· Date: Wednesday July 10, 2019
· Where: Sioux Falls, South Dakota to Sioux City, Iowa
· Total Distance Covered: 103 miles
· Running Partner: Leah
This morning, we left Sioux Falls early in the morning to avoid the heat. Different members of the church had woken up early to provide us with breakfast as well as some lunch and snacks for the remainder of the day. Their generosity and the amount of food that they provided stands out as the most we would receive throughout the entire trip. Never, had a host provided dinner the first night, all three meals on our rest day, and two meals for the following day. We were so appreciative and kept in communication with this host throughout the remainder of the trip. Despite our declining health, our spirits started high this morning and our team morale was soaring.
By mid-morning we were running in ninety-five-degree weather and glad to be running in increments of two and three miles. Every time we saw the van ahead of us, we would get excited to replenish ourselves with water and electrolytes. I was not feeling well at all. I was weak and my throat felt extremely scratchy. My nose was clogged, and I had to breathe through my mouth while running, which only irritated my throat even more. I was starting to develop a cough no too. I thought of our morning dedication circles and those we were running for. Those patients and families who have gone through treatment never have a day off because they felt uncomfortable. I buckled down and kept running our miles. I told myself, sometimes, discomfort can be beneficial.
It was great to run with Leah again because we seemed to always talk about music. I remember talking about jazz and improvisation with her as well as a little bit of music theory. Leah was a very talented concert flutist. I enjoyed talking with her about my time playing saxophone throughout high school and college. Although we came from different backgrounds with her specialty in classical, and most of my playing having been focused on jazz, we had a bit in common. I explained how playing music in college for a scholarship became a job and I no longer enjoyed it. I asked her how she was able to make something she enjoyed so much, her career, and her life. I was hopeful that maybe I would be able to transfer some of this to my love for the saxophone. Leah gave me a lot of great advice, but she also agreed it was hard. It would be a while until I picked it up again. Even now, it has been a year and a half since I’ve played, and I don’t miss it.
We also talked about injury and not being able to run. Leah was experiencing an overuse injury and hadn’t been able to run properly for about two weeks now. Even when she walked, she sometimes had a limp. I felt bad for her and explained how hard it had been for me to run during treatment. Although I couldn’t relate to her situation since I was able to run for the entirety of 4K, which we had both prepared for, I understood the feeling of not being able to run. I don’t like that feeling and I knew how depressing it can be. I couldn’t imagine watching other teammates run during the 4K for Cancer while I was unable to. Having the will but not having the physical capability is awful.
At one point, we ran through several construction zones. It felt strange to run on the one-lane road that was typically reserved for cars as workmen directed them through. Looking back, we hadn’t had a lot of work zones in our route and wouldn’t have too many as the summer progressed either. I guess when the route is not directly east to west, is on all back roads, and is not a popular route to take across the country, construction is not a problem. We were fortunate to not have to reroute throughout the whole trip.
Later in the day, Leah decided that it was a good idea to stop running because her pain had gotten worse. She thought that it was getting better as she hadn’t run in a few days and had no pain. But even with occasionally walking some of our miles, Leah was feeling pain. Leah would refrain from running for most of the remaining summer. I think it was a tough decision but a good one.
This means that I ran with Amber and Tyler S for the last miles of the day. Our miles were flatter than my miles with Leah, but they were also windier. On either side of us were wide open fields with crops that were low to the ground. There were no trees, and there were hardly any buildings for as far as we could see. The fields were flooded, with large pockets of water submerging the plants and creating large mud patches in the fields. When the wind blew, it barreled across the fields and straight into us. We were running head-on into it. Our voices were quickly carried away by the wind and conversations were impossible. We were glad when we reached an intersection. We had to take what we thought was a left to continue running and now the wind was to our sides. It was much easier to run and talk with each other. Quickly, the pavement changed from uneven dirt and rocks to a road with a rut for each tire and a grass hump in the middle. We thought it was weird that we were now running on what appeared to be a farm road with small trees sheltering us from the wind.
I remember Amber saying something like, “Do you think the van drove down here?”
Tyler said, “I’m not sure but I’m loving this as opposed to the pavement and the wind.”
