Candi's Crew : Goal Post and Kansas Half

Monday, November 2, 2026

Goal Post and Kansas Half

On November 1st, I ran the Kansas Half Marathon for the second time. My favorite part of this race, as a Kansas girlie, is they pick a different Kansas symbol to feature each year. This year was the state reptile, the box turtle! More often than not I am a slow runner, so I wanted all of the turtle running gear! I have a t-shirt, a shoe bag, a medal and a beanie with the box turtle and I love it.

My goal for the race was 2:15 and the pacer that was leading the 2:15 group was confident we could run a sub 2:15. I told him, I just want to run a 2:15 anything, 2:15:59 was just fine with me. But the pacer kept me going and I ended up with a 2:14:53, he wanted me to spring at the end. I didn't, but he was still pretty pumped we finished with a sub 2:15. LOL It's always a good day when you don't let your pacer down.

Wouldn't have had a great race if it wasn't all the training runs with Laura and Aron. I ran for many years by myself and I am so glad I have running friends now. They are the best!

Did some solid work on my goals last month.

Read 30 Books: 25/30 83% done

I finished three books this month!

The first book was China Rich Girlfriend by Kevin Kwan. I've read another book of his and I really like them, but this was book two of a three part series and I didn't realize that. I bought it at the Library Booktique and it was an "I like that author" purchase without researching if it was a stand alone novel. Don't get me wrong, the family drama was top notch but there was a lot of missing information. All that information was probably in the first book of the series. LOL

My second book of the month was the third Carl book! The Dungeon Anarchist's Cookbook was really great. More characters were introduced and one of the crawlers that has been in all the books was killed. You kind of figure Carl will always make it because there are 7 books in the series so it was a shock to lose someone and kinda put me back on guard. I read this one mostly in Springfield at my work conference, and my roomie Jenny let me skip some after conference socializing because she knew I had to get back to Carl! I'm sure some eyebrows were raised but we both knew she was talking about my book!

My last book for the month was Whistler by Ann Patchett, and I had to take a break from Carl because I had been in line for this book for a couple of months. So when it was finally my turn I needed to read it. It has a horse on the cover and Whistler is the name of a horse. It was not a horse book, I repeat not a horse book. I read it mostly on my girls weekend, and I highly recommend. The way the author writes it is very soothing and the family story was tangled but all written very well. I need to look up more books by her.

Run 620 Miles: 574/620 92% done

I ran 74 miles in October! My highest monthly mileage for the year. It's going to stand as I'm not training for anything anymore so I will probably drop down to 45 or 50 miles a month for November and December and that will easily get my yearly goal. Yay!

Grow My Savings by 60% (Done August!)

Finished this goal for the year! Am starting on my 2027 goal, no time like the present!

UFOs (Unfinished Objects) to Be Completed, in No Particular Order 12% done?

All I have completed is two photo books. At this point I'm going to change the list I only have three months left, so what can I really do? I think the list below is challenging but doable!