I did not report this properly before my timeout. Here is my delayed report. I need to upload some more photos..

Also my ‘ mental slideshow ‘ as mentioned many times in the blog I want the run to be on a continuos route as possible around the world so as I can get my mental snapshots. I cannot possibly include all the wonderful people in this entry as then I would have two blogs! But you know who you are and I will never forget. This is just a random selection. Thanks a million!

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As I run closer and closer to the Pacific Ocean I am becoming more and more excited. I feel I can almost smell the ocean now. It has been a long winter. For me winter started last October with the heavy rains in Ireland. It rained hard for 8 of my  9 road days at the start of this world run. Many people would be surprised when I say this was the worst weather so far. I remembered be absolutely drenched in torrential rain running and running, not knowing where I was going to sleep that night. It was my penultimate day in Ireland as I ran from Castleisland my focus set on my final Irish destination, Dunquin.  It was a freezing cold rain. I was almost hypothermic. Then my good friend Colm O Thorna phoned me to tell me that the owner of a local bar near the remote Inch cross roads would be waiting for me in an hour.

I RAN OVER 6 MOUNTAIN PASSES IN THE ROCKIES

Soon I would be basking near a hot log fire in one of his vacant rental cabins. My phone had  just about seized up in a pocket of rain. I was still finding my feet and getting into and establishing a proper road routine. Thank  goodness for Colm’s call that day and the benefits of modern technology.
Then into Newfoundland, though not as severe as I expected it was still cold. I remember one particular cold near St. George’s junction. I was cold, hungry and thirsty. There was a village about 6km detour each way off my route. I decided to run there and ended up with an invitation to stay the night in  a fishing cabin belonging to Jerome, one of the towns volunteer firefighters.

JEROME'S FISHING CABIN

I remembered the US immigration officer that had her boyfriend chase me down on the road to give me a Christmas card and $20. Then there was the woman who stopped me as I ran through another storm in Maine just days before Christmas. She told me she had arranged for me to stay in Clifton Baptist church that night. Pastor John Walsh and his wife Debbie were waiting for me. I ended up spending Christmas with the Walsh’s.

CHRISTMAS WITH DEBBIE AND PASTOR JOHN WALSH 

It turned out that Debbie is from a small town in Maine called Stockholm. Her friend from the former Swedish settlement town is none other than Cindy the woman who is married to Roger, my El Cajon hosts. So I stayed with each of these school friends, one at the very start of my American odyssey and the other for my very last day in the country. I wondered what the odds of that were. I believe I am a very lucky person. Many times in life I feel I have gotten more than my fair share of luck. I don’t want to buy any more lottery tickets. I feel if I won the lottery the world run would not be the same. I only want to win the lottery when this is over!. I the meantime I will just need to keep hustling as best as I can.

It was great meeting my great rivalJohn Geesler from my competitive days. I stayed with him and members of his club commutted be back and forth for 5 days!

John, Tony And Dave Putney. They have made me an honary member of their running club The Kurahoora Kickers

Then down into  the blizzards of Maine, Massachusetts and New York, the worst winter in North American history as many people have told me. I actually enjoyed running in the blizzards. There is something quite liberating about running in snow.

RUNNING INTO CLIFTON WHERE A CONCERNED LOCAL ARRANGED FOR ME TO STAY WITH THE WALSH FAMILY. I HAD A WONDERFUL CHRISTMAS WITH THE WALSH'S

ANOTHER STORM IN WINTERPORT, MAINE

DID I SAY LIBERATING?

I thought of all the numerous people that took days off work to run and help me. Their kind help and how they went to enourmous effort and expense to make things as comfortable as possible for me. How they invited me into their homes, laundered my smelly clothes, showered, fed, bed and befriended me. Just like the family from Kansas that were spending their spring break in McCook, Nebraska with their family. They met me coming out of Wal-Marts and arranged for their sons to run with me that afternoon. I was invited to spend the night with them and their parents sharing their precious vacation time. This family also did me a big favor organising a Colorado flag for me. They knew it was important for me to have a flag of the Rocky mountain state, my former home for of almost 8 years.

