Jason Kelling's Staging Area

This morning the weather was great at my house and 10 degrees cooler windchill upon arrival. There is nothing to block wind out there, so be prepared accordingly. Also be aware that parking backs up, so it’s going to be a slow crawl down the last mile to the parking lot.

My performance was possibly the worst of any half I’ve done, but a week after Boston Tough Ruck I wasn’t going to be PR’ing anyway. I do feel like this would have been a fast course for me on any other day, and the scenery through Olathe ran the gamut from downtown to residential areas. Every aid station I went by the volunteers were super motivated and it was well set up with gatorade up front then water and the volunteers were doing a great job of keeping the tables fully stocked as well as handing them to participants.

I will absolutely do this race again. The Tshirt has a nice weight to it and the Oz logo, but is nothing special if you’re not wed to the area. The medal was similarly the Garmin in the Land of Oz logo of the year, but it’s nicely made and decently weighted. This race is the third and final race in the Heartland 39.3 series, so if you also are doing that you get the extra award and swag for Heartland 39.3. That was exceptional this year with a heavy cutout medal with the names of the three races and a zip up windbreaker with drawstring hood and NO sponsors on the back, only a classy 39.3 logo with the race names on the front, just in case you need more incentive for the race.

Any race where you can periodically stop and pet a puppy in need of adoption is a great race. And they’re all puppies on the inside even with grey on their muzzles. Subsequently, I never PR here, but with the last half mile being a steady downhill on this L-shaped double out and back (out and back on each leg, not two laps). I’ve done this race in the rain and muggy heat, this year was a nice middle ground. The tshirt is a nice high weight soft shirt with a classic logo of the race which is reinterpreted every year, and the medal is nice and heavy and well designed. I avoid 5ks unless it’s for a cause I really believe in, but I’ll gladly do this race every year. The swag really is on par with a longer race and they do a great job of having wonderful high energy volunteers year after year. Do note, this race has sold out every year, so book early if you can. It’ll be well worth it, and I’ll see you out there next year.

TerraVox is always a nice 5k, as it marks the first of three (now 4!) wine runs in the area. Unfortunately two of them are on the same day at the same time, which is horrible planning, but the vineyard operators dictate the time and date, so I’m not faulting the RD or staff for that. Still maybe next year they can sway them a little harder. As someone who does all of them every year (and brings others with me) it’s way less convenient now. Also, these used to be afternoon races which gave everybody more of an excuse to stick around afterwards and drink wine, share stories, mingle and whatnot, but with it moved to 0900 most people were out by 1030 and everybody was gone by probably 11. I’d love to convince them to go back to 1500 because then we could race, have a couple drinks, get some food, really stick around a while (and spend lots of money) so you would think they’d be into it.

The race through the vineyards is always beautiful. The weather was nice so it wasn’t muddy and while it started out with a little chilly wind it shaped up nicely. It snakes back and forth across the property and gives plenty of chances to wave at your friends as you pass back and forth.

The optional hoodie this year is very nice. It’s lightweight and soft. The t-shirt was nice as well (and tag-less). The medal has a cork backing to double as a coaster and has a very classy design on the front. It’s actually nicer than I expected when I heard it was a coaster because I’ve had some mid to low end medals like that, but with the actual medal cover on this one it really comes off as being fitting to display.

I’ve done this race 4 times, and next year will be the fifth.

I’m shocked. This is the first time I’ve ever given this high of a review, and I’ve liked other races more, but looking back at this objectively there’s nothing for me to easily deduct a point on. I’ve done races in this series before but never St. Jo and never at this new location they picked. I loved it. It is a double out and back with a bowl-shaped elevation profile and you will put in some work on these hills. The actual course was gorgeous though, slowly winding through a park for much of it, with the first/last mile being a windy decent on a park road up a pretty good-sized hill (with tunnel and everything). At the bottom of that one you cross one of two (controlled) intersections then start up another shorter less steep one to the part section. Keep in mind, this is out and back. Twice. There are lesser hills on the rest of the course, but these are the two that will eat your lunch and laugh at you if you’re unprepared. Shockingly my first 8 splits were well under par and I didn’t drop to the worse side of par until the final two splits, but wow did I drop. Battling a cramp in my toe I was still quite happy with my final time, which honestly could have been a PR if I could have redone the last 1.1 miles. The views are amazing and somehow always came with a headwind (Uphill, both ways!…yeah grandpa…). I heard more than one person say they hated the course, which, if you were expecting a “4 laps around downtown” sort of thing, I can see why this would break you off. If you could make a trail run that didn’t involve roots, mud, gravel or dust you’d have a good approximation of what is going on here.

