Our Third Half-Marathon

Seth and I (the ones on the left--click on picture for larger image) completed our third half marathon on August 18th in Choteau, Mt.(picture on right included to show the scenery).

Once again we went to a state we had never visited before and had adventures we could not have imagined. This was our first small town marathon.

Choteau has a population of 1,700 and is the largest town in Teton County(population 6,500). The town intrigued and delighted us from the moment we arrived. When we asked directions to the park we were told "two blocks east and one block north of the blinking light." THE blinking light turns out to be the only traffic light of any kind on Main Street. The street also includes a bank, a library, a 350 seat movie theatre(three shows a week--but the space is also used for communal events), a few interesting stores including one that sells guns, ammo and expresso.

Nobody locks their house or car door.

There are 450 students K-12 in the school system and 25 are signed up for the subsidized lunches. Families in the town make sure that those children's back packs are filled with food on fridays so that they can have nutrition over the weekend.
This is the kind of scale problem I could get my mind around.
A good 10% of the town population was involved in producing the Marathon. It was the lead story in the town weekly paper when we arrived("Marathon set for this Saturday"') and the lead story the next week as well ("Marathon brings 235 runners to Choteau." )The paper also listed the times for each of the runners(including us, of course) and who manned each of the 26 aid stations along the course. (The high school girls volleyball team placed a medal on each runner as they crossed the finish line.)

We stayed in a private homewith a young couple who had volunteered to house marathon guests. When we asked if we could make a contribution to the town(the family would not accept payment) they suggested the Soroptomists--a group of women who work to beautify and improve the town. Apparantly, Soroptomists are a known phenomenon--just not known by us.

All very thrilling for a couple of lifelong Northeast urban dwellers. The closest we had come to anything like this was seeing The Music Man.