Trying not to blow up. Days 106-108

I didn't feel as brave this morning in terms of my interstate brazenness so it was lucky that a path led from our drop off point last night to a dirt track to the side of it, which I mostly stuck to on the long 16 mile drag back to where we'd stayed the previous night. I had a harrowing text message from basecamp that the promised free pastries at the campsite had not materialised and I made do with a Twix and a Gatorade from a local services to console myself once my cross country adventure had finished. Such is life. The weather was at least dry, though still a bit on the chilly side, unlike my mood which had taken a turn for the better, helped in no small part by the messages of encouragement we had received over the last day and in the latter part of the run by a steady downhill to breakfast and then into Las Cruces itself. There, I met up with Steve Ramirez, a reporter from the Las Cruces Sun, who was a big runner a few years ago, with many marathons under his belt and also a real thing for Forrest Gump. He has THREE pairs of the original Nike Cortez, his nickname is Bubba and get this – he is four hours older than Tom Hanks. He knew all the quotes and I haven't had such back and forth quote banter since I was at university and Anchorman was out. We could run like the wind blows. In the limited time I had before Nads sent out a search party, I popped in at Run Culture, the local specialist running shop to meet Carlos and an enthusiastic customer and then it was lunchtime! I swear all I do is run and eat...and chat. Nads had an eye on visiting a local free space museum, set up by a chap who just loved space and wanted it to be free for all. Isn't that nice? I had an eye on a big old mountain that would take me out of Las Cruces, for the time being and down towards the White Sands National Monument. More on that later. It was a slog, but I seemed to fly up it, probably too quickly with my need for self-preservation and once at the top I was informed that I was now in White Sands Missile Range, not to take any photos and keep my beak out of any areas not on the road. OK. Off I went, down the road, merrily taking photos...I mean errr…not taking photos of the lovely snow peaked mountains, vast plains, mock-ups of rockets… Anyways, I digress. I'd kinda forgotten it was Valentine's Day, which to be fair is a bit of a sham anyway, but it was an excuse to go out for the night. We went to the High Desert Brewing Company (of course) where I only had four beers, all brewed on site (Oktoberfest, IPA, Brown ale and Black IPA) and a huge dinner (Nads took half of hers home for tomorrow!), but I definitely felt for the good of the run it was time to go home on slightly wobbly legs. This was after that Luke, our man for the night had presented Nads with a heart-shaped cheesecake on the house! Who says romance is dead?

Start: US Border Patrol Checkpoint nr. I-10. Finish: Jct of US-70 with County Road 213. 44.0 miles

Day 106 Tune of the Day: Bloc Party – This Modern Love. One for Valentines Day! I remember this putting all the hairs on my body on edge walking towards the Pyramid stage at Glastonbury when this was on a few years back – here it is! Look at the mud! Look how quickly they played it! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eT5cbCl6xGo

Super tired. So tired in fact I'd be dreaming about bed all day. The good points though were ace weather, a nice road to run on and a pretty flat expanse, laid out in front of me. Though we were already in the White Sands Missile Range, we were pointed in the direction of the White Sands National Monument, a huge expanse of pure white sand dunes, made of gypsum and not usual sand, which have the peculiar quality of not absorbing the sun's energy, so it's possible to walk barefoot on them in the height of summer. The closest I'd get, of course was a glimpse of them to the side of the road. I had a nice encounter at the White Sands Visitor Centre, in lieu of not being able to go and get amongst the dunes, due to time marching on and all that. I'd been recently overtaken by an RV, that I recognised in the car park, parked next to Jenny. A family was getting out and they were looking around...maybe at me? I said hi, in the way you would as a courtesy to someone going past, as I'm not self-important enough to assume they'd actually want to speak to my dishevelled mess of a man, but they did. “So then...where did you start?”. These guys were off on a big adventure themselves and dad was a bit of a runner so they were used to both living in a small space and smelly men! They felt Nads' pain! A few photos later and a lot of smiles, I headed in for lunch. It was a couple of standard runs to the park and one of the staff at the Holloman Air Base stopped for a photo on the way to work, grabbing it from the window of his car as he slowed right down, leaving with a cheery wave.

