Kansas City

I had another "Wow, I might really be a real runner" moment while I was packing for our trip to Kansas City for the 4th of July and packed not only the obligatory set of workout clothes that always stay in my suitcase but a second running outfit along with all of my running gear. It occurred to me that I was actually going to run while out of town. I stuck to my plan and ran both mornings that we were in KC.

I really enjoyed my runs and believe that they helped make this one of my favorite trips to KC. The runs allowed me to experience Overland Park in a new way. As a traffic engineer I have always admired how efficient the Kansas City (Kansas) arterial street network is but it wasn't until this trip that I realized that KC generally designed "complete streets" before this became the trendy thing to do. All of the streets that I ran on from major arterials to collectors to neighborhood streets had nice, well maintained sidewalks that were connected to the Overland Park multi-use trail.

So it seems that Overland Park is a great place for running except for one small problem, the extreme humidity (at least to a Denverite). It reminded me of the couple of days that I tried to take up running in Atlanta. Needless to say, that never really caught on. I was curious to see how I would feel running at a lower elevation. Any benefit that I got from the elevation was negated by the humidity! My pace was pretty consistent with what I've been running here but I think I sweat twice as much.

Overall, it was a fun trip and a lot of fun to see Elias spend time with his aunts, uncles, grandparents, and great-grandparents. Only downside was that the fireworks were rained out. All in all it was worth the 10 hours in the car each way. Plus, the long drive to Kansas made me think that if we can spend that long in the car I should be able to run 13 miles.