Thursday, for no particular reason, I decided to go for a little run. So I ran to the end of the road and when I got there, I thought maybe I'd run to the end of town. However, on reaching a fork in the road, I decided to go right rather than left and ended up doing a bit more than I thought, for a ceremonial entree. Note to self: I need some sort of navigational aid if I'm attempting to follow some sort of route. So, it seems that we're sort of underway, in a semi low key fashion, after some filming with the WKRG team where I reckon I put in a mile or two trying to get the right shots for Arnel, the gentle giant of a cameraman. The run itself was very low key and I waited until no-one was around at the Bragg-Mitchell mansion before I took my first steps. It was about 27C, which feels pretty comfortable when you're standing about, but when you're running in attire not necessarily suited to running after a week of less than optimum sleep, stress levels and nutrition/hydration, it becomes less so, fairly quickly and said less than suitable kit is now drying on the Malaga Hotel (which is lovely) balcony as I write this. It could have been worse of course. I could have had collar length hair and a full beard like I had about 6 hours ago, before I entered Fluke's barbers. Barbers seems to be a poor description of these guys work and hair surgeons appeared more fitting. I watched for about an hour as they meticulously groomed a succession of guys with already excellent hair, with clippers and cut throats before I got Brian on the case with my bonce. He found the idea of what is about to transpire both inspiring and hilarious. 40 minutes later I was fit for the US Marine Core and I have only just stopped constantly touching my face and the back of my head - I now have the shortest hair I have EVER had. Of course, I am still adjusting to the life of a gut who just eats, runs and sleeps and the last two nights have of course been spent on the hunt for craft beer, first at the Blind Pelican in NOLA and tonight at the OK Bicycle Shop in Mobile where the two main guys Jim and Woody really got it and got me excited in the third person. Which was nice and weird at the same time, in the sense that I felt as if this was happening to someone else and was getting excited for them. Might head back there tomorrow after the first proper day.
We're not going to be able to get into a proper rhythm until we have the RV sorted which will be in a few weeks, so in the meantime we're hiring a car and going to wing it, which will mean motel bills, paying more for food and less shelter from the 7 days of 32C or as I like to say as it sounds more impressive - 90F. I'm sure it'll be alright (He says, trying to sound convincing) and we'll get to or pretty damn close to Bayou La Batre (Bubba's childhood home) by the close of play. I might schedule a lunchbreak around 2pm and see if anywhere has Liverpool Chelsea on... Anyways I should probably be off to bed. Things to do tomorrow...and the next day...etc.
I'll try and put a blog out every few days and hopefully you'll find it interesting! If there's any sorts of things you'd like to hear more of in these, let me know. I'm new to this and hopefully by the end of the run, I might come up with something good!
Day 1: Start = Bragg Mitchell Mansion. Finish = Malaga Hotel. 4.91 miles with the shenanigans. (Unfortunately I don't seem to be able to sync my Polar device to my PC or phone, which is disconcerting as I want to have all my data up for you to peruse. I'll try to get this sorted ASAP)