A Runner Hits The Road

As you may have noticed, I have not been very active on the blog lately. That is because I have not been very active with running generally. Why the inactivity?  Is it an injury? A lack of motivation?  It is neither of those. I have been very busy planning and setting into action my next running adventure.

Many years ago I saw a little blurb in either Runner’s World or Running Times about a guy living in his camper and traveling around the country racing.  Immediately I knew that I had to do that someday.  Well, about ten years later, that someday is here.

Over the past five years, I have been putting a plan into action, little by little. I needed to make myself mobile. I started the process by changing my occupation so that I could teach online from anywhere. I worked hard to put together the money to buy a trailer.  And, perhaps most important, I found a wonderful partner who was just crazy enough to think it sounded like something he would like to try too.

Our original plan did not involve cutting the umbilical cord completely.  We were planning on living in Michigan and just traveling during the winter months.  That changed when I found out that I just could not stay in Michigan.  Although I love the running community and trails there and have made many wonderful friends, I just could not handle the grayness and the cold that are a major part of the Michigan experience.  When we decided it was time to move, I knew that the time was right for this adventure.

Any hesitations I might have had were erased when I talked to my friend Donna. Besides being an almost 50 states marathoner (and the author of the really awesome race report here), she and her husband had already done exactly what I hoped to do, spent a year on the road in their RV traveling around the country and running.  She said it was an awesome experience! How could I not give it a try?

So, in July we put our house up for sale, started packing, and today we are on the road. Our plan is to travel around the country for the next year, running and racing in as many locations as we can manage.

We do not have a solid itinerary.  I want to be flexible and let serendipity have a hand in our decisions.  However, we do have a rough plan for the year that involves as highlights Christmas in Washington D.C. with my grandson, a month in California visiting my family and my old running friends, spectating at the Western States 100, Leadville 100, and U.S.A Pro Cycling Challenge, and returning to MI next September for my first 100 mile race in Hell and another year of pacing at Capital City River Run. My goal is to find as many trails and do as many races as I can along the way.  

Because I am a writer, I also wanted to blog about the trip. I toyed with the idea of just posting here, but decided that I wanted to continue with this blog as is rather than making major changes.

Because the majority of the posts will be more travel log than running related that I would set up a separate blog for anyone who might be interested in reading about our experiences and following our travels. 

It is called “Roaming...Running...Writing” and is available at

http://roamingrunningwriting.blogspot.com/

I really hope you will visit regularly to follow my adventures (and misadventures). Who knows, maybe I can inspire you to follow your own running dream.