Monday night we stayed with my aunt Sandy and Pat. She had an amazing spread of breakfast for us and we were so excited to eat and hit the road until we looked outside. Rain. Wind. Gloom. Eerily reminded us of our start to this adventure but we knew that we had to get it done.
Luckily because we were a little ahead of schedule, we drove in to Coralville to find a wi-fi spot to check out our map to see how many miles we would each have to go. Once we pulled up the map we realized that this may be the longest toughest day that we were going to do because we were all emotionally and physically drained. As a group we made the best decision I think that we made on this entire trip. Change the route.
Our original plan was to go from Council Bluffs to Davenport with 5 people. We were down one person and looking at the map knew that it would be a difficult task with 4. So we decided for the sake of our safety and sanity that we would go through Iowa City and West Liberty as planned but head South just outside of Moscow and go to Muscatine. Technically this would still be a border of Iowa/Illinois and would still be an opportunity for us to see the Missouri River and Nebraska on Friday morning and the Mississippi River and Illinois on Tuesday afternoon.
Nick was the first runner up for the day and headed out with some rain that drenched him within the first mile of his 4 miles for the morning. My uncle Gary and his wife Krista wanted to greet us with some of Gary's co-workers as we were running past his employer. Since Nick had some sidewalk to work with we went ahead to meet them. As we got there everyone headed out of Randy's Flooring to cheer us on. It was a cool experience because we hadn't gotten cheered in a couple of days and made us realize that people were truly behind us.
I was next and due to some logistical errors with the driving situation didn't have enough time to stretch and went out with sore, tight muscles. I had planned on doing 4 but with the weather conditions and my current state I knew that it would be a bad idea and I would just pick up some more later in the day.
Andrew was next and as he started to run the rain finally started to die down a bit. He put in a good 4 miles before handing off to Mandy for her first shift of the day.
As we were rotating we could start to see each other fade a bit. Legs were getting sore, emotions were starting to take over and everyone was just looking to get home. I think that we were all starting to check out until the clouds broke, the sun came out and we got some wind to help us out a bit. I think that we all knew God was pushing us along at this point helping us to finish and finish strong.
We were all so excited once Nick hit his 3rd and final shift for the day because that meant one for everybody. As soon as I saw the Muscatine 10 mile sign, I knew that what had taken me a year to plan for was almost over.
On our last runs, all of us decided to change up our musical choices for the last leg. Nick went with some Casting Crowns to push him through (which later he would say that he should have been listening to that the whole way) and Mandy, Andrew and I decided that Jeff Mullen and the Point of Grace crew were going to get us through and boy did it. You could see everyones emotions changing as the were going. The praise music was working through us and our steps were lighter, we were playing the drums and calling out to God for strength. One of us even started to cry as they broke through "the wall".
As Mandy took over for the final leg going in to Muscatine, you could feel the excitement that in less than 3 miles we have each done our part to take the group across the state on our feet. 2 miles into Mandy's run, we came up on a hill down a very narrow street and there it was, the Mississippi. We had done it. We faced our fears, we beat the weather, we conquered our inner voices. We have done it!!!!!
Over the next couple of days, I have asked all participants to log in here and give you their feelings on what exactly they experienced over the course of 5 days running. I will post my info in a different post and will be posting photos for everyone to see.
Brad
AWESOME.
ReplyDeleteCongrats Brad! That's awesome! Glad it all went well.
ReplyDeleteJaime