Wednesday, August 10, 2005

Kansas City, Kansas City Here I Come.....

With a detour to Manhattan, Kansas AKA The Little Apple.

Normally I'd leave for Nationals on Thursday, but I decided to make a side trip to visit family out here. I left on Tuesday for Kansas City. I wasn't figuring on seeing anyone at the airport heading out for the race this early. I was wrong. I spotted one of the women I know from last year's Worlds and Nationals. She had on a Team USA shirt so I recognized her. It was nice to hang out and talk to her since the the plane was late. Sheila is in the 65-69 age group, so she's already qualified for Worlds. She's part of the generation of women who have gotten into the sport later in life. The age group is much smaller. When she was in her 50s there weren't many so it wasn't hard to win. I can remember going to races with Jeannie who is around rhe same age as Sheila. She was always winning the age group with times that were so much slower then what I do now in my 50s. I'm an early Title IX woman so my age group is still pretty well populated on the National level. My generation was just entering college when Title IX kicked in so we got the early effects of it. There are women in their 50s who can run a 7:00 minute mile, When Jeannie and Sheila were in their 50s there probably weren't many gals running those types of times.

Sheila is an amazing lady. She's done a triathlon in every single state, including Ironman in Kona. I think that would be cool to do a race in every state. I'd love to add Hawaii to my short list thought it won't be for Kona. I have a long way to go.

States I've done so far:

New England: MA, NH, CT, NY
Mid Atlantic: NJ, DE, MD
South East: FL
Other: LA, and after Saturday, MO.

10 down 40 to go.

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