Rae's Run Across The United States

(Pardon me for the next bit of word vomit)

November 14th, 2012 ended my seven and a half month trek across the United States of America. And over these past months I have learned that it truly is just that: United. 

Sure we share our differences, we have many opinions, views, ideas…but when push comes to shove we pull through it together, we lend a helping hand, we build each other up and propel each other forward. When I looked back at these last 3,400 miles I see a string of people lifting me up, doing anything that they could to make my journey a little easier. 

——————————————————————————————————————-I’m not big on crying in public; I’m not big on crying in general…I’m definitely not big on crying while going through security at the Las Vegas Airport. But that is was I did. It was a big, disgusting, sad, scared, horrible cry. I didn’t stop once from the time I left my apartment with my sister until I was picked up on state street by Mr. John Clancy. I wore my sunglasses the entire plane ride, people gave me looks of pity, some even asked if I was alright. You see, I wasn’t alright…I had just said goodbye to my favorite person on earth for almost a year and I was scared to death. But I mean, what would I even tell them? “No, I’m fine, I’m just leaving on this seven month journey to run across America”? Please. No one is going to believe that, and even if they did they would have no clue what to say to me. So I just stuck with a simple response to the questionnaires: “Yeah *sob* *sob* *sob* I’m *wipes snot bubble from nose and wipes it on sleeve of coat* Fine *breaks down in histaria as kind stranger awkwardly walks away*”

          Freshly 18 (by a few hours), fresh to the running world (by three years), and pretty fresh to this whole adventure of a lifetime thing (by zero accounts of life threatening adventures). I was scared. But I wasn’t willing to tell anyone this. I’m sure my sister on some level knew (well, she did know…I’m not sure how, it might have been the fact that I kept asking her to break my legs for an entire month prior to me leaving, and it might have been the nightmare I had a week before begging her not to let me go..) I think she knew I was scared before I knew I was scared. She just wasn’t willing to tell me not to go. I know she wanted to tell me to stay home. But she’s not selfish (thank you again, Guildy for not breaking any of my bones), so here I was scared to death on an airplane, crying histerically that I just wanted someone to sedate me, wearing these dumb sunglasses inside of an aircraft. I was so freaking terrified and sad and so many other emotions that all my body could think to do was cry.

            And then the plane landed, and I was in Boston. I had just flown all the way across the United States of America, only to run back across three days later. That freaked me out. And unless you’ve been at the starting line of your run across America, you won’t even begin to understand what this feels like. It’s like more than the feeling of the unknown. It’s the feeling of all of the negative thoughts you put into your mind before you left, and it’s the feeling of not letting anyone down because everyone knows that you are running across America now and what if you choke? I couldn’t bare the thought of choking and proving (probably) every single person that knew I was going to run across America, right (let me just say that I know some people legitimately believe I would make it all the way across…just in my mind at this moment, no one believed in me, but I was going to do it anyway). I felt like I was playing for the Chicago Cubs, I had a ton of fans but everyone knew that I wasn’t going to win the world series before they even looked at the roster. They were behind me one hundred percent but they knew I wouldn’t make it all the way and get the big victory at the end. 

But then I started running, and my perspective changed, I started to look at my run as a day to day thing rather than a trip of 3000+ miles. I started to realize I was running for all of these people that needed a pair of shoes. And I started to see that people truly believed in me. So I kept running. 

To the people that helped me throughout my journey in any way at all: Thank you.

Thank you for caring about me, and worrying about me, and loving me, and making sure I was safe every night. Thank you to those who have supported me from the first day I told them I was going to go.

Thank you to Allie who got to listen to be ramble on for an entire class period about how fun I thought it would be to run across america, and thank you for being like “Rae that would be so freaking awesome, you can totally do that.” because if you wouldn’t have said that to me I never would have emailed my mom and kendall, and I wouldn’t have flown to Boston. 

