One Tough Race

The Molly accompanied us in the van....

The Wyoming trip was quite eventful. On the way to Cheyenne, we encountered one of the tornadoes in western Kansas. We were listening to the radio for information, but they were just speaking about county locations of the tornadoes and we weren't sure if we were heading into it or if we would get hit by it if we stopped. We finally determined that the first one had just hit the town of Ellis which was just ahead of us and that another one was headed our way. We decided that if we kept moving, we should be able to get through I-70 in between them. The first one apparently had not moved as far north as we thought, because just to the north of the interstate was this pitch black area that was rotating....it is the closest I ever want to be to a tornado ever again. It was heading away from us so we kept moving and as we moved toward Ellis, we saw all the overturned vehicles (mostly semi's) along the highway for about 5 miles. So just getting to Wyoming was an adventure in itself.
The marathon....the most scenic marathon I have done. Also, the hardest marathon I have ever done. It was held between Cheyenne and Laramie in the Medicine Bow National Forest.


The start temp was 33 degrees and there was a hard north wind. We headed out and it was downhill for the first few miles and then we hit the uphills and the wind. It wasn't long until I determined that this was a survival race. I was breathing hard even when walking. The altitude, along with the hills and wind took it out of me pretty quickly. I probably walked 2/3's of the marathon. The last several miles are a steep uphill. I was struggling just to walk it in. I never seemed to be able to breathe. I calculated that I had 1.8 miles left in the race and I was seriously doubting I could do it. I was dizzy and felt queezy. I just shuffled in and finally, I was at the top and at the finish....
We jumped in the car and headed back down to Cheyenne and I started feeling better after a few hours.....