Great classy medal (with embedded bottle opener). Guess the tshirt was standard, so minus half a shoe there? I’m stretching. It wasn’t a perfect race, surely, as everything can be improved but it was definitely an A-student in the class. Looking forward to next year’s.

For anyone familiar with the Summer Sizzler, there’s some course overlap here, but instead of out and back 2x the 10 is made up by a lollipop addition to the out and back of that race, heading down into the park and around the hills there.

First off, let me say it was an honor and a privilege to be able to race with Scott Green again. The man is a legend in the local running community who has given SO much.

The course design was great. It’s not an easy route, but it isn’t punishing, and you’ll feel accomplished when you’re done. Just don’t expect a PR and save some in the tank for that final push up the hill to the finish line. Nice classy (and classic) design to the medal. The pre and post race festivities were great, with Shatto milk making an appearance and a boatload of various homemade muffins and hot chocolate available post race. It is a great time of year for the race, because while it may be a little chilly when you’re warming up, the sun burned the cold off fast and made it a nice high-50s for the actual race. There’s not a lot of big-name long races yet at this point in the year. Liberty is usually what people consider the first major half of the year, and while this is obviously shorter, it looks like one of those races you can look forward to with the same gusto. Maybe one day they’ll add a half.

Full disclosure, my gps came up a little short at 5.94 miles, and while I know that’s not always accurate due to sampling error, I am pretty sure the course was in fact a little short based on my finishing time and performance on the course. I made great time the first 5k going off splits on my strava app, which felt in line with my exertion, but the second 5k I didn’t pick up the pace for, which I would have had to have done to finish at the final time I got, leading me to believe the course was a tad short. No a deal breaker, but something to be aware of. Hopefully if it’s true they’ll fix that for next year, when I fully intend to race it again.

**Updates at the bottom of original review

So I’ve done this trail a dozen or so times. I have no idea why my time was garbage today other than everything hurt. None of this is the race’s fault though. It’s a beautiful trail (mainly) though a park. The trail is wide enough for a golfcart and a biker to ride side by side with a little room left over, so plenty of time to pass. This is NOT a trail run in traditional sense, as everything is paved and very much not wild. Mainly flat(-ish), but there are a couple short steep ones and a long grinding one that goes largely up for a mile. This race would be 5 shoes on overall and race swag if the medal had been nicer and befitting of the rest of this production. Despite my worst time on a half marathon (other than my very first), I had a great time. In part because I finally got to close the loop on a race that was delayed due to cold weather/wind in January.

The SWAG I marked down one because the medal is acrylic and feels cheap, though they do offer engraving plates. The long sleeve tshirt is very comfortable and the hoodie is tapered a little better than most of them, so I don’t have all this extra room around the waist. There were also socks, but I haven’t worn them yet, and the option to select between a trucker hat or a water bottle. I got the water bottle, but I’m told the hat was quite nice as well. DIdn’t get to see it as they had some supply chain issues so the hats are all getting mailed out, gratis.

UPDATE:
So because I was nearly DNF on that race (knees), I didn’t get my medal engraved due to some hardware issues that arose by the time I finished. They offered to mail me the engraved chip disk thing. It arrived today (looking sharp) and they were awesome enough to throw in a free Yeti running belt and a personalized note. It’s those little things that really make an outfit stand out. Also, it dawned on me that my original review failed to mention that there are three locations (cities) in which this race occurs, each with a different color hoodie, so it really incentivizes you to do the whole series, which I hope to do next year. I’m no stranger to racing multiple legs in a series of races under the same name. You get more of the same tshirt usually…it is what it is we all know the drill, but THESE folks solved that problem for you and make the different locations different theme colors (Think it was yellow, red and blue). The hoodies are nice, especially if you need an athletic cut, and I’m going to be picking up more colors next year for sure.

