Returning to the Course after a Mississippi dip

After dipping into the Mississppi River returned to the Arch to tap their batons on the Gateway Arch and then continued on their route through St. Louis. 11/25/04.  

Mississippi River to the Gateway Arch

After taking a quick splash in the Mississippi the team returns toward the Gateway Arch in St. Louis. 11/25/04. 

With the Arch in the background team runs back towards its route in St. Louis, Missouri. 11/25/04 

The RIT Cross Country team runs underneath the Gateway Arch in St. Louis Missouri late on a Thanksgiving night. 11/25/04 

Nate "Flipper" Lowe cutting up his turkey during the Thanksgiving meal. Although the team all enjoyed the turkey the run did not stop for the meal. 11/25/04 

One of the two birds the team cooked for Thanksgiving. 11/25/04 

A quick snowball fight between Jesse "Lamar" Williamson and Eric "Kermit" Enwright on Thanksgiving day. 11/25/04 

Lisa "Token" Curtin showing off her stuffing covered hands after packing the bird full. 11/25/04. 

Lisa "Token" Curtin workin on the Thanksgiving bird. 11/25/04 

Trisha "Moto" Sliker and the new advisor Andrew Quatagliata running across Missouri on an early morning leg. 11/25/04 

Kevin "Lugie" Turko showing off both RIT pride and his Thanksgiving day banner running across a chilly Missouri. 11/25/04. 

Andrew Varble holds up an advertisement for a great Missouri classic deal. 11/25/04. 

John "Bert" Tomac showing off the new addition to RV1, individual cubbies for each runner to store running clothes in. 11/25/04John "Bert" Tomac showing off the new addition to RV1, individual cubbies for each runner to store running clothes in. 11/25/04John "Bert" Tomac showing off the new addition to RV1, individual cubbies for each runner to store running clothes in. 11/25/04John "Bert" Tomac showing off the new addition to RV1, individual cubbies for each runner to store running clothes in. 11/25/04 

In the last section of Kansas the team was stopped for a picture by a local Kansas reporter. Coverage of the even has drastically increased in the last few days running across the country. 11/24/04 

An early morning Thanksgiving Day breakfast of chocolate cake. 11/25/05 

Trisha "Moto" Sliker and Andrew Varble on a rest on RV1. 11/24/04 

Chad "Sheik" Byler and Jon "Abe" Booth on break in Kansas. 11/24/04 

The team of RV1 on a much needed break from the cold weather in Kansas. 11/24/04 

Andy Varble hands-off to a fully suited up Ryan "Sanford" Pancoast in cold weather. 11/24/04. 

Kevin "Redd" Smith showing the freezing weather encountered after passing through Wichita Kansas. 11/24/04 

Jon "Abe" Booth running into the coldest weather of the entire trek to date, outside Wichita Kansas. 11/24/04 

Bob "Bobbo" McCoy jogs past the night-time skyline of Wichita blurred by his motion. 11/24/04. 

Trisha "Moto" Sliker running on the outskirts of Wichita in blustery snow. 

Chris "Leon" Schaurman pounds out another leg in Wichita, Kansas during the heaviest snow the runners have seen the entire trip. 11/24/04. 

A late night hand-off in the city of Wichita, Kansas in cold snowy conditions. 

Ryan "Sanford" Pancoast struggling through tough weather in Wichita, Kansas. 

Crossing--Andy Varble leads his team over the Kansas/Missouri border marking the virtual half-way point on the trip across America. The team was over 12 hours ahead of schedule when they crossed the border. 

Updated: Estimated Arrival Times

Tentative Schedule

Please note that all times are subject to change based on pace, route changes, etc. All times listed are LOCAL!

Update 11/14/04: One of my formulas were messed up. It should be correct now.
Update 11/14/04 PM: All times are now local
Update 11/19/04: We're near Phoenix and I updated our speed. It's around 9.5 MPH, at least for now. We'll slow down at the Rockies. I haven't been recording actual time of arrival, and obviously the old times of cities we passed are corrupted, but I'm tired and I need to go to bed.
Update 11/20/04 early: We've crested the Rockies, approaching the New Mexico border. Our average pace over the Rockies was 8.5 mph or 7:30 miles. We reached an altitude of 7550 feet. Our average speed is 9.25mph. Same caveats apply as before in 11/19/04 update.
Update 11/20/04 evening: The update actually worked this time.
Update 11/26/04 midday: Our pace has gone up to 9.33 mph, so we're running quite early

Our Thanksgiving on the road

Near Indiana Border -- I forgot to post about our team's Thanksgiving celebration on the road. Early in the morning, I picked up two fairly large turkeys, pumpkin pie, dinner rolls, cranberry sauce. We cooked the turkeys in the convenction ovens, powered by the generator in the RVs. It actually came out quite good and the team enjoyed the dinner very much.

