I have wanted to do this run for years but two things have stopped me in the past. The first is that it’s in early May and before I know about it, it has passed. The second is that the last mile is literally UP the bluff. There are parts that compare to climbing a long flight of stairs. The one reason I have wanted to run it though is because of the sheer beauty of it. It begins at the Mississippi River and runs on the trail through the marsh and ends atop the bluff in a grass field. Two years ago I vowed to register for this race in the near future to WALK it.
My goal was to run to the bluff and hike the rest, still a challenge for me. The weather was less than ideal, cool and rainy. I don’t mind running in a light rain, but starting in the rain sucks! The run was great and by the end the rain had stopped. The inclines were far worse than I could have imagined and I underestimated the difficulty of hiking a mile and a half after running 3.5.
After the run a chartered school bus drove us back to the finish. We got on the last bus. Due to a road having been closed for months due to flood damage what should have been an eight minute drive or so was a 20 minute ride that was cut short. I was sitting in the fifth row or so on the left side of the bus. Just a few miles from the end of the bus ride the driver did not see a car stopped ahead of us with its left turn signal on. I grabbed a hold of the seat back in front of me and yelled, “STOP!” The driver put his breaks on but we still slammed into the back of the car. When I opened my eyes the car was gone…it had been pushed (?) into a driveway. The bus driver was visibly shaken (as was I) and he asked if anyone had a cell phone because he had to call his boss. Because we all had just run 5 miles very few people if any other than me had a phone. I only had mine because my kids were left with a newer, younger babysitter. I politely told the driver I had a phone, but that first I was going to call 911. Everyone on the bus was fine, we felt little to nothing. It was in that instant that I, a mother of two, began supporting no seatbelts on school busses. For all parents who are reading this I want to say it again, I felt nothing upon impact. My first concern was wondering if there was a child in the car. Thankfully everyone in the car appeared fine, but when a two-year old was lifted out of its car seat a few minutes later. I could hear the little voice from across the street say, “That bus just hit us.” A few more miles were added onto this race when we opted to walk back to our cars at Riverside Park.
I will run/hike this race again next year, leaving a second vehicle at the finish.