Just one more thing that made this organization stand out.

….or their other name, which is less polite. These are the last three hills that come in the last few miles. These things put the KC Marathon or Hospital Hill’s hills to shame. I do a lot of hill work, and my prior job had hill work as a big component of it. These were rough. The hills earlier which had ropes tied into trees to use in case of mud were not easy, but the ones at the end could really suck the motivation out of ya.

The shirt is a long sleeved, quarter-zip tech shirt. Simple bright red, no sponsors, just a 3×4″ name and logo of the race on the left breast. I’d actually wear this shirt around town, and not because it’s laundry day. I wish I’d bought two actually.

The race is on a 10-mile loop with 1300 feet of elevation gain. Do it once, twice, or three times. I only did the 10-mile because I’m recovering from a knee injury and the 34lbs I was carrying was going to get real heavy with the rough knee.

That said, here comes my only complaint: the medals shown online are apparently only for the 20 and 30 miler. The 10 miler gets a completely different medal that’s just a wood coin with the race name burned on it, strung to a piece of yarn. Honestly, it feels cheap for an $80-something dollar race when I got a nearly identical medal at a $18-dollar race last year for a local high school. Since the tagline of the race is Run, Toto Run! The (other) medal has a little black dog on it. I collect medals with critters on it (suggestions welcome!), so while I wanted to do the race anyway because it is so famous here, I really wanted the little black dog one. Despite the knee, I could have easily done 20 miles without the body armor and kit (or 10 and 10…whatever) and get the medal I thought I was going to get, but since the 10-mile medal wasn’t shown anywhere on the website, I assumed we were all getting the same (maybe different size and ribbon). Nope. No critter medal for me. I would have given 3 shoes for the swag except the shirt is so nice. Production lost a shoe for lack of specification on the website, but the chilli set up at the end was a nice touch. That said, the website said regular and vegetarian chilli, and there was only one pot of regular. I’m not vegetarian, so didn’t bother me, but it did seem unfortunate that something else on the website could use some updating.

The aide stations were 4 I believe (one you hit twice, before and after a loop). They were all well stocked with gatorade, nutella/tortilla rollups, M&Ms, some kind (ham?) of sandwich, but I didn’t pay a lot of attention to them since I was only doing 10 miles and I had gummies and potato chips in my kit which was fine for what I was doing. I did see enough to know there was a very extensive selection well beyond what I named here. All the volunteers were motivated and friendly and it was probably the best marked trail race I’ve ever been in. They had arrows and “wrong way” signs up at every intersection, some things that might have been intersections, and one or two things that looked like a good place to put an intersection but never made it. Seriously, they made it real clear where you’re going. Great job on that to all the great people at Trail Nerds, who gained a new follower today.

52 weeks from now I’m going to be back to get my little black dog medal.

…between road and park, here’s a great mix! So the 5k was all road work, one lap around a square block. The first side of the square was pretty much one slow grind up, but halfway through the second side you get a little break. After finishing that first lap, you start the second then detour off to an out and back through a park on a double wide trail with mainly rolling hills but two steep but short (distance) ones. It was a nice surprise because I normally hate lap races, but this was a good mix and with the clear differentiation between the 5k and 10k courses, I felt like I got twice my money’s worth. This would be a do again race. I hated only that I was dealing with a toe injury so it did slow me down a little and that uphill grind was a little more punishing than it normally would be, but somehow I still cranked out a fast-ish finish. I didn’t necessarily think it at the time, but this actually could be a fast track despite the hills. I did over 65 races last year and didn’t have any on this course, so it was also a nice treat to do a different path. Kudos to KCRC for another great race.

The long sleeve tshirt seems sturdy and the medal was nicely designed with a lot of heft to it. 5 and 10k are the same medal with different ribbon color, but as I said, it’s heavy and pretty, so that’s not a bad thing.

