Weekly Recap & Running in Kansas City, MO

Another week of Grandma’s Marathon training complete! This week including a short trip to visit my younger sister in Kansas City to meet my new nephew. I had a great time exploring Kansas City for the first time. I especially loved having the opportunity to spend time with Laurie in her first few months as a new mom.

Let me back up a bit and tell you how the week went with fitness:

Monday: “Change of Pace Workout:” 2 mile warm up, 3×1 mile with 400m recovery at goal marathon pace, then 2 mile cool down. This workout was made tougher because the recovery 1/4 mile was at goal marathon pace. My legs were definitely tired from a big week the previous week and the 25k on Saturday. This was a challenging workout, but I managed to stay pretty close to pace. Total: 7.75 miles

Tuesday: Another day at run club. I made it there two days this week, woo-hoo! I did 8 easy miles with my friend Christie.

Wednesday: Rest, C2 yoga at Corepower

Thursday: Morning hill workout. This was a really rough workout. I felt nauseous and my legs felt really tired. I pushed through, but definitely would consider this workout a fail. I think the past few weeks of hard training caught up with me on this workout. I was lucky though, as I just missed the pouring rain that blew in right when I finished. 7 miles total. I was glad I got it in as I had a flight to catch after work.

Friday: 17 mile long run in Kansas City! I flew down to KC after work on Thursday and my sister helped me plan out a route from her house in north Kansas City. The route took me took a cute little town called Parkville, where there was a park called English Landing by the Missouri River.

It seemed like it would be a fun place to run, with 3 miles of trails and a track, as well as a dog park for your furry friend. I was already at mile 10 by the time I got to the park, so I had to head back and couldn’t explore very much, but I would definitely recommend this cute park.

The Long Run Details:
The weather during my Kansas City long run was perfect- clear blue skies and temperatures starting in the upper 40’s rising up to the mid-60s. During the run (as pictured in the title picture), I wore my Oiselle Roga shorts, a Run MSP tank from Gear, my Brooks Ravennas, this hat from Athleta, and a borrowed-from-Laurie- Run Swiftly long sleeve from lululemon. I ended up tying the long-sleeve around my waist pretty early in the run. I heat up fast and probably shouldn’t have worn it.

I have still been using my GoodSport Anti-Chafing cream too. I carried Gatorade in my Nathan fuel belt and used two GU’s during the run. I actually had to stop at a gas station to buy chapstick because the combination of wind and sun was killing me. But I didn’t mind stopping, as I took this run nice and easy and didn’t worry at all about pace, especially since Kansas City is much hillier than I expected!

It was perfect timing for me to visit my younger sister, as my oldest sister was finishing up her visit there with her three daughters and husband. (This is the sister who was recently quoted in this blog post about running when pregnant- check it out!) We were all able to grab lunch together before they caught their flight home.

After lunch, Laurie and I did some shopping at “Country Club Plaza” which was a really cute part of Kansas City. I did pick up a few new finds in fitness fashion- stay tuned for those in some upcoming Fitness Fashion Fridays!

I also bought a pair of “jorts” at JCrew per Laurie’s encouragement. We also discovered that the baby stroller makes a great place to hang items you’re looking to try on!

My cute little nephew wasn’t too interested in shopping and slept through it all.

No trip to Kansas City is complete without some BBQ, so we had dinner Friday night at Jack Stack. Good times.

Saturday: My sister is just a mere 8 weeks post-baby but she already has a half marathon on her schedule in June. She said she registered for the race so that she would have the motivation to get out there and run again. We covered 4 miles together and it was GREAT! I love bonding with my sister(s) while running.

I did actually have 8 on my schedule for the day, so I just split it up and ran the second 4 after I returned to Minneapolis that evening. Gorgeous weather for both runs- I guess it was a good day for running across the Midwest!

Sunday: 7.5 miles with Matilda and Dustin; he had run TWENTY-SIX miles yesterday for his 50k training and had another TEN on the schedule today. He joined Matilda and me for part of his run and then went on for more.

Summary: About 55 miles, 1 yoga class, no strength training

The past two weeks have been a struggle to fit in strength training. I definitely need to figure that out, as its important to me. I also didn’t fit in either of the double runs that my coach put on the schedule. I haven’t given up on the idea of double runs yet, but I just couldn’t fit them in with traveling. This upcoming week is actually a bit of a “cutback” week in training, so no double runs on the schedule and a bit more time for my legs to recover from a big week, which will be grand.

Have you been to Kansas City? Had any BBQ there? Gone for any runs?
I thought it was a cool city and I can see why my sister and her husband like it there. They have lived in a variety of places across the country, but Kansas City seems like a good fit for them and for raising a family. It was an easy flight (just an hour) for me to visit, so I will definitely be back more frequently in the near future!