I Made the Run

I did it. After all these years, I finally made that journey run from the house that has been floating around in my head just waiting for the opportunity to come to fruition. There are a couple more routes in there, and I hope to get them out soon.

Besides being off work, my wife was out of town, so Friday I finally felt free enough and fit enough to go really long just for the fun of it. I left the house at 7:20 am with two packs on and an eagerness matched only by my naiveté. Since my legs didn’t feel well from the previous days training and I already knew the trip would take lots of walking, I began the day with a slow walk to allow for a gradual warm up and to put my muscles into a fat burning metabolism from the beginning.

I went west to Grand Blvd, then south to Claiborne, onto the levee, and I crossed the bridge while cars zipped past driven by people headed to work, I suppose. Grenada Blvd was a bit dicey with heavy traffic, no shoulder, and seemingly no speed limit. Relief is what I felt when I made my way to Highway 7, crossed it onto Grenada Blvd Extended and ran traffic free for a while. Now I was getting away from home and the morning was beginning to seep into my being. For the first time, I heard the birds sing, felt the temperature of the air, and noticed the pleasant sky above.

Shortly after running out of Grenada Blvd Extended and back onto Highway 7, I crossed the Big Sand Creek Bridge and then turned left onto a nondescript county road. There, I ran on gravel past a tupelo gum break, a lake, and then straight as an arrow down the Big Sand levee which is as high and wide as the Mississippi river levee. The gravel road, at the end of the levee, turns onto the old Highway 7 and then meanders through the delta leaving Leflore County and crossing into Carroll before finally rejoining the new highway several miles later.

About two miles north on Highway 7 brought me to Whaley Road where I turned west. I crossed two bridges within the first half mile, the second of which spanned the Yalobusha River. The road is gravel there and parallels a swampy area locally known as the Tippo Run. As I trotted along I saw an old black man with a rake doing something under some pecan trees. “How far to Money?” I asked. He paused and seemed to be in deep thought. “About four miles,” he answered coming back from a long way away. After about one of those four, I stopped on a bridge and taped my feet with some kinesio, and then peed into the water below. They, the feet, felt a lot better when I resumed running.

After another one of the four, Steele Henderson, one of my Comp I students drove up. “You need some Gatorade?” he asked after first inquiring about my distance which was a little over nineteen miles at this point. He works on an area farm and was on his way to town for lunch. “Heck yeah,” I answered and tried without success to give him money. Nice kid. I told him I would be at the fire station in Money, one of my stops.

I finally came to the big bend on Whaley Road where you can see Money off in the distance just beyond the railroad tracks. I heard a train coming from the south and figured it was going to be close. I didn’t want to be delayed by the train when Steele made it back, so I picked the pace up. Then I heard another train, this one from the north. I ran even harder. The northbound train stopped while the southbound train chugged across the intersection I was headed towards. When the last of the train cleared the crossing, I went into a sprint, or at least what I call a sprint, knowing the other train would be plowing ahead immediately. As I ran over the crossing, I looked south and saw the northbound train closing the gap on me.

Over the crossing, I slowed to a shuffle and tried to catch my breath as I made the last quarter of a mile to the Money Volunteer Fire Department Building. Once there, I took my packs off, my shoes off, my shirt off, my hat off. I was very tired and so stiff it felt like I was breaking in two when I sank to the concrete.  I groaned a little then I lay down and could have gone to sleep except for the mosquitoes which dive bombed me without regard for their own lives. I was a bit over twenty-miles in with another ten to go, and I was pretty much spent. Why do I do this?

I got out the sardines I had saved all morning, and the peanut butter crackers. From the back of my Nathan I retrieved the little pink kiddy spoon I had found months before on Money Road. I had picked it up and saved it for such a moment as this. I ate my meal slowly, listening to the traffic for a northbound truck, for Steele to make it back with my cold drink. The sardines were excellent and filling but it was then that I realized I had forgotten my peanuts. Peanuts are a great addition to any journey run meal and I missed them terribly and regretted my lack of practical memory.

Steele drove up and handed me a cold thirty-two ounce Lime flavored PowerAde. Only the peanuts could have made it better. A few minutes after my long suffering student left, I put on my dry shirt that I had packed for this occasion, strapped on my refilled packs, and headed south down Money Road towards Greenwood, Mississippi. I had traveled this road many, many times in automobiles, on bicycles, on foot, but this was the first time I had over twenty foot miles on my legs and was trying to get home from here.

I walked a mile or so and let my food settle some before I resumed my old-man-survival shuffle. When I did start back running, I remember thinking I should try not to stop because I wasn’t sure I could resume a jog again. I also remember thinking that if anyone offered me a ride, I would take it.

Well, I got my chance. About the time I was drawing near the radio station, approximately two and a half miles from the house, two old men in a jeep looking vehicle stopped dead on Money Road and asked me if I wanted a ride. I instantly said, “Yes,” but then I had second thoughts. I knew I would regret it if I took the ride so I hesitated and then said, “No, I’ll make it on in on foot.”

“We’re not going to hurt ya,” the old man behind the wheel said.

“I know, I know,” I answered. And then they drove away.

I even managed to shuffle a little more and then somewhere on the Blvd. I slowed to a walk for the rest of the way home. Once there, I wasted no time in getting out of my wet clothes and lying down. The total distance was 30.68 miles.  

Then the phone rang. It was John Misterfeld. He wanted to swim.