27):
it just Facebook makes me sick with what they do
to creators, and they're just unrealistic guidelines of how to
even get them to give you an extra view on
someone else's page who may not otherwise know of this podcast.
Facebook is evil. They are evil. They're still gonna be
our main social media platform, but they are evil. So anyway,
(03:48):
that's it. I'm letting you know. Okay, I'm sorry. I'm sorry.
I'm sorry. You can yell at me in person when
I see you at a race, and that's fine. I'm
good with that. After you yell at me, we'll go
run a race and then we'll you know, hugs and
kiss afterwards, and everything's gonna be great. Okay, Okay, So
that's the big announcement for this show. And again, I'm sorry,
I really am, but Dad Nabit, Facebook, Meta, Zuckerberg, whoever.
(04:10):
You guys are killing me. You freaking killing me. So anyway,
all right, we have had so many guests on over
the last few weeks that we are woefully behind on
race reviews. We are just gonna rattle off pretty much
the whole month of September and where we've gone so
far in October. So this is just gonna be one
big spurge of race reviews and I hope you're okay
(04:30):
with that, but we're willfully behind it. I think race
reviews are still what people enjoy the most out of
this podcast, and I hey, I don't want to let
you down. And I know next week we're gonna have
some guests on. We're gonna have another race on next
week that's getting kicked up for this Yeah, this year
coming up in December, so please don't miss that. We
will have them on. And man, we're gonna be talking
(04:51):
about a December race. That's just crazy. All right. So
first thing coming up, or the first thing that we're
gonna talk about. At the beginning of September, we launched
the heart k series and we did what the Plaza
ten k. If you are anywhere within the Kansas City area,
Missouri side, Kansas Side, and even the surrounding cities, you
probably came up and did the Plaza ten K. It's
(05:12):
one of the biggest ten k's that we have in
this area. It is a yearly tradition, always right at
the start of September, and it is they plan it right.
It is always during the false fall that we get
at the end of August in the beginning of September.
How do I know that because we always have the
best weather for the Plaza ten k and this year
was no exception beautiful exception exception beautiful weather. Cool temperatures,
(05:37):
low humidity, low wind led to a very enjoyable race
by all involved. This race begins at the Country Club Plaza,
which is one of the big shopping districts in Kansas City, Missouri.
If you're not local to the area, you probably see
a picture of it every year, whether you know it
or not, because every year they do the Plaza lights,
the Christmas lights that light up the entire I don't
(05:58):
know what is it for mile radius of shops and buildings,
everything lit up in Christmas lights and it is absolutely beautiful.
If you ever get a chance to go to the
plaza during the Christmas light season, I highly recommend it.
I highly recommend this race because it is a net
downhill course. What goes up must come down. Yes, there
are some hills, but overall this is a very easy
(06:19):
course that saves the worst of the hills kind of
for the last mile. So I know, as for me,
even though the training has been what it is, and
last week we discussed about the knee issues that I'm
facing right now. I ran a very good Plaza ten
k up to and including. I ran the complete first
four miles like no stops, no walks, no any of that,
and felt good doing it. Now. I know there's people
(06:40):
who are like, oh my god, you could only run
four miles for the walk. Yeah, yeah, man, pretty much.
I've been going through it, so no, I can't run
a whole thing k without walking right now. Sorry, I'm
not sorry, but I did the first four miles and
felt absolutely fantastic as my nose itches, and so the
last two miles of it, that's kind of where as
you are coming back to the plaza, the road that
(07:01):
you have they have you on. It's got some up
and down to it, but it's still not bad. You
finish coming down into the plaza, you go and pass
where they're building the new street car, which is actually
kind of cool to see the end of the street
car line and then the construction as they're trying to
expand it. If the street car is a free way
to get around, if you're ever in downtown Kensington, Missouri,
hopefully you will make use of it and enjoy that.
It's an interesting little system. I have been on the
(07:23):
street car once one time. But when you finish the race,
it is a nice environment. A lot of people hanging out,
a lot of people have ten set up, there's vendors,
the shoe stories out there, the massage people are out there.
A couple other races come out and promote their stuff,
and then you're done with the first run of the
Heartland thirty k series and you get your very nice metal.
They do not miss around what Plasta ten k metal.
(07:45):
So here it is right now if you happen to
be watching, and pretty soon you're gonna have to watch
this on YouTube only if you want to see what
this looks like. As you can see big gold medal
here twenty twenty five Plasta ten k. This is one
of the buildings I was talking about right here that
does the Christmas lights and is all lit up during
the season. This is uh yeah, but they always do
well there. I can see on the side Plaza ten
K twenty twenty five there's the ribbon finisher. Nice medal.
(08:07):
They always do a very nice medal. And again I
ran the first Plazid ten k fourteen years ago. I think.
I think it started very soon after I started my
running career, and so it was it was a nice medal,
then it's a nice medal. Now nothing's changed. They do
a fantastic job with the medal. This race is put
on by Casey Running Company. The entire thirty k series
is put on by case Running Company. And Brad knows
(08:30):
what he's doing. We all know Brad Love Brad. Happy
Birthday one day late to Brad. Not that I think
he listens to this at all, these problems. His job
is running. I think the last thing in the world
you'd want to listen to outside of his job is
a running podcast. I don't know. That's just me guessing,
but what do I know. So the Plaza ten k
yearly tradition beginning of September highly recommended to anyone who
has not done him before. You get to see some
(08:52):
very pretty parts of Kansas City, Missouri, and the country
Club Plaza area, which I think recently sold. So there's
going to be a new owner of the plaza. Maybe
we'll get some new shops. Maybe the old people who
are trying to outprice everyone will go away, or this
new company. I'll try and outprice some more. I don't know,
we'll see what happens. But I worked for the on
the Plaza for two years, not for them on it.
(09:14):
I worked on the Plaza for two years, so yeah,
kind of familiar, nice place. I enjoyed it when I
worked down there. Didn't like the traffic though during the
weight days. No fun. The second race in the Heartland
thirty k series was the Woodstock ten k. Again, Woodstock
ten k has a rather precarious place in my heart.
Two years ago that race. The middle race of the
(09:36):
Heartland thirty k series was the Casey Hustle Run Our Run,
the run put on by the Back of the Pack podcast,
The run that was my brain child that my buddy
Will helped with as race director and then the former
production company helped and hindered with during the process. And
so as much as I loved it, and I did,
and as much as I want to do another one
(09:58):
and I do, it wasn't exactly how I envisioned it.
It wasn't exactly perfect, but it does have a spot
in my heart. Every year when this race and this
this time of year comes up, it's like man for
one year for one year that was my freaking race man,
and so ah I won it again. But ever since,
well after we stopped the Casey Hustle run, the next
(10:19):
year Brad Casey Running Company inserted the Woodstock ten K.
I'll bet you'll never guess what the theme is anyway, Bueler, Yeah,
it's woodstock. Whoa, so we have a nice woodstocky theme.
This takes place at Corporate Woods in Overland Park, Kansas.
If you live in this area, you have run Corporate
(10:40):
Woods probably three times a year, four times a year
if you pick the right or maybe one would say
wrong race, but everyone has done Corporate Woods. Corporate Woods
is a big office building area in Overland Park, but
it's kind of self contained and there's there's no there's
no traffic going in and out of it. If it's
(11:01):
not normal office hours. Okay, there's no one going into
these buildings on the weekend. It is empty. So it
takes very limited police coverage to keep runners safe during
an event. And that is why people like this place
so much for races. That's why we did our race there.
It cut down on the police cost because again, very
self contained. Nobody else is coming in there unless they
(11:23):
have a reason to, and the reason would be the run.
So it starts in front of the biggest building there,
which is now I guess the Morton Salt building. Like
Morton Salt. We all know the salt the lady with
the umbrella and the salt raining on there. Who knows,
but yeah, the Morton Salt people took over building forty,
which is where the race begins. Nice morning. The thing
with Woodstock, not the Casey Hulseter run. So not two
(11:45):
years ago, but for the last two years since then
Woodstock last year, Woodstock. This year. The false fall is
over by the time we get to Woodstock and he
is back. This was a hot, hot race, and this
year this race took down onto the running trail for
the second half of the race and not previous trails
(12:05):
are not really I guess it is a trail. Okay,
So there's a north trail and then there's like kind
of a southwest trail. Last year, I think we took
the north trail. This year we took the southwest trail.
