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FLRC Newsletter - Aug 2003 |
| 50 States | |
On Thursday, June 19 my husband and I flew to Des Moines, Iowa so I could add Iowa to the states I have run a marathon in. After renting the car and talking with the rental people we learned that Storm Lake would be a 3 hour drive. This was the same amount of time we had just spent flying to Iowa.
The scenery on the way to Storm Lake consisted of cornfield after cornfield. You could always tell when you were approaching a town with the tall Farm Co-op grain silo's located in the center of every town. To my husband's delight nearly each town also had a John Deere dealership. Needless to say we made several stops to look over all the farm machinery.
Storm Lake is a beautiful town where you are greeted with a 56 foot tall lighthouse. The lighthouse was a $100,000 community project designed to position Storm Lake as the shining light of Northwest Iowa. Our hotel, Sail Inn, was the choice hotel in Storm Lake with the view looking directly over the Lake. A paved walkway has been constructed 3/4 of the way around the Lake for runners, walkers and bikers.
On Friday, our day to tour, we visited the nearby Living Heritage Tree Museum. It is a Storm Lake City Park dedicated to planting documented seedlings and cuttings of trees associated with famous people or events. A couple of examples are the willow tree from the grounds of the birthplace of Joan of Arc and The Little House on the Prairie Cottonwood which was taken from a tree grown from a cutting of a cottonwood planted at their homestead by Charles Ingall in DeSmet, SD. This was a very interesting and very pretty memorial park.
We then went onto see the impressive large wind mill farms in the area. Storm Lake has one of the highest elevations in the state and it is always windy. Out last place to tour was the Grotto Of Redemption. This is the largest Grotto in the world and frequently considered the Eighth Wonder of the World. It represents the largest collection of minerals and petrification's concentrated in any spot in the world.
We concluded our tour with a ride over the marathon course. The course had rolling hills with the steepest hill at mile 25.
Friday evening we went to packet pick up and the prerace pasta dinner held at the nearby high school/community college. At the dinner we were told the winds would be 35 miles per hour and the high temperature of the day would be in the mid 80's. It was early to bed because the marathon began at 6am in hopes of beating some of the heat of the day. Marathon Day began with a temperature of 60 degrees.
There were 168 marathoners with 48 of the runners being females. Everyone was very friendly and I chatted with several runners and many were also attempting to run a marathon in all 50 states. The race director had told us the evening before that 30 states were represented plus 2 runners from Germany.
The course support group consisted of farmers working in the fields and waving to us from their John Deere Tractors. The scenery again consisted of cornfields, pig farms and feeding lots for cattle. The route was not closed to traffic so my husband was able to drive by and wave as he made his way to the finish line in Marathon. Winds were 35 miles per hour during the marathon but mainly at our back. They not only cooled us but pushed us along the way. The finish line area could be seen 15 miles away due to the tall Farmer Co-op silos located in Marathon. Just as we entered Marathon the town had erected a huge homemade billboard with the logo of the marathon on it to welcome us.
The winds pushed me across the finish line for a time of 4:11:32 and this placed me second in the 10 year age group.
For the marathon finishers the whole town came out to cook to order a breakfast consisting of omelets and pancakes or we could have a full lunch consisting of turkey tenderloins, salad and baked beans. Two of the farmers had brought in large ice cream makers and made us some delicious homemade vanilla ice cream. A local band was playing to entertain us. The people of Iowa treated us like kings and queens with their hospitality.
We left soon after lunch to make the long journey back to Des Moines. Our flight left very early Sunday morning.
July will be another hot marathon on a very unusual course in Carrollton, Michigan.
Happy Running,
Ruthie
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