Day 52: We Did It!

Paddy and I started this amazing journey on June 16th in Ontario, OR at Treasure Valley Community College. After 52 straight days of running through Oregon to all the other 16 community colleges we finally reached Columbia Gorge CC in Hood River today. I can’t say thank you enough to Paddy for all of her work taking care of me, driving the sprinter van, coordinating logistics and everything else she managed so that I could focus on the daily runs.  

Today’s run started out with rain, only the 2nd time I’ve run in rain this entire trip (the first was outside of Pendleton). It felt great and cleared up after a couple of hours. It helped that I was running on the Historic Columbia Gorge Trail for most of the morning. It was lovely to run along a bike path through forest and then emerge to phenomenal views of the gorge. With about 5 miles left the trail ended and I found myself on a hiking trail headed up to the top of Mitchell Point. I gained more than 1,000 ft of elevation in about ½ mile navigating rock slides and 80% grade at one point. It may have been the most challenging segment of the entire run. After coming down the other side I had about 3 miles to run to CGCC where several staff members were there to cheer me in.

Tomorrow I will run the final 2.5 miles from CGCC to the Columbia River where we will celebrate the finish of this epic run to all 17 CCs. I’m feeling quite emotional as this is all coming to an end tomorrow.  I’m grateful for all the support from my crews, the colleges, donors and many others. This adventure has been so much more of a success than I dreamt it would be and was truly fun for Paddy and I. Still lots to process and celebrate including tomorrow’s finish.