Austin and Aust-out again. Days 24-26

There's only so much enthusiasm having secured a Glastonbury ticket one can muster when in the throes of being very tired. Usually I'm in the grip of a hangover after some big Saturday night is followed by an 0830 alarm call to get into panic mode of pressing F5 whenever a ticket page fails to come up, but the joy of getting a ticket delays any headaches. Today I woke up after 4 hours sleep, likely curtailed by aforementioned excitement and trudged off on my now customary mile walk to start the day. This has been implemented post-creak in attempt to just get things used to moving, rather than dragging my muscles, ligaments and of course tendon sheaths kicking and screaming from their slumbers. This would have been the day we'd have gone to Austin City Limits if the RV delay and the creak hadn't happened, but we just readjusted our goals to reach Austin's City Limits instead. It was really cold this morning, to the point where I could see my breath and I reversed my usual routine of trying to find shade when the sun is still low enough to actually seeking out any shards of sunlight peaking through the dense woodland lining the road. Around a mile or so into actually running I came across a portly black and white chap sitting by a bin. I took a photo of this poor abandoned panda and trotted on, only to go back 50m down the road and decide he was coming with me. I settled on a straight arm by my side as the best compromise of not sweating on him and not killing my deltoids, but still, his weight and bulk meant it wasn't an easy job and when Nads took him off me (Anticipating he was in my possession the second she saw the posted photo) about 8 miles later, I was might relieved and found a 40 second per mile speed boost! Naming process is underway...he's definitely a boy though.

We reached the town of Bastrop, astride the Colorado River (No, no that one.) handily enough, taking lots of photos of the numerous statues that dot the streets here and crossed the Colorado over a bridge that provided both pretty and safe to the party, so I was happy. There I met Nads, who was quite stressed out over her deductions that the recent stink was due to the auxilliary battery, which fitted with the sulphur smell and the location. We had no luck getting into an RV repair shop so gambled on getting a new battery fitted and hoping that there's not a fault in the charging circuit that will send this battery the same way. This all happened as I ploughed on to Austin. Ploughing was going well until I reached a major bridge reconstruction project and the road that I needed to un on no longer existed. This meant trying to cross a road as busy as the M6 in rush hour, both carriageways and then run along a narrowed stretch with no space to jump off in case of any emergency. The construction worker offered to give me a lift as he was worried for my safety, but as I have no regard for this, I informed him I had to complete the crossing on foot and would hope for the best. After a harrowing mile of beeps and swerves, I got to the final meeting point, by Austin-Bergstrom Airport, only to see that the construction meant I had no chance of crossing the road and a half (bonus!) mile detour. I wasn't too upset at this as tomorrow was a semi-day off and as such, we were going out on the town in Austin. We stayed at a really quaint, hippyish RV park near the centre and got down to 6th Street, where dinner (and craft beer, obviously) went down at the Austin Ale House and we called in at Stubb's BBQ (Famous music venue) and a couple of other joints, before getting in after midnight. Rebels.

Start: Carmine. Finish: Austin-Bergstrom Airport. 34.3 miles

There's only one thing worse than not getting a lie-in on a day off and that's leaving someone to their lie-in as you get up. Nads deserved it though, so I wasn't complaining. Actually I was. I was pretty drunk after only a few beers that night and I had a headache. Makes a change for something to ache above the waist, I guess. It was still pretty late for me at eight thirty and there was no cold start today as I roasted in the sun waiting for the 100 bus to the airport. $1.75 will do very nicely and after doing my warm up walking from the bus stop to yesterday's pick up, I got into my running straight away, planning to do the 9 miles in one go. I was feeling pretty mobile this morning as often happens, weird things occur. This particular weird thing was the arrival next to us in the RV park of a family from California who are travelling the country after packing in work and selling their house to build a new life in another part of the country. Very exciting. Now it turned out that James is a chiropractor and I got chiropracted the previous night. It was pretty terrifying to be honest and after the crack of my spine or SI joint was noted, I checked to see if my toes still moved. All was well, it wasn't painful and felt quite...funny...in the amusing sense, but I did notice a difference! The closeness of the whole procedure made me happy James wasn't a stinky guy, but I'm not sure he got so lucky after my run. Three dogs were also in the RV too, so I declared my professional hand and discussed a few minor ailments and clipped some claws. It's their little lad Grayson's birthday today, so happy birthday and good luck on the new life hunt guys! I had a pleasant run in, aided by lots of little rests as I photographed Austin's quirky street art, houses and skyline. Notable mentions go to the large numbers of Donald Trump Pinatas and signs for Bernie Sanders – President 2016. Austin does things differently, for sure. I bumped into a chap who was on his first run in months after a back injury and it turned out he's a major player in the music industry, here for ACL, has met Macca and toured the world as part of his high-up role in REM's management. We were both at the same gig in 1999 at Glastonbury where REM were showcasing the Up album and this is still one of the best concerts I've ever seen. He mentioned that the guys are still really close to Athens, Georgia and said that maybe if I got that far, we could see what we can do about saying hello to them. If that ain't motivation! He is also a top level athletics coach and former sub-4 miler, so he was very interested in my run and especially the fact that I've started to listen to the body and ease off a bit. We could have chatted all day, but this time, it wasn't just me who had a run to complete.

