Distance traveled: 111 miles
Total personal miles to-date: 190.5 miles
Today's dedications: Rik Haalboom
Food van buddy: Joe
Weather: Sunny, 70s
On our trip, each runner has to spend one day in the food van. The food van is a soccer-mom-minivan that spends the day driving to various cities to get food donations to feed our team, which means we didn't actually run today. I have really been looking forward to this day for a while, though, because I was paired with Joe, and I had heard about how great it is to run with Joe. Today, I'd finally get to spend a day with him.
We started out at Wash U circling up and dividing up from there. After we gassed the vans, we headed out. Joe and I spent the morning driving between St. Louis and Illinois looking for food donations. We hit up a Starbucks fairly early in downtown St. Louis so I could get a little bit of energy to start the day.
We had some time to kill before food establishments opened, so we took a stroll around downtown St. Louis. We checked out the Edward Jones Dome, some fountains and Ballpark Village. Joe had the great idea that we should have an Instagram contest to see who can get the most likes in 24 hours on their Instagram of the same photo...
The fine details of getting food donations is pretty boring, but I will let you know the results of what we got today. From the fruits of our donation labor, we acquired: 25 hamburgers/cheeseburgers from Five Guys, 20 turkey sandwiches from Subway, 6 veggie subs from Subway, 5 McDonalds hamburgers and fries, 10 Chick Fil A chicken sandwiches, 1 personal-sized pepperoni pizza from Little Caesars and a ton of fresh veggies and fruits from Wayne's Market, a local produce market in rural Illinois. Joe and I were preeeeeetty proud of ourselves. And shockingly, our team ate practically everything as soon as we arrived. Or maybe it's not so shocking considering how much we run each day!
All day long, Joe and I interviewed each other with all kinds of questions. It was a great way to get to know each other, and we ended up really learning a lot about one another. I'm glad Joe and I got to have so much time together!
In the middle of the day, we took a brief break from food van to meet up with Mike, one of my dad's best friends from college and a family friend who I have known ever since I was little. We met up in his neighborhood so he could give me a card/money and show us around. It was so great to see him and to take a break from our day.
We arrived at our church in Effingham at 5 p.m. We all ate dinner together, and we're spending the evening relaxing. It seems like we may head to bed early tonight, but we'll have to see; that rarely happens on 4K! Tomorrow we head to Evansville, IN. From here on out, we spend very few days in each state. Somehow, we only have 11 days left on this trip, 3 of which are rest days. I can't believe we're so close to the end, but we still have plenty of adventures between here and Baltimore!
Run happy,
Natalie