· Date: Wednesday July 24, 2019
· Where: McKean, Pennsylvania to Buffalo, New York
· Total Distance Covered: 96 miles
· Running Partner: Regi
It was extremely difficult to write this blog. I considered omitting aspects of my writing. I thought about brushing over the events that unfolded. But as I painfully dissected the events of today, I realized I had to share everything. I had to share our devolution and my inability to confront it. It would be selfish not to do so.
Today was the first day where I had the role of the rooster. I set an alarm on my phone, on my wristwatch, and on my tablet. Tyler even set a backup alarm for me. I was nervous that I would sleep through the alarms and the team would get a late start because of me. I think the nerves prevented me from getting a deep sleep because I woke up a few minutes before the first of the four alarms. I felt like I hadn’t rested at all. I also wasn’t too sure how to wake anyone up. Some people would go around to every sleeping bag and nudge the person until they were awake, others would play music, and others would do the less popular option of turning on the lights. I decided to play soft music, and slowly turn up the volume with each song. Sleeping bags started to rustle, grunts of protest slowly became audible, and eventually, heads rose from the sleeping bags scattered throughout the gymnasium. We packed the vans and gathered our things as we listened to classic rock. I had some major dad vibes going, but we all enjoyed it!
Today was also Bea’s birthday and Justin had decorated one of the vans last night with Leah and Abby. It was so cool to walk outside and see one of the vans decked out in paint, streamers, and balloons. We sang happy birthday to Bea and everyone was smiling. I think the overall atmosphere of the morning had made out for a great start to the day. We crossed into New York through the Pennsylvania Stateline a few miles before beginning our portion of the route. The first van would have the pleasure of physically running across the state crossing! It seemed I was always in the wrong van when we ran into new states!
Once we started running, I honestly didn’t appreciate how the team approached our miles today.
I was in the second van. We drove to the halfway point and for the first time in quite some time, I didn’t nap during the morning drive. I had gotten used to getting another hour or so of sleep in the van since I was typically assigned to the second portion of the route. This morning, the positive atmosphere had extended into this ride and everyone was talking, laughing, and having a good time.
Regi and I were the second or third running pair and once we got out of the van, the road was just as beautiful as our morning had been. This portion of the route was still leading us along the roads closest to the bank of Lake Erie. As we ran by luxurious lakeside mansions with foreign cars parked out in front, we daydreamed about how nice it must be to own a house in this part of the country. We wondered how much they cost or what the families did for a living where they could afford this lifestyle. I wasn’t sure if I wanted it, and neither was Regi. Both of us certainly weren’t jealous, it seemed everyone on Team Boston had a very simple perspective and approach to life.
Regi was injured, and so we only ran two of our miles at a time. If I remember right, she had been indecisive about her running shoes throughout the trip and this had led to issue with her Achilles and her feet. I felt bad for her as she hadn’t been able to complete all the miles and wanted to do anything, she needed today so that she could do so. Since we were only running seven miles each, both of us thought this could be a day where she completed all her miles.
Less than a mile into our second run of the day, we found the van pulled off at the entrance to Lake Erie State Park. The sign informed us that the park offered a “waterfront camping and birding retreat.”
“We don’t need water!” Regi and I shouted at our teammates who were waiting outside the van for us.
“We’ll just keep going!” I told them.
“Are there any turns? Is there a shuttle spot coming up?” Regi asked.
At this point, we were past the entrance to the park and yelling over our shoulders. We both were feeling good and didn’t want to stop running if we didn’t have to.
“We’re going to stop and explore this park!” someone shouted back to us.
Both Regi and I looked at each other with exasperation. This was the first time she was feeling almost pain-free while running and we had been enjoying a great conversation. Somehow, this was one of the first days where we had a one on one conversation and the trip was almost over. We both had just told each other how we enjoyed the detour at the picnic spot yesterday, the rest day in Cleveland, the family reunion a few days before that, and Indiana Dunes State Park before that. But we had also both agreed, today it felt good just to run again and get back into the normal swing of things. Although almost all our most memorable moments of the summer were discovered through these diversions, the look Regi and I gave each other said it all. We just wanted to keep running today and enjoy the route. It seemed some people on the team were treating this trip more like a vacation than a dedication to the cancer community.