Gateway to the West, "Rochester Loves East St. Louis"

EAST ST. LOUIS, Ill. -- The RIT Coast to Coast team crossed the Mississippi river at 11pm on Thanksgiving, 11/25/2004. After a photo opportunity at the Gateway Arch in St. Louis, Mo. The runners all ran along the Mississippi river and across the state line into Illinois. In impressive fashion, the entire group of runners crossed the Eads Bridge into the next state, crossing from St. Louis into East St. Louis, through which the 1979 team had a police escort.

The run, while impressive was in fact somewhat unexpected. Navigator Todd did less than his due dilligence in route planning in this section, and the team definitely felt the ramifications of this misplanning. The plan was for the team to run under the Gateway Arch, and to break back into their respective RV groups. The team did not meet up with the RVs in the correct location, and navigators Todd and Jesse were let off the RVs to seek out the team. Todd, a (semi) out-of-shape pole vaulter ran 1.3 miles in a recovery attempt. Todd's FDR High School teamate, Jesse Williamson who was dropped off at a more convenient location, and thus had success in catching the runners. Truly, it was because of location, not abilities that provided Lamar with success!!

We all ended up reuniting in East St. Louis, all 18 runners in one RV in a situation according to Chris "Leon" Schauerman was misunderstood. The friendly folks of East St. Louis were asking us where we were from, and Jesse "Lamar" Williamson responded, New York. The East St. Louis Crowd responded, "East St. Louis loves New York."

Schauerman ran through half of our East St. Louis leg, and met some very friendly people along the way, who asked him why he was running, and gave him great encouragement to continue. Some of our other runners weren't so comfortable with the situation, however.

In the words of Jesse Williamson, yelling to the drunk East St. Louis welcome committee, "Rochester loves East St. Louis. [with an RF hand-symbol.]"

Yet again, our team prevails, turning a less than ideal situation upside down and emerging stronger from the experience. In addition to running great times, we are all learning an incredible amount about our team, out own abilities and our country on this trip.

6 States Down, 7 to go

OZARK LAKE, Missouri -- I'm not sure if is in fact Ozark Lake, we're
kind of running low on batteries, so I've turned off the GPS while we
enjoy this long break between runs. We've cleared 6 states, many of
which were the widest ones for the trip. Our border crossing into
Missouri was very fun for the group. We stopped all the vehicles just
short of the border, collected everyone right "on the line," and
cheered our runner as he crossed the border into the state of Missouri.

We've picked up our pace today, as our altitude has been dropping
(<1000' altitude currently), and the weather has vastly improved since
yesterday's driving rain/snow. Wind chill is 17 degs.

I was away from the run for much of Wednesday as I had to drive to
Wichita airport very early, and I went to bed in the evening so I would
be rested for tonight's red-eye drive. I'll see if I can have a runner
do a posting about his or her Wednesday experiences.

Happy Thanksgiving

All of us our here, running somewhere in the United States wish our
families, friends, alumni, colleagues and supporters a Happy
Thanksgiving. I know all of us are very thankful for being here
learning and performing on this trip and thank those that made it
possible. That certainly includes our families, who gave us up for
this break, our RIT-based support and planning folks, Coach Warth, Greg
Moss, our advisors, the other runners here on the trip, and all of you
who are following our progress across the country.

Like everything we do on the road, our Thanksgiving plans are tentative
at best and very flexible. We would like to get a full-meal take-out.
This may be a ready-to-warm and serve meal from the supermarket, or
take-out from a restaurant or something. All I know is that we'll be
just west of St. Louis this evening, and we won't be pausing the run to
enjoy Thanksgiving.

Again, Happy Thanksgiving from me and the rest of us our here on the
road.

Day Seven, poor weather

WICHITA, Kansas -- Nasty, that's what today was. Driving wind, very hard rain, and tonight, freezing rain that I'm sure will change to snow. 1979, you had to wait until Syracuse for snow, we got it in Wichita. Leon typed up a nice dialog of his meeting with the town police in NM a few nights ago. He'll post this soon. Because of the weather, we couldn't even see the countryside. "Hoping tomorrow will be better."

