July 9th: Looking Back

On June 1st we left New York City… 39 days later, on July 9th, we are approaching Novosibirsk in Russia. Tomorrow I’ll be 28. So far we’ve traveled through US, Ireland, UK, France, Belgium, Holland, Germany, Austria, Czech Republic, Poland, Belarus, and the European part of Russia… Since NYC, I’ve run just over 300 miles (close to 500km). On a given day, I’ve run my approximate 10mile (16km) segment anywhere from 1:11 to 1:25. I have run in every hour of a day, watched both sunrises and sunsets on a run, ran in the rain and 90F (30C) heat, ran alone, with a bicyclist, with a police car behind me… I have run in America, Europe, and Asia. I’ve run in short sleeve, long sleeve, shorts, tights, with no shirt and no hair. My most memorable runs include running through downtown Prague at 3:30am (including through the neighborhood where I lived till I was 16), out of the heart of London to Greenwich Village, over the Volga river in Russia. So far I’ve had only one bad run (stomach issues), and countless of great ones. I had the opportunity to talk about water to a local, regional, and national newspapers, online magazine, prerecorded radio program, life radio broadcast, and Czech television. I got to sightsee a little bit in Dublin, Brussels, Amsterdam, Prague, Auschwitz, and Moscow. Although the Run went through a plethora of other places, because of the logistics I did not get to see at all Paris, Antwerps, Vienna, Krakow, Warsaw, Minks… But that’s fine, because I know that one day I will have the opportunity to see these places. I do not know, however, if I’ll ever have the chance to be a part of something that big and that good as the Blue Planet Run. It’s becoming hard out here…., but in a way, it’s better. The more the mosquitoes bite, the more I am tired of sleeping in a different hotel every night and constantly packing and repacking, the more I am sleep deprived from either running or being in a van all night, the more I am tired of unfamiliar foods and fuming trucks on my back, the more I miss home… , the more I can emphasize with those for whom we are doing all this. The more I am in discomfort, the more I am humble about the experiences of those around the world without safe drinking water. And that, indeed, is the point. Water is life, and life is good in Novosibirsk.