THANK YOU FOR SHARING YOUR SPRING BREAK FOR ME AND GETTING ME MY COLORADO FLAG!

My four weeks in Colorado will always be special.

And then there is you the readers of this blog that make it so worthwhile for me. A special thanks is long overdue to the Cochrane family from Newfoundland who have been following this blog since before I ran my very first step of the journey.

KATHERYN COCHRANE AND HER FAMILY HAVE FOLLOWED MY RUN SINCE BEFORE IT EVEN BEGAN. HERE I AM RUNNING WITH HER RUNNING CLUB CORNER BROOK  A.C. IN PASADENA, NEWFOUNDLAND

I was reflecting on all of this as I ran closer and closer towards my friends home in El Cajon   which is about 30km from the Pacific.
An Iraqi woman had cut my hair that morning. She had told me how she was so grateful to the American people for taking her in as a refugee into this most welcoming of countries.
Now as I run through the streets of El Cajon, a suburb of San Diego I realize there is a huge immigrant population living here. Roger later told me it is the second largest Iraqi community after Detroit in the United States.
I end my day at the 7-Eleven store on Washington Street. Tomorrow I will run from there into the Pacific. Roger came out to meet me. His house is up on top of the steepest hill I have encountered on the entire run. I reckon it’s about 1 in 3. Being a builder he built his large house and office on top of the hill.

WHAT A VIEW! ROGER SAID HE WOULD WATCH OUT FOR ME RUNNING DOWN 1ST STREET.. FROM HIS LIVING ROOM!

He must have spent a fortune pouring the huge foundation. His reward is a wonderful view of San Diego and the surrounding areas. His passion is for gardening, especially cacti of which he has dozens of species from all over the world.

I laughed and joked about the wonderful weather here. San Diego is considered by many to have the best all year climate in the world. Just one season. Nice and warm with the same mid seventies farenheit  temperature all year long.
I asked Cindy if it ever snowed here. I prefixed my question by apologising for the silliness of my remark!
” Well actually it did once in 1969! ”

Cindy And Roger

” What about frost and ice on that steep hill as I see its a bit shaded? ” I asked.
” Yes we do get a lot of frost there in the winter but it doesn’t stick as the heat is still in the ground from the previous day! ” Answered Roger.
” My goodness, I feel so sorry for you. “  I joked.
Roger and Cindy kindly offered to allow me to use their place as a base. It was Friday 20th May. I still got 3 more days running in the USA. Tomorrow I will run to the Pacific and then two more days to the border crossing into Mexico at Tecate.
That run to the Pacific was a bit anti-climatic. I ran up Friars Road and into San Diego’s city limits, population 1,250,000.

 I came to a house which was decorated with stage Irish bunting. Even the car parked outside on the road had been given the shamrock and flag treatment. I pushed my way past a Co. Carlow sign in the garden, knocked on the door.
 A startled barefooted man in his forties and wearing shorts answered the door.
” I see you are from Co. Carlow. ” I said.
” Well no actually we are from Drogheda. ”
I told him he was only the 7th Irish person I had met on my run across North America and I was about to dive into the ocean in a couple of hours.
” I see! ” He said.

Then I remembered the Arizona and Californian deserts and how challenging it was

 So I just ran on.
A little later I met up with Greg from Orange county. Greg had heard of my run through our mutual friend Ash whose Runaways sports store was a former sponsor of mine back in Dublin. Ash used to live near here so he emailed Greg who had no hesitation driving 70 miles each way to run the last 10 with me.
Why did I choose Ocean Beach to make my splash into the Pacific?
Nothing scientific, I just asked Roger for his recommendation and he sent me back a list of 3 possibilities. Ocean Beach was the first place that I saw on the map and it looked like a reasonably easy place to get to from El Cajon.
I was a bit disappointed that there was no response from any of the local running clubs to run with me today. I had texted my contact from my  NBC television interview in  Illinois. They tipped off  their office in San Diego, so Al the local cameraman and reporter phoned me to make an arrangement  to get a piece for the evening news.
On the way Greg told me that I would be sharing the news with some religious zealotsthat  had declared that the world would end at 6pm!
” Is that eastern or pacific time Greg? ”
” I don’t know, why you ask? ”
” Well I want to get North America finished before the sky falls in. I don’t want to be out  on Waterworld Drive I want to be in the Ocean before the world ends. ”
So we upped the pace and arrived at 2.40.