Kevin "Lugie" Turko running by a stockade of cattle in north Texas 11/22/04 

Bob "Bobbo" McCoy in Texas trying to stay warm. 11/22/04 

Ryan "Sanford" Pancoast showing off a classic uniform in north Texas. 11/22/04 

John "Bert" Tomac on the move in north Texas. 11/22/04 

Nate "Flipper" Lowe charging across New Mexico. 11/21/04. 

Kevin "Lugie" Turko on one of many hills in Arizona. 11/19/04 

Chris "Leon" Schaurman on the loose in Kansas in the rain. 11/23/04. 

Chris "Mitch" Kudla and his new friend "Guido" a dog which followed the team for 6 miles. Finally the team had to divert the dog back toward home after the friendly creature would not stop running with the relay. 11/22/04 

Eric "Kermit" Enwright taking the baton from Chris "Mitch" Kudla on the last leg during daylight in north Texas. 11/22/04 

Jon "Abe" Booth on a break in Texas. 11/22/04 

Chad "Shiek" Byler following the Union Pacific Railway across Texas on Route 54. 11/22/04 

Eric "Kermit" Enwright running in the Kansas Rain 11/23/04 

Chris "Mitch" Kudla running across Kansas in light rain. 11/23/04 

Jon "Abe" Booth returning from a very wet run in Kansas. 11/23/04 

Chris "Mitch" Kudla running across Kansas in light rain. 11/23/04 

Guys from RV 1 playing Uno on one of their down-times. 11/23/04 

Trisha "Moto" on the side of the highway in Texas 

Ryan "Sanford" Pancoast doing some sketchs on the road in Texas. 11/22/04 

Trish "Moto" Sliker moving fast across the plains of Texas on a slow downhill. 11/22/04 

Andy Varble and Ryan "Sanford" Pancoast violating a no passing zone. 11/22/04 

Sean "Okie" McVeigh running through a natural gateway in Texas. 11/22/04 

Lisa "Token" Curtin driving Sean "Okie" McVeigh to his first leg in Texas the state in which he was born. 11/22/04 

Amy "Ahh-Taa" O'Donnell in the navigator's seat on the mini-van on a rainy cold morning. 11/22/04 

Trish "Moto" Sliker cruising across the Texas frontier on a rainy cold morning. 11/22/04 

Jon "Abe" Booth taking the first hand-off of the early evening northeast of Globe, Arizona. Abe and his teamates have begun to say that they have never been so happy to see a ÒRight Lane EndsÓ sign, since it means the end of a uphill section. 11/19/04 

Max "JJ" Ferguson conquering nature's call in New Mexico 11/21/04 

Jesse "Lamar" Williamson and Trisha "Moto" Sliker on a break near the Texas/Kansas border. 11/22/04 

Kevin "Redd" Smith showing off his new head band. 11/21/04 

John "Bert" Tomac hands the baton to Jon "Abe" Booth in the late afternoon 11/21/04 

Jesse "Lamar" Williamson relaxing after a long shift of driving while the RV follows the runner. 11/21/04 

Long, Long, Long

Well, it has been 6 days now. I'm having a blast. Not the best time for everyone, but hey- its tough out here. Rough weather lately, especially today, and it isn't going to get any better. Supposed to snow tonight, windy, in the low 30s. But you know what? If we made it all the way across the country without coming through some crap, I would almost feel like we cheated. This isn't supposed to be easy. Running is going well, no injuries for myself yet (suprisingly) and I'm keeping a pretty decent pace. We're way ahead of schedule still. Its cold and rainy. Any we found a second bad Spanish music CD on the roadside last night, so i get to listen to that all the time now too. At least I'm not the butt of the complaints around here. Onwards and hopefully, back down to sea level.

Andy Varble handing off to Ryan "Sanford" Pancoast. 11/21/04 

Andy Varble showing off his new shirt just before he receives the baton. 11/21/04 

Most of the team from RV 1 watching their runner finish up his leg. 11/21/04 

Chad "Sheik" Byler hammering down US Rt. 60 outside of Willard, NM. 

