Freedom Run Read online

  He called me back a couple of minutes later, literally laughing about my message but ecstatic that I was able to run again. “You nut,” he said when I answered. “I’m so happy for you, but be careful. Don’t run and talk at the same time.”

  “It’s OK, I’m on speakerphone.”

  I also called my cousin Darren, who I had talked with a lot the preceding days. We both cried when I called to tell him I was running again. My cousin was my rock at times during the run, especially when I needed to share something that I couldn’t share with my wife, whether it was a painful experience or frustrations that I didn’t want to burden her with.

  Pain Free!

  I woke up the next morning needing to run at the highest elevation of the journey so far, 6,000 feet, which was the Doherty Slide area that we had driven down on the way out. I was amazed that I felt great that morning. I literally had no pain in my shin. The stiffness in my leg was gone, the swelling was down and I could fully flex my foot. The weather was also warmer. It’s as if the clouds that had hovered over me the past few days literally and figuratively parted.

  Being 28 miles behind schedule, I decided to add a few miles to the run that day in order to chip away at the total distance I was behind. I knew it would take a couple of days to regain the conditioning that I had lost after walking so much the past few days. But I also believe all of the walking allowed me to adjust to the thinness of the air, keeping me from dealing with any elevation-related sickness.

  Shortly after running through the small town of Adel (population 78), where we learned at the gas station that there was a wedding scheduled in town later that evening, I was back out on the deserted road, with just the sounds of my feet clapping against the road and the rustling of the many jackrabbits I encountered running through the underbrush. But then I heard a noise that startled me and the jackrabbits.

  BOOM! BOOM!

  I don’t know if it was due to my military training, but instinctively I dropped down low on the road. I knew that what I heard were gunshots directly east of me. I looked around cautiously because I was literally in the middle of nowhere. About 30 minutes prior to hearing the shots, a truck had passed me heading east, and I lost them as they rounded the turn. As I scanned the area from the where the shots came from, I saw the truck parked out in the open area of the high desert. Some shrubbery and fencing around the land almost concealed the truck from view. I then saw a man in an orange vest, then another in a bright yellow vest and finally a third man in an orange vest. They were walking through the area near the truck, spread out with shotguns in their hands. A jackrabbit scurried across the road in front of me, hopping around the carcass of a dead coyote on the side of the road and away from the area where the hunters were. I wasn’t sure if they were hunting jackrabbits (if they were, they weren’t good marksmen), hunting coyotes (if so, they had good aim) or hunting runners, but I didn’t want to stick around long enough to find out.

  I waved at them as I ran past, and fortunately they all waved back. I suspect they were probably thinking to themselves, “What is that nut doing running out here in the middle of nowhere?” I had the same thought about myself just then, considering there was gunfire going on around me. I heard a few more shots as I made my way down the road, and as I ran I laughed when I imagined that the men were probably rounding up some food for the wedding reception that night.

  Blizzard Gap was approaching, at an elevation of 6,122 feet at the summit, and I was feeling really good. Shayna and Nick had both run with me some that day and we were all relieved that I miraculously appeared to be getting back into the groove. After crossing over Blizzard Gap, I knew I had one more big climb to tackle that day—Doherty Slide. Whenever I faced a large climb that coincided with an aid stop, I told Tiffany I preferred that she stop at the top of the hill rather than the bottom. I just preferred to knock those climbs out at the end of a leg so that after I refueled and stepped out of the RV to run again, I wouldn’t be faced right away with a difficult stretch of road. In this case, I was about to wrap up the day of running, so it would be great to have Doherty Slide in our rearview mirror the next morning.

  As I made my way up the mountain, I could see for what seemed like at least 100 miles out. I stopped a few times to get photos and video with my phone. I really learned to appreciate the beauty of this country on the trip, and the view from the Slide was one of the best. The RV went by me as I was about a mile up the mountain, and I noticed that one of the kids was in the front seat with Tiff. My mom has never been a fan of heights, so it was no surprise when she told me later that she had been lying down in the back of the RV so she wouldn’t have to look out the window as Tiff motored up the mountain.

  At the top of the Slide, there was an area where the state road had huge piles of gravel to put on the roads for inclement weather, so we parked behind one of the piles and stayed the night. The water in the RV was running low and the laundry was piling high since we had been in the middle of nowhere for a couple of days. We were finally feeling good about the mechanics of living in our box on wheels, but it sure wasn’t easy. I knew I was getting close to the Oregon/Nevada border, so we were excited about making our first entry into a new state.

  I woke up the next morning, which happened to be Easter Sunday, and stepped out into the most beautiful sunrise I had seen in a while. We were still at a pretty significant elevation, but the land was so flat you could see forever. Eight miles into the run, the RV went by me, and I rounded a turn to a beautiful sight. The RV was parked alongside the road, right in front of the Nevada state line sign. Everyone was out getting photos, and I just couldn’t hold in my excitement as I approached the crew and yelled, “First state down!” What a momentous occasion for all of us.