So Regi and I turned around and walked to the entrance of the park and the van. We drove down the long winding road of the park and parked the van in a spot close to the lake and away from the campground. On the way in, we saw massive pine trees with birds fluttering from branch to branch. The campground was almost full and there were multiple entrances to trails throughout the grounds. The team agreed to walk down to the water, where there was a small lookout area that overlooked the rocky shore of the lake. Then we would leave and Regi and I could resume our miles. I was happy that this was only a scenic stop and we wouldn’t be doing anything else.
As we watched the water lapping at the shore, it was hard to imagine the violent waves we had seen in the same lake yesterday. There was no way that this water could have torn someone’s shorts off their body as it had with Rizwan yesterday.
To our left was a sign that Regi and I walked over to read. That’s when we realized that today truly was a calm day for Lake Erie. The sign described the stories surrounding five or six vessels that had capsized and or sunk only a few hundred feet from the shore we were standing on. One ship stands out in my memory, the New Connecticut.
In the early 1800s, a storm had capsized the wooden schooner. The captain wasn’t on board, but the captain’s aunt was in her cabin. The crew somehow thought that she had drowned in the capsize, and rowed the boat’s only lifeboat to safety, without her. She survived five days until the ship was towed to the nearby port and turned upright. It was then that she emerged from her cabin to surprise everyone who had been working on towing and fixing the boat. The sign explained how she had survived. There were tiny air pockets in her cabin as the water sloshed around and she had caught crackers and onions that had been floating around.
I couldn’t imagine being in a situation like that. Soaking in water and essentially starving for five days. Suddenly, I was glad I hadn’t swum in the water yesterday.
When we arrived back at the van, not everyone was there. Anna, who was injured and had waited in the van explained that they had decided to run some of their miles in the park and wouldn’t be back for another forty minutes to an hour. This is when I truly realized and processed the fact that some of our teammates were losing sight of our mission. Anna was a 4K Alum and we both didn’t understand how or when the purpose of 4K had devolved for our team. As everyone dispersed to run some of their miles in the park, Anna and I talked about this and both felt deflated.
I ended up catching up with Justin, Luke, and Regi who had gone to explore another trail. It was beautiful running through the forest with the lake to our left and the sounds of songbirds surrounding us. But I felt upset that we weren’t running our miles on the route.
As if to add injury to insult, I suddenly felt a sharp, searing pain in my left foot and let out a yell.
Immediately, I thought to myself, “You just stepped on a nail.” As I cautiously raised my foot to look at the bottom of my shoe, I was afraid of what I might see.
“Are you alright?” Justin asked me as him, Luke, and Regi turned around to help me.
“I don’t know,” I replied exasperated. “I think I stepped on a nail.” I couldn’t get my foot to turn at the right angle to see what was in the sole, so I sat down and took it off. Sticking out of the bottom of my shoe, was the sharpest woodchip I had ever seen. I threw it to the ground and took my sock off, expecting to see blood or a piece of the woodchip in my foot. But luckily, nothing was there.
“Maybe I was a bit dramatic,” I said to them. I was embarrassed.
“No, you aren’t!” Justin told me. “Look! It goes all the way through your shoe into the sole. You can see the woodchip poking through to the inside of your shoe.”
I was amazed. Somehow, my foot had landed in the perfect way for the woodchip to wedge itself through almost an inch of foam and fabric. There was about an eighth of an inch of the wood chip that had gone clean through the shoe, the insole, and into my foot.
“No wonder that hurt so much,” I said, relieved I hadn’t been making it up. I was even more relieved I hadn’t injured myself.