Ryan "Sanford" Pancoast watches Andy Varble "edit" his shirt before hammering down RT 60 outside of Willard, NM 11/21/04 

Bob "Bobbo" McCoy restign up for his next leg in New Mexico 11/21/04 

Eric "Medic" sits at the whell of RV2 11/21/04 

Still taking a break on RV 2 during a midday rest. 11/21/04 

"RF" in the dry salt lake in NM 

Maxwell "JJ" Ferguson runnign past Laguna del Perro dry salt lake in New Mexico 11/21/04 

Nate "Flipper" Lowe charging acrosse New Mexico 11/21/04 

Bob "Bobbo" McCoy and some gas prices that Rochester would love to see, Willard, NM 11/21/04 

Curtis "Moose" Howard running in New Mexico 11/21/04 

Curtis "Moose" Howard running at 6000 ft in the New Mexico Plains. 11/21/04 

Derek "Bojangles" Bojanowski on an early mroning run on Route 60 in NM (11/21/04) 

Eric "Kermit" Enwright runs alongside the railway in New Mexico 

Eric "Kermit" Enwirght responds to the horn of a passerby on Route 60 in eastern NM 

Chris "Mitch" Kudla runs along Route 60 in Mountainaire, NM 

Chris "Mitch" Kudla opens up a long straight away on Route 60 in Mountainaire, NM 

Curtis "Moose" Howard watches the sunrise from railroad tracks above Route 60 in Mountainaire, NM 

Day Six

HOOKER, Okla. – Today we will have been in 4 states (New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma, and Kansas). That definitely makes us feel pretty good about our progress and it’s quite satisfying. Here in the early night in Oklahoma is fog, and it’s gotten very cold and foggy. Apparently snow is threatening for tonight.

We are steadily losing altitude, which is a good thing. Today in Texas, we passed by a lot of feed cow farms, which definitely smelled. A few miles up the road, we stopped at a McDonalds for lunch. In the restaurant was a pair of cowboys, complete with muddy jeans, boots, and spurs. There was just something incredibly ironic about the encounter.

I received an honorary baton for myself, and I received an honorary baton for Bobbo, Sanford, Redd and my apartment. I ran a 2 mile leg with Sanford, Krackle (Photographer), and Lamar. On the leg, we met a nice dog, which ran with our group for about 6 miles.

Spirits are still high, and people are finding that the running cycles are getting easier. A continuing stress is sleep locations. There are just too many people and not enough room to sleep. Somehow we always find a way to get shuteye. My RV had a pasta dinner tonight. A reporter from the Guymon Daily Herald took our photograph and spent some time with the RV and the runner, which makes me feel good about my efforts of calling the media.

This Verizon Wireless blackout really blows. Thank god for open wireless networks.

No Internet Access

Sorry there have been no photo or blog postings recently as there has been no internet access available. We'll resume posting when we get to Wichita on 11/23/04 at around midnight or earlier if possible.

Day Five

TUCUMCARI, N.M. – Today was probably our roughest day and provided us the greatest opportunity to show our trust in each other in situations that were less than ideal. Today our advisor Steve left us to return to Rochester, and Peter flew out to Albequerque. In addition, Trisha Sliker, who was at the NCAA Cross Country Championships in Wisconsin flew out. Because of how early we were, and the flight times, we were missing our van for about 10 hours.

Lisa and Amy went shopping after the pick-ups and got us a great quantity of rations that hopefully last for a long period of time.

They rejoined our caravan just as things were about to turn for the worse for our group tonight. Firstly we had to amend our route because the original route had us going on a 2-tracked dirt road. Second, another road turned out to be dirt.

After the second dirt road, we thought we were doing pretty well on Old Route 66. We approached a dip that was water-covered, and had Eric Enwright wade into it barefoot to test the depth. It was only 3 or 4 inches deep, so we proceeded. About 15 miles up the road, my vehicle drove ahead to scout the road. Things were proceeding nicely until the road went under I-40 under an extremely narrow bridge. The other side had a wall of about 2 feet of mud. Matt “Krackle” Hartman, our photographer hopped out of the RV, lost his shoe to the mud. We then deemed the road completely impassible.

We decided that the best course of action would be to have one RV and the minivan backtrack to the previous entrance of the I-40, get on and meet us at the location that we had just aborted the route. We would then have Trisha and an escort walk up the interstate embankment and continue the run. Things went according to our plan. The route adjustment only was a delay of a few minutes. Also, we learned to be careful of small cacti.

Peter, our new advisor definitely didn’t come on a day of our best performance. However, I think that yet again, we responded well and made the best of a potentially very bad situation. I definitely applaud the group for their ability to be flexible and change.

I think all of us can say that we’re excited about entering a new state (Texas), and getting our of this altitude.