We’re not in Kansas anymore…or wait…are we?

Shortly after landing at Kansas City International airport on Friday evening The Girl expressed some concern that the car rental driver said we were actually in Missouri.  It’s at this point I remembered from the last time I was in the region that despite landing in Kansas City…you’re not in Kansas.

Nope, you’re in Kansas City, Missouri.

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Yup, it’s confusing.

And yes, it gets more confusing.

See, we were headed to Manhattan.  No, not Manhattan, New York.  Rather – Manhattan, Kansas.

It’s in the middle of nowhere, that’s all ya really need to know location-wise.

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(Sorry about the splats on the windshield, we killed a lot of rather large bugs on the way)

Eventually after a few hours of driving across lots of pretty grass, we found it.

We were there for a friends wedding.  In fact, it was these friends who ultimately introduced The Girl and I to each other.  They organize the Pacers Fun Run group where we met. This is the group that runs every Tues/Thurs/Sat from various Pacers stores.  In the summer the group can easily reach 50+ people a night.

Of course, given there was a good population of runners going out there, that meant that the very first thing to do Saturday morning was a fun-run…in Kansas.  Just like every other Saturday morning, it started at 7AM.  Except this time we wouldn’t be running around Washington DC, we’d be running around Kansas State University in Manhattan, Kansas.

The 5K route was designed to incorporate all of the portions of the campus special to the bride and groom – who met at K-State.

Shortly after some wedding-esque runner photos, we headed out:

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The tour took us pretty much everywhere.  We went past the Chapel where they’d get married a few hours later.  We ran down ‘Lovers Lane’ (an actual street), and we ran past the field house:

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We then went past one of their stadiums (though, not the football one), and even took a bit of a lap around the perimeter track:

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Now despite virtually everyone in the group having had run more marathons than fingers on your hands, the pace was nice and relaxed – just one big group running easy paces, chattin’ it up.

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After we finished the first 5K loop, a smaller group of us went out for another whirl around the course.  We were pretty excited that we didn’t get lost along the way!

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Of course, after running there was the whole wedding bit!  But I certainly wouldn’t want to be posting any pics of the bridal party before the bridal couple gets to do so, so I’m just gonna say it was an amazing wedding with tons of great friends around!

However I can show you a picture of my beautiful date.

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AND that our table was labeled 26.2  🙂

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The rest of the weekend was spent celebrating and relaxing!

After our flight back Sunday afternoon, we headed out and knocked out a nice medium distance ‘long ride’ just prior to sunset here in DC.  Perfect weather for it!

Have a great week all!  I’ve got lots of awesome stuff coming up this week…so hang on!

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14 Comments

  1. You two both look fantastic! 🙂

  2. SAC

    Ha! Been reading your site for a few months now, and guess where I went to school? K-state! Hope you had a good trip.

  3. SSB

    I have family in Manhattan Kansas.

  4. You should have ran Rock the Parkway Saturday in KC – Missouri side that is. MO or KS thing is no biggie after a while. Spent 18 months in manhattan for work. Good roads for riding until they chip sealed them. =)

  5. Too bad you couldnt stick around for Sunday. We (I am a KS resident)had the annual Brew to Brew race yesterday. We ran from Boulevard Brewery in KC, MO to Free State Brewery in Lawrence KS at KU. It was a 44 mile relay of hot at extremly gusty running. It was a great day for a run despite running with a head wind the entire time.

  6. For a guy that’s been everywhere in the world, I never would have guessed that you would spend a weekend in the “Little Apple” 🙂 Thanks for visiting our town and posting pics!

  7. Funny–I live 10 minutes from KCI now, and went to college at K-State. Hopefully you had a chance to hit Aggieville b/f you left. Good pics–brings back memories!

  8. Rob

    I’m curious, just how long is “a nice medium distance ‘long ride’”? I only ask because I was able to get in a 50 mile ride here in DC on sunday as well, and that was the longest I’ve ever done. (Slowly working up towards 100.)

  9. Funny that you were here (KCMO). It’s really not confusing once you live here for a bit. My parent’s live about 30 mins from Manhattan. I hope you had fun while you were here!

  10. You are lucky they took you around campus and not on a country road where you could fully experience midwestern spring winds!

  11. Very cool! I live in Manhattan, KS and run around the campus all of the time. I hope you enjoyed your visit and the run through campus. I actually might have passed your group on my long run that Saturday!

  12. Anonymous

    Nice to see you stopped by in Kansas. You should visit the other University a 80 or so miles to the East. Also, have you ever though about coming out for the 70.3 Ironman Kansas?

  13. Thanks Anon!

    Indeed, wish my trip had more time! I’ve pondered the 70.3 race there, but hasn’t quite made it onto the list yet. I almost made it (some of the the coures) part of my training that weekend, but the wedding ended up mid-day, so no luck.

  14. Just saw this post! You drove right past me too (Topeka) on the way to/from Manhattan. I see you had some tuxedo rice crispy treats from Hazel Hill…those things are awesome!