Run Across America - 8th September - Day 87

The morning started at a BP Gas station heading on the East 144 road towards Hagerstown. It has been a difficult few days on the road with the mountain hills as my thighs and calf muscles after 2700 miles finally feel they have had enough. It’s been mentally draining getting up through the Maryland roads, but New York City and seeing my beautiful family at Heathrow makes me continue to Central Park.

Today was another hot day but I knew the big mountain roads were beginning in the morning session and once through the big mountain roads it was then on straight but rolling hills. Matt joined me again for the full 40 miles, so its good having someone to understand the mental as well as the physical preparation that I need to go through on a daily basis.

Alex spent some time today calculating the miles that needed to be completed in order to finish this time next week. By the end of today’s session I will have 268 miles left to Central Park, New York. Now people might say that I’m almost there but to me I still have a long way to go before reaching my whole objective. I gave my girl Annie a quick call at work (Zizzis Restaurant) to make sure everything is okay; she can’t wait for me to get home and for us to go away for a few days with Poppy on a little holiday. I look at this whole trip as a summer holiday because it’s been between my summer holidays and being a teacher and that works perfectly

I have so much planned for when I get back home but for me the most important thing that I have neglected are my family but they will be coming first from now on. I will always be an adventurous person that has many more goals to achieve but I will need to sit down with my girl and discuss everything.

The team and I are parked in a mall car park for the evening. The mall has this coffee shop that I went over and had an amazing mocha (Trevor your kind of place) there was this guy playing a guitar and singing some Country music. I sat in this coffee shop reading my Sports Illustrated magazine with this wicked soulful voice in the background. I said I would give him a plug on my journal, so here goes: His name is David Alberding and his website is – www.davidaalberding.com check it out as he is really good.

Tonight we are all chilling out either on the Internet, reading books or just listening to the radio (Jazz FM).

My Mistake – I said in a previous journal that Abraham Lincoln was the 1st president of the USA but he was actually the Sixteenth President and On Good Friday, April 14, 1865, Lincoln was assassinated at Ford's Theatre in Washington by John Wilkes Booth, an actor, who somehow thought he was helping the South. The opposite was the result, for with Lincoln's death, the possibility of peace with magnanimity died.

Regards - Jackson and Team