I told them I was enjoying it as well and found it so much more relaxing. But we all agreed, we should have seen the van by now. We also found it hard to believe that the van would have driven down this road too. Ulman’s route sometimes didn’t make any sense, but the bumpiness of the Pony Express in Utah was incomparable to this. We decided we must have taken a wrong turn at the intersection and needed to run back. Out here, there was no service, so the phones we were carrying were useless. It didn’t help that the three of us had also forgotten to download the map for today to our phones. If we had, we would have been able to follow along on the route and find out when we made a wrong turn.
Now, as we ran back from where we had come, we were running into the wind again since it had changed directions. It howled by our ears and made the running that much tougher. Suddenly, it switched directions and we were back to running with ease on the farm road. Eventually, as we got closer to the intersection, we saw the van waiting. If we had taken a right instead of a left, we would have only had to run about an eighth of a mile to the van. Instead, we turned our three miles into five.
As we approached the intersection, we could see the van waiting for us where it must have been when we took a left. Neither of us could believe what had happened, or that all three of us had missed seeing it in plain sight! We turned in the correct direction and continued until we reached the van. As we approached, everyone jumped out, relieved to see us, and glad to hear we were okay. When we didn’t show up when we were expected to, they knew we had made a wrong turn and were beginning to get worried.
I was even more excited because although I had enjoyed running on the soft dirt with Amber and Tyler, I did not feel any better from this morning. In fact, I felt worse. When I compared to how I felt before our rest day, I felt like nothing had improved and everything had worsened. I remember asking myself if I should be worried about my worsening condition, but I knew that this last few miles with Tyler and Amber marked my last miles for the day and I could rest as much as possible for the remainder of the night. But this would not be the case.
As we continued running and driving, we reached the halfway point in the route. Since we were in the first van, we continued driving the rest of the way. While we were waiting on the shoulder of the road for our last pair of runners to reach the van, a man approached us. He had pulled into a parking lot of a lone gas station and gotten out of his car. I remember him talking with us briefly and welcoming us to the area.
“I just saw you guys and wanted to welcome you,” he explained. He thanked us for what we were doing and asked how he could donate.
It baffled all of us how the community continuously showed support for all of us. It didn’t matter if we were in the middle of nowhere South Dakota, with hardly anything around, there was always someone who supported, understood, and appreciated what we were doing. The little interactions like this always lifted us up when we were feeling down. Since a lot of us on the team were not feeling up to par, and the cold was affecting more and more of the team every day, these few minutes helped to boost the morale of our team that had dropped tremendously low from this morning.
Soon, we crossed the South Dakota Iowa Stateline and the team breathed a huge sigh of relief. We had crossed into South Dakota an entire week ago. Our shorter mileage days and the vast expanse of the state made this the longest time we would be in any one state. The long roads were largely the same with massive open fields, a low population density, and minimal interactions with others. To be honest, the team had reached a consensus a few days ago that this was one of our least favorite states. The cold that was going around probably did not help our negative perspective of this state. Ironically, when I think about our time in South Dakota a year later, it is one of my favorites. It is a time when we were truly isolated, and the challenge of confronting my own fears with my past and history with cancer was inevitable. I think the week we were in South Dakota was some of the first times that I truly began to think, to reconsider, and to reevaluate everything. Although the long open roads were boring and we found ourselves getting sicker and sicker, this was an important part of the trip for my personal journey with cancer. I was beginning to think about what mentality I would need to live a life where I embraced cancer rather than pushed it aside. I wanted this to be a strength, not a weakness, not a black hole, and not something I struggled to talk about. As I prepared for the 4K for Cancer, this started to happen, and the first couple of weeks gave me incredible examples of how I could do this. This last week, week three, was when I started to think about how to make this a reality.
Tonight, was a treat. Our host was Briar Cliff University, and as we drove onto campus, signs directed us to the residential office. From there, an employee brought us to a dorm. We were handed room keys and assigned roommates from our team. I was rooming with Luke tonight and our room was set up like any dorm room for two people. There was a desk, bed, and closet for each person. Although we wouldn’t be using any of this stuff besides the bed, it was incredible to not have to blow up my sleeping pad tonight. I was exhausted, sick, and done with the day. I knew that throwing my sleeping bag on the mattress would feel amazing and I was looking forward to it!
