Hello,

First, I have got to share this video. If you run marathons you’ll probably get a laugh:

OK, now onto my recap of Day 4 of the Center of the Nation Series, which was Montana I ! But of course if you’ve missed Part 1 just go here. For Part 2 go here and for Part 3 go here.

After another early morning wake up call (I think about 3:30am), the team got ready and packed up for the day (we actually needed to pack an overnight bag as we would be driving directly to Nebraska to a Hampton Inn after we were done running in Montana.)

The night before was the harvest full moon:

And when we arrived at the Montana course, it was just before sunrise and the moon was still out:

The course was situated on a ranch in Albion, Montana where an old schoolhouse remained. This course was my FAVORITE of the courses for a few reasons.

1. The weather starting out was great! Cold and windy but invigorating and the sun arose to give the most beautiful lighting. Everyone looked like they were glowing!. (It actually got to be overcast and so ridiculously windy that it became a challenge about 5 miles in and I really did feel for the full marathoners who had to fight it way longer than I did) But I always focus on the positive right?!

2. The scenery. Coming from New York City, it isn’t often I see vast open skies and cattle (or bison or buffalo i’m not sure).

3. The course length. Instead of 6 complete laps of 2ish mile out and backs (12 for the full) we did 4 complete laps (with the full doing 8) on a course that was probably just more than a 5k. Psychologically this made the run go by so much faster (although my finish time was not fast. Ha.)

There was really one challenge for me and that was the terrain. The loose gravel road sloped a lot so that you were running at times with one leg much higher off the ground than the other. And if you wanted to pass someone you had to step over into the looser gravel which felt like you were running in sand. But again, I wasn’t passing many people and I wasn’t out there as long as the full marathoners so this wasn’t too much of a challenge for me.

But you can see from these next few pics how windy it got and how cold some of the runners were. One speedy runner actually chose to keep his blue jeans on for warmth!

Again, there was lots of great support from the turnaround crew and so many inspiration people to watch including this couple who ran all 5 full marathons:

And the aid station and volunteers just continued to be top notch! I finished in 2:37:52 and went into the van to get warm and change and then I walked some of the course with Lisa here and there and cheered people on while binging on a bag of salt and vinegar potato chips! Soon the full marathoners were finishing. Mike finished up first, then Roger and Lisa and Elvia.

We took a few post race pics and got back into the warm van to make our way to Nebraska, but not without a celebratory photo op at the Montana state line.

Tomorrow I will be posting the last in this series of recaps. It’s kind of sad. But there are so many more races on the horizon. And I think I might have more to say about this trip after I’ve reflected some more.

To be continued…