I’ve done the 5k a few times, but this is the first year I did the 5k followed by the 10k (2 more “laps”)

There are so many twists and turns in the course, and an out-and-back or two that it doesn’t have the incessant boring nature of multi-lap races, which normally I hate. I was on the injured list today so my performance was expectedly slow, but I was okay with that because I had to complete the 5k as part of a series and then since I was there, might as well do the 10k afterwards, right? Right. And now I have two medals that link together, which pleases the raccoon in me.

For those who have not been to these races, I’m sorry. They are a great opportunity to have a decent sized race and not have to care what the weather is. If anything you’ll find you likely overdressed for the caves and start peeling off layers. There were two turns where people seemed prone to do that, because every lap I witnessed it at that turn and saw other parts of the pack doing the same as we entered some of the see-through areas from one part of the course to another. Even the area near the entrances are not COLD, per se, but you will feel it cool off in those areas. Those I preferred.

One thing of note, the air in the back of the cave can be thinner, so while the altitude change is negligible (18-wheelers are able to drive through there, so nothing really hilly) as far as your legs are concerned, if you’re sensitive to oxygen level changes prepare to be affected. My pulse oximeter went from 100 at start to 93 on the third lap towards the back. If that doesn’t slow you down, more power to you, but I wasn’t going to drop lower than that.

Prior years it’s actually been a really fast course for me, and since nothing has changed about the course I suspect it still is. Part of that is the mental joy of being inside with a thousand or so of your buddies doing this thing we do for 5, 10 or 15k and not being even remotely concerned about frostbite or frozen lung, knowing that the spring series is just around the corner and all the great races that brings. Part of it is this is one of the few larger, longer races that happen in the late NOV-JAN time frame when everything seems to migrate towards 5k-Only Land (though it seemed better this past year).

I gave 4 shoes on the scenery. I actually think the former limestone quarry cave is attractive. Some people call it an unfinished parking garage. I think the “scenery” also includes for me the peaks you get of other parts of the pack that you see between pillars as everyone spreads out and the course loops and twists around inside, and when you’re recognizing people from different pace groups doing their thing and then all of a sudden you’re slapping high fives to each other again.

Special shout out to some water station volunteers who knew how to bring the full-throttle cheer-and-support routine into the mix as well. I wish I’d caught her name to let the RD know how great it was to see everybody treated like they’re carrying the Olympic torch into the stadium or something. How she did that for so long I’ve no clue, but she deserved recognition.

28 degrees and windy….nobody does hot gatorade here? Anyway…This is similar to the route I do as my training route or just need a quick virtual to round out the weekend sort of thing. There’s three different 10k at English Landing park — 2 laps, and out and back with full repeat of the course, and an out and back that’s modified for a shortcut of sorts, so about 4 miles out and 2 back, ending at the start (because it’s direct not circuitous). The latter is my favorite, the 2 lap one I hate, this was the other one. I’m still making up my mind on that one. Bodies’ crew made sure to keep the energy up. I only did the 10k because I’d raced so much that week already, but right up until the starting horn blew part of me was wishing I’d done the half, because they really made it seem like that was where the party was at and I think the turnaround at the half up on the levee makes for some beautiful scenery. My knee and the cold kept me from it, but my buddy said it was a great race. The theme each year is something iconic from the 80s/90s. 2022 was Back to the DeLorean Time Machine, this year it was Triassic Park (or some completely public domain T-rex with red font…however they do it. The cotton Ts were really nice and had a nice 80s retro look to them (and are super soft) and the Trex roars on the award. Apparently, I got second in my age group, but I don’t think there were Age Group awards. All the same. Must have meant only two of us showed up 😉 Hoping to be there next year with a less angry knee, because I’d have really liked to be on the levee one more time before the year ended.

