Run Across America - 25th July - Day 42

I started off the morning in a beautiful little town called Empire, that even though was small in size, it felt a very lively town. There was just the one road through the town and it was full of family orientated restaurants and old style western bars. Last night after the running I was tempted to go in and have a well-deserved beer. The finishing point of today was Denver, which to me has been on the horizon for so long that it didn’t seem I would ever get there after all the mountain roads I’d been running up. The running started believe it or not uphill for around 10 miles before finally I had a bit of downhill running along the Colorado River. We ran into a place called Idaho Springs that seemed a very busy place with lots of people booking up for white water rafting. I said to the team if I had the money personally I would’ve taken us all for a go, but apart from the money raised for the run I’ve otherwise got no money (My girl Annie has my bank card). Once leaving Idaho Springs it was again along the River and I was racing to try and beat the boats. It was fun and once I got to their finishing point I was asked by them (honestly) about the run (how boring you are probably saying).

The next part of the run was a 2 mile uphill elevation and it was a killer, so I decided on walking up it to save my knee from further problems. The best part of the afternoon session was the fact I was heading towards ‘Buffalo Bill’s’ museum and grave. You may or may not have heard of him, but he was a ‘wild west’ cowboy that killed many bad people and was even given the medal of honour. I told the team once arriving at the site about Bill and they didn’t have a clue about him, and to be honest neither did I until ten minutes before seeing the team. Before arriving at the site I ran into a small store and asked if they could give a quick history lesson on Bill (sorry team if you believed I knew about Bill’s eventful life). I have taken some photos that will be on the week 5-6 gallery.

After leaving the gravesite I had a very steep decline for five miles into a town called Golden (part of Denver). The road that followed down to the bottom was full of cyclists that were racing up to the top, it was crazy as there were around 100 scattered along the route (are all cyclists non cooperative as they wouldn’t move out of the way for me). It took about 35 minutes to get to the bottom and after running 1250 miles, that’s not bad going, even though it was downhill.

The running day had almost come to an end and it had been full of little surprises. I decided after running from Steamboat Springs (awesome place) that if there is an interesting place for viewing then I will have a look and if it takes 10 minutes then never mind. Today I stopped off at a Starbucks Coffee (free of course) with Natasha as she joined me for 10 miles and then Buffalo Bill’s grave and museum. I am running across the ‘real’ America, the places not many people actually see, so I feel that I’m in a lucky position to take advantage of the situation. When stopping off at these places it helps break the day up instead of my usual 8 hours of running constantly.

My team at the minute are finding it boring as they don’t really have much to do when I’m on the road, which leads to me thinking they might want to leave the ‘Run across America’ trip and go off travelling on their own. The team are what actually makes this trip happen, because if I didn’t have Ben as a driver, Alex as the chef, photographer and video recording and little Natasha (not much shorter than me) as my masseuse then the trip would be impossible to complete to New York.

Artist of the day – Lauren Hill (Miss Education)

Regards, Jackson and Team

PS – I met two people along the run today that were walking 6000 miles around the US and at the time of speaking had covered around 3000 miles in 6 months of walking. It was just the most random thing as I’ve now passed 3 groups of people that were challenging themselves to the limit (just like me).