As I reflect now on the events of the last three months, there are naturally things that I will never forget. The experience has added so much to my life, but the end result is what matters most. This posting was written to include you in the story. You are the solution, commitment is our only obstacle.
New York finale on Pier 17
I must admit that it has been strange being back at work confined to four walls. We covered more than 15,000 miles between us and I had become somewhat accustomed to changing shifts, meals and bedtimes every five days. Being back home, sleeping in the same bed every night, working the same “day-shift”, and traveling six miles to work in the morning is a bit of an anti- climactic experience at the moment. When going on a trip like this, you experience such an incredible high, and the last week on the run we were counting down the days in anticipation of the finish line. We were nearing the completion of the first ever relay run around the world …! Then, after that festive celebration you come home and it is all over! The bulky black duffel bag is unpacked and put away, the familiar smell of muscle relaxing gels no longer lingers in the air, the days are void of wisecracks from our Scottish teammate, and last but not least, there is no more beer for breakfast at the end of our midnight running shift! So when all these and other thoughts flash through my head, I am beginning to wonder whether it was all real or just a dream!
Looking back on our trailblazing adventure and awareness trip, one of the many highlights for me was when I ran the one-kilometer dash in the Netherlands together with 160 Dutch third-graders who were all shouldering six water bottles in their blue back packs to emulate what many children in Africa do on a daily basis. Also, seeing my father support me from the sideline when I ran into the busy center of Amsterdam was a Blue Planet moment I will never forget.
1. Mongolian Yurt 2. Gobi Desert.
But I have so many fond memories. We were all looking forward to visiting countries such as Belarus, Russia, Mongolia and China - - places we’d never been to before. And they, for the most part, exceeded our expectations. The food was great and the beer brewed to perfection wherever we went. I thought Siberia would be desolate and desert-like, but instead it was green and in bloom with purple, white and yellow wildflowers. The foothills of the Urals were beautiful, and Lake Baikal, the largest fresh water containment in the world, was stunning. While camping in the Gobi Desert, we visited a local sheepherder family and sat with them in their yurt, where they served us horse milk and a “snack” made from sour milk. From beginning to end, we encountered four full moons, experienced flaming red sunrises and sunsets and gazed for hours into the star studded evening sky in the Gobi desert. We saw stars streaking across the sky, but contrary to Western tradition, in the Far East seeing a falling star is considered bad luck.
1. Ulan Bataar 2. Kansas City 3 and 4. Gansk
The people were all so incredibly friendly wherever we went. We always had lots of children come up to us at baton exchange points, curious and wondering what we were up to. We’d give them Blue Planet stickers and blue shoelaces and posed with them for pictures. In Gansk, Russia we met a group of teenagers at an outdoor breakdancing contest, and they soon were practicing their English language skills on us. One of the runners, a longtime music teacher, gave them a quick rhythm and blues lesson, resulting in a group of high school girls snapping their fingers and mimicking his “boobabteedo” songs. It was a blast! We met people from all walks of life - - schoolteachers, truck drivers, farmers, vendors, young professionals and elderly folks. They’d sometimes watch from afar, and other times come out to shake our hands and occasionally and spontaneously give us little gifts and mementos, which now will always remind us of the places we visited and the special moments we had with them. Yes, we had so many of these unforgettable Blue Planet moments.
On a personal note, the low point for me was the injury I sustained pulling a groin muscle under somewhat odd circumstances when the vehicle we were traveling in hit a big ditch. Continuing to run injured aggravated the injury more and more. By the time we reached Japan, I was unable to run my ten-mile leg, but was determined to carry on as best I could, in spite of the pain. People have asked me why I kept running and I tell them that I kept running because I know that people are dying every day due to waterborne diseases. In my mind, when I carried that baton even for part of the way, I carried that all important message to the world that says water is life, pass it on.
