Garmin Half Marathon – We’re Not In Kansas Anymore

The Garmin Half Marathon in Oloathe, KS starts at the Garmin Worldwide Headquarters and makes a big loop up and around the city.  One of the most notable experiences during this was the Garmin exhibit.  Garmin was showing off (as they should!) all of their avionics and other GPS enabled devices.  I am a bit of a Garmin nerd (having owned several) so this was very cool.

Staying in Missouri, in Kansas City

Perhaps the coolest part of running races all over the United States is exploring and learning.  Most importantly, I learned was where Kansas City is!  I’ve always known Kansas City was on the boarder of the two states, but, according to Wikipedia, its primarily in Missouri.  Which, is where I stayed at the beautiful Westin Kansas City Crown Center.  Anyhow, for your edification, here is the blurb on Kansas City.

Kansas City is the largest city in Missouri.  The city had an estimated population of 481,420 in 2016, making it the 37th largest city by population in the United States. It is the central city of the Kansas City metropolitan area, which straddles the Kansas–Missouri border. Kansas City was founded in the 1830s as a Missouri River port at its confluence with the Kansas River coming in from the west. On June 1, 1850 the town of Kansas was incorporated; shortly after came the establishment of the Kansas Territory. To curtail any confusion, the name Kansas City was assigned to distinguish the city from the territory. Kansas City, Kansas is abbreviated as “KCK”.

Well, there you go!

The Race

I was staying in Kansas City, MO and the race was in Olathe, KS.  I needed to get up early and head out to the course which was 25 miles away.  Dawn patrol time.

The race start and finish line was setup at the Garmin HQ.  I spent twenty minutes wandering around, looking into the windows.  Garmin has some fun technology eye candy!  The race itself was pretty fun.  The course was flat but for the final third of the race, we ran through several parks.  We left the pavement and pounded the dirt for the last 3-4 miles.  The trees were awesome.  Huge canopy’s kept the morning sun off our faces.

As usual with this type of travel race, as soon as I finished it was a race to the car and back to the hotel.  Time to grab a quick shower and head to the airport.  I visited two states, crossed one off the list.  Thanks Kansas (and Missouri)!!  But mostly Kansas on this one.