On arrival back at the RV park, Nadine and I headed off for some great falafel/meze at a local food truck court, before moving on to Zilker Park where the main stage was being dismantled. SO CLOSE! Fortunately the turtle population hadn't gone home and being able to have the time to enjoy a bit of nature whilst stood still was a novelty! After this, I was off to meet the students of Texas A+M University. More specifically, their running club. I picked up a box of Science in Sport (Nutrition suppliers to British Cycling, Liverpool FC and err...me!) gels on the way, that the local independent running store, Lukes Locker had held for me (Such are the difficulties with not being in one place). Austin is a big running city and this shop was huge, with really friendly staff who were still staggered by the challenge,despite being big runners. That's always more worrying to me! :D As you would expect with students, free stuff was gratefully received by the turn out of 50+ very fit looking runners. Madeleine, the head honchess, who has just qualified for his first Boston Marathon (One I hope to be at!) introduced me and explained that there were three routes to choose from: A 3, 5, and 7 mile offering. 3 please. That'll do nicely. They're a really chatty bunch and the state of the Longhorns college and England football teams, future races and running red lights were dotted into chat about Going The Distance and this chat was carried on in the Crown and Anchor over some veggie hotdogs and a couple of pints with some of the guys, including Colin, a Leicester fan of 5 years duration, who still can't believe his luck, Ryan, one of my main run chat buddies and Leah, a budding sports journalist who will be grilling me in the next week, before Ryan and Mads kindly dropped us back at the RV park, which is conveniently next door to a brewery AND a running club. Of course we checked it out, but this time we were home by 10. Business was about to recommence.

Start: Austin-Bergstrom Airport. Finish: Pecan Grove RV Park 11.7 miles, including the TRC run

Oh, it's hard to start again when you've had so much fun and it's also beef if you haven't really rested, so it wasn't really like a day off, as far as my legs were concerned. I think I need a Segway.

The guys at the Texas Running Club had said that after 50 miles or so of hills coming out of Austin it gets pretty flat. It says something about what we've done so far that I didn't even register that 50 miles bit until they started. They're not exactly monsters, but loooong and with the creak currently playing nice, but still there, downhills are as much of a worry, if not more than the uphills. This felt like another “start”, but one where distractions will be few and far between. It's about 580 miles to El Paso, which we hope to reach by Halloween, which is HUGE in the States. It reminds me of how we moan when Christmas starts getting pushed in October. We've seen massive promo stuff everywhere since we arrived in early Septemeber and the guys at the TRC were genuinely surprised that it's not a big deal in the UK. They also said that El Paso's Halloween is also heavily Latin-tinged, with a “Day of the Dead” or “Dia del Muerto” aspect. I'm more excited about that, but in the meantime, I've got a couple of weeks to find a suitable costume...

A general lack of suitable shoulder or a really steep camber, alongside the rolling hills led to it being fairly tough running and it wasn't until after lunch or so where I felt ok and really enjoyed a run. This was through the area of Bee Creek (Thank god it wasn't Wasp Creek) and this has provided the inspiration, alongside my covered distance thus far for my “Song of the Day”, which takes an unusual format today...I'll put it up a bit late to see if any of you guess it.
We're trying to get a bit more disciplined over rest breaks and it meant a finish around 1730 today, which I'm optimistic that we can get closer to 1600, now we're not trying to crack 40 mile days. When I get a bit closer to California I might try and have a bit more fun, in the masochistic running sense, but I'm happy with sensible at the moment. I think Nads is too.