I had the luxury of third shower in consecutive days (a welcome and rare occurrence) and plonked myself down in a Lay-Z-Boy recliner in the clubhouse. Bliss. Watching a big widescreen telly, it felt like someone had just let me take over their house and I have a sense I may have done to an extent, when I met Wes, the proprietor, who was a great fella and K let him know just how welcome this luxury was. Dreams were soon to become reality and I retreated to bed, willing the replenishment of mind and body for the 24 mile climb that awaited tomorrow afternoon.

Start: Jct of US-70 with County Road 213. Finish: Desert Paradise RV Park, Alamogordo. 42.8 miles. Day 107 Tune of the Day: Sleeper – Inbetweener. Hearing the news of a reunion of one of my favourite teenage bands tinged with sadness as I won't likely be in the UK to see it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fSplvCL__CU

Wes had let me know that we were on the flat to “Tulie”, AKA Tularosa, then it was 24 miles of an uphill grind. Not particularly steep, but enough to let you know it was always there – eating away at your stamina. This would take us to the highest altitude yet of the trip and I was trying to work out if it was the highest I'd ever been, not in a plane! Most of what I saw of Alamogordo was they typical fast-food chains and shops as I was on the main commercial drag, but it did reveal some of its eccentricities which I was grateful for – its posters and signs for the local Fighting Tigers sports teams, a toy train museum, the second largest roadrunner I've ever seen (Fort Stockton still in the lead!) and the coup de grace – the world's biggest pistachio (To go alongside Las Cruces' chilli)! Tularosa wasn't to be outdone, with two huge water tanks highlighting the success of the 2005 National team ropers and the State-conquering Widlcats who had a particularly fruitful 90's! School sport here is awesome. I love it. Another interesting footnote for the day was that Tularosa was less than 50 miles from the site of the first ever atomic bomb detonation, at the Trinity Site in the White Sands Missile Range. They used one for real three weeks later. That's just mind boggling.

Without further ado, the road started to curve upwards and soon enough the mighty Sierra Blanca mountain was looming – 80 miles in the distance. While I wouldn't have to get to the 12,00 foot high peak, I would have to get over the range, which ran through the middle of the Mescalero Apache tribe. The Mescaleros are obviously a very proud people, with street art depicting famous warriors, messages to treasure your life, family and people and messages of hope. I stuffed a few of them, figuratively into my back pocket and hoped they'd carry me up that hill. Head down, count out the miles, cheeky look around every now and again (i.e. unscheduled rest break) and the end will come. What did come was the cold. Looking through the trees you'd occasionally get a glimpse of snow and these glimpses were becoming more frequent. I saw Jenny parked about a half mile away and there was snow all around. I was warned on my approach that that snowball had better not come any where near Nads, so over my head it went. Maybe I was a bit giddy as we were at Apache Summit, 7,591 feet above sea level and beating my previous altitude record on this trip by about 1,700 feet. That'll do for today. The 6 miles or so to our rest stop just wasn't on my running radar. Jenny could run those miles.

Start: Desert Paradise RV Park, Alamogordo. Finish: Apache Summit, US-70. 40.77 miles. Day 108 Tune of the Day: Blondie – Atomic. Still can't get my head around the fact I ran past an actual atomic blast site. Blondie will cheer me up. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O_WLw_0DFQQ

Total: 3405.69 miles

Run on, through the wind. Run on, through the rain. Days 103-105

Yay! Lordsburg day! Beer will be there...won't he? The amazing El Charro cafe will fill me with burrito goodness and all will be well. Well Beer wasn't there. I waited at the train station for a whole five minutes. Mostly while I was wondering what to do as El Charro was closed. I was rescued by the revelation that I could listen to the Liverpool match via the club website and that was my next couple of hours sorted. Thank god we won, or that would have set my day on a right stinker of a course. My plan for the next couple of days was to find whatever road/track that flanked the I-10 and try to avoid going on that, if I could help it. I can't find any categorical definition of what I can and can't go on, so I'm on the seeking forgiveness path with that… After initially struggling down an irregular track with an uncanny ability to place a pointy stone right under the ball of my feet when I was touching down in shoes designed for a uniform surface, I eventually (thanks due to the gift of satellite maps) found that there was an immaculate gravel road on the other side of the train tracks that as ok, legally as well as physically, for me to run on. No traffic, apart from the odd mile-long train and nice and straight and flat. It was of course still nice to tear myself away to see Nads every now and again, especially at an old gas station with some great graffiti that reminded me of Melbourne. Ah...Melbourne. As the sun was off to bed, I crossed the Continental Divide for the second time. All the water drains from here to the Atlantic now. No turning back. Standard faff on my part meant a dark finish, so IronMan lights on, I coasted down a lovely quiet service road to a rest area, where Nads had already set up camp. Almost 45 miles on a day where most things went right. Apart from the start.