I don't like the southwest trail nearly as much. So
you do your normal five k through the corporate woods part, okay,
So you start you're running through the main road of
Corporate Woods. You turn off by some office buildings. You
(12:25):
kind of go up and around. Then you get this
nice downhill as you pass mall marker one great downhill
flattens out, and then you're going down the other side
of the road where when you look to your left
and you see the start and finish line like him
starting finish line and all the people standing there. You
get the aid station. You're at a mile and a half.
You move on. You go down to the bridge, the
bridge that's been under construction for a while, but now
it's done. You take a ride at the bridge. It
(12:47):
takes you back to the westmost office buildings, and you
go up and around the westmost office buildings and change
the course a little bit at the top of the
nasty hill there as you're getting close to mile mark
or two. I don't like that hill. Nobody likes that hill. Well,
but we do that hill. You get a little bit
of a downhill after it, and then they have had
us weaving through this parking lot and like kind of
doing an out and back on a parking lot and
(13:08):
then around the parking lot. Then once you get around
the parking lot, then they dropped you onto the Southwest Trail.
That is a little different from races that I usually
run out there, I know, for like the Dividash ten
k and whatnot. You guys did that course my first
time doing the southwest part of this course. Gobbler Grind
in November might also use this same course. I'm not sure,
but it's possible. So anyway, you're on the trail, you're
(13:30):
going out, you hit your halfway point, you pass five K,
you take you a little further, then you do this
big old loop around in the park and the loop
around is weird. Thankfully it's well marked, but it's weird.
You kind of loop to the right and around, and
then you come to this little trail by the tennis court,
and then you go up the trail real quick, and
(13:51):
then turn around and come back down the trail real quick,
and then you finish your loop out and then you're
back on the path and it's an out and back
at that point where now you're going against traffic and
you're heading back towards the finish line. Once you get
back into Corporate Woods off of the Southwest Trail, you
go up the sidewalk a little bit, the one that
you just ran down. Then you make this weird rate,
you turn and now you're back on the road in
(14:12):
Corporate Woods to finish the loop around and you're hitting
mile marker four five six and you finish your race.
It's interesting, not the biggest fan of it. When you
do the North Trail, the one that we did for
Casey Hustle Run and that other races have done, then
it is just a straight out and back. There's no loop,
there's no strange I don't know the hairpin you turns,
(14:36):
there's none of that. It's just you take the North Trail,
you go X amount of miles out, there's a cone there,
turn around, you turn around, you come back, and you
do it exactly over again, and you're done. So you
might tell me I'm wrong, you might prefer something different,
whatever's clever. I'm good either way. Now for the Plaza,
because it is the biggest ten k and because there's
a lot of people out there, it is a very
(14:56):
well attended race for Woodstock because you're getting and a
few people who want to do a ten k, but
then you're getting mostly the people who are doing the
Heartland thirty k series. The attendance goes, oh, wait down.
I would be amazed if for Woodstock we even had
three hundred runners. Maybe we're around there. I think we
were under so a much smaller, more intimate feel. And again,
(15:18):
you're in an enclosed place, so you're not getting a
whole lot of people out there cheering. It's not like
running through downtown Kensing, Missouri. You're running on a bike
trail in the middle of Corporate Woods and in the
middle of Overland Park on a Sunday morning where it
was hot, So they won a whole lot going on there. Thankfully,
the heat did not affect people too much. I think
it was only like a minute and a half off
my time the previous week, So for a much hotter day,
(15:38):
that's not bad. I'll take that every time. Finish the
race had a cool moment when we finished the race. Now,
me and most of the run fan we're hanging out.
We're talking, shooting the breeze, catching up on water, trying
to cool off this that the other. We make our
way down to the finish line because enough of us
had remained, We're like, hey, let's do a big group photo.
(15:59):
So we go down to to do the big group
photo and we do and it was great. It was wonderful. Well,
then we see the last runners coming in, so we
kind of just all lined the finishing coral and applauded
the last runners in. That was kind of a cool moment.
If you've ever been a last runner in and you
come down to I don't know, fifteen to twenty people
clapping for you, you feel pretty good, especially after being
(16:22):
out there on a difficult course, on a difficult day
where it was really hot and you're trapesing in. It's
nice to have some support, and it was nice that
we got to sit down there and support everyone. That
was kind of a cool moment. So I hope they
enjoyed that. I know I did. It was nice hang
out and welcome them back in. By that point, everyone
was done. It was hot. I think it was a
football day. I think the Chiefs are playing that day.
(16:43):
So everyone beat each other a fond ad you and
away they went. And so we were done with the
woodstock and here is the metal so as you can see,
very psychedelic, and remember you can always see these things
funny enough on Facebook or Instagram. We do put everything
on Instagram too. The back of the back podcast Find
us on Instagram. Followup Please we need numbers. But yeah,
it's a very psychedelic medal. Very cool metal Again, it's
(17:04):
not quite Placi ten k cool, but it's still pretty cool.
Twenty twenty five Woodstock ten k and it's got the
little tight eye stuff here in the peace sign, so
very cool. There's the tight ie ribbon Woodstock ten k cool.
So that is the second race in the Heartland thirty
k series. What do you think comes next? It's the
third race in the Heartland thirty k series. Grab the
medal there. And this is the Boulevard ten k. It's
(17:27):
only its second year of existence, and it takes place
it's on a manual Clever boulevard. Not that that's going
to mean anything to anyone out of area. I get that,
And even most of the people in area couldn't point
on the map or drive directly to a manual Clever
boulevard unless you have a reason to go there. You're
not going there, all right. It's I'm not gonna say
(17:49):
it's a bad part of town. It's just not a
part of town. It's got a lot in it that
a lot of people are going to. Is that a
fair assessment. So we all go down to a man
of Cleveland Boulevard. You park where you can, you find
what you can, then you head to the start line,
which is just right kind of along the side of
the road. There's not a whole lot around. There's a
couple of businesses to park at, and there's like a
hospital across the street. But parking's a little wonky, trust me.
(18:11):
There's nothing else to really do or hang out or see.
It's just kind of a weird area of town. You're
east of the plaza, so you're east of where you
did the Plaza ten K by a few miles. So
the the I don't know the impressiveness, the hometown feeling
of the plaza that's gone. You just east of that,
surrounded by a hospital, some houses, and a couple of businesses.
(18:34):
That's really it. This is a pretty easy course though,
I do like this course. Now again, we always have
false fall for Plaza ten k. We always heap back
up for Woodstock and now we always it seems begin
a cooler day but much higher humidity. So the humidity
for this year's Boulevard ten k it is a growth.
(18:56):
It was a no good It was a gross. It
felt terrible outside, very humid, very muggy. Again, not hot
but warm, if that makes sense. If you're from the Midwest,
that makes complete sense. If you're from the South, that
makes complete sense. Not hot but warm, muggy. And so
that was what we had for running, not conducive to
like prs or really great performances, because you know, I mean,
(19:19):
we were all sweating before we even cross the start line.
If you're stretching, warming up, walking around and talking to folks,
you started to perspire a little bit. That's just what's
gonna happen. But we begin the race, and this is
really You go north on the road, you turn around,
you go south on the road all the way to
the end, you turn around, you come back north, and
you hit the finish line. It really is just a
(19:40):
big loop, that's what it is. Almost like a really
narrow racetrack that has two hairpin turns at the end.
You're making two lives and you're there. So let's say no, actually,
two rights, I said it wrong, So two rates and
you're there. But again, I like this course. It is
not overly difficult, it is not overly hilly. There are
plenty of downhill moments where you can kind of catch
your breath before you get to the next little little
(20:01):
rise in the road. I wouldn't even call them hills.
They're just out of the road naturally, up and down,
and so you get a lot of that action. I
guess really the only hill you go halfway up it
when you're a mile four and then you make your
right U turn and then you go right back down
it and there's an eight station right there, so that's nice. Again,
the last race put on Casey Running Company. They know
what they're doing. AID stations are always well supported, the
(20:24):
race always starts on time. I'd say probably an even
lower amount of people than there was at Woodstock, just
because it tapers off and then you're really there with
the people who are completing the Heartland thirty k series.
