way off.a little over 4 hours ago the forty one 400 milers were unceremoniously dumped from a tour bus on the side of a highway in south carolina..armed only with a map of a route they have never seen,they have set off to return to their cars,parked in a hayfieldon a remote mountaintop in north georgia.even in the early morningthe humid air settled on them like a hot, wet blanket. .an hour and a half Read more
for 12 months they have wondered..where will they sleep tonight?where will they be unceremoniously dumped beside the road tomorrow?.the heart of the south is about to begin..they know where it finishes.but not where it starts….missouri? kentucky? florida?louisiana? georgia? miss’ippi?west virginia? north carolina? south carolina?arkansas? alabama?.they know one thing.at 0730 (central time) tomorrowtheir cars will be parked in a hayfield 400 miles away….and they will have 11 days and 10 nights to reach them..on footalonewith only Read more
well, it all comes down to this.the last call in has been made.the surviving vol staters still on the course have turned off the 12 hour alarmsthat have notified them to check in over the past nine and a half days..the line of runners that started with 129 hopefuls at the ferry in missouriand at one time extended over 200 miles across the states of tennessee, alabama, and georgianow is a mere 16 miles long….most Read more
Need I say more?Can’t say much!.Looks like storms all day on the rock..Brandy Davis topped monteagle and dropped.Terrie, Erin, and James were still moving.Rain on course only from jasper on right now.So the ones coming thru tracy city and across the Cumberland plateau only have their existing problems to deal with.
the parade is in full swing.27 people finished during day 8,and 16 more joined them during the first 12 hours of day 9..32 runners are still out there on the course,striving to answer the call of the rock..and at the rock,this is an exhausting timebut so rewarding..the innocent faces on the ferryhave been replaced by the glowing facesof people who have done things they never dreamed they could do..we have a scattering of battered thrownsthat Read more
two days to go..the most amusing comment i have seen was several days ago,after addison finished in first place.essentially it said;“75 miles a day,that isnt so hard.you just have to walk 15 minute miles….with lots of time left over to rest”.this has been the kind of calculation that prospective vol staters have brought with them for decades….only to have the careful math turn to ashesand blow away in the wind..time and space are indeed related.but Read more
seven and a half days are done.the first place i look now is the back..we have 6 vol staters who have fallen 4 miles behind oprah.this is a problem for them.they need 16 miles tonight to reach the hard cutoff of the 55/41 intersection in manchester..these are hard times at race HQ.we know they need more than that to put themselves in reach of finishing.and we have come to really be pulling for them..part of Read more
the lives of the race staff and the vol staters have converged.everything is noticeably compressing every 12 hours.the tail end of the packmoved to shelbyville last night….this morning found hal fuqua struggling back at wheel.and the meat wagon is searching for him to execute an extraction.the morning sun struck the remaining walkerslike so many strips of bacon on a frying pan..familiarity does not make it any less unpleasant.another day of sweltering heat for most of Read more