Start: Just past Jct of Highway 70 and State Route A024. Finish: NM Rest area, off I-10, just shy of Wilna.44.7 miles. Day 103 Tune of the Day: Dire Straits: Going Home. Inspired by Lordsburg and a great road trip song. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n3jjpUzCsXU

A good day was followed by a rough night. We were parked pretty far from the road, so I was hoping the inverse square rule was going to be my friend. However, the lack of any physical barriers to the I-10, the colossal volume of traffic, even in the early hours and a howling wind meant a restless one. All three of the culprits were still up to their trick as I got going and while the first two were of no consequence, the last one was. At least I found the exit to the service road in the light, rather than my barbed wire clamber in the dark of the previous day. This wind was as bad as anything, maybe even worse than the Morongo Valley day in California. Running on my rail track sneaky sneaky road until I found myself on a service road, I struggled with every step. Breakfast consisted of me moaning. It's so weird how much more this bothers me now than when I'm training for something like a race, where I'd love the wind and consider it strength training. It's all about getting to the end here, as fresh as possible, so this was making me a right barrel of laughs. One positive was being sandwiched on my service road by a mile long freight train, with trucks flying by on every side. This sounds pretty terrible, but it was how I imagined big stretches of the run. Real, working America, with me as an observer, a passing connection between the real world and the one I create through my music and thoughts for the future. A moment. Of course, then seeing a road sign asking me if I wanted Truth or Consequences, or Elephant Butte, stopped any real philosophy from dominating. Lunch consisted of me moaning even more as the wind was meant to get worse. Good news – it didn't! Bad news: It started belting down with rain. As I ran the last 10 miles in full on charlatan mode, as I was wearing a very waterproof Team GB jacket donated by Chris Finnill, who'd actually earned it, I was transformed to a day on the Yorkshire moors and half expected the Brownlee brothers to whizz past. The sight of Jenny parked up through the murk induced a more extreme version of “Jenny fever” where I seem to get 20 or so seconds quicker per mile, when she is in sight. One of the best places to be in a rainstorm for me is in a caravan, or now, our RV, so I got all cosy and waved two fingers to the elements over a big feed of sausages and mash. Have that.

Start: NM Rest area, off I-10, just shy of Wilna. Finish: Butterfield Dairy. 41.1 miles. Day 104 Tune of the Day: Rolling Stones - Gimme Shelter...or at least a break! Seriously though...what an absolute belter of a song. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8kl6q_9qZOs

Today was supposed to be the 100th day of full running and the first day of the second month of this leg. The 13th. High times indeed. I felt funny about something though. A sense of foreboding. I felt good, personally, so it wasn't that. It was Jenny. No fault of hers, the overnight rains had, as a riposte to my pretty good job of avoiding hypothermia, turned the parking spot into a bog. Pre-emptive measures of hastily gathered straw under wheels, and reversing, which appeared the best direction to go, were fruitless. We were well and truly stuck, even with 4WD. Adding insult to injury it was freezing cold and the second we were mired, it began to hammer down again. I ran to try and get help, eventually finding a nice local farmer who offered to get a tractor down, but gave no guarantees it wouldn't pull something off the front of Jenny and Nads was on the case of calling Coachnet (Our RV AA/AAA/RAC analogue) who were ace and sent someone down. As this was sorted I told Nads I had to go and hoped she was down with that. She was. Phew. It took me tens minutes to get my numb, swollen hands into my gloves and off I went, missing one of my headphone earbuds which had somehow gotten lost in the farce and mud. Meanwhile, one guy arrived to tow, quoted Nads an extortionate price and said in as many words “Do you want towing or not. I could leave you here”… You can guess how that went. Coachnet had already sent another company out and they did the job with a smile and efficiency. GOOD. I'd got myself 9 and a bit miles down the road, bumping into a couple of people who stopped to ask if I was ok, after seeing the RV at the side of the road (Thanks, guys!) and was rewarded for my efforts by sinking ankle deep into some mud as I crossed a road. I was drenched, feet wise anyway, so I just washed them in a puddle and splashed my way into the Apache Homelands Restaurant where I met the lovely Tammie and Connie who fed me roast beef and mash, listened to my gripes and we were soon joined by a local couple (Larry and Marie) who joined the chat and by the time Nads arrived, hungry as a bear, everything felt better. Mileage wasn't really the main thing now, so I didn't mind getting warmer while Nads ate. Come on Rob. Get on with it now. Big one. I got up and put down 18 miles in one go with minimal breaks, though the last few miles were a little fraught as this was full blown interstate running, finishing outside a Border Patrol station. We were pretty sure we could run on this stretch, but these roads aren't ever...relaxing, shall we say. On the way here, I saw my first cows actually lying down since I've been here (that thing about rain and cows must be true, mustn't it - despite my veterinary knowledge telling me it's coincidence that it was bucketing down?), wild deer and jackrabbits, racing into the distance away from this new, weird looking potential predator, but the best thing was...drum roll… IT'S A LONG WAY TO THE TOP (IF YOU WANNA ROCK AND ROLL) coming on shuffle for the first time on the whole run. About 500 hours of music, so about 6,000 songs and this had hidden for so long. The thing is, like an end-of-level boss, it's unlocked a bonus – I will now allow myself to just have ACDC shuffle days, now the dam has been breached. This means everything will be alright, I'm sure. Let's draw a line under his chapter and be glad we got over a marathon out of it.

