Another great day for the Nation Run team! They woke up and gathered their things for the day's mileage, only to discover that the yellow jogger had 2 flat tires! Andy had attempted to fix these yesterday, but it was not effective. He decided that they would just blow up the tires, and keep filling them periodically throughout the day because the tires only had small leaks. The guys then got some breakfast, and headed to the Post Office to meet up with Carlos.
The guys thanked Carlos for all the help he gave them yesterday. The guys really liked meeting Carlos, and they were sad to have to go. The travel as a whole was pretty slow today. The first 12 miles were on unnamed roads from the GPS. There was two ways to go today; one on definite roads, and the other on the unnamed roads. The trio chose the adventurous route with the unnamed roads. This route probably had not been traveled in many years. Rocks, sand, 3 foot wide pot holes, and more sand covered this roadway. The joggers to not move easily through this type of terrain, so they only covered the first 12 miles in about 2 hours. It was tough travel, but they made jokes about it all morning long and had fun regardless.
At about 11:00 am, the fellas made it back on to solid asphalt. This is where Andy had enough of stopping every hour to fill the tires and decided it was time to change out the tire tubes. After removing the tires and tubes, Andy reached in to the bag of supplies only to find that they had no more tubes left. He went to get a patch to fix the whole, and found their last one. Luckily, Andy's parents are arriving tomorrow with a fresh supply of tubes, patches, and other fixing supplies. They found the hole, patched it, and got back on the road.
The rest of the day was filled with meeting up with a news reporter from Socorro, and a huge elevation climb. The team went up about 2,000 feet in elevation today! There has been a lot of elevation change over the past couple weeks, but they have been told that today was probably the largest they will have the rest of the trip! The road flattened out after the climb. The rest of the day was spent in minimal wind and 60 degrees! What a nice day!
Just outside of town, the guys encountered a bush that was completely decked out in Christmas decor! Kind of strange to see in the middle of New Mexico in April, but it made the guys chuckle and keep movin' on to their final destination. They had a contact with a couple 3 or 4 miles outside of town, Luther and Toni. Andy's parents had offered to pay for a hotel in town, so they obliged. They called up Luther and Toni and thanked them for their generous offer, but told them they would be staying in town. The guys asked if Luther and Toni would meet them for lunch because they still wanted to meet them. The couple met them at a little cafe in town around 5 for a late lunch. They talked a lot about the journey, and Luther is a bit of a runner himself! The town has a mile race that involves a huge elevation change. Luther ran it and finished it! He was very proud of his accomplishment, and the guys were impressed. They also met a gentleman who walked across the United States in 1986 with a large group of people! It took about 9 months to complete his journey. It was a good day of meeting interesting people. Toni and Luther picked up the lunch tab for the guys as well! Thank you!
After the meal, they all headed over to the hotel for the night. After they checked in, they took showers and got laundry going for the first time in about 4 days. Durkin had run out of socks, so it was perfect timing. What was not perfect timing was dinner. They had pretty much all of their clothes in the laundry when they wanted to go eat. Matt had just enough clothes, and Andy said he borrowed Ken's basketball shorts because he had nothing. Ken had one pair of shorts, and Andy described them to be "the shortest shorts in the world." Ken also was wearing Matt's Carlos Delgado Mets t-shirt, which was small on Matt and "painted on Ken" as Andy described it. To top it all off, Ken was wearing his hat backward. It was quite a sight! After dinner, they retired to the hotel for the rest of the night.
To close out the entry tonight, I want to thank all who donated to the team's travel and Phil's scholarship. A gentleman named Pierre donated a very generous sum of money to Phil' scholarship. Thank you Pierre! Another gentleman by the name of Ed donated to the team's travel fund. Ed was from Long Island, New York! Matt was very pumped to meet someone from back home on the trip. Thank you Ed!
A long day, but a good one. Thanks for checkin' in, and keep truckin'!
- Rick
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