Posted by Gail Marino on October 25, 2004 at 09:47:47:
In Reply to: RACE ACROSS AMERICA-Louis Rodriguez updates posted by Gail Marino on August 02, 2004 at 09:02:43:
RAA DAY # 56 FRIDAY 8/6/04
It's a very cool morning as we depart from Dunreith, Indiana & head off to Lewisburg, Ohio for 46.7 miles with a cutoff of 13 hrs 20 min. The trio of Lou, Taka & Kaz are the back of the pack. Kaz tells us that he is walking because of the blisters on his feet. I told him that he should tape up his feet. Kaz continues on with taped feet & Graeme & Don's numbers along with his own. Taka was in good company & they told Lou to run & have fun.
A few miles later, we met Olivier & his crew. Soon Lou & Olivier caught up to Luc & Russell. Olivier moved up past them into the 2nd position & Lou stayed behind them as they ran together. We were excited for Olivier as we cheered him on along with his crew & Dario threw rocks at them. Lou then stopped for a while & changed his shirt. This also gave Russell & Luc the opportunity to move ahead of us for awhile so that we can start over again at our own pace instead of theirs. Once we got going again, we caught up to Olivier who was now behind Luc & Russell. Luc had moved on & Russell was in their sight. Lou & Olivier then passed Russell together & was moving at a nice pace. The days can be quite long with nothing in our sights except corn fields & soy fields for miles & miles but at least we are able to entertain ourselves with the friendships we made with Olivier & his family & Kaz, Sumio & Satoko & Taka & Ryota & G before Don left. Since we were not allowed to run, this no longer felt like a race for us, but more so as a tour. Well at least, that is what it felt like for me, we were enforced by rules but not allowed the freedom to run your own pace.
After about 16 miles out, Olivier went on, as we sat & waited for Kaz. It warmed up a bit & about 30 minutes later Kaz arrived. Taka was about 2 miles behind Kaz. We found many mailboxes along hwy 40 through the small towns. Lou & kaz ran together for a few hours. At 32.8 miles, we were in Ohio, the 10th state we ran through. At 34 miles, we saw Oliviers crew. His crew told us, Olivier was about 1 1/2 miles in front of us. By 37 miles, we were only 1/2 mile behind Olivier. So now we had less than 10 miles left & we were in good company. It was fun for me watching Lou move. We usually had fun with Olivier & his crew. We finished in a parking lot of a restaurant in Lewisburg. We all waited for each other to finish, Olivier & Kaz. Then we backtracked to cheer Taka on & saw that he was running well enough to make cutoff, before driving the 16 miles to the motel. Lou finished in 10:27, Olivier in 10:33, Kaz in 11:27 & Taka in 13:01. Till tomorrow. Lou & Agnes