Start: Butterfield Dairy, Deming. Finish: US Border Patrol Checkpoint, nr. I-10. 27.5 miles

Day 105 Tune of the Day: Many of Horror – Biffy Clyro. Strange choice, given the obvious opportunities for other songs given the topics of the day and the late appearance of you know what, but in the absence of music for my first run, it was a constant ear worm from a great band, that started the improvement in my mood. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lh3LocS_Bh8

Adios Arizona...or is it hasta luego? Days 100-102

First tune straight out of the box: Lust For Life by Iggy Pop. Hear those tom drums! The sun was shining! I'd had a good sleep! I had the lust for life! I was semi-transformed to an Edinburgh street, being chased by the police...oh. That wasn't me, it was Trainspotting - check out the video! I've been on the 70 for a couple of days and would need to keep that enthusiasm up as I had many more days left. Meeting Jordan and Jamie helped. They both work in the reservation hospital and Jordan had seen me running for three days and felt compelled to wait for me at the top of the hill and find out what this crazy beard and its human were up to. This is my absolute favourite type of encounter, as I imagine what people think as they pass all the time! On through Bylas, one of the only real settlements of note with lots of just general marvelling at the scenery. We stopped for a break at a really cool ghost gas station. Someone had daubed “Help your soul – Free your mind” on the delapidated and broken doors. I reckon I'm doing just that right now. Running felt so easy today and I sort of just got lost in the music and surrounds, with my escaping mind. Hey, if it's uneventful as this for the rest of the run I'll take it. A sudden dive in the energy levels at the end due to maybe not eating enough wasn't a concern, though maybe taking my eye off the ball should be!

Start: Highway 70, 9.5 miles east of Apache Gold Casino RV resort. Finish: Jct of Highway 70 and Ashurst Road. 42.0 miles. Day 100 Tune of the Day: Iggy Pop – Lust For Life. The sun was shining, turn on shuffle... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jQvUBf5l7Vw

