Distance traveled: 136 miles
Personal running distance today: 11 miles
Total personal miles to-date: 143 miles
Today's dedications: Rocky Taglia and Wayne Lee
My running buddy: Mo
Weather: Sunny, 70s
This morning, we woke up just after 5 a.m. and had an incredible breakfast prepared for us by the members of the church. I ate a cinnamon roll, biscuit with honey, scrambled eggs and potatoes with orange juice. I could have eaten forever...but eventually we had to run.
Today I was paired up with Mo, and we conquered 11 miles together today. We ran almost the whole time, which was a great improvement for both of us and our injuries. We'll be together again tomorrow on the 4th of July and we have big plans...stay tuned for awesome photos. Today, Mo and I had a great time as we ran through rural middle-of-nowhere Wyoming. There's really nothing going on there...at all. We kept running by huge empty fenced-in fields with nothing in them, so we're really not sure what anyone does in this state.
Along the run, there were a ton of cyclists we passed by. One older man stopped to chat with me, and he was cycling from Eugene, Oregon, to New Jersey and raising awareness about single-use plastic. He was on a mission to educate people about the dangers of single-use plastic bottles and to encourage sustainability and reusable plastics. It's so amazing to meet other people who are out here doing a similar physical challenge to support something they're passionate about. He was really nice and wished us well on our run.
After everyone had run 8 miles, we had to stop and shuttle all our runners over a mountain pass. We've finally reached the Rockies, so we were really excited to all be there together. We stopped at a lake on our way up the mountain where there was a bunch of snow and had a snowball fight! I also slid down the snow on my butt, which, needless to say, was freezing cold. It was fun to relax for a little bit in the middle of our day.
Tonight we were really successful in getting food donations. The people of Laramie have been so nice and welcoming to us! Everyone had plenty to eat, and we have plenty leftover to take with us. This evening I spent a lot of time FaceTiming with Adrienne and catching up, which was much-needed and fun, as always.
Now everyone is winding down. We have been exhausted for this stretch of days. This is our first time running for four days and then having a rest day; usually we only run three days and then get a rest day. However, this is also a very exciting stretch of days for running because tomorrow we make it to Colorado and get to celebrate the 4th of July there! A lot of our team ordered American flag running shorts, plus we have tattoos and all sorts of stuff to decorate ourselves with for the holiday.
Considering it's only 9:40 and I'm already falling asleep, I'm going to head to bed. The next time I write, it'll be the evening of our rest day in Boulder! I can't wait to see what fun adventures come my way the next couple days!
Run happy,
Natalie