1. Russian village 2. Two-wheeling in the USA
While I was injured, as a form of therapy, I took to two wheels, and daily mustered over sixty miles or more over rolling hills and country roads, passing by amazing fields of flowering sunflowers and ripe for the picking corn fields in Kansas, Missouri and Pennsylvania. On September 4, we all ran the final leg in New York City together through Manhattan, alongside the Hudson River, passed the United Nations building (where we had began our journey 95 days earlier), and on to the finish line at Pier 17 on South Street Seaport. That was an amazing day. My family and friends were there, along with a lot of people from the Blue Planet organization. It was a celebratory ceremony, and up on stage and surrounded by a sizeable crowd, all runners were presented with a memento - - a beautiful glass water drop with the emblem of the Blue Planet Run inside of it, signifying what we ran for.
1. Near Minsk, Belarus 2. China
The next day, however, I felt like the air had gone out of my tires because it was time to say goodbye. As runners, we all shared a very special bond, but I’d inevitably grown very close to the other members of my relay team. We traveled in very close quarters every day for 95 days. We shared the same hotel rooms, were cramped in the same min-vans, although incredibly we never had one argument. Needless to say, it was tough to say good-bye.
Besides the glass water drop, I do have various other items I picked up during the journey to help me remember my experiences. From day one, I collected the electronic hotel keys and local beer mats, and made a point of collecting rocks and (mile) stones. I figured that it would be fun to have a small rock from every country we ran through, and also wanted to collect milestones from places that had a special meaning, such as my 77-minute ten-mile personal best in Siberia and the completion of the run after crossing the finish line in New York. There were two other very important places where I looked for a special stone. I’d never visited the concentration camps in Auschwitz, and we had a chance to go there during the run. It was a very sobering experience. Later on, in Japan, we traveled to Hiroshima and I also picked up a rock there. These were both places where horrific human suffering had occurred during the Second World War. They were particularly significant in my mind because so many people had died there, and now more than 60 years later, we were running past these memorials of death and destruction to save lives.
In California, I was left with another very special memento. While in Malibu, after our media event, a middle-aged man came up to me and said that he had something to give me. He reached into his tattered backpack and took out his cap. On it was a Purple Heart pin. He was a Vietnam veteran and had no money to give, but thought it was so incredible what we were doing that he wanted to give me his pin. I said that I couldn’t accept it, but he insisted, so I now have this pin and find it to be a very special gift and testimony. Many a time during our travels, I have felt this human spirit responding to human suffering. This man wanted to be part of the solution and gave perhaps one of his proudest possessions to someone he didn’t even know. For me, it was a moment of trust and hope; a true Blue Planet moment! I will pass this pin on to the Blue Planet Foundation because I think that is where it belongs, and not something I should personally keep.
And last but not least, there was the story that Victor, one of the runners from Guatemala, told us the night before we started the run in New York. He had gone to a village in his country where they had water contamination and sanitation problems and told them that he was about to run around the world to raise awareness and funds. “Victor”, they said, “We have heard it all before, and have been promised so many times that help was on the way, but it never came. We have no more hope”! Quite disappointed, Victor left for boot camp at the Olympic Village in Lake Placid, New York. But then, the day before we set out on our journey, Victor received a phone call from one of the people of the village telling him that they had put his picture up on an altar in the church, and every Wednesday, they would light twenty candles, one for each of the runners, to wish them a safe journey, and that now they have hope again …
Now that I’m back at work, it’s amazing to hear from people who have said that they told a relative or a friend about the run and that they had made a donation on the Blue Planet website. They’ve all been helping to spread the word, and in a sense they’ve also become global messengers, and that’s the most wonderful thing that I have come back to. As for me, it’s been very gratifying that I could at least leave a small footprint and help to create a starting point of awareness, which hopefully will be followed by a complete eradication of this crisis affecting over one billion people today. Maybe twenty years from now we’ll be able to say that we’ve joined together and brought safe drinking water to 200 million people. That’s our goal. Although the run has forever changed my views on the world and what is out there, my outlook on life continues to be focused on wanting to help other people. I will continue to work and talk about this global water crisis, and wherever and whenever I can put those words into action.