I don't know if there's many people who are at
that race who aren't doing the Heartland thirty k series,
but as many people do that series, they're there at
Boulevard and that's about the number that we had. So again,
(20:45):
another very intimate day. But when you're done and you
get in line and you're able to get all your swags,
so let's talk. Let's show off the boulevard. The Boulevard
ten k medals for both years have been pretty cool,
like this is kind of cool. Let's upside down triangle
looks like a guitar pick Boulevard ten K twenty twenty five,
and then there's the ribbon for it begins. It's the
(21:05):
plainest of the races, but it's still not bad. And
they're all good sized, so again, if you like the medals,
these are good sized medals. These are not little tiny,
dinky things, so I don't know, I'd say they're worth getting.
And then of course when you complete all three races,
you get a long sleeve hooded T shirt that has
the Heartland thirty K logo on it, so you get
(21:26):
that as well as you get the three shirts from
the events. And then you get your Heartland thirty K
Series medal, which is ranked heah biggest of all of them,
Placid ten k at the top, Woodstock ten k in
the metal, Boulevard ten k, Heartland thirty K Series. Now,
if you are a more serious runner, a more competitive runner,
and there's the ribbon, so it's just so you can
see all this there is I believe overall prizes they
(21:49):
do keep like accumulative time for the entire event, and
so I do believe they give out a place awards
for like who had the fastest time overall for men
and women, maybe even age division awards. So if you
are a more serious runner, if you're a faster runner,
we're all serious, but if you're faster, you could be
(22:10):
in line for some extra hardware if you perform well
at all three races and can get maybe your top
three fastest out of everyone. So just something to keep
in mind if it's something you're ever considering doing, if
you're of the elite level status. If you're not, you
just want to come out, then you still get four medals,
four shirts, and then you get three Sundays in the
morning hanging out with us running ten ks. I don't
(22:32):
see the downside to this argument, do you? Sounds like
a winner to me, and I think it usually is,
So that does it for that. Afterwards, we took a
weekend off that was supposed to be the fifty k
I'm sorry, the fifty miler, which we didn't happen. We
talked about that last week, so there was no race there.
Then we fast forward to the beginning of October. On
(22:52):
Saturday morning, October fourth, I did my very first trail race.
I had never done a train before. I went through
years and years and years of Boy Scouts. I have
hyped eleventy billion trails, but I have never done a
trail race. It was an interesting experience. So we did
the Wilderness Trek five k. They also offer a ten k.
(23:15):
I decided five k for my first time was all
I needed. I was good with everything else. This takes
place out in Lass in Missouri. As at Wilderness Trek,
it's a campsite. Trying to think the best way to
describe it. Of course, they have kids out there and
there are kids who can go camping. They do specialty groups,
they do religious groups. Someone was talking about how either
(23:37):
they or a friend had gotten married out there because
they've gotten nice spots by water, and you know, it's
set up to host amounts of people. So it was
a very interesting experience. Now, our buddy Nathan took over
handling this race, and so we wanted to support him.
Went out and did it. Nathan, who has worked with
us previously at the Liberty Half Marathon in Liberty, Missouri,
(23:58):
so wanted to go and support our guys. He was
doing this race. Volunteered to help, but boy, he didn't
need my help. He had a lot of volunteers there.
So I got there early. They just kind of stand
around and wait. But it was all right. I It
was interesting because I saw a lot of people, like
I can recognize a lot of people at the races anymore.
All right, whether I know him or not, I've seen
him before, Like I've seen that person. He's always at
(24:20):
this race, or she is always running this distance. You
see the faces over and over again. Going out to
a trail race. They knew each other. I was the outsider.
I was, as I've called it before, I was just dumb,
dumb roadrunner who came out there, and I'm in with
all the trail nerds. It was an interesting change. It
was an interesting dynamic. They all knew each other. Again.
(24:41):
I was the stranger, and so just listening in to
all these conversations. It's like how my friends and I
talk at road races. That's how they were talking at
their trail race. It was fascinating, fascinating to listen to.
I just tried to glean whatever information I could off
off people, because you know, why not, yes, I'm doing
a five. I personally am comfortable with five ks, but
(25:03):
I still did not know what to expect out there. Now,
from what I've heard, the Wilderness Track five k is
an easier of this trail running World race. All right,
there are certainly more difficult than what was offered at
Wilderness Track. I'm good with the fact that ours was
really easy. But again, there's no timing, Matt, so you
got to be really really good with your watch, and
(25:23):
then when you finish, they manually write down your time.
So do I know how accurate it was? No? Do
I care? No? I finished, and that's all the matters.
But we line up, we get our instructions. This is
one of the races that starts with instruction over national anthem.
I don't even think we did a national anthem. I
think it was just pre race instruction. So we got
(25:44):
our pre race instruction. He said, you know, make sure
you're looking at the ground and you're following the orange markers.
Look up in the trees, you'll see the ribbons blue
for five K, ten for ten or red for ten K.
Okay got all that. They blow the horn. As soon
as I got close to the start line, I start
my watch and we were off not a bad starter.
So we're kind of going through the main campground. We're
(26:05):
on just kind of gravel. Okay, gravel, no problem, very
small gravel, not big rocks or anything. All right. We
go around and we finally leave the campgrounds. We go
down this hill. The rocks are getting bigger, little little
more dirt, little more bigger, rock, less gravel, less coverage
of the road. You're getting more natural ground. There. We
hang a left and we're still going along a gravel road,
(26:26):
and then take a right and now we're in the grass. Now.
It was an early morning in October, very dewy grass
there in many rain. It was a nice morning, but
there was dew on the grass, so it was very wet.
So very quickly your feet are getting wet. And I
was wearing I was wearing the shoes that I was
going to wear for my fifty miler. Well I figured out, okay,
well these are ultra shoes. I'm doing a trail race.
I'm gonna wear these. But you know, they're on the tops.
(26:49):
It's very meshy, so that water was coming in. My
socks were wet within the first half mile of that race.
We go across this beautiful area, down this little wooden bridge,
and across this grassy dam with water on each side. Beautiful.
I wanted to stop and take a picture, but I
was like, Okay, now I'm feeling good. I want to
I want to do this thing. But it was a
beautiful morning at this place and beautiful scenery. We hang
(27:11):
a left on the other side of that little dam.
We're back on trail. There's rocks, there's unevenness. You know.
It's not flat, it's tilted, you know, cause you're kind
of running around some hill signs. You're going over roots,
you're going up hills, you're going downhill, You're on all
sorts of kind of terrain. I'm following my arrows. I'm
doing well. There were two I'm not gonna call them teenagers.
(27:32):
I'm gonna say early twenty year old ladies in front
of me, maybe late teenagers. I'm kind of pacing with them,
all right, They're they're setting a good pace for me.
I'm not getting ridiculous in my first mile. I'm not
going out like an a hole because I don't want
to do that, because I don't know what to expect.
I don't know how difficult. This is gonna be for
me my first mile wise beine, I'm feeling good, felt
really good. First mile. We keep we get into more
of the hills in that second mile, and that's where
(27:55):
I'm like, okay, I'm starting to feel a little more
on my legs. The hill a hill for this trail,
a hill for the off roading, to me, feels more
difficult than a hill unpaved asphallt right. I just and
there were times where you have to more jump to
get up the hill rather than just run your pace
with your normal stride. Your stride changes more as you're
(28:18):
doing trail races. There's a little jump, there's a little hop,
there's a little skip, there's a jump, there's there's movement
left and right. As you're trying to get on the
flatter part of the course, there's unevenness that's kind of
forcing you here, there and yonder. I feel like there's
a lot more in run movement when you're doing the
trail thing, when you're trying to keep your balance or
get over obstacles. Then again, when you're just steady pace
(28:40):
at a road race, it takes it out of you sooner.
I got a message after the fact that says, oh yeah,
when you're doing trail, you can. And again for the
average runner, you add about two minutes more per mile
when you're doing trail. Your pace is going to be
two minutes greater per mile for the average runner when
(29:01):
you're doing trail. I didn't know that going into it.
