An All Expense Trip To Nebraska and What I Learned While I Was There

1. They have 2 Subways, 1 McDonalds, a Dairy Queen, Pizza Hut and an Arbys.  Dude's is the big time hot shot steak house in town.  Where everything is fried unless you order steak.  Don't order a hamburger.
2. They do not have a Starbucks (thank goodness for my KCups!), but have a coffee place called The Book Corner (which is so awesome and cute!) and another one called the Black Mug.  The nearest Starbucks that I can tell is 100 miles away in Cheyenne, WY.  I've searched all zip codes in the 'bigger' towns around Sidney, and that is what I come up with.
3. The nearest running store is also about 1.5 hours away.  In Ft. Collins. 
4. They do not have a Target, but do have a WalMart. AND its a SuperCenter.
5. Other than the Walmart, there is one grocery store:  Safeway.  No Whole Foods, Kroger or Central Market.  I foresee a lot of ordering online for certain staples that people must have and I'm betting they can't and won't find here.  Fort Collins which is not too far away has a Whole Foods and a Trader Joe's.  Not too bad.  :O)  They do have a Farmers Market on Saturdays June-October (or as the guy told me: it gets too cold, whichever comes first)
6. The nearest Walgreens is 36 miles away.  Sterling, Colorado
7. They do have 2 RedBox kiosks.  One at McDonalds and one at WalMart.
8. They do have a movie theater, and it has 2 screens and each movie is shown at 2 times and 2 times only:  7pm and 9pm (ish)
9. Population is around 7,000 and predominantly Caucasian.
10. Elevation is around 4,300ft (that might prove to be beneficial when its time to run a marathon at or around sea level).  I ran on Friday (3 miles) and Saturday (7 miles) and good Lord with the hills, the wind and the elevation, I was having a rough time!  Thankfully the wind was less on Saturday and I felt much better
11. They have a full Community Center which apparently is awesome with a fully equipped gym.  For those days when a person can't exactly run in snow and ice!!!  There is even a 400m indoor track, full basketball court and a social room with pool tables, ping pong etc.
12. There is an awesome biking, running trail, which is about 4 miles.  You do have to share the trail with horse riders, but the sign says for them to stay off the actual paved path :)
13. The closest real live true CrossFit box is located in Cheyenne...sigh.  They do have a cert 2 CF trainers on staff at the CC in Sidney, and have classes (5) a week.  I saw the WOD's from the previous day on the board and it was familiar! 




14. You have to register with some facility for in the event of a tornado outbreak and well...there are the sirens...May and June are the months most known for tornadoes, and NE on average, has about 41 a year.
15. Summer months mean 60deg and below for at night and mornings, otherwise known as heaven on earth to me...There was a wicked storm that came through on Friday evening that had all the alerts going off.  We still went to happy hour :)  It was mid 50's while I was there in the mornings but with the heat wave recently it did get up to mid 90s the last day I was there.
    
16. November to February seem to be the worst for it being cold, and by cold I mean about 15-20deg F, but apparently rare to go below 10deg F.
17. Average yearly rainfall is around 19in with average yearly snow fall is 41inches.  Clearly more snow than rain. 
18. Low.  Low.  Low.  Humidity.  otherwise known as heaven on earth to me...seriously it was awesome having 25% humidity to run in!
    
19. Driving to Cheyenne WY, Scottsbluff, Ft. Collins or Denver CO (all within a couple hours drive) is normal fare on weekends for shopping excursions and weekend warrior types of things
20. There are a lot of half marathons and marathons in and around Sidney, NE with its close proximity to WY, CO, KS and SD, a person has plenty of opportunities to 'race' if I am so inclined.  I have also found a couple of duathlons and triathlons as well.
21. Elevation is around 4300ft and has its rolling hills to run up and down.  Tough stuff indeed; I felt every bit of it on my runs while I was there.  I figured my 7 miles on Saturday equated to 9 given the hills and the elevation :)

Running down into town was awesome.  Coming back up took me a while and I had to stop several times to catch my breath!  This hill just seems to go on and on forever.  And you think you top it at one point, but then nope...its just a mirage :)

From the highway

22. And then there is all of this wonderful information!