2007 Kansas City Marathon

3. Kansas City Marathon – Kansas City, Mo. – Oct. 20, 2007

Who says you can never go home? Runner’s Edge of the Rockies chartered a bus from Denver to the town I grew up in. I couldn’t resist joining them. However, with DU soccer season in full swing and the basketball season coming up fast, I decided to fly. OK, so maybe I just didn’t want to ride in any more buses than I had to (it’s pretty common when traveling with a basketball team).

There were probably 40-50 of us from the group that made the trip. We all stayed down near Crown Center, and I did my best to meet up with as many old friends as I could.

The race started with a loop around downtown, climbed up to the Liberty Memorial, shot through midtown – including a trip past the first of three delicious smelling Gate’s BBQ restaurants along the course – and then headed through the Plaza. I felt great as we headed up the most severe hill on the course toward Waldo. Greg Johnson, one of my college roommates, and his family cheered me on through Brookside at the halfway point, where I crossed the timing mat and realized I’d hit a PR for the half – not necessarily the best idea when running a full marathon, a lesson I should have learned during this race but didn't (see future marathons). Right around that time, I took some sort of gel and, if the wheels were going to come off, the lug nuts were loosened. My stomach went from asking for nutrients to screaming. I pushed it about as far as I could, but at the 17-mile mark I needed a port-a-potty.

I still felt pretty good when I made the turn onto the only out-and-back on the course. My friend Dave Longcope, who was there cheering on his then-girlfriend/now wife, jumped on the course and ran a few hundred feet with me, encouraging me and telling me how good I looked.

Unfortunately, a few miles later, I once again met the wall. I ran into Jim Turosak, a friend from Runner’s Edge, and both of us needed a walk break, even though neither of us wanted it. We pushed each other through the next few miles, and as we crested a hill around the 23-mile mark, downtown was in sight and I could sense the finish.

With a little more than a mile to go, the course passes through the 18^th and Vine neighborhood, a Mecca for jazz. It’s also the location of the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum, a great museum that is well worth a visit (although not in the middle of running a race). When I was about 11 years old, my friend Bobby (now Bob) Haskin and his family would take me to Kansas City Royals games. We’d insist on getting there early so we could try to get autographs. At Royals Stadium (now Kauffman Stadium), there was a single seat right behind the plate. We always thought it was funny that someone would come to a game and sit in a seat with nobody else with him. One day we saw an older gentleman sitting in that seat, and I asked him about it. It turns out, he was a scout for the Royals, which is why he sat alone – no distractions.

Buck O'Neil always had that

giant smile on his face

He told us his name was Buck O’Neil. And over the next few years, we would look for Buck before every game we went to. His stories about playing for the Kansas City Monarchs with Satchel Paige, managing Jackie Robinson, and scouting Ernie Banks and Lou Brock were always fun to hear. Buck loved people, and I always loved talking to him. His smile was infectious, and I know I wouldn’t have developed a lifelong love of baseball if it weren’t for Buck. Later, Buck would achieve his dream of building the aforementioned Negro Leagues Museum, and he established some renown during Ken Burns’ series on baseball. Buck was an outstanding player, manager and scout, but above all else he did more for the game than just about anyone else in history. There have been movements to get him in the Hall of Fame. Inexplicably, all have failed. Over the past couple of decades, steroids have damaged the reputation of Major League Baseball. To me, the failure of putting one of the most important people in baseball history in the Hall of Fame is an even bigger travesty. Failing to put Buck O’Neil in the Hall of Fame prior to his death in 2006 is nearly unforgivable. (I highly recommend Joe Posnanski's book The Soul of Baseball: A Road Trip Through Buck O'Neil's America to everyone, whether you're a baseball fan or not. Trust me, you'll love Buck within the first few chapters.)

Back to the marathon, the course does a U-turn near Arthur Bryant’s BBQ (more tempting and taunting smells wafting in the air) and turns onto 17^th Avenue, which was labeled Buck O’Neil Drive. Buck passed away a year before the race, but seeing a street named after him was enough inspiration to push me the final mile to the finish. I crossed the finish line near Union Station at 3:43 and spent the next hour cheering on friends who were coming to the finish.

In addition to a pair of shirts (one for participating, one for finishing), the race organizers put a gift card for Jack’s Stack BBQ into each goody bag. Needless to say, we knew where we were going for dinner that night. Each of us had $25 to spend, and we did our best to eat and drink all of it, which almost made up for making run through so many barbeque smells along the route. We met up with my brother Dave and several friends for drinks that night before calling it a successful marathon weekend. The Runner’s Edge folks drove back that night. I stuck around to spend a little more time in KC.