We all showered in the shower rooms which had six showers. This alone would have been a treat since we didn’t have to wait for our turn for the shower. All of us on the team were showered and cleaned up within an hour. This never happens!
As the team walked around the dorm and used the showers and bathrooms, we got quite a few looks from other people who were staying there. Even though it was in July, Briar Cliff’s football team and some other athletics were living on campus to attend summer practices. Our dorm happened to be filled with most of the football team and the guys on Team Boston had been assigned rooms scattered throughout the football floor. We were opposites to them. We were sun-tanned, some of us burnt like lobsters, and we were scrawny. Many of our muscles were well defined, with the signs of endurance, repetitive use, and strength, but the Briar Cliff football players were jacked. Their biceps were as big as my head, and they had big deep voices. As we walked around in our short shorts, it seemed the football players towered over us in superiority, manliness, and power. I was suddenly reminded of the times in the locker rooms of high school. Our sports and our lives were drastically different, and it showed. Some of them spoke to us and when we told them what we were doing, they couldn’t believe it. I think a lot of them thought we were lying that we had started running in San Francisco and were now in Iowa. I could tell they didn’t doubt we were a running team, but they doubted what we were telling them. After these interactions, we reverted to being floormates for the night. A simple nod of the head in the hallway, a gruff hello in the bathroom, and a polite “excuse me,” was all we received. We were in their space. Somehow, we both seemed to intimidate the other, yet we both thought our sport was the superior one. We would go to bed earlier than them and they would stay up to party. In the morning, we would be gone before they woke up. In many respects, this is exactly how I saw these two sports interact in my time in college. Again, and without any disrespect to football players, I realized how different the lifestyles of our two sports were.
Later, we went down to the first-floor common area where the host van and the University had put together a dinner for us. It was mostly pizza, grinders, and left-over scraps of food that we had from previous days. I tried to spend as little time as possible here. I realized I was feeling better than this morning and my throat was not as irritated. But I knew to keep it that way, I had to sleep as soon as possible. I planned to have dinner and go directly to bed. If I did this right, I could get almost ten hours of sleep.
But as I walked out of the common room, these plans quickly changed. Tyler S. was talking with someone in the short hallway between the common room and the lobby. We had talked earlier today and had agreed it would be cool if we could find Briar Cliff’s track or cross-country coach to talk with. We were thinking it would be awesome to talk with a team and explain what we were doing, in the hopes that Ulman would have more participants in 2020. As I passed them in the hallway, I heard that their conversation was about running in college, and Tyler motioned me over.
The man introduced himself as Coach Nathan Christianson, the head cross country coach and the assistant track and field coach for Briar Cliff University. The three of us continued to talk for a little bit as I briefly explained my story and why I had chosen to participate in the 4K for Cancer. Tyler and I told him about Project:Return, and the various workouts we had been doing together to decrease my mile time. Coach Nate loved this idea and told us that this was the third year that an Ulman 4K for Cancer team had stayed at Briar Cliff University. He said every year, he tries to talk to us because 4K participants always have inspiring stories the Briar Cliff teams could benefit from. Coach Nate invited Tyler, myself, and anyone else on the team who wanted to join, to go to a practice with the team later that night. Typically, the team would practice in the morning and at night, both times when the sun was low, and the heat was not as intense. Tonight, the team would be running about four miles as their second run of the day.
We still had about an hour and a half until the practice with the team, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to join Tyler. We each had run eight miles today, but Tyler, Amber, and I had run two extra miles because of our wrong turn. This put my total mileage for the day at ten miles. Now, this wasn’t a lot compared to other days where we had run fourteen, sixteen, and eighteen miles. But considering how awful I felt and how unreliable my breathing was due to my sore throat, I was pooped. Throughout the day, all I had wanted to do was rest and I had even rushed through dinner so that I could make this happen. I was worried that by running four more miles, I would make myself sicker. I was also worried that by not running with the Briar Cliff team, I would miss out on something and regret staying behind.
