Welcome to the start of week 6! What a start it turned out to be. After one of our most memorable nights of the trip so far, we were refreshed and ready to tackle the 35 mile day to Magnolia. The Youth Center we stayed in was such a cool place for the three of us to stay in and as Matt wrote last night we had plenty to do. Ken did what he does best and found a nice comfortable couch to take a nap on, Matt beat the video game Battle Front in the matter of a few hours, and I worked on my pool skills. As our friend Pennell's always says "its about getting good".
We decided to get on the road early after checking the weather report the night before. It looked like a cold day, with a high of 38 and a wind chill of 25. Snow was also in the forecast for early afternoon. With such a promising day ahead of us (joking), we thought the earlier we got going the more of a chance we would have of missing anything that turned nasty. Our alarm went off at 6:15 and we all stumbled around trying to pack the joggers. I personally wore every piece of long clothing that I packed. I also had my rain coat handy, just in case. We headed out the door just after 7 to a dark and windy morning. Much like the start of any day on the road, we first headed to a local grocery store to get supplies.
We grabbed the usual - breakfast to go, bread, Gatorade, snack food and this morning we also got the local newspaper. We were interviewed yesterday afternoon and told the article would be published this morning. As we walked out of town eating our pop tarts and muffins, Matt read the paper to us. We were all very excited to find out our article was on the front page! It was a well written piece and I was glad to see we were back in the news for people to hear about our journey.
We begin each morning walking in order to warm up our legs and to prepare ourselves mentally as we walk out of town. It's always hard to push the joggers up and down sidewalks so we walk them until we are back on the main roads. As we walked this morning, car after car honked their horns at us and were waving. I could tell a lot of people saw us in the paper this morning. It was a good feeling to know others were rooting for us once again.
After a couple of minutes we started running, when it immediately began to hail. Everyone agreed that this was much better than rain and it was a nice change of pace...at first. We heard it was suppose to snow on the day but I don't think anyone truly believed it. However, after only a mile or two of running, light snow began to fall. We all put on our rain coats and tarped the joggers for a long day of cold weather.
At first, the snow was very light and melted just as quick as it fell. This did not last very long. For the next 6-7 hours the snow became heavier and heavier and at times I thought I was at home on a training run. Our joggers piled up close to 4 or 5 inches of snow by the end of the day. I was making snow balls and throwing them at the guys (mostly Durkin) throughout the day. We tried our usual routine of running for a few minutes and walking for a few before we realized this technique would not work today. It was just to cold to walk even for a few minutes as our bodies were completely soaked.
I know this might not sound like a lot but at one point during the day we ran for 50 minutes straight. We were able to cover 7 miles an hour (absolutely flying for us) in attempts of finishing as quickly as possible. Unfortunately, with 22 miles left in the day we experienced our first flat of the day. I say first flat because another was waiting just down the road. Soaking wet and freezing this was the last thing that any of us wanted. We stopped inside a liquor store after talking to Lori who saw us in the paper. She was happy to talk to us as we fixed our wheel and before we left bought us all drinks and a snack. I remember her asking if our mothers knew where we were at least 3 or 4 times.
It was hard to force ourselves back outside and into the cold but eventually we were able to do so. The roads were starting to stick with heavy snow at this point making it that much harder to run. Ken said at least the shoulder was still extremely large or the day would be that much more miserable. It would be almost impossible to run if the shoulder was any smaller because we had to not only fight the weather but also the traffic. As each semi-truck drove passed us we had to brace for their wet impact. Somewhere down the road a man pulled up to us and asked if we needed a ride. We explained to him what we were doing and he wished us luck. He then gave us a few bucks for lunch and went on his way. It was another great gesture by someone that have never met us or that would probably never see us again, yet he cared enough to see us reach our goal. I am still amazed by the kindness of strangers.
We ran steadily for the next few hours, covering a good amount of ground before our second flat of the day occurred, with just about 8 miles left. Ironically, once again the flat occurred on the jogger Matt was pushing. I'm not necessarily blaming him but lets just say.. it was his fault. At this point my hands were freezing and it was twice as hard to stop and fix a wheel. We sat down a few feet off the road and took care of business. At this point in the day we were all pretty down and just wanted the day to end.
As we got running again for the last leg of the day, Matt took off pushing one of the joggers as he had done so all day. He was a real champ today - pushing one of the joggers almost entirely by himself all day. At times I could not even see him because he was so far ahead of us. He was a true warrior in such harsh conditions and it really kept me moving.
We finally arrived at South Arkansas University just after 3 and met up with our host for the night, the track and field team. Kendall, Bailey, Lindsay, Sunshine and the rest of the team were waiting for us as we arrived at Kendall's on-campus apartment. It was a great welcoming and we were excited to get out of the cold weather and into a hot shower. The rest of the night we talked with the team and traded stories. It was awesome hanging out with people our own age again. We ate at the cafeteria on campus, which was basically a southern Wilsbach. Durkin got one of the guys on the team with the salt shaker as we were stacking our trays. Everyone on the team seemed to really get a kick out of that game and we hope it spreads down here. We are currently resting in Sunshine's apartment for the night trying to dry everything out and prepare for tomorrow.
We posted some more pictures today under the link Day 32-36. Check them out to see the conditions today. Tomorrow we hear should be back in the high 50s low 60s and we are all looking forward to seeing the sun once again. One day of snow is more than enough for us on a trip of this magnitude.
That's all for now. We'll see you tomorrow.
-Andy
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