St. Louis Marathon and Trip 4 2 2023

 

GO St Louis Marathon

April 2, 2023

5:16:41 901/1067  Overall 6/9 in 70-79

Jodi 10K: 1:05:23  390/891 overall 10/40 in 50-54

 

            Jodi and I took late flight into St. Louis, arriving at the hotel at 2am Friday morning. We got a motel ½ mile from the airport so we could use motel shuttle to get there and get to rental car in the morning. We went to expo which was outside in a large park and about ½ mile long. GO stands for “Great Outdoors” so almost all the booths were related to canoes, camping, trailers, etc. We had to walk the length of the booths to get to our bibs and then walk back; glad we went Friday and not day before.  We then took a trolley tour of the city which included views of the stadium where the St. Louis Rams used to play; there was big young girls’ volleyball tournament there over the weekend. We also drove through Forest Park which is 600 acres bigger than NYC’s Central Park and has museums, statues including one of Saint Louis, and 3 nine-hole golf courses. We found out how “toasted ravoli” and “gooey butter cake” were created by accidents and then became St. Louis specialties. (We ate both of those during the weekend.) We checked into our downtown hotel which was only about a half-mile from the arch (we had great views of it from our hotel room each day), Busch Stadium, and the finish of the races.

            Saturday morning, Jodi and I learned the history of the St Louis Arch and took the tram up to the top. In the afternoon we watched Cardinal-Blue Jay game at Busch Stadium. Unfortunately it was 45 degrees and very windy so we felt like we were back at Candlestick Park☹ It was fun to see the beautiful new ballpark. It’s their 3^rd park and I’ve been to all 3 over the years.

            Weather Sunday morning was chilly and slightly windy and overall good for running, but the course had some steep inclines and a lot of rolling hills. My legs didn’t seem to want to run very fast, but I did mostly run/walk at 4/:30 and later miles 3/:30. Best part was Jodi  running the 10K in great time (over 6 minutes faster than at Las Cruces in January) and then coming back to cheer for me at miles 11 and 16 and finish! After the race we ate at Pappy’s where we saw the biggest smokers we’ve ever seen. The ribs were sooo good! We then took a relaxing steamboat ride on the Mississippi and later got some amazing ice cream at a neighborhood specialty ice cream shop.

            On the walk from our hotel to breakfast on Monday morning, we happened to see the St. Louis Federal Reserve building and note that they had a free museum that we could tour. We learned a lot doing that, getting to see gold, currency, and descriptions of how economic policy works (or doesn’t).

 

This was Marathon #180; 39 states+DC on 2nd go-round; All 10 Canadian provinces.

Next marathon: Pittsburgh May 7

Marathon photos: https://photos.shutterfly.com/album/1762359586718444