Run America

Circumnaivation Complete!

The team knocked out the last 80 or so miles today (again in scorching heat!) after another incredible meal at the Midgley’s.  Kevin and some of the Van 2 team woke up about 5am to get out and do their miles so that Kevin could drive all the way back to DC in time to be in the office on Monday.  Kathleen’s sister, who had come up from Baltimore with her husband and their baby, also chipped in a few key miles which was much appreciated by the team. With Barry leading the bikers, he, Jim, Dave, Dave’s father-in-law (who joined us from the Milwaukee area), Jane and Liz jumped from the runner path and cruised into Chicago along a very nice greenway gazing at the Chicago skyline and watching overhead as the annual air and water show regaled us with stunts.

Dave earned the “man in the saddle”  award for clocking 860+ miles on the bike during our nine days.  On the runner side, Craig pounded out 108 and I am sure there were a few others who were up in that nutty stratosphere as well.

In the end, we finished at Ohio and Lakeshore and toasted the completion of Run America IV at a local Chicago establishment.  It was a grand day!

P.S. Click on the P.S. Click on the Facebook icon (the big blue F) on the top of the page to see all the pictures.  We’ll do our best to get everyone’s photos up on our Flikr account soon!

Andrew quenches thirst

Michigan is experiencing a heat wave as we make our way back to Chicago. We’re drinking lots and lots of water. (Still no coffee stops for Van 1. . .)  Speaking of water, today we  encountered bodies of water we didn’t realize were going to be in our path, so, what do you think we did? Yep, swam! Craig, Josh and Ken each took a turn at swimming a fingerling . . . instead of adding miles to go around.

Not much more exciting today, except we welcomed  Carol and Jim Ossyra to the biking group, and Jim B. returned for another day along the Hart-Montegue Trail.  The Old Boys’ Brewhouse was the scene of our group dinner before we headed to the deluxe Grand Haven High School for the night. Impressive!

Two days to go. . .

Bikers work the phone

Talk about Midwest hospitality! Mary’s Garden opened early for our group so that we could get started on our next leg well fortified! Moving on down the road, we made our way through Traverse City and on to Manistee. Routes 31 and 22 were our friends! Another 100+-mile day, we needed the runners pushing themselves to their limit–with Craig and Ken being the big mileage contributors of the day at 17 miles each. Highlights of the day included experiencing Sleeping Bear Dunes and the blue, blue waters of Crystal Lake. We welcomed Mark Chandler to the Run America mix and said good-bye to Jim Lofton, exchanging one bicyclist for another.

At Day 6, we’re over the hump of our journey. Craig is still running a tight ship, having Van 1 survive on Clif  bars and NO COFFEE; Kevin in Van 2 is still building his energy with Pop Tarts.

Local flavor!

Liz, Jane and Rebecca led the charge today with early morning runs in pouring rain and nasty winds. By the time the trio finished 15 or so miles, the skies had cleared and the runners were enjoying WI’s cornfields and funky towns along Hwy. 32/57.

A few highlights of the 100+ mile day:

We were joined by Carol and Jim Bieneman, Jane’s parents, with Jim lacing up his shoes and donning his helmet to bike for the day.

A nice “local” showered down Kevin after his run—with a hose—shared a view of his 1937 Chevy truck with Van 2 members, and even made a donation to our cause.

Reporter Pat from Fox-11 TV interviewed Barry, captured footage of some runners and bikers coming into De Pere, WI—and we made the local newscast.

Dave biked over 100 miles today!

The only downer: Barry’s new Catrike got another flat tire.  Because of the non-standard wheels and the fact that it’s Sunday, he couldn’t bike. Let’s hope we find a bike store in Green Bay tomorrow morning to get Barry back on the road!

Another leg in the books

We wrote a great post for Day 2 which will have to be posted on Day 5 because we saved it in a format we can’t open from this machine – you’d think Mac and PC compatibility would be solved by 2010!

Needless to say we did indeed make it to Green Bay and stayed at West High School after an excellent day of running and biking.  That said, we are happy to be out of the “big cities” so that our routes are simpler and needless to say we did indeed make it to Green Bay and stayed at West High School after an excellent day of running and biking.  That said, we are happy to be out of the “big cities” so that our routes are simpler and the traffic is lighter…the downside of course is that we are in small towns, internet access is at a premium!  More on this day later….

A great night at the Ossyra's

We rocked Evanston at the Ossyras until the wee hours last night as team members arrived from New York, Wisconsin, Tennessee, Idaho, El Salvador, Oregon, California, and Massachusetts.

We couldn’t begin the Day 1 re-cap without a HUGE THANK YOU to the Ossyra Family and their Harrison “Hospitality” St. neighbors! Jim O. and his wife, Carol, gave the team the red-carpet treatment, even enlisting their neighbors Jamie & Jan Koerner and Ken & Sue Fox to open their homes to us for a good night’s sleep in beds before we started roughing it. And we managed to recruit Jim O and Jamie K to ride us out of town and to the WI state line in the morning.

Day One was FUN!  The morning for the runners started out with Jamie S and John Martin, Kellogg crony of Liz and Jane. The rest of today’s miles were divvied up between Van 1 (Kevin, Josh, Kathleen, Andy and Melissa) and Van 2 (Craig, Justin, Ken, Rebecca,and Rachel.)

While the runners made their way along Rt. 32–through Evanston,  N Chicago, Lake Forest, Waukegan, Racine, Milwaukee–our bikers employed alternate routes on the Illinois and Wisconsin network of bike trails.

Now we’re settled in at Concordia U north of Milwaukee, WI, after a feast in Whitefish Bay, hosted by Dan O’Connell, Craig’s and Barry’s high school classmate, and his family. What a treat!