Race: Salina Crossroads Marathon 2025 in Salina, Kansas

Time of Year and Weather: First Saturday in November. Really fantastic day for running — mostly sunny, 45-60 degrees, BUT WINDY. I didn’t mind it too much – better than rain!

Course: Two loops of the same route around Salina. Somehow it felt like we just went through parks for most of it, plus past a country club and a few residential areas. Really a nice course especially for a small town. Mostly flat and fast as advertised BUT there were 2-3 significant hills and then a few other rolling hills in the country club portion. All pavement.

Logistics and Support: I had heard really great things about this marathon, even though I had never heard of Salina (Sa – LYE – Nuh), Kansas, before. After running the race, I understand why. First, registration was super easy and only $20. Yeah. So after my time felt a little unsatisfying at Monument Marathon in Nebraska, I saw this and decided to go for it, with the aim to finish under 4 hours, which I haven’t done since before I had my two kids. We drove to Salina from Colorado basically all day Friday (oof it was long but it was fine, better than having to fly somewhere). Salina is right on I-70 and we’ve actually driven right past it before without noticing it. We got to the Homewood Suites at about 6:30 pm. My husband booked this and I’m so glad this is what he chose, although I’m not really sure what other options are around, especially because we had our dog with us. This ended up being the host hotel, right on the course (we ran past it 4 times!). It was much nicer than I’d expected – a little step up from a Residence Inn situation, I’d say.

While my husband checked into the hotel, my kids and I went to the packet pickup room. Super easy – no lines, a few vendors, a cute photo spot with some fun signs. They had race shirts available at registration but they offered an option to decline, which I did since I have too many t-shirts as it is! After dropping the bib and our bags in our room, we came back down to the first floor of the Homewood Suites and grabbed some dinner (more on that below). Then it was bedtime and a long night of sleep because the race didn’t start until 8 am and it started half a mile from the hotel – ah love convenience! I woke up around 6:30, had my breakfast (there was a complimentary breakfast but I skipped it on Saturday morning to stick with what I’ve been practicing with my RD – Pop Tarts and Gatorade), and hung out in our hotel room (ahem used the toilet at my leisure). At 7:40 I decided it was probably time to make my way downstairs and do the 10 minute walk to the start line.

On course, aid stations were stocked with water, yellow Gatorade (I liked that they just stuck to one color, and the Gatorade was in Gatorade cups vs. the blue water cups and very easy to see which you wanted), bananas, Gu, and some first aid items such as petroleum jelly, which I ended up using at mile 14 or so for a chafing armpit situation. After the race, there were medals, water, and some food available. I grabbed the Edward’s chocolate pie and did NOT regret that decision. There was also breakfast pizza and some burgers but I didn’t immediately notice veggie options and in any event wasn’t particularly hungry.

The race directors had great communication leading up to the race and, as with my experience in Nebraska, everyone we encountered was very nice at this race – lots of volunteers, nice crowd support for a race of this size, etc.

How It Went: So, per above, I was aiming for a sub-4 hour finish. I used to do that regularly, but since having my kids, my times have been… not that. I ran a 4:11 at Monument Marathon at the end of September on a course that ended up being a little trickier than I’d anticipated. So I decided I’d give this one a go at a little lower elevation, all pavement, less vert, cooler weather, etc. I left the hotel at 7:45 for the 8 am start, doing a little warm up walk/hop situation to the starting area. I decided to run into the portapotties for a quick pee at the start area because better safe than sorry (plenty of portapotties at this race woohoo!) and then positioned myself in the general vicinity of the 4 hr marathon pacer and the 2 hr half marathon pacer.

And then we started! I knew the two loops for this race were going to be a mental challenge, so I decided to use the structure to my advantage – just run a 2 hr first half… and then do that again. I was trying to think of the first half as a warmup. For some reason, the 4 hr pacer took OFF at the start of this race. No idea what splits he was going for, but I was even a little fast and he got way ahead of me. OK, see ya. But the 2 hr half pacer was behind me so I knew I was ok. I just checked my watch every mile to make sure I was somewhere near 9:09 per mile. I had Stinger gummies with me – same thing I used for training because my RD is teaching me how to actually you know, fuel my body, carb load, stop being a ding dong that sabotages myself, etc etc. — and started nibbling those from the start. I also took Gatorade at every stop. The day was extremely windy but this was Kansas after all so I don’t think I can complain. I was just glad it wasn’t hot or raining. At mile 2 or 3 I felt like I sort of had to pee but I never know if it’s a real need to pee or a phantom one. At mile 4 I saw an available portapotty so I decided to go for it and was pleasantly surprised when it was a real need to pee. OK then! Onward.

The first lap actually was nice to give me the lay of the land so that I knew what kind of chunks to use to break up the second loop. Somehow they figured out how to make this route have many miles in multiple parks or recreation areas around town (a couple of bigger hills toward the end of this chunk), then around a country club (some rolling hills here), then back into a park, then the chunk I termed “the homestretch” in my brain. It was all very pleasant.

