High Five Station

Last April after the Boston Marathon bombings, TKB and I were talking about doing something to support the running community.  The upcoming weekend was the Garmin Marathon and we decided to go out and cheer on the runners.  We put out some feelers on Facebook and Karie and Dane showed up with us at 8am that Saturday morning.  It was a complete blast and the "KC High Five Station" was born!

The rest of 2013 did not see the High Five Station reassembled.  I was ramping up my ironman training; in addition, May and June turned out to be heavy race months.

This past April we re-ignited the flame.  We set out the same plan.  We met at the Frontier Park around mile 9 of the half and 15 & 22 of the full around 8am.  This time Kristen joined us for the High Five action!  I learned from last year that our music setup rather sucked.  I just played some tunes from my cell phone in my pocket.  This year I purchased a BIG Jambox.  It doesn't blow people away,  but considering we were in a residential area, that's probably a good thing.

Once all the crew had arrived, we were High Fiving liking there was no tomorrow.  Not too much longer, storms started to roll in.  This was the Garmin Marathon: In The Land Of Oz.  So it would only make sense for them to have thunderstorms rolling in for the event.  It started to mist, then sprinkle, then a full on downpour.  If runners were out there, then so were we.  We didn't experience it in our location, but this storm produced hail!

Downpour!

After about three hours, we threw in the towel for the day.  It was a blast being out there giving back.

We couldn't wait to do this again.  So much so that we met up the next day at mile 3 of The Trolley Run!  This day's crew was Karie, Dane, Ryann, TKB, and me.  It wasn't as long of a day (4 mile race versus a full marathon) but we probably gave out more high fives in that short amount of time.  We held out until the very last runner passed!

Team High Five

Even the little ones get and give some High Five action!

We decided to make an effort to do this at least once a month.  In May we met up again and cheered on runners at the Kansas City Corporate Challenge Half Marathon.  I had some co-workers running, so why not give them a nice cheering section!

Kristen slappin' skin during the KC Corporate "Olympics"

We seem to be perfecting this, so we are all set to cheer on runners at the Hospital Hill Run Half Marathon and 10k on June 7.

If you aren't running, come on out and help us serve up some High Fives!  To know more, keep an eye on our Facebook Page!