· Date: Sunday July 14, 2019
· Where: Iowa City, Iowa to Rockford, Illinois
· Total Distance Covered: 174 miles
· Running Partner: Mason
This morning I was feeling so much better than forty-eight hours ago when we were leaving Fort Dodge. It was crazy how much antibiotics could help a person to get better and completely change everything for them. I wasn’t completely back to normal yet, but I was close. When I awoke, my cough was almost non-existent, and my headache was gone. I was still tired, with body aches that were still present but were not as severe.
As we packed our things in the morning and got prepared for the day, I kept evaluating my strength and my health to see if I thought I could run. I was questioning if I could run all fourteen miles. I wanted to complete all my miles so badly and I didn’t want to be stupid about it. I was lucky there was a rest day yesterday and even luckier that we only had two more days of running before the next rest day. If I was careful, maybe I could be fully healed by the time we left Chicago on Day Thirty-Two.
Every morning before we left the town that we had slept in, we would gas up the vans and get ice for our coolers. Ulman hadn’t given us any funds for the ice because the foundation said that people would be willing to donate it for us. But this was not always the case. We were just about to buy the ice ourselves when the person in line behind us heard our request with our explanation of what we were doing and why we needed an ice donation. He offered to buy the ice for us. Ice might not seem like a big deal but when you add up the ice for three coolers every day for forty-nine days, it gets quite expensive. Since Ulman hadn’t helped us out, we were often taking turns buying it for the team. Gas stations were not as willing to donate ice as Ulman had said they would be. There were a few instances where strangers would offer to buy the ice for us, and we were always so appreciative. What made this morning even more memorable was that the man talked to us for a few minutes out by our van and donated to our team as well. He was truly appreciative of us.
It was also a great start to the morning since we now had two fifteen-passenger vans instead of just the one. We had been using the small SUV and the minivan for a total of ten days and it was starting to be a burden. Coordinating where each vehicle started and stopped their miles for the day as well as which vehicle had food was difficult. This was especially difficult since we only had three coolers for our four vehicles. There had even been an unspoken team rivalry between those that were riding in the smaller vans each day and those that had to ride in the fifteen-passenger van. Although the people in each vehicle rotated every day based on running partners, those that rode in the smaller vehicles were seen as lucky. Their days would be over sooner which meant more relaxing. As I’ve said before, I enjoyed the larger vans better because of their environment. Even if this meant we had longer days, I preferred being placed in them compared to the SUV and minivan. I’d be lying if I didn’t agree that ending your day earlier than everyone else was nice, but this made an opportunity for the team to lose sight of our ways. This rivalry, I felt had made the team lose sight of why we were here doing what we were doing. People began to prefer ending their day earlier rather than participating in the larger van the way that the 4K for Cancer was intended to. When people were assigned the bigger van the night before, grumblings of protest were always heard. When assignments were made to the minivan and the SUV, there were always shouts of excitement. This divide, this perspective, and this mentality were not healthy for our team and the atmosphere that was created. I don’t think I was the only one who was glad to have the other fifteen-passenger van back with us. Today, we had none of this and it seemed people remembered why we were here, running across the country, doing what we were doing. The team dynamics were back to normal.
In the morning we were pulled off at another small gas station as we waited for a pair of runners to get to the van when a man in a large pickup truck pulled up next to us. We all said good morning to him, and we exchanged polite courtesies. When he came out of the gas station, he was holding a thirty-six pack of beer and must have seen all of us staring wide-eyed at him.
As he opened one and drank what must have been half the can in one gulp, he told us, “Just finished hauling four semis worth of hogs!” His grin was huge, and he offered us some beer as well. We all declined; it was nine-thirty in the morning! “Time to celebrate!” he shouted as he pulled away, beer still in hand as he drove with the other.
We all hoped he was able to drive home safely and wondered how much money four semis worth of hogs would make a person around here. As we had been running this morning, we certainly could smell them as large trucks barreled past us. We had seen semis hauling all sorts of animals this morning. There had been pigs, chickens, and what even seemed to be some trucks filled with sheep. It was a busy day for the farmers in Iowa.
As the day continued, it grew hot extremely fast. Before nine in the morning, it had risen to ninety degrees out and would reach over one hundred by midafternoon. The humidity was sixty or seventy percent and the UV Index was nine. It was sweltering hot outside and nowhere near ideal running conditions. We would sit outside of the van because we didn’t want to overrun the air conditioning and have to return the van to Enterprise again. So, we often found spots of shade under trees as we waited for runners to get to the van. Since we were running past fields of corn for most of the day, this was not always the case. The constant opening and closing of the doors brought in swarms of flies into the van. Throughout the day, we would roll up newspapers, or whatever we could find, and smack them. We kept a tally to see who would be able to hit the most flies and many of us got into the double digits. This competition would continue for the rest of the day and once we were at the host, we had to brush dead flies out of the van. No one had told us Iowa would have this many flies. It was crazy.