  We came into Denio Junction later that day, where the town (of about 40 people) had put up a sign welcoming us. The children in the town made the sign to encourage me and display their support for the troops. It was definitely a moment to remember and I was thankful that the message was getting out there. The town held an Easter dinner and invited us to attend. We celebrated my daughter’s 10th birthday in the restaurant that evening, and also swapped out a crew member. My in-laws met us in Denio Junction, where Tiffany’s mother, Kathy, replaced my mom, who was flying back to West Virginia.

  Having my mom with us helped out in so many ways, as did our upcoming time with Kathy. Tiff had so many demands, taking care of me, the RV, the kids and dealing with the logistics of everything. With our mothers taking turns being there with us, Tiff was at least able to get some time to decompress. I was also very grateful that my mom had been able to see me begin running again the last few days she was with us. I know it really bothered her to see me go through all the pain I was in with my leg, so I think it eased her concerns as she left to see that I was feeling good again.

  The next couple of days through Nevada were pretty uneventful. Civilization in the area was sparse, and the small towns we did travel through appeared to be once-prosperous towns that were now boarded up. I joked with my kids that it looked like this is where the animated movie “Cars” was filmed.

  We were heading into the Battle Mountain area when, before I headed out to begin my run that morning, there was a knock on the RV door. Numerous times on this trip, my wife had arranged for old friends that we hadn’t seen in years to meet up with us, and this morning I was greeted by Matt and Kathy Ewoldt, along with their children, who had driven eight hours up from Las Vegas to spend the day with us. It was great seeing them, and it also gave our kids an opportunity to get outside and play with other children, something they desperately needed. At one point, the kids found an old tire along the roadside and had an absolute blast rolling the tire up the mountainside, cheering it as it bounced back down the mountain. You could tell they had been cooped up in a motorhome too long.

  Things didn’t remain cheerful for long, though. For whatever reason, as the temperature rose that day, I continued to get colder and colder, adding a couple mo
re layers to my clothing just to keep from being too chilled. I had felt fine the night before, even though that day I had a difficult time eating much and I also didn’t drink as many fluids as normal. On this day Tiffany helped me try to be more conscious about refueling, but I wasn’t feeling well enough to eat and drink everything she put in front of me.

  At the end of the run that day, I was freezing and I asked Tiffany to run a hot bath for me in the hotel room that the Ewoldts had set up for us. That was mistake #1. I also immediately turned the heat up full blast. That was mistake #2. When I crawled into the bath, I just kept telling myself to run more and more hot water into the tub. “This will certainly help take the chill off of me,” I thought to myself. That was mistake #3.

  I finally got out of the bath, having thoroughly cooked myself, and crawled into bed. I was shivering, and just couldn’t get warm, but Tiff felt my forehead and said that I was burning up. She sat on the edge of the bed and forced some beef stew down my throat, getting me to drink and eat as much as I could. She let me rest for a while, but Tiff and her mom took turns checking on me. This is the one time of the trip I think Tiff had the most concern about me. She could tell something wasn’t right.

  Then all of a sudden it hit me. I remembered reading in Marshall Ulrich’s book about how the body would heat up during the run, making it almost impossible to sleep at times. They had to keep the living quarters cooled off to get his body to cool down enough to get into a recovery mode. Whatever bug I had certainly wasn’t helping matters, but I also wasn’t doing the proper things to take care of myself. I crawled out of bed, turned the AC on and then got back in bed, this time just placing the bed sheet over me. I was cold, but I knew that I needed to stop cooking myself the way I had been. I fell asleep a few minutes later, and woke up around 2 a.m. feeling like a new man. I never did figure out what caused me to catch whatever bug I had in my system, but whatever it was, it was gone. I’m also not sure who was more relieved, me or Tiffany, but I was happy to feel 100 times better than I had just a few hours prior.

  I met Matt and Kathy downstairs the next morning before they left, apologizing that I didn’t get a chance to spend a lot of time with them, and what time I did spend with them was not very pleasant.

  “No worries. We came to see Tiff and the kids anyways,” Matt joked.

  After having a rough time the previous day and evening and being pretty dehydrated, I was determined to flood myself with Gatorade on this day. By the time we had driven the six miles from the hotel to the start of my route that day, I had already drunk a full 32-ounce cup of Gatorade, and made sure that by the first stop, all four of my FuelBelt bottles were empty. If there was one thing I could not do on this trip, it was take in small amounts of liquid, especially as it began to get warmer.

  As the day wore on, my system continued to feel replenished and alert, so I pressed on at a fairly good pace, only stopping long enough to refill my drinks and shove lots of food down my throat. Everyone seemed to be in better spirits after having spent a day with some great friends, and also seeing that I was feeling a lot better. But difficulty was brewing on the horizon.

  Small Towns, Big Hearts

  As we made our way toward Elko, Nevada, the generator stopped working in the RV. As the weather was getting warmer, we found ourselves running the AC in the RV more often to keep the crew cool, which also gave me some relief as I stepped in from my run. It was also becoming critical for me to be able to sleep comfortably at night, getting the RV down to a very cool temperature, which often froze everyone else. We knew that being without air conditioning was not an option. Tiffany started calling ahead to service stations in Elko, and being a Sunday, we found most repair places were closed. I had about eight miles left to go to finish the day, so I told Tiff to head into town and I would meet the family there. This gave her more time to try to find a place that could take a look at the generator.