It took Justin and I a few minutes to get the woodchip out and then we started running again. For the next few days, my foot would feel strange and sore. Now, there was a hole where the woodchip had gone through. It might be psychological, but the shoe never felt the same after today.
Eventually, we would run only two miles through the park because it was much smaller than we had anticipated. Justin and I tried to catch some frogs at a fishing pond, but they were too smart for us and we had no success. Even though I wasn’t happy to have counted our miles exploring the park towards our 4K miles, I did have a lot of fun running with Luke, Regi, and Justin.
Now, everyone had different miles to complete. Some had finished their seven miles for the day and others had two, three, or even four miles left to run. Regi and I had about three miles left to run. I didn’t understand how this counted towards our miles in the route, but that’s what happened.
The directors and those of us in the van decided we would finish our miles closer to the host, so we drove until we arrived in Buffalo. At that point, the team had decided to drive to Niagara Falls and run our miles in the park there. Since Niagara Falls was a large detour from the route, most of us had only expected to go there tomorrow, on our rest day. But instead, we found ourselves completing our miles in the park instead. It felt strange and again, I was disappointed by the day.
Because different people had completed different amounts of their mileage, Regi and I ran our remaining three miles with Alexis. The American portion of Niagara Falls was mostly contained to Goat Island, which was part of Niagara Falls State Park. We were surprised that the park was not a National Park. Although we didn’t know what the requirements were to become one, we thought Niagara Falls had enough fame. As we ran around the walking path that circled around Goat Island, we dodged between tourists and families who gave us wild looks. We were sweaty from the miles we had already done and probably smelt horrendous. It didn’t help when we ran down a dead-end trail that displayed the view of the falls from the Three Sisters Islands. Even though this was an extremely crowded area, the view of the water rushing by was incredible.
Somewhere, we stopped at a large statue of Nikola Tesla. He had designed the first Alternating Current Hydraulic Power Plant, inspired by Niagara Falls. Another statue of Tesla had a plaque that explained how he had shown the world how the waterfall was not only beautiful but could be harnessed as energy.
When we had completed our three miles and looped back at the van, the other van had arrived and were also finishing their miles at the park. I wasn’t sure why they were finishing their miles too, and just felt done with the day and the crowds. I wanted to curl up in my sleeping bag and go to sleep.
While we waited for everyone else to finish their miles, a few of us walked back along the path we had run on to take a closer look at the Falls. Just as before when we were running around the path, I was reminded of visiting the falls on our family trip to Canada when I was a kid. When I was little, I thought these were the most amazing falls I had ever seen. We had taken the Maid of the Mist to take a closer look and I remember wearing Ponchos as water sprayed us in the face. At one point, we even went through some tunnels on the Canadian side as well. Even now, the second time seeing the falls, their awe, and beauty that they provoked was stunning. But again, I found I was tired, and the growing crowds weren’t helping my mood.
We walked around the shops and a few teammates got food and souvenirs. But soon, I wasn’t the only one who was tired and peopled out. Everyone wanted to leave.
On the way to the host in Buffalo, we joked that we would have preferred the town of Austin, Nevada that had a population of fewer than two hundred people. As I sat in the van realizing that this wasn’t a joke for me and I honestly would rather visiting a town that small, I wondered what else we had grown used to as a team. We had become so close over the past weeks, that anyone observing us would have thought we had known each other for years.
“What was unique about our team, our experiences, and our dynamics that we hadn’t yet realized?” I remember wondering to myself. Only time would tell.
As the joking continued, I felt I had to share the story of my family’s Canadian border crossing. We grew up with an RV, and so one of our first big trips was a trip to Canada where we visited Niagara Falls, Toronto, and the Thousand Islands. When we drove across the border, there was simply a stop sign. Although there was a building, there were no guards and there was no sign explaining that we had to stop and wait for an inspection. So as with any stop sign, my parents stopped the RV, looked left, looked right, looked left again, and kept driving. We only managed a few feet before multiple Canadian guards suddenly came running out of the building telling us we had to wait. They ended up searching the entire RV before letting us pass. My family and I often laugh about this story and joke around about it. When I told Team Boston, there were a lot of laughs too.
