Two long days and an easy one to go!Today we went from Aberdeen to Andover, SD. Andover is a town of 99 people about 10 miles on the East side of Groton.
The miles seem to be coming a little easier lately. I think a lot of it is that there is light at the end of this long tunnel.
Also, my body is feeling as good the last couple days as it has all trip. Today I felt great for the first 20 miles and only had to keep re-committing myself for the last 10 miles, every couple of miles I had to try and find a song or a funny memory that would make me push on a few more miles. By the time I got to Andover, I had a chance to lay down in the ditch and wait for a few minutes for Brendan (he had a rough day today). That smidgen of recovery made a world of difference and I got back up feeling pretty good.
Another reason is that with my body feeling "decent" (which is a relative term...lets not get crazy here!) I have really been thinking about enjoying every moment; the birds, the smells, the sounds, etc.
We were spoiled at our pick-up when Aunt Fritz and Mom brought us sub sandwich's and lemonade as well as bags of ice. We have been getting seriously spoiled!
We were lucky enough to have an article in the Aberdeen newspaper today as well as do an
interview with the Ipswich newspaper, which is awesome because that is our whole point with this...get some awareness out about cancer research hopefully get some people talking! We are also calling into a radio sports talk show here in a few minutes to do an on-the-air interview.See you down the road,
Nolan
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Hello All-
Nolan was right...I had an extremely difficult day today. For some reason, my ankles don't look quite right. I now have "kankles", that is where you cannot distinguish between where your ankles and calf muscles start or end...so now I have "kankles". I am icing and sitting in the bath as we did in the hot tub the other day. I have to do something to fix the problem because every step today led me to wince in pain---no fun over 30 miles! I even tried running to help the pain and for the first time it actually made it much worse.
We nearly encountered a storm today. Actually, the morning was beautiful and you won't believe it, but it was official as of today- we have now felt the wind come from every possible direction! This storm that was going to hit was coming from the Huron area, but we lucked out and all we had was a strong 15-20mph from the South. Glad we didn't have to battle the rain too.
Nolan was doing great and was striding out with a solid pace. I just could not get any sort of pace and kept trying to re-commit myself as Nolan calls it, and he is exactly right on there. I just keep telling myself that we have two hard days left---and an easy stroll. I look forward to staying at the Galley in Webster, and in fact, we ran into Keith and Jane Bryant, and their son Kyle on the road and was nice to hear they are excited to have us join them at their establishment.I am going to get back to 20 min. of ice, 20 min. of hot bath (and repeat all night). I hope it works. I will be going to bed earlier tonight and looking to put on a brighter face in the AM. I just want to be able to end this amazing journey with smile on my face and I know I can find it in myself to do that---because of people like you all that are following us and encouraging our continued progress as we inch across the state. THANK YOU for that!!!
I wanted to re-post what my good friend Todd Grabow placed on our guestbook:
There will be a finish line celebration held at Lake Farley on the North Side of Milbank on Friday night,, May 9th, from 5:30PM - 8:30PM.
We will be having a BBQ with Hamburgers/Hotdogs, Chips, and Soda. It will be free of charge and a free will offering will take place, with a portion of the proceeds going to the local community's relay for life efforts. It is going to be a great celebration of life and a chance for people to share with others their "stories"... We really look forward to seeing you all FRIDAY NIGHT in MILBANK---
"Cancer can do many things...but one thing it cannot do is take away your drive to make a difference in this world"