Start: Pecan Grove RV Park. Finish: Spicewood. 33.4 miles

Total: 710.65 miles

I'm Still Standing. Days 21-23

 We didn't say much on the way to Potato Patch car park – next door to the docs. Me because I was scared and Nads probably because what do you say, really? I just had to get going. After the chat with Chris, my new regime for the morning run was a mile walk, followed by a 4 mile run, a mile walk and a final mile run. Not pushing it. The days of 10 mile booms from the gun are over. At least for now (says the devil who knows me all too well)… To be honest, my memories of today are a bit sketchy. I was concentrating so much: Lead off from toe...feather touch on and off floor...was that too heavy? Where is the kindest camber, run on the left, run on the right, run in the middle. Wave at cars...sorry...sorry… Was that pain? Stretch that calf. Creeeeak. Now Leigh (The voice of phyio reason), had told me to be guided by pain and that the creak was here to stay for a bit so not to worry. This was good, because I had been worrying. In between worrying I reminded myself that this is still meant to be fun and a great encounter with a wee lizard on the side of the road provided some. He was not bothered by me in the slightest, as I stopped to talk to him, cocking his head, as I spoke. I put a bit of my water on the floor (you never know)and when it touched his foot he was all “Hey man, what are you doing??” and stayed put. Now I'd spent enough time and money bemoaning the lack of an NHS in the last 24h for us both to be wiped out, so into the grass he was nudged and onwards I went.

I reached the town of Tomball after a mammoth (no pun intended, Interpol fans) Interpol listening session. Interpol are a real go-to band for me if times are tough and despite casual listeners labelling it as dour, it's a bit like ho people used to label the Smiths the same way, when there's actually a lot of beauty and almost euphoria hidden within. It worked anyway. I went past a sign in a music shop that said “Tomball Rocks” and it did. I wouldn't say no to living there. It's got a real quaint eastern side with lots of crafty type emporia and cafes and it also had a sports shop (Academy Sports) that gave me 10% of bit of retail therapy, including white long sleeved tops for the midday sun and earplugs (of course).

All this alongside the constant monitoring of my systems. It was still hot, new top or not and seeing the RV park come up at 24 miles (Happy with that) with minimal chatter from the tib-ant put this day down as a mini-win. Not getting ahead of myself, y'see.

Start: Westfield Urgent Care Unit. Finish: Tomball-Rose Hill RV Park. 24.7 miles

Soon after leaving the RV park (after all good intentions of my super early start for the expected 34oC heat evaporated with me setting the alarm for 0655 and not 0600), I happened across the Showboat Drive-In cinema that was showing a double bill of Deepwater Horizon (Renewables, people...renewables) and the new Tom Hanks film, Sully, about the pilot Chesley Sullenberger who landed his plane on the Hudson as successfully as you can. It's meant to be great and I heard it's possibly TH's best film yet. Pffffffftttt. We ALL know that that's Forrest Gump. Sheesh. Anyways. It wasn't something we could stick around for, but it would have been nice to be like the tall guy at the concert that no-one can see past for once, sitting in Jenny. The goal was a town called Chappell Hill, which the next day was to hold a Scarecrow festival with some live bands. I had aimed to be in Austin that evening getting ready to see Marlon Williams and Nathaniel Rateliff with his magical Night Sweats on Sunday and still had my devil saying I could, if I just went through the night, but even the Scarecrow festival was no longer on my agenda if we we were to keep to plan and seeing as The Cure weren't there anyway, I resigned myself to making my own fun.

I temporarily forgot myself passing through Waller when I picked up the pace to chat to a cyclist named Debra who was on a “little” ride herself – her words not mine (Just 3 hours before work), who instantly sized up the situation. “You're going cross-country, aren't you?”. “Was it the hat?”, referring to my kepi-like headgear. “Well the hydration pack, the hat...”, but then, a bit like Leia in Star Wars when talking to Luke in his Stormtrooper uniform: “Aren't you a little fast for that?”. Normally I might have allowed myself a little pleasure in this, but it made me scold myself internally as if I can't walk this tightrope between progress and self-preservation, I'm done for.

I was about 6 miles shy of Chappell Hill, just after Pope Road and by a non-existent gas station at Van Wie Rd (Cheers, Google maps!) that I decided to chuck it in for the day. We could drive back in the morning and that 6 miles wouldn't be the 6 miles that would make me get to Santa Monica, but it could have been the 6 that stopped me. We headed back to what would have been our end point and plugged in the phone that I'd found on the road, that whilst missing a battey (same one as Nads' spare phone fortunately) and a back, still worked. We tentatievely checked messages, wondering if we were going to get sucked into some sort of Bourne Identity scenario, but it turned out to be a young lad who'd left his phone on the roof of his mate's car as they drove off. What would the world do without these trans-continental runners to write such wrongs? After an unsuccessful attempt to persuade the frightened local priest to let us stay in his car park (I'm not sure he understood) we just decided to stay put in the gas station and I reached for my earplugs...