This one is hard for me. I was nursing a bad knee today so my time was off, but I feel like it could have been a fast course. Probably not PR material because of the hills (none too bad, but many small ones), but a fast one none the less. I had a maximum time I wanted to come in under, and I did, but my splits were way off from normal. Overall I’m only saying 4 on difficulty because as a double out-and-back, you get just as much downhill as uphill, so race strategically. The first couple miles were in one lane of the road, but there was a parallel sidewalk as well that fast runners could take advantage of to pass the clog-ups at the beginning. The scenery was nice, both on the road and in the park, with plenty of varied terrain to take advantage of. This is not a “trail run” though, as it’s all on a doublewide (or wider) path once you hit the park. The swag was the same as yesterday, being another Candy Cane race, but the swag was amazing, so I’m not complaining there. My only gripe is there were with mile markers. There was a 5k and a 12k, so out to the 5k turnaround, then out another half km to the 12k turnaround, then do it twice. There were no mile markers after 3 and since they were for the 5k they didn’t correspond to the multiples on the 12. It would have been nice to have color coded markers out for both race, because I like seeing them on the course as motivation to maintain pace.

Also, the free coffee truck returned for another showing. Huge plus on that one.

I really loved yesterday’s Candy Cane course, and as much as it pains me to say it, if I could only do one next year it would probably be this one, but I’m hoping that both will be do-agains.

Not the same Santa Dash as Jazz Museum sadness from before, which was basically 2.5 miles gradual hill up in a straight line by absolutely nothing to look at and no neighborhoods for crowd support. This is not that race at all, and I’m glad I went back to try it again. I’m only sorry that I waited so long to look at it again, because I’m not sure when it changed. Nice course for hill work while remaining fast. My knee is still acting up and I was less than 30 seconds off my PR time, so despite the hills, they are short for the most part (horizontally) and you’ll make up for it on the way down. Most of it through neighborhoods and despite cold windy conditions a lot of people were out cheering, so go Westport, way to bring it! Starting area was great, with a bunch of stalls from local artists/craftsmen (not affiliated with the race, but co-located, which made that nice. Ran out of my shirt size despite registering 2 months ago, so that was disappointing and I have to take away a shoe, but ample coffee at starting line, which was needed on a cold windy morning. Medal was nice for a 2″ with the date of the race on there and more of a classic design to it with minimal color, but classy not boring. Big do-again for this one. One water stop on the course. I’m a big drinker since I’m carrying a load on my back, but I also bring my own hydration. If you’re one too, just don’t expect much on the course and plan accordingly. Also, no mile markers on the course. I find it motivating to see them waving in the wind up ahead of you, providing a level of precision that a watch just doesn’t. For someone who likes tracking splits/split progression, that’s minus a shoe. Plus, come on folks, it’d only be 2 of them. Couldn’t get those out there? Despite the hiccups, absolute do again race for me, and not just because this is slow season.

Nice medium rolling hills around a lake with an attached stretch by the road. Wide sidewalk and one land shut down though, so plenty of room to maneuver around other people. I was visiting family from out of town, and packet pickup was right around the corner from where I was staying, but there is no race-day pickup, which, as someone who travels up to an hour each weekend for a race, it’s a personal pet peeve of mine even for local races to not do same day PPU. This race started late and was less than 1k people, which seems like same day should have been doable. From the Race’s standpoint, it also means no same day PPU would have ruled out anybody from out of town who didn’t want to spend the night or drive out twice, which seems like bad business. As such, have to deduct a shoe for Race Production.

The few support people on the course and at the water station were reasonably motivated. With the course largely in a park there was little need for a lot of road closures, and there was never really an issue of not knowing where to go. On course mile-markers are always a plus.

Race swag….no finisher medal. Some people don’t care. I get it. Some people chase bling. I’m in the latter category, particularly for out-of-town races I do. I did 61 races so far this year. 58 came with finisher medals, so I feel like that IS kind of the standard, particularly for a full-price race. If you want to offer a “no frills” option with no T/medal, sure…more options are always super, but I feel like an opportunity is missed again to pull in the out-of-towners and bling chasers. The long-sleeve, hooded, tech T is nice though, and the turkey hat is warm (and cute) so while I would normally give a no-medal race a 3 for swag, I’ll give them a 3.5 and round up to 4 on this one.