Tyler and I looked up the Coaches’ name on Briar Cliff University’s website to make sure he was who he said he was, and I told Tyler that if no one else on the team wanted to go to the practice with him, I would go. But once we extended the invitation out to the team, no one took us up on it. I think there were only a few people on the team who weren’t feeling the effects of the cold going around, and no one wanted to do anything extra today. I also think that everyone wanted their own space in their dorm rooms. This was the first time that the team was separated to this degree at a host site. Previously, we had separated by gender, or into three to four groups to fit into the various rooms at a host. But splitting into pairs of two, truly gave everyone personal space that we hadn’t had since the days before San Francisco. I completely understand why the team felt the way they did and why Tyler and I ended up being the only ones from Team Boston to go to Briar Cliff’s practice. Even I was apprehensive about it but couldn’t pass up the opportunity. I also didn’t want Tyler to go alone.
When we met up with Coach Nate at his office in the athletic building, no one was there. Tyler called the coach and he showed up a few minutes later, apologizing for being late. After talking for a few minutes, he told us that the practice was off-campus. This surprised both Tyler and I because we had been to the understanding that practice was on campus and the cross-country team was staying in the dorms. However, this was not the case. Coach Nate told us that they do all their runs at a park called Adams Homestead and Nature Preserve. He was a coach that went into universities to rebuild their running teams and make them competitive again. The first thing that he had done when he started coaching for Briar Cliff a few years ago was to change the location of practices, and their meets.
So, Tyler and I told a few people on Team Boston where we were going and when we expected to be back, and then Coach Nate drove us to the park. This was surprise number two. Coach Nate told us that the park was a fifteen-minute drive away, only a few miles. Because of traffic, he explained that it sounded farther away than it was. But soon, as I sat in the front seat, and Tyler sat behind me, we started exchanging worried looks in the mirror. We had been in the car for twenty minutes now. Tyler asked from the back, how much longer we had to get there, and the Coach told us five more minutes. We had been talking in depth about recruiting for college, as well as the different coaching philosophies and methodologies the three of us had taken part in. The question of how much farther seemed to startle the Coach and I think he felt bad.
Moments later, we crossed the Iowa-South Dakota Stateline though. This was surprise number three. Somehow, the fact that the park was in another state and we had to take a highway to get there was not included in the conversation. After, Tyler and I agreed, this is when we both seriously started to sweat our situation and reconsider what we had gotten ourselves into. We were both extremely glad we had told people where we were going because, in reality, we had no idea who this person was, how we had gotten where we were going, and how to get back to Team Boston.
Soon, the sight of a South Dakota state park sign, with the words “Adams Homestead and Nature Preserve,” carved into the planks, greeted our eyes and we had finally arrived at the park. When we got out of the car, Tyler and I exchanged knowing looks, both silently relieved that the other was there and that we were in fact going to be running at the park the coach had been talking about.
As we waited for runners to show up, the conversation continued to revolve exclusively around running. We talked further in depth about each of our running histories with how we got started in middle school, went on to continue in high school, and for Tyler and the coach, how they went on to compete at the collegiate level. Coach Nate had been an All-American in the year 2000 but had limited success since then. He explained that he has continued to nurse a back injury that was related to some accident he had while either biking or running on a busy street. (I am having trouble remembering the fine details.) This, he explained, when he was no longer able to run competitively, is how he got into coaching and has loved it ever since.
Now came surprise number four. No one else showed up at the park. The coach tried to call some of the runners on the team and get into contact with those who had told him they would be there, with no success. Apparently, the practice that he had told us occurred every evening at this park was optional and often had poor turnout because it was July. All his runners were working and had either already fit their runs in for the day or were too far away to come back to the university to run. His athletes weren’t staying in the dorms like Tyler and I thought they were.
Disappointed that there would not be a team to run with, trade stories, and talk to, Tyler and I exchanged looks. We were also worried that so far this practice had been everything we did not think it would be. Our looks between each other shared everything we knew we were both thinking. We were the only ones at the park with this coach and we had only seen two other people wandering around since we had arrived. I’m not going to lie; I was sweating, and it wasn’t just because of the heat. This was sketchy in every way.
Soon, we would run about six miles together. The trail was a wide, dirt path that was excellent for running. If it was a different situation Tyler and I probably would have enjoyed the views that we were running along. On either side were open pastures where deer were calmly foraging in groups of three or four. There were birds everywhere, and the sun slowly going down signaled the end of the day as it showed its’ rays through a light layer of mist. I could see why someone would hold all their practices and races here. This park was beautiful and would inspire me to keep running every day if I had access to it back home. But now, this was not what I was thinking.
