Plan: head out from the hotel, run around the city, and make my way back home!
Distance: about 3 miles
Time: not sure. The running ap failed, and I didn't bring my sports watch
Performance Stats (out of 5 ★)
Legs: ★ ★ ★
Gut: ★ ★ ★
Energy: ★ ★ ★ ★
Mind: ★ ★ ★ ★ .5
Overall: ★ ★ ★ ★
Soundtrack: not on this run
One of the benefits of being busy at work is that you occasionally find opportunity to fly to cool cities for conferences. With the right amount of planning, this allows you to get in some pretty cool runs in pretty cool places. While out in Kansas City for a computer / IT conference, I found some time to sneak out at lunch today, and get a few miles in.
To be honest, this really is the first day that I have felt myself after my most recent viral illness that nicely overlapped my strep throat from two weeks ago. Also, I was still a little concerned about my sore left ankle, following the half marathon almost three weeks ago. But I had the chance to get a few miles of this unknown city covered, and I was feeling up for the challenge so away I went.
Now I usually save the photo gallery for my Races page, but there was just too much great opportunities to get some of the feel of this part of the city on "film" that I am going to put it in right here.
**** Click on the photos below to see each photo in the gallery ****
**** Click on the photos above to see each photo in the gallery ****
So this part of town where my hotel is located really isn't the most fancy neighborhood. In fact, it appears quite poor, outdated and in places run down. I wasn't sure if it was even OK to be running around this neighborhood, but it was twelve noon, and my experience is that in the middle of the day, almost everyone will leave the guy running along the streets alone.
Stepping out the sliding glass door of the hotel it was chilly and overcast, but I was excited for my first run in over two weeks. I made a left out of the hotel, and the immediate cross-street was a nice hill. I figured, "why not jump right in?!" and headed up the hill at a decent pace. What this ended up doing was putting me right in the Historic Strawberry Hill district. It's actually pretty cute, but what you quickly realize is that this area was part of the American dream back in the 40's, 50's and 60's and hasn't had a lot of updating since.
Most of the houses are right on top of each other. Many have boarded up windows and doors. On the sidewalks and stone / cement fences in front of the houses were collections of 6 pack of empty beer bottles, car motor oil bottles, old couches and graffiti. Many of the houses had cats, and almost every house had a dog - some little, some big, most behind fences, one big guy on a chain leash (thank goodness!). It's obviously a pretty poor neighborhood, but once you start looking past that you see that everyone here still is living the American dream.
I saw one father step out of the doorway of one of these run-down looking houses with his little son, about to get onto the bus probably for the kindergarten afternoon session. Several of the houses still had very creative and cute painted pumpkins on the doorsteps. Lots of people had taken time to do some landscaping around their small lots of land, and many of the houses were decorated with beautiful wind chimes and vases. My favorite spot was a small community garden with sunflowers and rhubarb still in bloom. It was quite beautiful, and really had a sense of community.
Scattered throughout the community were various churches, clinics, laundromats and corner stores. I guess what hit me most was that this neighborhood really hadn't moved on since probably the sixties. And while that might not be the best for the overall upkeep of the buildings, you still got the sense that community was very important to the surrounding neighbors.
Turning the corner, I was back in the heart of the city, with the huge City Hall, Memorial Buildings and Catholic Churches. Before I knew it I was back at my hotel, a little out of breath, and a little sweaty. It was a great return to running after a few weeks off. I'm glad that I made the time to get out and explore this small part of Kansas City, and I hope you enjoyed hearing a little about it.