  As I continued running along the freeway, I met a couple of bicyclists and struck up a brief conversation with them.

  “Where are you off to?” asked one of the cyclists.

  “Annapolis, Maryland” I replied.

  “What?” responded the other cyclist, dumbfounded and uncertain that he had heard me correctly.

  “Annapolis, Maryland,” I repeated. After a 30-second explanation of my mission, they headed off and as I watched them ride away, I could see both of them shaking their heads in disbelief.

  I made my way into Elko, tracking Tiffany and the crew down by phone as I jogged through the streets. She had found a parts store in town, where she bought a new spark plug and fuses. She replaced all of the parts, but still had no luck firing the generator. We found out there was a Cummins Service Station in town, so we decided to try our luck there in the morning. I took the opportunity that evening to catch up on the phone with several good friends who I went to high school with, including Palmer Stephens, who is a radio DJ near my hometown back in West Virginia. He and I spoke often on the journey and he would give me time to keep his radio listeners updated on the progress of the run. One of the things that I was most thankful for was the fact that when I would call one of my friends back home, they were always willing to listen when I needed to talk.

  Tiffany called the Cummins shop when we woke up the next morning and, fortunately for us, one of the two mobile technicians they employed was there that day. Usually they were both out on the road servicing vehicles. We explained what we were doing and expressed our desire to do whatever necessary, within financial reason, to get the generator running again. Within 45 minutes the technician identified the problem. Tiffany and the kids had started geocaching and rock hunting as we came into Nevada, and some of the roads weren’t necessarily made for a 31-foot RV. The technician suspected that is what caused a wire to become loose on the starter, and once he clamped it down and made sure contacts were good, it fired right up. The workers at the store then thanked us for what we were doing, and told us the labor was on them.

  It wasn’t really a surprise to me, but more of a reassurance and a confirmation of the true American spirit. We may be strangers, but people understand the sacrifices the men and women in the military make every day, and when they see others giving everything to help them out, the true American spirit really starts to shine. People came out of the woodwork to take care of us when we needed it, and to just shake our hands or throw us a wave as they drove by. It wasn’t surprising at all as far as I was concerned. I knew that spirit was out there, I was just giving people the chance to let it shine.

  And did it ever!

  Chapter 8: Road Closed Ahead

  Just as I needed some smaller, attainable goals during my two years of training for this run across America, during the actual run it really helped me to identify various benchmarks that I could use to mark my progress or to offer me a sense that the end goal was within sight. Crossing into a second time zone was one of those milestones. We were leaving the Pacific time zone on Day 25, so it also meant that 25 percent of my journey was complete.

  My body was now settling into the run quite nicely, and the injury I sustained to my left leg that set me back early on was healed. A phenomenon that I had read about from runners who had done similar journeys across America or the Appalachian Trail was starting to take place. My “long distance legs” were finally getting under me, which enabled me to run for long distances, day after day, without experiencing the tiredness or pain that normally occurs after running extremely long distances. When I would wake up each morning, it felt as though I hadn’t even run the previous day. That was a strange but exciting feeling for me.

  I remembered how I felt after many of the ultramarathons I ran the previous two years, especially the 40-Mile Highland Sky race. The day after that race, I flew with my wife to Las Vegas, where she was attending a conference. For the first four days of the trip, I could barely walk down any steps without wincing in pain. The Laurel Highland and Burning River races wiped me out for a couple of days afterwar
d, forcing me to spend those days resting on the couch. I wouldn’t have even thought about lacing up my running shoes for a few days after those races. But here I was on my 25th consecutive day of running an ultramarathon, and I was waking up to very little stiffness or pain in my body.

  I shared with Tiffany that I was really feeling strong physically, but the run was still a mental challenge. “Only 75 more days of this,” I told myself while out on the run. But instead of serving as a comforting thought, that phrase just made the remainder of the journey seem even more daunting. I laughed as I said out loud to no one in particular, “Only 75 more days!”

  After my final full day in Nevada, I was still about 12 miles behind our scheduled stopping point at the end of that day, so we went ahead and drove to Wendover, Utah, which was right on the Nevada-Utah border, to spend the night at a casino RV park. I never really liked it when we would drive ahead in the route because I would rather not know what challenges the route would present each day. But logistically, we had to do it often in order to fulfill obligations, be at scheduled events, or simply because oftentimes that was the closest place we could find to stay the night.

  That evening we walked back into Nevada because we thought it wouldn’t be right to leave the state without doing a little gambling. The RV was literally parked a few feet across the state line in Utah at the campground, so the walk was a relatively short one. The adults hit the slots and blackjack tables while our children had fun in the arcade. Lady luck wasn’t on my side at the slots, but she was later that evening. Even though I was pushing my body to its breaking point physically each day, being isolated out on the roads while running really increased my desire to be with my wife. That desire actually increased more and more as the days passed. I’ll never forget the conversation Tiffany shared with me that she had with her mother when she pulled her aside while we were out at dinner that evening.