Now, was surprise number five. When no one showed up, we had agreed to go for a half-hour run. Fifteen minutes out and fifteen minutes back. Tyler and I didn’t want to run with just the coach and would have preferred simply going back to Briar Cliff and going to bed. But knowing that we were already here, we figured we could run about three to four miles in this time. We also knew that we could easily outrun Coach Nate if things got to be super sketchy. The coach was not in the shape he used to be and had a belly and told us that he was a slow runner that couldn’t keep up with his own team anymore. But soon, we had been running in the same direction for twenty minutes and hadn’t turned around. Coach Nate told us he wanted to run just a little farther to show us the Missouri River. Eventually, we did see the Missouri River, which was beautiful as it slowly flowed by us. The trail went right to the riverbank and if we wanted, we could have gone swimming across the river to Nebraska. But now, we were half an hour from the parking area, in the middle of nowhere, and I really did not like it. Tyler and I pushed the pace coach set on the way back and we ran much faster. When we got back to the car, we had run back in twenty-four minutes rather than thirty.
When we got back to the University, the coach gave us some bottles of Gatorade, electrolytes, and some Emergen-c immune supplement. He felt bad for Team Boston when he heard how sick we were and when he heard my cough getting progressively worse throughout the few hours we had spent together. I was exhausted. Tyler and I had now run sixteen miles today rather than eight. Instead of resting as much as possible and going to bed early, I had quite literally done exactly the opposite of that. The way I looked, the sound of my voice, and the way I felt directly correlated with the day’s decisions.
Before we said our goodbyes, Coach Nate showed us how to use a Hyperice Hypervolt Percussion Message machine. This was a handheld massager that you could move over your legs and use to help speed the recovery process of your muscles. After Tyler and I both used it, it felt like we hadn’t run sixteen miles today at all. Since it was the first time either of us had used it, we both agreed our muscles felt like we had run five or six miles instead.
On the walk from the athletic offices to the dorm we were staying in, Tyler and I gave a sigh of relief together. We could not believe how sketchy the entire encounter had been. We agreed, it didn’t seem to be the coach’s fault that no one had shown up. But he should have communicated how lax this practice was with attendance as well as the fact that it was off-campus, at a park located in a neighboring state. If we had known this, we would have stayed behind to rest. We both agreed that we had been reckless, and we were lucky to have gotten back in one piece. Yes, this had been a University employee, and everything had also worked out okay in the end. Yes, we had amazing conversations with Coach Nate and thoroughly enjoyed talking with him. But we didn’t need to go where we did to do this. We also agreed that we needed to be more careful.
“What if this hadn’t been who we thought it was?” we asked each other. “What if instead of getting back a little later than we thought, a person who said he was one thing, turned out to be someone else and we weren’t reunited with Team Boston at all?”
We were stupid and we were lucky.
As we walked into the dorm, Tyler and I told a few people what had happened, and they were surprised by everything. The hardly believed us when we said we had gone from Iowa back to South Dakota and been within viewing distance of Nebraska. Better yet, everyone was just as shocked as Tyler and I when they heard we had only ran with the coach and not the entire team! I had told Luke, my roommate I had planned to be back two hours earlier and he had started to get worried. Everyone was super glad to see us and were excited we had great conversations with the coach but were also relieved. Perhaps, this lax lifestyle where we talked to everyone, we encountered had gone a little too far. Perhaps we shouldn’t be so trusting of everyone we encountered. Yes, talking to everyone was important to explain what we were doing and to spread Ulman’s message across the country. But, perhaps tonight at Briar Cliff, we hadn’t been smart about this. This wasn’t like the group of us who had followed the man at Yellowstone to observe wolves. There, were hundreds of people up and down the road and around the valley. Tonight, wasn’t like the Uber driver in Salt Lake City that had invited us all to her house for dinner. There, we had twenty-eight people together and could protect ourselves as a group. Tonight, was different. We were freaked out by what could have potentially happened. Most importantly, we were all glad Tyler and I had gone together, and Tyler had not gone alone. For the remainder of the trip, I believe the rest of the team was much more cautious about this. I know Tyler and I especially were. Tonight, served an important lesson to Tyler, myself, and Team Boston.
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