Prairie Fire Fall Marathon - Run

Immediately after the start I lost all of the girls, ha! I was so excited to be running my 9th marathon in my home town, and there were so many spectators and signs, go Wichita!

But from the very first step, the tendons on the front of my ankles (not sure how else to describe this area) were very painful. I mean they hurt. I have no idea what caused this as I've never had issues in this area before. Bleh. I shed my gloves around mile 3 before turning into my neighborhood, and not long after that I saw my Mom! Gave her a hug and a high five, she was so cute. I couldn't help but announce to everyone around me "That's my MOM!" :)

My ankles continued to hurt every single step until around the 5-mile mark. Then, finally, I started to feel more like myself for a bit. Miles 5-10 everything was just achy and prematurely hurting. Not good, and I never figured out why.

Miles 10-13 I had to stop and walk a handful of times. My heartrate was sky-rocketing and I was just not comfortable. Things were starting to go downhill fast, and I considered pulling out of the, race all though deep down I knew I would never actually go through with that. But then around mile 13, Melissa caught up to me and I latched on to her - this was definitely my saving grace.

The two of us chugged along together, commiserating and supporting - she was also having a very similar experience with early body aches and things just not quite right. We saw my mom 3 or 4 more times, she was driving ALL AROUND the course and she would even run a few blocks with us, in her jeans and puffy jacket. It was the most supportive, awesome, and just darn cute thing I've ever experienced. My heart about burst open every time I saw her. I just can't put into words how much that kind of stuff means to me.

Around mile 18, we saw Angi and Kendra up ahead and we caught them on a walk break! So here was the ol' running group - reunited by what we decided was something the universe had surely orchestrated so that we could all pull each other in to the finish line. It was pretty awesome, except for some negativity and crankiness from everyone but we tried so hard to lift each other up regardless of all of that.

At mile 22, our former group training leader Natalie was waiting to run us in. She was SO energetic and positive it was exactly what we needed. 22-25 was a weird stretch, we were in some back, desolated part of the course and going into a head wind. It really sucked but we were just counting down the miles. Angi shot out ahead of us at mile 24 when we were on an extended walk break, and Kendra's daughter hopped in with us at some point here.

Then we hit mile 25 and got excited about the finish! Kevin, the owner of the local running store and creator of the Start2Finish group, was in this mile and ran with us for about half of it. Then we finally got to turn out of the wind and onto the bridge of glory. The finish line bridge.

Since Melissa is a news anchor for our CBS affiliate, she is kind of a local celebrity - so the announcer was making a huge deal about her - and her pack! - coming into the finish chute. We were all smiles in a sea of cheers and cameras (we were on the news that night!), and then we were finally, FINALLY done.

I'm not sure. I had some unexpected pain management to deal with, but despite that I didn't give in or "pace shame" myself. I was a little surprised I wasn't able to hold the paces I had in training, but in the end I had so much fun running my little heart out, and running with my friends - and that's why I do this.

My parents were both at the finish line - again the sweetest people you will ever meet - so I chatted with them for awhile before heading to the GoRun tent to get my stuff and say goodbye to everyone. My Mom drove me to my car (NICE!) and I bee-lined home for an epsom salt bath and my post-race pizza. I was pretty stiff all evening but the morning after as I type this I am doing really well.


Unexpected pain and premature fatigue.


I want SO BADLY to give this race a higher rating because it's my home town race and I think they are making a huge effort in a lot of areas. But there were a number of gripes from me and the gals: No drop bags issued at check in, even though that was advertised. No gels at miles 13/17 - as advertised (this was the worst, I had to lend some nutrition to the girls who had counted on this and hadn't brought back-up), some turns poorly marked with only a cone and an arrow on the ground - no volunteers at some of them. Bands packed up after about 2 hours. Something glitched with the finish line timing and they were manually taking down names and times. And so on.

However, there are also a lot of GREAT things about this race. It's a super flat and fun course, essentially taking you on a tour of the city. Lots of police presence and spectators in the neighborhoods - I was really floored by how the city came out and cheer everyone on. The swag is on point - a great finishers shirt and a cartoonishly-large medal (if you're into that kind of thing) - and great overall communication before the race.

I would definitely do this race again, but set my expectations for some things a bit lower.