Day 103-Norwalk to Brunswick (42 Miles)

After eating an omelette, chocolate cream of wheat, and toast prepared by Carolyn I bid her farewell and head back to the Norwalk Wal-Mart with Don. There wasn't a cloud in the sky this morning. I was fortunate to have hosts that offered to pick me up and show me some great sites in the area I wouldn't have been able to see otherwise. I started my typical morning walk before tying the longest run of my life. It was a good thing I got started early in the morning in order to be done at a reasonable hour.

After a jaunt through town I wound back up on the North Coast Inland Trail for about six miles. When this ended, I got back onto the shoulder of Highway 20 where I had once been for about a month straight. Near the town of Wakeman I got off of 20 and proceeded down the wooded State Highway 303 which had significantly less traffic.

Major highways seemed to intersect with Highway 303 every five miles or so and proved to be my benchmarks for rest. I just kind of kept chipping away at the day without thinking about the total distance until I got into LaGrange about 30 miles in. While eating lunch at a Subway I gave Trevar Withers a call, my potential host for the night contacted by Jason, and gave him an ETA of 6 pm into Brunswick. 8:30-6 was a pretty decent workday.

After passing through Valley City, the traffic on Highway 303 picked up dramatically. There was no shoulder to speak of and my running was really limited to the breaks in traffic red lights gave me. After about a mile of sketchy running, a sidewalk appeared and took me all of the way to the main intersection of town at 5:50 where Trevar was waiting for me. We loaded the cart into Trevar's SUV and head 20 minutes south to his home.

At the Wither's home I met Trevar's wife, Kathryn, and son, Brock, who was one of three boys but the only one still at home. We enjoyed an amazing chicken dinner where I replenished all of the calories I lost today. Based on my non-scientific calculations, I probably burned about 8,000 of 'em. Ice-cream and cookies added to this count. After great conversation, I went up to bed and got one of the best nights of sleep of the trip. When Sam and I ran 42 miles from Oregon State to UO a couple of years ago, I laid pretty low for about a week. I have to run 33 miles tomorrow.

The only picture I managed to snag in the center of LaGrange