This blog starts at 2315 last night (Saturday). Despite the scorching hot fly infested RV, I’d somehow managed to fall asleep.
Just as I was in that deepish sleep, there was a knock on the RV door. I woke up immediately and let out a pathetic scream. The kind of which you might do on a rollercoaster. Within seconds, I peered out of the window to be greeted by an apologetic police officer. That’s the second time this has happened on this tour.
I explained to the police officer where I was running from and to and that this was our overnight stop. He politely requested that we move to a nearby church because the park hours were until 12pm. I don’t think he had much of a problem with us being there. It was more a case of applying a consistent rule for all visitors or those people, perhaps, that make mischief in such a place at night.
He recommended a church in Tipton away from the main road. He didn’t tell us that it was close to the railway line mind you.
All in all, it was a respectful encounter and I left him with a leaflet and apologised for any inconvenience we’d caused him. I think he appreciated that. So a note for the future, you can’t stay overnight in the parking lot of Tipton City Park.
So off to the car park of the First Baptist Church we went. It took me quite a while to get to sleep there. I noticed a police car pass around midnight, which was reassuring.
At 10 minutes past midnight, just as I was trying to get some sleep, a train roared past, horn and all. There was a further such train at around 0330 I think.
When the 0530 alarm went I shouted to the front of the RV to Alan that I’d need an extra hour. That was a waste of time as I couldn’t get back to sleep.
I had a banana for breakfast and we drove to the start line, which was a couple of miles east of Tipton. I set off along Highway 50 in pretty warm conditions.
I’ve seen many different denominations of churches during this tour. This “cowboy church” was definitely a new one on me.
I made it to Tipton in decent time. Given yesterday’s problems with hydration I made sure I drank plenty as I continued through the town. I met the RV at the 4 mile point. I wasn’t in the mood for any breakfast and just had my hydration backpack refilled.
As I left Tipton the scenery became very Kansas like. Fields of wheat went on for miles and miles.
I made to Syracuse which looked very old fashioned.
I met the RV at the 9 mile point on the western outskirts of Syracuse. I had another banana and watched nearby families enter a place called Hometown Cafe. It looked to be very popular. Father’s Day might have had something to do with it.
The next stretch was 6.5 miles and included a 2 mile straight section that seemed to go on for much longer. I was very pleased to have a flat and wide hard shoulder to run on. Mind you, I’ve rarely seen as many dead animals as I have today. Not even during the run across Australia. The most popular today seemed to be armadillos.
I made it to the 15.5 mile point and decided to have some proper food. Alan cooked an omelette. I’m surprised that he had the energy to do it as I think he’d been swatting flies all day in the RV.
I had a 30 minute tactical snooze. I wore the blindfold from the flight over in April, a towel over my feet and legs to keep the flies away and my noise cancelling earphones. As a result, the snooze was as good as they get. I didn’t hear any of the passing traffic. It was so good that I added another 20 minutes.
The next section was 8.5 miles. I really don’t remember much about it other that a field of cattle (which I waved at and greeted). I was too busy trying to put one foot in front of the other while withstanding immense foot pain. There were too many pain points to know which was the worst. Listening to Tony Blackburn on Radio 2 helped to take my mind off it. No really it did! That’s now a Sunday afternoon tradition on this tour.
I met the RV again for a quick sandwich just before the 24 mile point. The little toe on my left foot felt broken. If ever I wanted a day to end, today was the day. Inspection later revealed that the toe nail had lifted and was bent back. At the time of writing this blog (20:27) I now no longer have that toe nail.
Back to the final 3 miles of the day and, as I mentioned above, I just wanted an end to the day. I set off with just a small bottle of water, put my foot on the gas and reached Sedalia as per today’s target. It wasn’t without cost though, as those final miles were extremely painful.
We drove to a nearby Walmart and Alan did some shopping. I’ve got some blister pain relief patches to try overnight. They will hopefully help me get a better nights sleep. With so many sore points, every change of position in bed means that I wake up with some pain.
I’m convinced of one thing now. If I can get my feet in a better state, then I’ll be able to get into the bigger miles on this tour. I’m eating better, I’m drinking more (especially the Powerade that was gifted to me by Stephen and Felicia last week) and I’m almost 3 stone lighter than when I started this tour.
I’ll be doing my best to get my feet fixed. They were in a decent state until the trail last week on top of the rain the week before.
The really good news is that Deb rejoins the team in 2 weeks time. She worked wonders on my feet during her first stint on the team. She might just prove to be the secret to rescuing this tour in its second half.
In the meantime, I’m reminded of that quote from Rocky Balboa - “The world ain't all sunshine and rainbows. It's a very mean and nasty place, and I don't care how tough you are, it will beat you to your knees and keep you there permanently if you let it. You, me, or nobody is gonna hit as hard as life. But it ain't about how hard you hit. It's about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward; how much you can take and keep moving forward. That's how winning is done!”
And to quote Duke : “To beat this guy, you need speed. You don’t have it. So, we’ll be calling on good old-fashioned blunt force trauma”. I’m interpreting that as tolerate the excruciating pain and keep moving forward.
If my previous runs across the USA, Australia and Europe were Rocky I, II and III and the run to Kiev was IV, then I feel that I’m currently at the Rocky Balboa movie. So the final Rocky quote is “All I want to do is go the distance”.
TUNE OF THE DAY: Giving it all away - Roger Daltrey
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