Start: Tomball-Rose Hill RV Park. Finish: Van Wie Road off Highway 290. 27.1 miles

...which worked! Great sleep and for the first time on this run I saw a sunrise! It's only taken three weeks and a run-threatening injury! The flurry of exclamation marks may give away that I was fairly excited by all of this. Whilst still sticking to “The Rules”, I'd started to generally have a good time again. My waves at cars were now more of a hello, than an apology, I started taking more pictures of my environment and to look for unusual objects to retrieve. A discarded purple “marital aid” was NOT brought back to the RV, though a beer bottle cooler was.

I had my eye on a fairly big one today, though promised that I'd have the resolve to throw in the towel if tib-ant was unhappy. Anything for a quiet, running life. We are starting to enter what is known as “Hill Country” and the road became pretty undulating, but it didn't seem to bother me much as most of my running apparatus is reasonably well rested and I could concentrate on my favourable camber hunt, as we passed a mini-ghost town and countless ranches, with vultures circling overhead. Not today, boys. I even beat Nads to a couple of rendez-vous points, without being silly. The last one of the day was at a small gas station in the small settlement of Burton, where I met Colleen, a student at the local Blinn College, in Brenham, which we'd passed earlier in the day. She's moved from Westfield in Massachussetts and was working to help with college. The gas station was real retro and as I heard her story, it was like I was in a Bruce Springsteen song. She was really nice and as I headed back in to get a photo of her and the gas station, she'd gotten us some molasses cookies for free and was heading out to meet us. We chatted about her wish to do a marathon one day and I told her I'm sure she would. Bruce is probably writing a song bout it right now.

I got to the Dixieland RV Park, a little shaky, but alright and in decent spirits/shape and tried to help Nads with Poogate, the crisis that has enveloped Jenny's innards at the moment and is making the living quarters little fragrant. I say help. I held a hose while Nads did the hard stuff. We at least temporarily cleared the smell so as not to upset our guests for the evening, a lovely couple from Canada...and croydon, Amanda and Brendan, who were in the final stages of a bike ride from Canada to New Orleans. Brendan and my conversation kept slipping to Crystal Palace and Liverpool. The Eagles' fans want Rafa as their manager. I don't blame them. They had to head off early for their next day's ride and I should probably do the same, seeing as we're up at 3am to try and get Glastonbury tickets. Fingers crossed. Tomorrow is gonna be sleeeeeeepy.

Start: Van Wie Road off Highway 290. Finish: Carmine. 35.5 miles

The Minute You Think It's Going Well... Days 19-20

Another RV park, another train line. I set off on my own this morning as I didn't want to stress Paul out with clock watching (as he'd had a good sleep!) and my sights to report first thing were a distribution centre called Koala Express (Ah...Australia) and a discarded kitchen knife at the side of the road. Christ. Im not getting my prints on that, I'll stick with the Mag-Lite. I got to run over a boring concrete (so I thought) bridge adjacent to the old classy girder one which now looked like a scene from 28 Days Later and as I was taking some snaps, I noticed that the bridge I was on, wobbled. A concrete bridge – wobbling like the Millenium Bridge before Health and Safety got at it. Spider sense said to get off the bridge and get into the town of Liberty and up one of the first hills I've seen into Dayton, where after a breakfast, Paul's speed boots were back on. That wasn't the only thing in common with some of yesterday's running. The shin had joined us and came along quietly-ish and laughed at us as we struggled in the heat. Lunch at least was going to be somewhere nice as we reached the shores of Lake Houston and parked at the marina. Lunch was had, stinky kit was hung to dry to stop it festering and Nads remarked at how far we'd come after we worked out we were almost a quarter done on the way to Santa Monica. I'm pretty superstitious and said I'd start to think that if we'd got three quarters and finished my lunch. As I got up I thought it was strange that the chair had creaked and as I turned around to look at it, it creaked again. I wasn't on the chair anymore. It couldn't have been that. It was me. I had creaked. My shin had creaked. More precisely I was pretty confident it was the anterior tibialis muscle and/or it's tendon sheath that had creaked. My heart sank and my mood plummeted. This could be big.

We had arranged to meet the staff at VitalPet Eastex Veterinary Clinic in Humble as our end-point that day at 1630 and we were already behind time a little, so we elected to walk the first few miles, cutting lunch short. Paul must have felt awkward as even though I have been deliberately not getting ahead of myself, I'd been happy with things and now I was barely talking. It was really hot, we were dehydrated despite drinking lots and I was clock watching and shin listening. Creak. We rearranged for 1730 and with some running and a bit of getting lost we got there on time. We got off track as I was chatting to Chris Finnill, a Trans-USA crosser and GB ultramarathoner about my pace/distance/previous history and his experiences. He's an invaluable source of information and I think I need to listen to his instructions and stick to them. I'll take another half mile if it means I get some sense talked into me! I ate dinner, hardly saying a word beyond thanking Nads for her efforts and sat down to finish the previous days blog, just as my computer did a forced restart and even with Paul's tech skills and me thinking I'd saved it, a load of work vanished. A perfect end to a perfect day. Now if the belief that Americans don't really get British sarcasm is true and needs to be demonstrated, that's an example of it right there.