As we neared the end of the first loop, I was feeling good. Like “man, if I was just finished now that would be NICE” good. But I knew I had another loop. We ran right past the finish line and just kept on going, the population of runners dramatically crashing so only us nutty ones remained. OK, I told myself, the race begins now. But, I’ve been here before. First, the out and back to the cool building with the big fountain. Back to the hotel (grabbing some petroleum jelly at the aid station here for a chafing armpit despite this being like the 30th marathon with this style of bra). Then to the first park section, around that loop and the next loop. Over to another park section. Up the steep hill that some people thought was over after the false summit but they must not live in Colorado because I never fall for false summits anymore. Down the hill, through the rest of the park. Up again towards the country club, where the Wizard of Oz wind will definitely be right in our faces. Somewhere around this point, approximately mile 20, I found the 4 hr pacer. Only two people remained with him, for better or worse. I thought about asking him what his split strategy was but instead I ran past them, encouraged by the fact that I only had 6 miles left at this point (turns out running 13 miles is so much easier than running 26, even if it’s just a lie you tell yourself). Into the last out and back park section, which was longer than I’d remembered but probably kept me sane by not making the “homestretch” three stupidly fast miles. But then we were out on the final road, running over the train tracks and not falling (thank goodness… in my tall shoes!). I started ticking off people not because I was feeling competitive but because I had some gas left in the tank to burn and this was the time to use it. I decided with a mile left that I needed to push the pedal even more. I counted down from 10, one for each tenth of a mile. At six left I regretted this decision. But at three left, there were people cheering and I wasn’t going to stop at that point, even though the .2 is way longer than one might think. I ran properly, knees high, to the finish line, with spectators saying “whoa,” which is very satisfying. I finished in 3:52:06, beyond my expectations and goal. Whew.

Love a good negative split race, and here’s some data on people-passing on the second loop:

What To Do In Salina, Kansas: We actually found plenty to do in and around this small town.

• The Friday before the race is a “First Friday” for downtown Salina, meaning the stores stay open, there may be music, etc. We got in right at dinner time and were tired from driving and hungry so we didn’t venture out for this but I am sure it was cute. Downtown Salina is very walkable – it’s just a few blocks — but it has several shops and restaurants.
• Instead of going out for First Friday, we had dinner on Friday night at YaYa’s which is the restaurant attached to the Homewood Suites. It had good reviews and a friend of mine who is from the area also endorsed it. It was pretty darn good! We surprisingly had no wait for a table and the food and service was good. The kids were happy with their little coloring sheets. The best thing we ate was the complimentary babaganoush and bread to start the meal, but I also had totally pleasant pasta pomodoro. Oh, and I finished up my carb loading with two rounds of a strawberry cucumber mocktail… and a butter cake.

• On Saturday during the race, my husband took the kids to Rock City which was a little drive away from Salina. It’s basically a park with a bunch of funky rock formations that kids (or adults) can climb. My kids loved it. My husband said there was basically no one there. Dogs allowed if they are on a leash!

• There are also other distance races available if you have a crew that prefers that. My kids did not want to do the kids’ fun run for some reason. But they did hang out at the finish to watch me cross the line, which was fun for me.
• After the race, we grabbed a quick lunch to go from Umami Bowl on the main street. This hit the spot after running and wasn’t so heavy to make my stomach get weird.

• Next, we went to the Rolling Hills Zoo, because we are total zoo people. We always make sure the zoos we go to are AZA accredited and this one was! It was small but had some great animals, including a few things we don’t have at the Denver Zoo and very visible maned wolves – the same species we tried to see at the San Diego Zoo earlier this year but which were hiding there. The zoo was practically empty on the Saturday afternoon and it was so nice to walk around. Highly recommend.

• After the zoo, on our way back to downtown Salina, we saw a bakery stand labeled on our navigation map and decided to make a small detour to check it out. It was Carter’s Bakery which was a little shed building with various baked items, veggies, etc. for sale. It was easy to pay with Venmo. We especially liked the cheddar jalapeño loaf.

• Back in Salina, we decided to do a proper walk up and down the main street before grabbing dinner. Note that many of the stores close at 4 or 5, so make sure you do this before then if you want to do more than window shop.
• After taking our lap of downtown, we headed into Martinelli’s, an Italian restaurant that had also been recommended. This place was cute and again service was so nice. I got yummy stuffed manicotti and we split some shockingly good cannoli and tiramisu.

There were a few things that we’d heard about that we actually didn’t have time to get to: Kanopolis Lake State Park, the town of Lindborg (mini Sweden situation), a car museum, and Ferris Caves.

Bottom Line: Like It. Would definitely recommend to anyone looking for a chill (or fast!) marathon or half marathon, especially if they live within driving distance. Salina isn’t necessarily a place I’d make a trip for under other circumstances, but it was a nice host town for this race.