Premise

I am starting this blog to talk pretty evenly about running and the United States.  I started running in 2007 using the Nike+ system and now I have reach almost to the final stage.  The system is color coded.  The last two stages are blue then black.  I am currently blue, rapidly closing in on black.  Knowing I needed to find more motivation after I reached the final stage, I decided it might be cool if I ran across the country.  But being a father of two small children and the sole bread winner it seemed impractical.  So, later on in the run where I was mulling this over, I thought I could keep track of my miles and cross country virtually.  This snowballed with sort of a general diary about running, researching towns, local legends, races, possibly interviewing runners from these various places or local people about the place, and writing it all down.  So I am going to do it.  The worst thing that could happen is that no one reads this.  But how fun is this going to be for me?

I started running during a weight loss competition at Virginia Air Distributors.  I started at 271 pounds and ended at 185.  That has rebounded to between 195 and 205.  I am 6’3” for perspective.  I started walking short distances and worked my way up to, essentially, race walking 3.5 miles.  Running was the next logical step.  When I hear people that used to be hooked on cocaine talk about the first time they did it they describe an almost indescribable rush.  Never having done coke, their description is the only thing that even comes close to the effect running took.  Running along a path next to the zoo in Cleveland I found a key to my soul.  I have not had a hiatus more than a week since. 

I expect this adventure to take years.  How many, I don’t know.  I run between 20 and 25 miles a week and taking a circuitous path through the US leads to an undetermined time line.  I know where I am starting; but, I don’t know where I am going to end.  Seattle?  San Fransisco?  My initial thought was to run from the most north eastern point to the most south western.  The latter is still up in the air so I went to the library (shocking, I know) and started my research.  I am starting in Maine.  At Fort Kent.  Then heading east then south along US highway 1 to Madawaska, Van Buren, Caribou, then Presque Isle when I start west.