Posted by Gail Marino on November 29, 2004 at 09:24:09:
In Reply to: RACE ACROSS AMERICA-Louis Rodriguez updates posted by Gail Marino on August 02, 2004 at 09:02:43:
RAA DAY #40 WEDNESDAY 7/21/04
It is dark & warm as we drive 15 miles to today's start in Kensington, Kansas to Mankato, Kansas for 43 miles, with a cutoff time of 12 hrs 17 min. The mornings are much warmer now that we are out of the mountains. Lou & Taka are starting out together, as they have so many times before. Last nights dinner was a subway turkey sandwich because of the late finish & early closures of stores & restaurants. Kaz told us that the triathletes, Bob's family are leaving either tonight or in the morning.
Lou has been trying to get Taka to move today but Taka just does not want to. We have learned that if he is not ready to move, he won't. We are halfway to New York & have grown accustomed to, & learned how Taka, Kaz & Olivier run & respect their wishes, as they have ours. So we run with Taka for a while & move on when he asks us to. The scenery is filled with fields of soybeans, corn, wheat & sunflower. Lou starts running after about 10 miles of walking. The course is a straight run on route 36 but at 19 miles, we catch up to Russell & so now we must start walking again. At about 25 miles, we hit a sign "Geographic Center of the United States". The actual site is off of hwy 281, on west 191.
We managed to find some mailboxes along the course for our breast cancer pamphlets. Lou had a close call, as he jumped out of the way of a car swerving from side to side, on & off of the shoulder. The weather stayed warm as Lou finished in 8:54, Olivier 9:14, Kaz 9:45 & Taka 12:13 just 4 min within cutoff. Till tomorrow, Lou & Agnes