Crouched just behind the finish line, I trained my camera on the next runner coming home. It was just after 11 a.m., an hour before cutoff, and the Golden Hour was already living up to its name. A group of volunteer...
Articles by Kristi Mayo
The White Trail Support Group is: “A place for runners personally victimized by the White Trail at Clinton Lake to heal and share their harrowing stories of survival.”Have you been traumatized by the rocks, roots, switch...
Each November, the Lawrence Trail Hawks running club of Lawrence, Kansas, hosts a 50k, 25k and 10k trail run as a fundraiser for a different local charity. The event, Sanders Saunter, has the feeling of a family reunion:...
If you’re searching for a trail race during any season in Kansas, there’s a good chance you’ll stumble across a few hosted by the Lawrence Trail Hawks. This tight-knit running group – wielding the motto “kindness to life...
The day began in the dark, in the middle of a paved county road, on the outskirts of the tiny railroad town of Cassoday, KS. After a quick countdown and the command, “Go,” the field of 59 runners shuttled away under a br...
About 20 minutes west of Salina, KS, we steer the Jeep south. The landscape around us buckles and folds into undulating topography in shades of gold and green. This year it’s an early spring, so the Chickasaw plums are i...
The Kansas Fall Ultra Extravaganza served up three distances ranging from 50k to 100 miles along the rails-to-trails Prairie Spirit Trail course. While the race event management company, Epic Ultras, has offered various...
The mid-morning lull at race headquarters broke when race staff started getting texts and phone calls from out on the course: first place was closing in on the last aid station. First place in the marathon? someone asked...
In a state known for its wide-open prairies and mind-numbing miles of wheat fields, the FlatRock 101K course presents itself as a Kansas anomaly. The 15-mile single-track trail is situated at the edge of the Chautauqua H...
In the Kansas City area, it rained 27 out of 31 days in May. The clay-based trails in this part of the world do not usually drain well, so wet weather means mindful trail users must find other surfaces on which to train...
By most accounts, the conditions at the third annual Prairie Spirit Trail 100- and 50-mile races weren’t much to write home about: highs in the lower 50s, lows in the upper 30s and no precipitation. That meant 75 runners...
In 12 years, fewer than 5% of the finishes at Psycho Wyco Run Toto Run 50k have been under five hours. And only one person—Scott Gall of Cedar Falls, IA—has broken the four-hour barrier. And now he’s done it twice. I...
Reflecting on her finish at the 15th Annual Heartland 100 in Cassoday, KS, April Calaway wrote: “This is surreal. It surpassed even my fantasy goals. My number-one goal was to finish… and then I wanted to go under 20 hou...