Thank you to Kendall for your concern about me getting eaten by a bear…and thank you for ignoring my pleas to break my legs the entire month before I left, because I know that took a lot of will power to let me go. I love you Ken.

Thanks Mom for taking care of the logistics..and finally getting on board with the whole stroller concept..I love you.

To my sisters and my brother, to my parents (that includes you too bill), and Adam, Thank you for being behind me 100% since I came up with this seemingly ridiculous idea I love you guys so much. I wouldn’t have made it without you.

Wow. 18 days left. 160 miles until all of the land in the United States runs out. This crazy seven month journey is almost going to be over. Part of me is ridiculously happy, you know…my own bed, see what the next steps are in life, different conversations…but then at the same time, I’m a little sad; this journey, this wonderful run across the United States was amazing. I met so many fabulous people, I’ve eaten a lot of great food (bill if you’re reading this: bring on the fat jokes.) and I’ve changed. My whole outlook on life, my goals…I’m actually a hugger now and a people person. But I’m happy, really happy. The journey has been hard, but man, it’s been worth it. Everything about these last seven months has molded me and my life a little more…the good, the bad, the ugly, the beautiful, the sour, the sweet…it’s all created a run, a journey, that was worth going on. I found myself in the soles of my feet. I laughed, I cried (a lot). But I enjoyed it all. This run healed some relationships even though it killed a few. It is an analogy of life for me. It opened up my eyes to so much good in the world. It taught me that occasionally if you put your trust in people- even perfect strangers, they will rise to the occasion.
Sometimes you’ve just got to go big or go home, you’ve got to prove yourself right by just going out and doing and acting on all of your crazy insane, impossible seeming goals. I mean look at me, 4 years ago did anyone actually think that I’d be running even a mile…doubtful, and then I decided to run over 3000…
Do life people, you won’t regret it.

If it weren’t for the first three people that I mentioned this too (allie schaal, ken doll, Tigges) not thinking I was a complete idiot for wanting to do this, but instead being supportive in their own ways, (ie: “are you on drugs…like I don’t doubt you..but are you on drugs..?” Or “rae…that’d be awesome but you might get eaten by a bear…”) I don’t think I would have even tried to execute my goal. So thank you for not thinking I was an idiot. (Or at least not telling me I was an idiot…you all probably thought that for a few days at least….)
And then thanks to everyone else I told. Thanks to the people who were my voice of reason without being a voice of doubt. And also thank you to the very few people who openly told me not to go because I would ‘get killed..or worse.” Because without you I wouldn’t have had motivation to keep going. I’m 160 miles away. Wow. That’s really ridiculous to me.
Like all the what ifs and the what’s next…
Bizarre, I’m going to miss this.
But I’m ready for the next thing…whatever it may be.

October and 90+ degrees is definitely not an October that I am used to. 
But regardless of the heat, I am knocking out the miles and have around 300 miles left to run until I am to Manhattan Beach, which is very exciting. It’s still strange thinking that I am almost done running across america…like less than a month left and this journey will be over…crazy.
On top of the excitement of almost being done with my run, I am pretty excited to see my mom in about a week and a half, I haven’t seen her for a while and it will be nice to have her around for a while.

I’ll update you guys a little more on my next rest day.

-Rae

Hi everyone!

In the past few weeks a lot of exciting things have happened.

Like when my dad surprised me with a visit.

I made it to Nevada!

I am currently 50 miles away from Las Vegas (home). But seeing as these last few weeks have been pretty grueling I am taking about six rest days before I finish those last fifty into my home town. 

I would like to make a special shout out to Ron Nelson (AKA Ron Swanson).

Due to the fact that from Fruita Colorado until you hit Las Vegas it is pretty desolate, it would be pretty dangerous to go at alone. So Ron stepped up and offered to follow me in an RV. And we made it.

Awesome gesture, extremely grateful. Ron- you rock.

(Since I am at the moment lacking a photo of Ron, enjoy this photo of Ron Swanson)

:)