When I saw my final time made all the sense
in the world. But so I get past mall marker one,
past mall marker two, slowing down at two because a
lot more uphill action, and then for the last mile
it was a little more run walky for me again,
unsure about the train, unsure about where I'm going. There
was a time where I didn't get lost, but I
(29:23):
kind of was worried. I was looking around like, oh,
I might have missed a turn somewhere. I didn't. But
when that gets in your head, you naturally slow down
and you're trying to kind of take survey of where
you're at and like, Okay, does this look familiar? Do
I see anyone else? It was a small race. I
think only sixty five people registered for that race, not
sixty five showed up, or maybe it was right a
sixty five there either to a smaller race, so you
(29:43):
didn't always have someone around you. And the two people
I had paced off earlier had fallen the way back,
so they weren't around. But thankfully I was. I was
going in the right direction. I found the orange marker
on the road. They always said, look down. If I
finally saw one, i'd take a left. On my last mile,
I get back to the kind of the road that
paved road or not paved road, the gravel road we
started on. I see the finish line in front of me,
and I take it to the finish. I finished in
(30:05):
thirty seven and change. I want to say, it was
like thirty seven thirty three something like that for my
first trail race. I will take that. I will take
that every time. And for that, I was about five
minutes slower well than what I was going to do
the next day. So five minutes slower doing my first
trail race, now I'm bad. I'll take that every time.
What I did notice and again, as I was doing it,
(30:27):
I could felt it. I could feel it more kind
of in my in my clawds and in my hamstring,
kind of the back part of your leg. I definitely
felt the extra effort in those muscles. Afterwards, what I
felt it in was my ankles. My ankles were not
strong enough to be doing this trail running stuff because
I'm so used to just dead on straight road running
(30:47):
with ankles. There's more side to side that your ankles
were doing as you hit the side of a rock,
or as you hit the side of a root, or
as just there's natural curve in the ground because you're
on the side of a hill. My ankles felt it
after again, nothing injury related, just stress and strain from
what we had just done. It was a fascinating sensation,
but I felt at my ankles even felt it the
(31:09):
next day as well. But here is the metal. Now,
A lot of people who have participated in Metal Monday
before they're gonna laugh at this because I guess it's
a big East Coast thing, and of course a big
trail thing that the metals are made of wood. This
is made of wood. This is my first wooden metal.
So it it says Wilderness trail track five K ten K.
It's got the little uh, I don't know, little mountain
(31:31):
range heer or trees or whatever it is. And this
is kind of carved in So yeah, my first wooden
Medal East Coast people. You guys get a lot of
wooden metals. This one's my first. So I know all
the people who've done long time metal mondays, which if
you don't do them on Facebook and Instagram you should
a lot are laughing because, oh we get metal wood
metals all the time. Well, this one's my first. So
here it is my first wooden metal. Just a very
(31:51):
plain green ribbon, No big deal there, but this will
hold a special place in my heart just because it
is my first wooden metal and it's been mentioned before.
All right, I know I'm over on time already. I
don't care. We're gonna keep going. One more, one more
race to review. After we did the Wilderness track, we
did the Martins Let me read it here, the Martin
City Wine Run five K. This happens in Martin City, Missouri,
(32:15):
which is just right outside of Kansas City, Missouri. And
this is done right across the street from the headquarters
of Casey you are running company. So this was previously
known as the Octoberfest five k. It is the exact
same course through Martin City. If you've done that course,
you know that course. You start you run down Main Street.
The only Main Street in Martin City. You loop around
(32:37):
the neighborhoods, you go through the industrial park, and you
come back and you've done not a big deal. What
was different was then we went over to the Martin
City Winery and that's where kind of the post race
festivities were. That's where the bar was open. You could
get some wine, you could get some wine slushies. And
the best part of that race, again, I've done this
race before. I'm not gonna do it turn by turn.
(32:57):
Go listen to the last year's Octoberfest review. Same race,
except different theme. Oh and here's the metal, A nice
metal though, like Martin City Wine Run got the wine, glasses,
got the grapes, the cheese, all that very boogie, very
fancy see Wine Run fucking heay. But the best part
of that race wasn't even a part of the race.
And I'll be mushy here. The thing I enjoyed the
most was hanging out with everyone after the race. Most
(33:20):
of the run fam all stayed behind. We all grabbed
wine slushies for me because I'm redneck like that, but
they had the same gree of wine slushies. We're drinking
wine slushies. We're all sitting outside on a beautiful little
overly warm, but beautiful Sunday morning, drinking wine, slushes together, talking, running,
shooting the breeze, wishing all the people well who are
(33:40):
heading off to Chicago next weekend, And if that's you,
I wish you nothing but great success in the Windy City.
You're gonna love that race, enjoy every minute of it.
But just really the camaraderie of that event. We didn't
leave until after one o'clock in the afternoon. All right,
the race started at eight am. We're already sitting there
drinking by nine am. We didn't leave until after one pm.
(34:01):
That was a fun time hanging out with the peeps
at the winery, just drinking wine, talking, running, wishing people well.
It It was a great time. So I really the
race was the race. It was a good race. It's
put on, it's done well. It's a case of running company.
They know what they're doing. Metal was cool, of course,
was what it was. My performance was what it was.
Not great, not terrible, I'll take it, but hanging out
(34:22):
with everyone after the fact, that was where it was at.
So I enjoyed that the most for sure. So next weekend,
only one race, the five K Run for Pause five
k on October eleventh. That is the next race that
I will be on. Then for me, Columbus Day is
on Monday, so I get a nice three day weekend.
If you are going to Chicago, best of luck to you.
May the wind be at your back, May the course
(34:43):
be flat, May the temperatures be cool. And I hope
you really really, really really really enjoy your Chicago Marathon experience.
It is one of a GUIDs you will never experience
another race like Chicago again. Believe you me as I
did it back in twenty eighteen. So that's it next
week because we I only will have one race to review.
I do have knee news, knee information, and actually that's
(35:06):
not gonna be next week, that's gonna be two weeks.
Next week, we got the jingle Bell Run guests. Then
I'll get everyone updated on what's going on with my
knee and kind of future events for the podcast. Remember
last episode on the Facebook videos. I'm sorry, unless you
guys want to really go to Patreon and go crazy,
this is gonna be it. Then it's gonna either gonna
be YouTube or it's gonna be the podcast platforms make
you choice, do your thing. I'm cool with either both
(35:29):
are good, or listen to it twice one on each.
I'm good, but we gotta stop giving it away here
on Facebook because they do not play nice and I'm
sick of them, at least as it pertains to the videos.
They're fine for all of our interactions, but non great
for our videos. Okay, okay, So that's gonna do it.
For this week's episode of the back Back Podcast, I'm
your host, Kyle Walker. It is my pleasure. As always,
(35:50):
everyone has a safe week of training, Stay safe and
have a great run in Chicago. We will see you
next week. Sh
Hello, everyone, greeting the salutations, Welcome back to another episode
of the Back of the Back podcast. I'm your host,
Kyle Walker. Thank you so much for tuning in. We
are in October, thankfully as I record this, the cold
front is supposed to be coming through right now. Again.
That's just going to get us down to normal October
temperatures instead of this heat wave that we've been in
here in Kansas City, which has been in the mid
(00:34):
to upper eighties, far later in the year than I
would like it to be, so hopefully we're going to
get to some good stuff here pretty soon. We are
going to start this week's podcast episode with an announcement
a decision I have made. I know this is not
going to be a popular decision, but it's a necessary one.
(00:55):
And again, I know I'm making this sound very dramatic,
and it's not nearly as dramatic as I'm making it sound.
I'm building suspense. I hope you're like leaning forward into
your listening device at this moment. This is going to
be the last episode where we feature the video on Facebook.
I have told you before. Facebook is absolutely a creator
(01:15):
black hole, and it just becomes more and more so
as we go along the videos that I post on here.
Other than making it more convenient for you all, which
I love to do, don't get me wrong, it does
Jack squat for me. So in a moment of selfishness,
we are going to stop putting the videos on Facebook.
(01:35):
Doesn't mean videos aren't available. I need y'all to go
over to the YouTube channel. We have got to get
YouTube going. We have got to get this puppy cranked up.