Towards the end of the day, the rows of corn evolved into trees and a more urbanized area. Yet, it was a very poor looking area of the country. There were dilapidated structures with rusting cars in the driveways that had seen better days. Everything was dusty, dirty, and overused. To be blunt, we felt as though we were in hillbilly country, especially after having spoken to the man at the gas station this morning. Every time we stopped, we ran into similar groups of people and we felt out of place. But as we ran through this portion of the route, our miles evolved back into cornfields and we left this strange town behind us. Now, there were flooded fields of corn to our left and our right. The rains had been strong over here the past few days and we had just missed them. Some roads were like causeways, even though they clearly were never designed that way. It blew my mind how much flooding had happened, and we wondered what would happen to everyone’s crops over here. A few times, we saw geese swimming and we got jealous as we ran by in the sweltering heat.
Today, my running partner was Mason. We ran the first few miles together at an extremely slow pace. We both didn’t want to push it today. Mason’s viral infection meant hadn’t received any kind of prescription like me, which was helping to speed his recovery. Eventually, Mason wouldn’t finish all his miles today and would sleep for most of the day. I was exhausted after having run only a few miles, but I was able to rest for as long as I wanted to since I no longer had a running partner. When I felt strong enough again and thought I had taken a long enough break, I would just run with whoever was running next. Usually, this was with Luke, Tyler B., or Emily. By the end of the day, I would run all fourteen of my miles. Although some of these miles were at an agonizingly slow pace so that I could control my breathing, it felt amazing to run again. I couldn’t remember the last time I had taken two days off in a row from running and I hadn’t known what to do with myself. In honesty, I probably should have run only ten or twelve miles. The last few I was certainly pushing my luck, and I felt my sore throat coming back again. But I pushed myself forward, knowing I had sixteen miles to makeup from the day I had missed. I didn’t want to add more work for myself by having miles to make up from today as well. I knew that once I started to feel better enough to make up those sixteen miles, it would be tough to run extra on certain days. If I had more than sixteen miles to make up, I was unsure if this would be possible before we reached Boston. I had to keep running today.
We finished our miles today before crossing into Illinois since we were in the first van. The Mississippi River marked the Stateline between Iowa and Illinois and I wasn’t awake for this part of our drive back to the host. After completing my miles, I had passed out in the van exhausted. I even missed the picture the van took at the “Welcome to Illinois” sign. Although I was disappointed, I was happy that the team let me sleep. I needed it.
Our host for the night was the Rockford YMCA. We were sleeping on one of their gym floors but had access to their showers which was amazing. It was the warmest shower I had taken in a while. As the YMCA closed for the day, we were let inside. When we had stayed at YMCA’s before, the managers would let us in whenever we had arrived. For some reason, this manager wanted us to wait for everyone else to leave. This made our night late and felt strange because we were the only ones in the entire building. It was eerily quiet, and we made sure we didn’t go anywhere alone. We were safe, but we were creeped out!
Dinner was provided by a local diet and nutrition company. It honestly was a bit strange. The owner came in and dropped off the food for us and took a picture with only two teammates who happened to be the first ones at the table. Then he hurriedly left, hardly acknowledging the rest of us. It seemed like he had donated the food more for promotional purposes for his own company than to support us. Rob, me, and a few others ended up going to Aldi later, just before they closed to get more food and snacks. I bought bagels for breakfast with peanut butter since lately, we had no breakfast food. I also got a few cartons of yogurt that I ate for dessert that night. I wanted to make sure I had some sort of probiotic every day because of my antibiotics I had been taking. I also got some cinnamon buns. There was an entire family size tray for only a few dollars since they were expiring soon. So, I also ate this when we got back to the YMCA. I was starving. Maybe it was because I was catching up on the food, I hadn’t eaten over the past few days as I felt my sickest, I am unsure. But my dinner tonight ended up being a large plate of beef, rice, beans, and vegetables that had been donated by the nutrition company, followed by two cartons of yogurt, and an entire family size tray of cinnamon buns. I was stuffed. I didn’t want to think about the number of calories I had consumed but knew I needed it. Maybe not so many of those calories should have been cinnamon buns, but they were delicious.
Falling asleep tonight was difficult. We couldn’t figure out how to shut off the lights entirely, and everything echoed in the gym. I also had slept so much in the van after finishing my miles, that I had trouble falling asleep now. I guess this was a good sign that I was properly rested, and my body was recovering. But I was worried that this would set me off for tomorrow. The longer I stayed up, the shorter time I had to sleep before our four something wake up time. At this point, my cough was also starting to creep its way back and I was trying to load up on cough drops before sleeping. I was nervous that my coughs would echo through the gym during the night and keep everyone awake. I realized though; I was not the only one coughing. I could hear Rob too. I silently hoped that “The Sickness” and “The Plague” would be over soon. I wished we were all happy and healthy as we had been in San Francisco. Although we hadn’t reached Boston, I was looking forward to this. I was looking forward to sleeping in a bed and being able to sleep, recover, and eat properly. The team was tired.
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