Start: Cedar Grove RV Park. Finish: VitalPet Eastex Veterinary Clinic, Humble. 33.04 miles

I can't sleep. I don't know what it is. Sometimes I blame it on the noise, sometimes the heat. Sometimes poor hydration, sometimes over-hydration. Sometimes it's an ache somewhere, sometimes it's just my racing mind, but I can't sleep. If I can't sleep, I can't recover. I'm not recovering. I'm getting fitter, but I wake up and the shin… After being in the complete bummer of a mood last night, I wake up before the alarm again, but this time I get up and promptly doze off again. The grating seems to have gone. Has it? Hmm. I was gutted I didn't really get the chance to say bye to Paul properly as it's been great having him here, but I think even last night's moanfest didn't take away too much from his enjoyment and he was in great spirits despite me tramping around the RV at 0600, knocking things over. Nads was up now and we discussed the plan, which was for Nads to stay put and wait for the Science in Sport delivery and for me to set off, do some walking and come up with a plan. I walked for a mile or so and called Leigh at the Chiro Clinic in Liverpool and my summary of the signs had him in agreement that it sounded like anterior tibialis tendinitis, a condition with a very variable recovery period, but one that would ideally benefit with rest, which isn't really in my dictionary, or unfortunately, agenda. He advised that I should probably seek someone to provide some “mild discomfort” to loosen my calves off to reduce the load on the tib-ant and to check a few things out. Sometimes walking can aggravate this muscle as much as running and therefore I thought I'd do a bit of running mixed in. About half a mile in, I reached the 500 mile point of the journey at a surreal urban scene of plush offices chairs in an area of waste ground near a tree with a sign on it saying “Tree of Love”. How I could do with some love from the tib-ant. My heart wasn't in it this morning and I was hungry so I stopped at a service station for some food and a drink. The lady behind the till asked me what I was doing and I began the process of getting some dollar out of my zip lock bag that also houses my gummy bears and occasionally written details of the quest. It just happened that this was my last one and as I pulled it out my brain queried if it was the last one. That was it. Floods of tears. Actually sobbing in a bloody service station. This has meant so much to me for almost ten years and it was under threat from an injury that I couldn't even pinpoint exactly why it had happened as it was undoubtedly multifactorial. She told her co-worker about what I was doing and both of them were so kind, which made it even worse. I thanked them for their support and went over the road and hid until I could stop crying. I managed to put in 9 miles, during which Nadine had been calling local physios. Unfortunately Texas (and some other states) has a ridiculous law which strikes me as pure money-making shenanigans justified by paranoia over legal action that means you can't just go to a physio and get looked after. You have to see a doctor first. Now as a vet myself, I admit to having strengths and weaknesses and one that I have found many doctors have is in diagnosing and treating sports injuries, so I was hugely sceptical and frustrated at this turn of events. The staff at the clinic I was at were lovely and courteous but I still felt aggrieved, with my tiredness not helping. I did my best and succeeded at staying as chipper and civil as I could and the staff I think saw my strife and ensured that I was able to be seen by a physical therapist (American speak for physio) called Whitney at ErgoRehab that afternoon. She was really young and I have felt the same feeling when clients have thought or said the same about me, but she had a very relaxing way, concurring with the diagnosis and setting about her work. The area was ultrasounded, a stress fracture was hopefully ruled out and the pesky tib-ant and calves were manipulated with “moderate discomfort”, before I had to get the razor out. It was time to lose my K-tape virginity! My weird long short/compression sock tan is even weirder now my leg is sans hair, but the tape makes it look badass, if any of you were about to take the mick. She was fairly optimistic that it will be ok and said she expected more problems in someone who's done this so far. Time will tell.

Anyway. I can't sleep. Tonight I ain't taking any chances. I'm in a hotel. We had a nice Mexican. I have air con. It's quiet. I do have an ache (and a shaved leg), but I've got a new day tomorrow. I've got Nads. I've also got Texas and hope. Walk on, with hope in my heart. Time will tell.

Start: VitalPet Eastex Veterinary Clinic, Humble. Finish: Westfield Urgent Care Unit. 9.1 miles.