We gotta get this thing moving. And if you don't
want to watch videos, then just remember we're on every
single podcast platform you can possibly hope for. All Right,
if you want Apple podcast, we're there. That is our
(01:57):
number one podcast. Speed is the Apple Podcast. And we're
also on Spotify. I thought Spotify would be number one,
but it's not. It's Apple Podcasts. Then it goes Spotify.
We're on Spreaker, We're on iHeartRadio, We're on Podbeing. You
can even say and I know she's gonna chirp in
if I say something. You can say Alexa play the
Back of the Pack podcast and she will. So look,
(02:21):
I'm sorry, I know it kind of sucks. It is
me being a little selfish right now. But when I
think of like the potential earnings we could get by
getting a lot of the Facebook people over on the
podcast platforms or even YouTube. It's hard to just stay
here and lose money, as this podcast has been losing
money for three years now, happily happily losing money. Don't
(02:44):
get me wrong, I enjoy every second of it and
I love doing this, but we definitely do not bring
in what we put out as we're darn sure. So
I'll get you a deal if you want to go
to the Patreon pigs and if you want to have
the podcast out through financial givings. We just got someone
back on the five K tier thing. Thank you very
much for helping us out and getting us five dollars
a month. I don't think that's gonna break the bank.
(03:05):
That's like a coffee a month. But if we can
get to a certain dollar amount on the Patreon page,
then I'll gladly put the videos back on Facebook. When
we get to the point that we're not losing money
every month on this podcast, I will put the videos
back on the Facebook and everything will just be grand
and we'll all be happy. But as it is right now,
I'm giving you one week's notice this is gonna be
(03:27):
it just Facebook makes me sick with what they do
to creators, and they're just unrealistic guidelines of how to
even get them to give you an extra view on
someone else's page who may not otherwise know of this podcast.
Facebook is evil. They are evil. They're still gonna be
our main social media platform, but they are evil. So anyway,
(03:48):
that's it. I'm letting you know. Okay, I'm sorry. I'm sorry.
I'm sorry. You can yell at me in person when
I see you at a race, and that's fine. I'm
good with that. After you yell at me, we'll go
run a race and then we'll you know, hugs and
kiss afterwards, and everything's gonna be great. Okay, Okay, So
that's the big announcement for this show. And again, I'm sorry,
I really am, but Dad Nabit, Facebook, Meta, Zuckerberg, whoever.
(04:10):
You guys are killing me. You freaking killing me. So anyway,
all right, we have had so many guests on over
the last few weeks that we are woefully behind on
race reviews. We are just gonna rattle off pretty much
the whole month of September and where we've gone so
far in October. So this is just gonna be one
big spurge of race reviews and I hope you're okay
(04:30):
with that, but we're willfully behind it. I think race
reviews are still what people enjoy the most out of
this podcast, and I hey, I don't want to let
you down. And I know next week we're gonna have
some guests on. We're gonna have another race on next
week that's getting kicked up for this Yeah, this year
coming up in December, so please don't miss that. We
will have them on. And man, we're gonna be talking
(04:51):
about a December race. That's just crazy. All right. So
first thing coming up, or the first thing that we're
gonna talk about. At the beginning of September, we launched
the heart k series and we did what the Plaza
ten k. If you are anywhere within the Kansas City area,
Missouri side, Kansas Side, and even the surrounding cities, you
probably came up and did the Plaza ten K. It's
(05:12):
one of the biggest ten k's that we have in
this area. It is a yearly tradition, always right at
the start of September, and it is they plan it right.
It is always during the false fall that we get
at the end of August in the beginning of September.
How do I know that because we always have the
best weather for the Plaza ten k and this year
was no exception beautiful exception exception beautiful weather. Cool temperatures,
(05:37):
low humidity, low wind led to a very enjoyable race
by all involved. This race begins at the Country Club Plaza,
which is one of the big shopping districts in Kansas City, Missouri.
If you're not local to the area, you probably see
a picture of it every year, whether you know it
or not, because every year they do the Plaza lights,
the Christmas lights that light up the entire I don't
(05:58):
know what is it for mile radius of shops and buildings,
everything lit up in Christmas lights and it is absolutely beautiful.
If you ever get a chance to go to the
plaza during the Christmas light season, I highly recommend it.
I highly recommend this race because it is a net
downhill course. What goes up must come down. Yes, there
are some hills, but overall this is a very easy
(06:19):
course that saves the worst of the hills kind of
for the last mile. So I know, as for me,
even though the training has been what it is, and
last week we discussed about the knee issues that I'm
facing right now. I ran a very good Plaza ten
k up to and including. I ran the complete first
four miles like no stops, no walks, no any of that,
and felt good doing it. Now. I know there's people
(06:40):
who are like, oh my god, you could only run
four miles for the walk. Yeah, yeah, man, pretty much.
I've been going through it, so no, I can't run
a whole thing k without walking right now. Sorry, I'm
not sorry, but I did the first four miles and
felt absolutely fantastic as my nose itches, and so the
last two miles of it, that's kind of where as
you are coming back to the plaza, the road that
(07:01):
you have they have you on. It's got some up
and down to it, but it's still not bad. You
finish coming down into the plaza, you go and pass
where they're building the new street car, which is actually
kind of cool to see the end of the street
car line and then the construction as they're trying to
expand it. If the street car is a free way
to get around, if you're ever in downtown Kensington, Missouri,
hopefully you will make use of it and enjoy that.
It's an interesting little system. I have been on the
(07:23):
street car once one time. But when you finish the race,
it is a nice environment. A lot of people hanging out,
a lot of people have ten set up, there's vendors,
the shoe stories out there, the massage people are out there.
A couple other races come out and promote their stuff,
and then you're done with the first run of the
Heartland thirty k series and you get your very nice metal.
They do not miss around what Plasta ten k metal.
(07:45):
So here it is right now if you happen to
be watching, and pretty soon you're gonna have to watch
this on YouTube only if you want to see what
this looks like. As you can see big gold medal
here twenty twenty five Plasta ten k. This is one
of the buildings I was talking about right here that
does the Christmas lights and is all lit up during
the season. This is uh yeah, but they always do
well there. I can see on the side Plaza ten
K twenty twenty five there's the ribbon finisher. Nice medal.
(08:07):
They always do a very nice medal. And again I
ran the first Plazid ten k fourteen years ago. I think.
I think it started very soon after I started my
running career, and so it was it was a nice medal,
then it's a nice medal. Now nothing's changed. They do
a fantastic job with the medal. This race is put
on by Casey Running Company. The entire thirty k series
is put on by case Running Company. And Brad knows
(08:30):
what he's doing. We all know Brad Love Brad. Happy
Birthday one day late to Brad. Not that I think
he listens to this at all, these problems. His job
is running. I think the last thing in the world
you'd want to listen to outside of his job is
a running podcast. I don't know. That's just me guessing,
but what do I know. So the Plaza ten k
yearly tradition beginning of September highly recommended to anyone who
has not done him before. You get to see some
(08:52):
very pretty parts of Kansas City, Missouri, and the country
Club Plaza area, which I think recently sold. So there's
going to be a new owner of the plaza. Maybe
we'll get some new shops. Maybe the old people who
are trying to outprice everyone will go away, or this
new company. I'll try and outprice some more. I don't know,
we'll see what happens. But I worked for the on
the Plaza for two years, not for them on it.
(09:14):
I worked on the Plaza for two years, so yeah,
kind of familiar, nice place. I enjoyed it when I
worked down there. Didn't like the traffic though during the
weight days. No fun. The second race in the Heartland
thirty k series was the Woodstock ten k. Again, Woodstock
ten k has a rather precarious place in my heart.
Two years ago that race. The middle race of the
(09:36):
Heartland thirty k series was the Casey Hustle Run Our Run,
the run put on by the Back of the Pack podcast,
The run that was my brain child that my buddy
Will helped with as race director and then the former
production company helped and hindered with during the process. And
so as much as I loved it, and I did,
and as much as I want to do another one
(09:58):
and I do, it wasn't exactly how I envisioned it.
It wasn't exactly perfect, but it does have a spot
in my heart. Every year when this race and this
this time of year comes up, it's like man for
one year for one year that was my freaking race man,
and so ah I won it again. But ever since,
well after we stopped the Casey Hustle run, the next
(10:19):
year Brad Casey Running Company inserted the Woodstock ten K.
