Friday, February 1, 2008

Day 1:

The day started out around 9am when we loaded up Debbie Farmer's mini van with all our gear and headed out toward Tybee Island and the Atlantic Ocean. Her son Will also joined us, as he was excited to meet us. It was cloudy, windy and a slight rain was beginning to fall as we exited the van. Later in the day Durkin confessed that it was his ideal running weather. We got everything set up and headed out towards the water just before 10. Durkin's brother and friend also came down to wish us off. After a few pictures, we were finally off. It was unreal to think that this day had arrived and we were all on such huge highs. However, it did not take long before we were quickly brought back to reality. Only about 1/2 mile down the road the jogger was drifting hard to the left, something that it has done while training with it. After only a few short minutes of actually running we had to stop and make the appropriate adjustments. The first two hours were slow as we stopped to take pictures, grab things out of the jogger, and stop to fix both the jogger and the bike. The local news stopped and interviewed us on the side of the road about 3 miles into our journey. We watched it on TV this evening. We were only on for a brief moment but Ken gave them the thumbs up. Once we got settled in, things started to flow. For most of the day we worked on a 10-10-10 system where each of us would push the jogger for ten minutes and rest for 20. It was nice pushing the jogger but even sweeter those 20 off minutes. Around 12:30 the sun started to come out and the clouds began to disappear. We finished up our day around 3:30 and just under 24 miles. As we waited for Durkin's brother to pick us up Ken and Matt sat on a curb shirtless. A local thermometer read 71. It was a weird day with strange weather and new feelings. I think it finally started to sink in that for the next four months this would be our lives. Thanks for reading and for all the support. Check back later tonight for photos of our first two days in GA.

1 comment:

John said...

The end of my journey three years ago on the beach of Tybee Island is the start of your journey today. Savor every moment out on the roads and remember no matter what happens it's all part of the adventure. Thousands of people will be living vicariously through you over the next several months so keep us posted as much as possible with photos and stories! I'll definitely be following along just about daily and will look forward to seeing many of the places I passed through. Let me know if there is anything I can help you with along the way - believe it or not it gets kind of remote!

John
http://www.seejohnrun.com
3800 miles, WA-GA, 124 days