Run Across America - 2nd August - Day 50

It was the most important day so far for the Run Across America project because after 44 miles on the road it was the crossing of the half way point (1545 miles). It was going to be a long day as I wanted the half way crossing to arrive straight away but I had to put in the longest mileage for one day in order to get there.

I awoke at 6am leaving Alex, Ben and Natasha to have a sleep because I had to walk over to the car park and send some of the diary with pictures to my website designer (City Webs). Internet connection in Kansas is non existent and we haven’t had any for the last three days as well as no telephone signal so it’s been awful not having that contact in case of an emergency back home. Once I sent the emails I then had to get the team up and get ready to be on the road before 07.30am before a 08.00am start.

The running was going to start a little later as we had to fill up the gas and I ended speaking to the owner of the garage about the run and my charities. I set off running about 8 or so miles past Atwood and heading towards “Decatur County Line” and into first small city of the day called Oberlin. Oberlin supposedly has a 2000 population, but to me it seemed there was just a couple of gas stations and a restaurant. Once in the “City” I made a couple of telephone calls to my beautiful mama and then my sponsor and biggest supporter Jimmy Archer. Jimmy sells the best Norfolk meat at a reasonable price and the takeaway food is out of this world. It’s a family business and based on Plumstead Rd, near the Heartsease pub, Norwich, Norfolk. We had a good discussion as I haven’t spoken to Jimmy since the first day in Huntington Beach I think he was in Le Mans for the racing with some other sponsors and good friends of mine (Drew Breeze and Steve Pointer).

Getting back to the run and the roads in Kansas are rather hillier than expected and over the course of the day I probably ran up more hills than on flat roads. The team are now taking it in turns with the cycling with firstly Natasha completing 15 miles, ‘BEN’ it’s in big letters because this was the first time since California that Ben has been on the road, today he cycled 5 miles and then Alex finished off with 14 miles to the end of the day. It’s such a big help for me and it also gets them out of the RV for a while instead of being stuck in it all day long.

To finish off this diary I would like to thank all my team (Alex, Trevor, Ben and my little Natasha) for all being stars and sticking by me when their only here on a voluntary experience and can walk away when they like. Trevor had to leave after 5 weeks, but that was always the plan. He was a great asset not just for me but the rest of the team and we all miss him so much. My god buddy Matt Chapman will be joining the team this week sometime (hopefully) all the way to New York. Matt will add that extra flavour to the experience and will be taking lots of photos as that’s what he’s good at and also cycling during the day.

Artist of the day – Acoustic anthems (chill out running music in the morning)

Regards, Jackson and Team