I'll bet you'll never guess what the theme is anyway, Bueler, Yeah,
it's woodstock. Whoa, so we have a nice woodstocky theme.
This takes place at Corporate Woods in Overland Park, Kansas.
If you live in this area, you have run Corporate
(10:40):
Woods probably three times a year, four times a year
if you pick the right or maybe one would say
wrong race, but everyone has done Corporate Woods. Corporate Woods
is a big office building area in Overland Park, but
it's kind of self contained and there's there's no there's
no traffic going in and out of it. If it's
(11:01):
not normal office hours. Okay, there's no one going into
these buildings on the weekend. It is empty. So it
takes very limited police coverage to keep runners safe during
an event. And that is why people like this place
so much for races. That's why we did our race there.
It cut down on the police cost because again, very
self contained. Nobody else is coming in there unless they
(11:23):
have a reason to, and the reason would be the run.
So it starts in front of the biggest building there,
which is now I guess the Morton Salt building. Like
Morton Salt. We all know the salt the lady with
the umbrella and the salt raining on there. Who knows,
but yeah, the Morton Salt people took over building forty,
which is where the race begins. Nice morning. The thing
with Woodstock, not the Casey Hulseter run. So not two
(11:45):
years ago, but for the last two years since then
Woodstock last year, Woodstock. This year. The false fall is
over by the time we get to Woodstock and he
is back. This was a hot, hot race, and this
year this race took down onto the running trail for
the second half of the race and not previous trails
(12:05):
are not really I guess it is a trail. Okay,
So there's a north trail and then there's like kind
of a southwest trail. Last year, I think we took
the north trail. This year we took the southwest trail.
I don't like the southwest trail nearly as much. So
you do your normal five k through the corporate woods part, okay,
So you start you're running through the main road of
Corporate Woods. You turn off by some office buildings. You
(12:25):
kind of go up and around. Then you get this
nice downhill as you pass mall marker one great downhill
flattens out, and then you're going down the other side
of the road where when you look to your left
and you see the start and finish line like him
starting finish line and all the people standing there. You
get the aid station. You're at a mile and a half.
You move on. You go down to the bridge, the
bridge that's been under construction for a while, but now
it's done. You take a ride at the bridge. It
(12:47):
takes you back to the westmost office buildings, and you
go up and around the westmost office buildings and change
the course a little bit at the top of the
nasty hill there as you're getting close to mile mark
or two. I don't like that hill. Nobody likes that hill. Well,
but we do that hill. You get a little bit
of a downhill after it, and then they have had
us weaving through this parking lot and like kind of
doing an out and back on a parking lot and
(13:08):
then around the parking lot. Then once you get around
the parking lot, then they dropped you onto the Southwest Trail.
That is a little different from races that I usually
run out there, I know, for like the Dividash ten
k and whatnot. You guys did that course my first
time doing the southwest part of this course. Gobbler Grind
in November might also use this same course. I'm not sure,
but it's possible. So anyway, you're on the trail, you're
(13:30):
going out, you hit your halfway point, you pass five K,
you take you a little further, then you do this
big old loop around in the park and the loop
around is weird. Thankfully it's well marked, but it's weird.
You kind of loop to the right and around, and
then you come to this little trail by the tennis court,
and then you go up the trail real quick, and
(13:51):
then turn around and come back down the trail real quick,
and then you finish your loop out and then you're
back on the path and it's an out and back
at that point where now you're going against traffic and
you're heading back towards the finish line. Once you get
back into Corporate Woods off of the Southwest Trail, you
go up the sidewalk a little bit, the one that
you just ran down. Then you make this weird rate,
you turn and now you're back on the road in
(14:12):
Corporate Woods to finish the loop around and you're hitting
mile marker four five six and you finish your race.
It's interesting, not the biggest fan of it. When you
do the North Trail, the one that we did for
Casey Hustle Run and that other races have done, then
it is just a straight out and back. There's no loop,
there's no strange I don't know the hairpin you turns,
(14:36):
there's none of that. It's just you take the North Trail,
you go X amount of miles out, there's a cone there,
turn around, you turn around, you come back, and you
do it exactly over again, and you're done. So you
might tell me I'm wrong, you might prefer something different,
whatever's clever. I'm good either way. Now for the Plaza,
because it is the biggest ten k and because there's
a lot of people out there, it is a very
(14:56):
well attended race for Woodstock because you're getting and a
few people who want to do a ten k, but
then you're getting mostly the people who are doing the
Heartland thirty k series. The attendance goes, oh, wait down.
I would be amazed if for Woodstock we even had
three hundred runners. Maybe we're around there. I think we
were under so a much smaller, more intimate feel. And again,
(15:18):
you're in an enclosed place, so you're not getting a
whole lot of people out there cheering. It's not like
running through downtown Kensing, Missouri. You're running on a bike
trail in the middle of Corporate Woods and in the
middle of Overland Park on a Sunday morning where it
was hot, So they won a whole lot going on there. Thankfully,
the heat did not affect people too much. I think
it was only like a minute and a half off
my time the previous week, So for a much hotter day,
(15:38):
that's not bad. I'll take that every time. Finish the
race had a cool moment when we finished the race. Now,
me and most of the run fan we're hanging out.
We're talking, shooting the breeze, catching up on water, trying
to cool off this that the other. We make our
way down to the finish line because enough of us
had remained, We're like, hey, let's do a big group photo.
(15:59):
So we go down to to do the big group
photo and we do and it was great. It was wonderful. Well,
then we see the last runners coming in, so we
kind of just all lined the finishing coral and applauded
the last runners in. That was kind of a cool moment.
If you've ever been a last runner in and you
come down to I don't know, fifteen to twenty people
clapping for you, you feel pretty good, especially after being
(16:22):
out there on a difficult course, on a difficult day
where it was really hot and you're trapesing in. It's
nice to have some support, and it was nice that
we got to sit down there and support everyone. That
was kind of a cool moment. So I hope they
enjoyed that. I know I did. It was nice hang
out and welcome them back in. By that point, everyone
was done. It was hot. I think it was a
football day. I think the Chiefs are playing that day.
(16:43):
So everyone beat each other a fond ad you and
away they went. And so we were done with the
woodstock and here is the metal so as you can see,
very psychedelic, and remember you can always see these things
funny enough on Facebook or Instagram. We do put everything
on Instagram too. The back of the back podcast Find
us on Instagram. Followup Please we need numbers. But yeah,
it's a very psychedelic medal. Very cool metal Again, it's
(17:04):
not quite Placi ten k cool, but it's still pretty cool.
Twenty twenty five Woodstock ten k and it's got the
little tight eye stuff here in the peace sign, so
very cool. There's the tight ie ribbon Woodstock ten k cool.
So that is the second race in the Heartland thirty
k series. What do you think comes next? It's the
third race in the Heartland thirty k series. Grab the
medal there. And this is the Boulevard ten k. It's
(17:27):
only its second year of existence, and it takes place
it's on a manual Clever boulevard. Not that that's going
to mean anything to anyone out of area. I get that,
And even most of the people in area couldn't point
on the map or drive directly to a manual Clever
boulevard unless you have a reason to go there. You're
not going there, all right. It's I'm not gonna say
(17:49):
it's a bad part of town. It's just not a
part of town. It's got a lot in it that
a lot of people are going to. Is that a
fair assessment. So we all go down to a man
of Cleveland Boulevard. You park where you can, you find
what you can, then you head to the start line,
which is just right kind of along the side of
the road. There's not a whole lot around. There's a
couple of businesses to park at, and there's like a
hospital across the street. But parking's a little wonky, trust me.
(18:11):
There's nothing else to really do or hang out or see.
It's just kind of a weird area of town. You're
east of the plaza, so you're east of where you
did the Plaza ten K by a few miles. So
the the I don't know the impressiveness, the hometown feeling
of the plaza that's gone. You just east of that,
surrounded by a hospital, some houses, and a couple of businesses.
(18:34):
That's really it. This is a pretty easy course though,
I do like this course. Now again, we always have
false fall for Plaza ten k. We always heap back
up for Woodstock and now we always it seems begin
a cooler day but much higher humidity. So the humidity
for this year's Boulevard ten k it is a growth.