Taking my eye off the ball obviously extended to the use of sunscreen. Nads had remarked that I looked a bit red when I came in, but it was bloody hot. This morning, my face, neck and shoulders were still pretty crimson, especially down the right side of my body which had been having a stare-off with the fireball for the previous day. The weather was going to be even warmer today, so maybe I got lucky with my laxity being yesterday. I set off down the Old West Highway, mostly through farm country and then...a Liverpudlian ran through Thatcher without incident (I was very well behaved – for American/Aussie and other readers who don't get that – Liverpool and the former Prime Minister were not the best of friends!). Home to one of the best “Welcome to...” signs I've seen with a swooping eagle being outdone by some kind of mean old lizard with a Stetson, six-shooter and an eye for trouble on it, as well as some really quirky residences, such a feature of small town America. I had a longer than expected rest in a Walmart, where I immediately bumped into someone else who'd seen me a few times in the last 100 miles and I also got talking to a local who knew pretty much...everything. The weather, terrain, highway laws, the problems in various towns, as well as things I can't really mention on here and even though I had an eye on the clock, a lot of the info was pretty useful. He's a big HAM radio man, so I told him to let the local truckers know I was going down the 70 and to give me a wave as they went by. Soon after Thatcher merged into Safford and this faded again into the open country that I've grown so fond of, with snow-capped Mount Graham keeping watch. On the horizon, a landmark loomed. Now this was more of an imaginary one, but at least there was a good physical marker – a crumbling grain silo/depot that formed the backdrop for my 5,000km celebration. That's 5 million metres. I remember wondering when I was little if anyone had ever counted to a million. Now my feet had done 2 and a half times that each in less than four months. I hope they didn't mind too much as the last ten miles or so were all going to be uphill. I was wondering what emotional bribe I could give my psyche to help me with the last few miles when it happened. The blue sky suddenly changed into a mixture of reds, oranges and yellows as the best sunset of the trip so far descended on us. I took so long getting photos and videos that it began to get dark. I realised I needed to get on my toes and put the hammer down for the last stretch. 200m before the end, a car pulls up and the occupants ask where I'm running to. "Maine". Cue much excitement in the car... "Unbelievable! I'm walking across the country!" 
The voice was Chris, the cheery beardy chap, from Suttons Bay, Michigan, accompanied by his two intrepid companions, Eloisa and Ryan. These guys have only just teamed up, as Chris has walked all the way (over the winter) from Washington DC, self supported, pulling a cart and had just crossed the same state line with New Mexico that I'll cross today. Now I feel a bit guilty typing this on my phone as he's crossing in aid of his own initiative, Let's Talk, designed when he was at university in St Andrews, Scotland. The aim is to get America talking, face-to-face again, instead of an over reliance on technology. God knows, if recent world events have shown us anything, people need to talk and listen more. This was such a crazy chance meeting, if I hadn't been delayed at the shops, or taken those beautiful sunset photos (up later), I'd have covered those last few hundred metres and been in the RV, all of us oblivious to the others' presence!! Madness. Meant to be. Would be great if you can give his page a Like, I know how much your support means to me. He's got 600 miles to go before he finishes in LA! Go Chris!! https://m.facebook.com/LetsTalkUsaProject/ Turns out he'd also had a good brush with the sun in the last day or so, though his exposure was just the lower half of his face!

Start: Jct of Highway 70 and Ashurst Road. Finish: Jct of Highway 70 and Hackberry Road. 41.2 miles. Day 101 Tune of the Day: Muse – Sunburn. Looks like it wasn't just me who'd been slack on the suncream today! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N9SZaOJEWXU

Still buzzing from our encounter last night and the natural art show was a good fillip for a man who had another uphill start. This wasn't so bad to day and it wasn't long before we were descending to the Arizona town of Duncan, a cute little place of around 800 people that seemed a nice little community, though very sleepy, with many businesses appearing closed when I arrived. There was a grand old hotel called the Simpson Motel still in operation that would have been lovely to stay in, a theater (cinema) that seemed to have last shown a film at the time of Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull (2008) and a pie shop (closed – sad face). There was however a fully functioning Post Office where I picked up some Science in Sport replenishments and posted a few bits myself. After an interesting chat about the recent election (Always a delicate issue…) I went outside where a lady advised us to take some of the green peppers at the side of the road – they were free from a local farm Very nice they turned out to be, too. Soon after Duncan it was adios to Arizona, possibly for the last time, who knows? Certainly if we return, things will be getting really serious, so I hope we do and also because I like Arizona a lot! We were still enthused about New Mexico though as it was one of our favourite stretches last time, with the initially barren appearing landscape revealing more and more subtle beauty, the longer you looked. We were going to be a bit more “urban” if that is a thing in south NM, as we do not want to travel previously run roads, with crossings only allowed. As such we were going to shadow the I-10 for a good bit, which has got its pros and cons – readily available amenities and internet versus less scenic route, more traffic in places and actual availability of roads for me to run on. We stopped for the day just shy of Lordsburg, where we dropped into last time to pick up a certain Mr Richard Beer. I didn't think we'd have as nice a surprise this time...or was he keeping it quiet?

Start: Jct of Highway 70 and Hackberry Road. Finish: Just past Jct of Highway 70 and State Route A024. 39.9 miles. Day 102 Tune of the Day: Foo Fighters – All My Life. “Done, done, onto the next one!” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xQ04WbgI9rg