I wondered what the borders looked like now, and if you could cross them so easily. That story had happened over ten years ago and times had changed. I was sure things had only gotten more serious for both borders.
When we arrived at the host, it was the fourth and final mail drop of the trip. This made everyone’s day. As we shared our goodies and food that we found in the packages, people’s low morale started to go away.
We rested for a little bit and then Tyler and I decided to do our first track workout together since our time trial in Cleveland. We found a track at the local high school and decided to do some 500-meter repeats there. It took about a mile and a half to run to the track and it felt awkward as we ran with our water bottles, phones, and newly acquired track spikes in one hand. Once we got there, we were lucky enough to have the entire facility to ourselves as the sun started to set. We didn’t run the whole workout in the new spikes since they were designed to make us run on our toes. This meant, engaging more calf muscles than if we landed on our midsole as we did in our normal shoes. As I pulled them over my feet and truly tested a pair of spikes for the first time, I felt my excitement boiling up inside of me. They felt like a sock on my feet and as I walked on the start line, I felt the metal spikes bite into the track. I felt faster just standing in them. The times though greatly disappointed me. By the end of the first 500-meters, I was toast. My calves were on fire and I knew I needed to run in them more to get used to running on my toes. A few times, I caught a spike and tripped a little. Tyler encouraged me through my disappointment and reminded me that the shoes completely change everything about running on a track. It would take a while to become comfortable in them. That’s why we had planned so many extra workouts over the next few days. As we ran the mile and a half back to the host, we realized we had run a little over five extra miles today, boosting both of our mileage counts to almost thirteen miles. We were tired. In the breathless silence on our cooldown, I realized that sprinting all out and pushing hard through the workout had blown out most of my frustration with the day. I was in a great mood and I was feeling the effects of a runner’s high.
When Tyler and I arrived back at the host, we decided to check out a running store in the town named Runner’s Roost. As we walked over to the store, we realized that we weren’t in Buffalo, New York. We were in a small town near Buffalo called Orchard Park. The only reason we knew this is because the street was hosting a massive summer block party. There were live bands, massive crowds of people, local food stands, and multiple signs naming the festival as Orchard Parks Summer Festival. Ordinarily, we would have thought this was really exciting and would have joined in the festivities. But our priority was to see if the store could donate any electrolytes for the team. We were tired after our workout and needed to shower! Inside the store, there was very little merchandise and almost everything was on sale. The owners ended up donating us a generous supply of granola bars and electrolytes as well as a few Runner’s Roost t-shirts. We were happy with their donation even though they said they would have donated more if they hadn’t been cleaned out by the street festival. It was their largest weekend of the year for sales!
Later, a bunch of the team would join the street party in celebration of Bea’s birthday. I stayed behind to get some rest and talk with my family on the phone. It had been a long time since I had spoken to anyone.
Before going to bed, Aspen, Ally, Tyler B., Anna, and I all talked about our disappointment in the day. We agreed that we felt as though some people on the team were losing sight of why they were here and why they had chosen to participate in 4K. Today had been treated like a vacation and we didn’t like it. It wasn’t why we had come here. What about creating a line with the route of where we had run from the West Coast to the East Coast and fulfilling our commitment to our sponsors, the foundation, our supports, and the cancer community? We had let them down because we didn’t speak up. It pains me to write the events of today and how I said nothing as the events unfolded. We promised each other to intervene anytime we felt this way in the days coming. We promised each other that if people tried to approach our future miles in this way we would object. We hadn’t realized how we had all been in silent agreement. Even though this doesn’t make it more right by any means, we had each thought we were the only ones who disagreed with today. We failed to confront our discomfort, our fear, in being the lone voice of disagreement. In doing so, we failed ourselves and the team. Most importantly, we failed our supporters and the cancer community.
I am sorry.
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