(18:56):
It was a no good It was a gross. It
felt terrible outside, very humid, very muggy. Again, not hot
but warm, if that makes sense. If you're from the Midwest,
that makes complete sense. If you're from the South, that
makes complete sense. Not hot but warm, muggy. And so
that was what we had for running, not conducive to
like prs or really great performances, because you know, I mean,
(19:19):
we were all sweating before we even cross the start line.
If you're stretching, warming up, walking around and talking to folks,
you started to perspire a little bit. That's just what's
gonna happen. But we begin the race, and this is
really You go north on the road, you turn around,
you go south on the road all the way to
the end, you turn around, you come back north, and
you hit the finish line. It really is just a
(19:40):
big loop, that's what it is. Almost like a really
narrow racetrack that has two hairpin turns at the end.
You're making two lives and you're there. So let's say no, actually,
two rights, I said it wrong, So two rates and
you're there. But again, I like this course. It is
not overly difficult, it is not overly hilly. There are
plenty of downhill moments where you can kind of catch
your breath before you get to the next little little
(20:01):
rise in the road. I wouldn't even call them hills.
They're just out of the road naturally, up and down,
and so you get a lot of that action. I
guess really the only hill you go halfway up it
when you're a mile four and then you make your
right U turn and then you go right back down
it and there's an eight station right there, so that's nice. Again,
the last race put on Casey Running Company. They know
what they're doing. AID stations are always well supported, the
(20:24):
race always starts on time. I'd say probably an even
lower amount of people than there was at Woodstock, just
because it tapers off and then you're really there with
the people who are completing the Heartland thirty k series.
I don't know if there's many people who are at
that race who aren't doing the Heartland thirty k series,
but as many people do that series, they're there at
Boulevard and that's about the number that we had. So again,
(20:45):
another very intimate day. But when you're done and you
get in line and you're able to get all your swags,
so let's talk. Let's show off the boulevard. The Boulevard
ten k medals for both years have been pretty cool,
like this is kind of cool. Let's upside down triangle
looks like a guitar pick Boulevard ten K twenty twenty five,
and then there's the ribbon for it begins. It's the
(21:05):
plainest of the races, but it's still not bad. And
they're all good sized, so again, if you like the medals,
these are good sized medals. These are not little tiny,
dinky things, so I don't know, I'd say they're worth getting.
And then of course when you complete all three races,
you get a long sleeve hooded T shirt that has
the Heartland thirty K logo on it, so you get
(21:26):
that as well as you get the three shirts from
the events. And then you get your Heartland thirty K
Series medal, which is ranked heah biggest of all of them,
Placid ten k at the top, Woodstock ten k in
the metal, Boulevard ten k, Heartland thirty K Series. Now,
if you are a more serious runner, a more competitive runner,
and there's the ribbon, so it's just so you can
see all this there is I believe overall prizes they
(21:49):
do keep like accumulative time for the entire event, and
so I do believe they give out a place awards
for like who had the fastest time overall for men
and women, maybe even age division awards. So if you
are a more serious runner, if you're a faster runner,
we're all serious, but if you're faster, you could be
(22:10):
in line for some extra hardware if you perform well
at all three races and can get maybe your top
three fastest out of everyone. So just something to keep
in mind if it's something you're ever considering doing, if
you're of the elite level status. If you're not, you
just want to come out, then you still get four medals,
four shirts, and then you get three Sundays in the
morning hanging out with us running ten ks. I don't
(22:32):
see the downside to this argument, do you? Sounds like
a winner to me, and I think it usually is,
So that does it for that. Afterwards, we took a
weekend off that was supposed to be the fifty k
I'm sorry, the fifty miler, which we didn't happen. We
talked about that last week, so there was no race there.
Then we fast forward to the beginning of October. On
(22:52):
Saturday morning, October fourth, I did my very first trail race.
I had never done a train before. I went through
years and years and years of Boy Scouts. I have
hyped eleventy billion trails, but I have never done a
trail race. It was an interesting experience. So we did
the Wilderness Trek five k. They also offer a ten k.
(23:15):
I decided five k for my first time was all
I needed. I was good with everything else. This takes
place out in Lass in Missouri. As at Wilderness Trek,
it's a campsite. Trying to think the best way to
describe it. Of course, they have kids out there and
there are kids who can go camping. They do specialty groups,
they do religious groups. Someone was talking about how either
(23:37):
they or a friend had gotten married out there because
they've gotten nice spots by water, and you know, it's
set up to host amounts of people. So it was
a very interesting experience. Now, our buddy Nathan took over
handling this race, and so we wanted to support him.
Went out and did it. Nathan, who has worked with
us previously at the Liberty Half Marathon in Liberty, Missouri,
(23:58):
so wanted to go and support our guys. He was
doing this race. Volunteered to help, but boy, he didn't
need my help. He had a lot of volunteers there.
So I got there early. They just kind of stand
around and wait. But it was all right. I It
was interesting because I saw a lot of people, like
I can recognize a lot of people at the races anymore.
All right, whether I know him or not, I've seen
him before, Like I've seen that person. He's always at
(24:20):
this race, or she is always running this distance. You
see the faces over and over again. Going out to
a trail race. They knew each other. I was the outsider.
I was, as I've called it before, I was just dumb,
dumb roadrunner who came out there, and I'm in with
all the trail nerds. It was an interesting change. It
was an interesting dynamic. They all knew each other. Again.
(24:41):
I was the stranger, and so just listening in to
all these conversations. It's like how my friends and I
talk at road races. That's how they were talking at
their trail race. It was fascinating, fascinating to listen to.
I just tried to glean whatever information I could off
off people, because you know, why not, yes, I'm doing
a five. I personally am comfortable with five ks, but
(25:03):
I still did not know what to expect out there. Now,
from what I've heard, the Wilderness Track five k is
an easier of this trail running World race. All right,
there are certainly more difficult than what was offered at
Wilderness Track. I'm good with the fact that ours was
really easy. But again, there's no timing, Matt, so you
got to be really really good with your watch, and
(25:23):
then when you finish, they manually write down your time.
So do I know how accurate it was? No? Do
I care? No? I finished, and that's all the matters.
But we line up, we get our instructions. This is
one of the races that starts with instruction over national anthem.
I don't even think we did a national anthem. I
think it was just pre race instruction. So we got
(25:44):
our pre race instruction. He said, you know, make sure
you're looking at the ground and you're following the orange markers.
Look up in the trees, you'll see the ribbons blue
for five K, ten for ten or red for ten K.
Okay got all that. They blow the horn. As soon
as I got close to the start line, I start
my watch and we were off not a bad starter.
So we're kind of going through the main campground. We're
(26:05):
on just kind of gravel. Okay, gravel, no problem, very
small gravel, not big rocks or anything. All right. We
go around and we finally leave the campgrounds. We go
down this hill. The rocks are getting bigger, little little
more dirt, little more bigger, rock, less gravel, less coverage
of the road. You're getting more natural ground. There. We
hang a left and we're still going along a gravel road,
(26:26):
and then take a right and now we're in the grass. Now.
It was an early morning in October, very dewy grass
there in many rain. It was a nice morning, but
there was dew on the grass, so it was very wet.
So very quickly your feet are getting wet. And I
was wearing I was wearing the shoes that I was
going to wear for my fifty miler. Well I figured out, okay,
well these are ultra shoes. I'm doing a trail race.
I'm gonna wear these. But you know, they're on the tops.
(26:49):
It's very meshy, so that water was coming in. My
socks were wet within the first half mile of that race.
We go across this beautiful area, down this little wooden bridge,
and across this grassy dam with water on each side. Beautiful.
I wanted to stop and take a picture, but I
was like, Okay, now I'm feeling good. I want to
I want to do this thing. But it was a
beautiful morning at this place and beautiful scenery. We hang
(27:11):
a left on the other side of that little dam.
We're back on trail. There's rocks, there's unevenness. You know.
It's not flat, it's tilted, you know, cause you're kind
of running around some hill signs. You're going over roots,
you're going up hills, you're going downhill, You're on all
sorts of kind of terrain. I'm following my arrows. I'm
doing well. There were two I'm not gonna call them teenagers.
(27:32):
I'm gonna say early twenty year old ladies in front
of me, maybe late teenagers. I'm kind of pacing with them,
all right, They're they're setting a good pace for me.
