Day 43: The Long One

Date: April 24th 2011
Distance: 20.4 miles 
Weather: Crummy

This is the longest training run I will do until the actual marathon. I wanted to see how far I could get, so I spent time mapping out my route. I determined that if Holly drove me down and dropped me off in Payson, Utah, then I'd get the full 20 miles and have a nice change of scenery. It also gives me some cool bragging rights:


"Yeah, this morning I ran from Payson, through Salem, through Spanish Fork, through Springville, and then through most of Provo until I got home."


I like the sound of that.


When I got dropped off, the weather was cool and overcast, with a drop of rain falling every once and a while. I got dumped off at the Payson Baseball complex with nothing but my I-Pod. My playlist included a couple of podcasts: "Nine Lessons Learned about Creativity at Google", "How Muppets Work", "Groundbreaking Healthcare Initiatives", and "Why is the U.S. so dependent on cars?" Pretty good stuff.


That's not to say that the scenery wasn't also entertaining. Most of the running was along these rural two-lane highways, meaning, I got to see a great assortment of roadkill. Cats, dogs, rats, birds, moles, raccoons... you name it, I saw it.

Then there were these "Jim Bridger" billboards. There were probably 4 identical billboards along my route, all talking about Jim Bridger, who "discovered the great Salt Lake" (no relation to Jim and Bridger Sorensen, although there seems to be a slight resemblence, lest my eyes deceive me). Let me see if I can find an image...


There we go. As you can see, there's just this factoid stuck on the billboard along with a funny looking URL. Every time I saw one I was thinking "What are they trying to sell here? What on earth would justify the expense of advertising this on a billboard?"


Well I actually found out the secret! I'm so relieved... it all makes perfect sense now! But if you want to know why they spent all this money putting up billboards, you will have to go to jimbridger24.com, and check it out just like I did (that's some incredible billboard advertising, by the way. I'm not sure if I have EVER gone to a web URL that I saw on a billboard before).

I was pretty content with my running all the way until I got to Springville. By that time the rain had soaked through all my clothes and I was getting cold. I was developing a massive cramp in my left calf and spirits were low overall. I wasn't thirsty, however, because on the car trip down we had made a stop just outside of Springville and left a full water bottle at the side of the road. I was pretty happy when I found it and got a little hydration. And for the record, I actually carried it into town where I deposited it into a trash can outside a Burger King. +5 environment points for me.


As for the cold, I found a electric hand dryer in the Taco Bell bathroom and spent a few minutes in there, running it over and over again to warm up my hands.


The last item of interest came as I ran into Provo. While I was stopped at a traffic light I saw a "Scooter Gang" cruise on by. Think "Motorcycle Gang" except everybody was riding those electric road scooters that got popular when gas prices got high. There were at least 7 scooters that went by, leaving me thinking that the only way it could have been more nerdy is if they were all driving Segways (I actually ran by an official Segway distributor in Spanish Fork so even that wouldn't have been too shocking).


By the time I got home I was starving. My whole run, I was getting energy from two bean burritos that I dropped down the hatch before I left. Needless to say, I went straight for the whole wheat roll and the Jolly Ranchers when I walked in the door. And a Blue Raspberry Jolly Rancher really tastes good after a 20 mile run.


PS: Did you take the bait? If you went to jimbridger24.com, then congratulations! ...you are a naturally curious person. If not, then I'm sorry... you live in a world of apathy and ignorance. There's nothing I can do for you. ;)