Rock the parkway is a very popular kansas city running event. The race route follows Ward Parkway and the surrounding neighborhoods. Big houses, very pretty green spaces, and the thrill of shutting down a major thoroughfare make this THE RACE. Apparently, this was the biggest year so far. With over 6000 participants across both the 5k and half marathon distances.

I was asked in January if I would be interested in pacing the half marathon. Of course i was interested. A free half marathon? Great! And since it was so far in advance I had my pick of pace group. I asked for the 2:30 pace spot so my wife would be able to run with me. Everything was great… until the pacing coordinator retired.

LoL.

Rock the Parkway hired or contracted with a new coordinator. There were some hoops to jump through. The roster was re-organized to make room for regular members of the “smart” pacing group. It seemed like the ones that had been with smart pacing had their pick of spots while the rest of us had to get along where we were put or give up the pacing gig. That’s how it seemed to me. I was moved to the 2:15 spot. No more running with my wife, i guess. Bummer. I was determined, though. Looking back i have no idea why I was so set to pace. I could (should) have given up my place and just had a fun day running with Sydney. I’m just stubborn like that, i suppose.

I could do an entire blog post covering the smart pacing method. Honestly, I’m bored with the whole thing right now so I’ll summarize. Once I was accepted and given a spot, I had to write a little biography for their website. I was brief. If you’re really interested you can find it at smartpacing.com. Probably. They may have deleted it by now.

On the actual day of the race things went well. I found my group. The other pacer was a regular smart pacer so he took the lead, literally and figuratively. I’m smart pacing the pacers are front of the group and back of the group. It’s smart. I like setting up that way.

The lead pacer, whose name I’ve forgotten, was giving pre race instruction to the people around us. Explaining the smart pace methods, how we start slow and easy. I added a few key pointers (it doesn’t matter how you start, the race is long enough to make adjustments. Don’t worry about anything, it’s a 2+ hour fun-run. Things like that.)

As the trail pacer I laid back and made jokes. There were a few laughs. I thought i was hilarious.  There were a few runners that kept up the entire run. There were several first time racers and runners going for a distance personal record. I had a great time helping them out. We finished a bit off pace. I think it’s fine.

The finish line party wasn’t great. It seems to be less impressive every year. The food wasn’t great, the lines were long, and the beer was gone long before we finished.

Every year I say I’m never “rocking the parkway” again. This might be the year, though. It was fine, right? Which is worse than bad. A bad year is an outlier. If it was bad this year, it will be good again. “Fine” is it. It’s fine, this is probably as good as it’s going to be for awhile. Bad is easy to go back to. It begs another chance. Fine is easy to leave behind. If i think something is fine, I’m thinking “let’s see what else there is.”

That’s it. Sorry it took sooo many months for a simple, mostly negative race recap. I hope you like it. It’s probably fine.