I'm not getting ridiculous in my first mile. I'm not
going out like an a hole because I don't want
to do that, because I don't know what to expect.
I don't know how difficult. This is gonna be for
me my first mile wise beine, I'm feeling good, felt
really good. First mile. We keep we get into more
of the hills in that second mile, and that's where
(27:55):
I'm like, okay, I'm starting to feel a little more
on my legs. The hill a hill for this trail,
a hill for the off roading, to me, feels more
difficult than a hill unpaved asphallt right. I just and
there were times where you have to more jump to
get up the hill rather than just run your pace
with your normal stride. Your stride changes more as you're
(28:18):
doing trail races. There's a little jump, there's a little hop,
there's a little skip, there's a jump, there's there's movement
left and right. As you're trying to get on the
flatter part of the course, there's unevenness that's kind of
forcing you here, there and yonder. I feel like there's
a lot more in run movement when you're doing the
trail thing, when you're trying to keep your balance or
get over obstacles. Then again, when you're just steady pace
(28:40):
at a road race, it takes it out of you sooner.
I got a message after the fact that says, oh yeah,
when you're doing trail, you can. And again for the
average runner, you add about two minutes more per mile
when you're doing trail. Your pace is going to be
two minutes greater per mile for the average runner when
(29:01):
you're doing trail. I didn't know that going into it.
When I saw my final time made all the sense
in the world. But so I get past mall marker one,
past mall marker two, slowing down at two because a
lot more uphill action, and then for the last mile
it was a little more run walky for me again,
unsure about the train, unsure about where I'm going. There
was a time where I didn't get lost, but I
(29:23):
kind of was worried. I was looking around like, oh,
I might have missed a turn somewhere. I didn't. But
when that gets in your head, you naturally slow down
and you're trying to kind of take survey of where
you're at and like, Okay, does this look familiar? Do
I see anyone else? It was a small race. I
think only sixty five people registered for that race, not
sixty five showed up, or maybe it was right a
sixty five there either to a smaller race, so you
(29:43):
didn't always have someone around you. And the two people
I had paced off earlier had fallen the way back,
so they weren't around. But thankfully I was. I was
going in the right direction. I found the orange marker
on the road. They always said, look down. If I
finally saw one, i'd take a left. On my last mile,
I get back to the kind of the road that
paved road or not paved road, the gravel road we
started on. I see the finish line in front of me,
and I take it to the finish. I finished in
(30:05):
thirty seven and change. I want to say, it was
like thirty seven thirty three something like that for my
first trail race. I will take that. I will take
that every time. And for that, I was about five
minutes slower well than what I was going to do
the next day. So five minutes slower doing my first
trail race, now I'm bad. I'll take that every time.
What I did notice and again, as I was doing it,
(30:27):
I could felt it. I could feel it more kind
of in my in my clawds and in my hamstring,
kind of the back part of your leg. I definitely
felt the extra effort in those muscles. Afterwards, what I
felt it in was my ankles. My ankles were not
strong enough to be doing this trail running stuff because
I'm so used to just dead on straight road running
(30:47):
with ankles. There's more side to side that your ankles
were doing as you hit the side of a rock,
or as you hit the side of a root, or
as just there's natural curve in the ground because you're
on the side of a hill. My ankles felt it
after again, nothing injury related, just stress and strain from
what we had just done. It was a fascinating sensation,
but I felt at my ankles even felt it the
(31:09):
next day as well. But here is the metal. Now,
A lot of people who have participated in Metal Monday
before they're gonna laugh at this because I guess it's
a big East Coast thing, and of course a big
trail thing that the metals are made of wood. This
is made of wood. This is my first wooden metal.
So it it says Wilderness trail track five K ten K.
It's got the little uh, I don't know, little mountain
(31:31):
range heer or trees or whatever it is. And this
is kind of carved in So yeah, my first wooden
Medal East Coast people. You guys get a lot of
wooden metals. This one's my first. So I know all
the people who've done long time metal mondays, which if
you don't do them on Facebook and Instagram you should
a lot are laughing because, oh we get metal wood
metals all the time. Well, this one's my first. So
here it is my first wooden metal. Just a very
(31:51):
plain green ribbon, No big deal there, but this will
hold a special place in my heart just because it
is my first wooden metal and it's been mentioned before.
All right, I know I'm over on time already. I
don't care. We're gonna keep going. One more, one more
race to review. After we did the Wilderness track, we
did the Martins Let me read it here, the Martin
City Wine Run five K. This happens in Martin City, Missouri,
(32:15):
which is just right outside of Kansas City, Missouri. And
this is done right across the street from the headquarters
of Casey you are running company. So this was previously
known as the Octoberfest five k. It is the exact
same course through Martin City. If you've done that course,
you know that course. You start you run down Main Street.
The only Main Street in Martin City. You loop around
(32:37):
the neighborhoods, you go through the industrial park, and you
come back and you've done not a big deal. What
was different was then we went over to the Martin
City Winery and that's where kind of the post race
festivities were. That's where the bar was open. You could
get some wine, you could get some wine slushies. And
the best part of that race, again, I've done this
race before. I'm not gonna do it turn by turn.
(32:57):
Go listen to the last year's Octoberfest review. Same race,
except different theme. Oh and here's the metal, A nice
metal though, like Martin City Wine Run got the wine, glasses,
got the grapes, the cheese, all that very boogie, very
fancy see Wine Run fucking heay. But the best part
of that race wasn't even a part of the race.
And I'll be mushy here. The thing I enjoyed the
most was hanging out with everyone after the race. Most
(33:20):
of the run fam all stayed behind. We all grabbed
wine slushies for me because I'm redneck like that, but
they had the same gree of wine slushies. We're drinking
wine slushies. We're all sitting outside on a beautiful little
overly warm, but beautiful Sunday morning, drinking wine, slushes together, talking, running,
shooting the breeze, wishing all the people well who are
(33:40):
heading off to Chicago next weekend, And if that's you,
I wish you nothing but great success in the Windy City.
You're gonna love that race, enjoy every minute of it.
But just really the camaraderie of that event. We didn't
leave until after one o'clock in the afternoon. All right,
the race started at eight am. We're already sitting there
drinking by nine am. We didn't leave until after one pm.
(34:01):
That was a fun time hanging out with the peeps
at the winery, just drinking wine, talking, running, wishing people well.
It It was a great time. So I really the
race was the race. It was a good race. It's
put on, it's done well. It's a case of running company.
They know what they're doing. Metal was cool, of course,
was what it was. My performance was what it was.
Not great, not terrible, I'll take it, but hanging out
(34:22):
with everyone after the fact, that was where it was at.
So I enjoyed that the most for sure. So next weekend,
only one race, the five K Run for Pause five
k on October eleventh. That is the next race that
I will be on. Then for me, Columbus Day is
on Monday, so I get a nice three day weekend.
If you are going to Chicago, best of luck to you.
May the wind be at your back, May the course
(34:43):
be flat, May the temperatures be cool. And I hope
you really really, really really really enjoy your Chicago Marathon experience.
It is one of a GUIDs you will never experience
another race like Chicago again. Believe you me as I
did it back in twenty eighteen. So that's it next
week because we I only will have one race to review.
I do have knee news, knee information, and actually that's
(35:06):
not gonna be next week, that's gonna be two weeks.
Next week, we got the jingle Bell Run guests. Then
I'll get everyone updated on what's going on with my
knee and kind of future events for the podcast. Remember
last episode on the Facebook videos. I'm sorry, unless you
guys want to really go to Patreon and go crazy,
this is gonna be it. Then it's gonna either gonna
be YouTube or it's gonna be the podcast platforms make
you choice, do your thing. I'm cool with either both
(35:29):
are good, or listen to it twice one on each.
I'm good, but we gotta stop giving it away here
on Facebook because they do not play nice and I'm
sick of them, at least as it pertains to the videos.
They're fine for all of our interactions, but non great
for our videos. Okay, okay, So that's gonna do it.
For this week's episode of the back Back Podcast, I'm
your host, Kyle Walker. It is my pleasure. As always,
(35:50):
everyone has a safe week of training, Stay safe and
have a great run in Chicago. We will see you
next week. Sh
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