THANKS GREG FOR YOUR GREAT HELP

Yes that would do nicely even if our 6pm deadline was eastern time we would be early.
In my excitement I ran into the ocean not really thinking about the Nirvana’s contents, phone, ipod etc. I will have to give her a good spraying down later as the sea water will play havoc with her. All was well anyway. I was surprised how easy she moved in the warm water and nearly floated away as I splashed through the waves with my Irish and American flags.

The sunbathers didn’t quiet know what to make of this especially when Al arrived with his  tv camera and began the interview with..
” Well Tony you have just run across America is this the beginning or the end? ”
That was his only question. I answered it telling him how delighted I was and how grateful I am to the American people. I waited for another question but he just kept pointed his camera at me, so I got the hint and just rambled on for almost 12 and a half minutes!

NBC never sent me a copy of the interview but fair play to Greg who recorded it on his phone

HERE
Greg treated me to lunch in an oriental noodle bar before I started my run for the Mexican border. It was a bit of a mental effort to make this 2 and a half day run to the border. My focus had been on the Pacific all these months, so I felt a bit like a 100 meter runner being asked to run another 100 meters at the end of his race, possible but a bit shagging!
So I ran on for another couple of hours till Roger came and picked me up.
The next couple of days Roger commuted me back and forth to my finish and start locations. As I got closer and closer to the border I was amazed at the amount of border patrol vehicles that patrolled the area looking for stray Mexicans that had managed to get across the border looking for a better life. It is one thing for them to get across the border but quiet a difficult task making further progress due to the heavy border patrol presence.
I had just run unhindered by a huge compound which housed hundreds of US border patrol agents, busses, vans, pickups, atv’s, you name it.

 I have been told that the hedges I have run by probably have dozens of Mexicans hiding till dark so as they can make a run for it. I don’t know how they can do that. I am an extreme athlete and have had some difficulty traversing this harsh terrain. I have of course had the opportunity to stop for water and food on the rare occasion it has been available. These fugitives have to discreetly fend for themselves or more than likely have help but that’s very difficult with all the patrols and checkpoints.
On my last morning I was stopped on the road by a man who told me he used to live in the area but I was a bit surprised when he asked me for directions! His name was Jim, he told me he has Irish connections and goes back to Ireland every couple of years for a vacation.
A couple of hours later I saw him come out of a cafe at a junction. Jim brought me back inside and treated me to a big fry up!
Leon, who is the owner of the cafe bar told me that he always had an entrepreneur spirit. I asked him how he got his cafe bar. He told me that he noticed many people were trying to sell unripened avocados by the side of the road but there was not so much business as people wanted ripened avocados. So he bought as many as he could, ripened them himself. He told me he had such a huge amount that when they were stacked up he could not see the road from behind them. Cars were coming from everywhere, he could hardly keep up with the demand and with his profits from he bought 30 acres of land in Arizona for $1,000 an acre. He had always wanted to live in Arizona and intended to build a house there. Just before he began building a rock  mining company came and offered him 250,000 dollars for his land. He sold up and bought the cafe bar.

I ran on to the border. In my eagerness to get a photo I strayed across the yellow line that separates the US from Mexico. I was now in Mexico! The US border guard came over and teased me about this. I did not want to cross over now. This will be my finishing point on leg 1 of the world run. I will return here on the 21st of June and run south through Mexico after my timeout in Ireland. I couldn’t get a photo as my camera decided at that inopportune moment to seize up on me.
As former Californian governor would say.
I’ll be Back!
Hasta luego Mexico!

GREAT TO BE BACK IN MY SECOND HOME... COLORADO!

This entry was posted on Sunday, June 12th, 2011 at 7:36 pm and is filed under jogging. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.