Run It Fast®

Our conveyance accrued runners as it drifted north; the Jones Creek relay team was gathering. Sherrie Giles, having already picked up Dennis Christian in Brentwood, added Bill Baker and me at a hotel near Titans Stadium in Nashville, where we left our vehicles. We headed on toward Southern Illinois where we planned to run the River-to-River Relay the next day, on Saturday. At Calvert City, Kentucky, runner Robin Robbins, whom I’d never met, and team captain John Spencer met us with a 10-person van.

We left Sherrie’s Suburban at a hotel and continued north toward Marion, Illinois. At the packet pick-up there, the girls from St. Louis met us, Tiffany Young and Rachel Langdon. We were seven runners plus a non-running captain now. One to go. After supper at Walt’s Italian restaurant we checked in at the Limited Hotel, a name that gave us some entertainment. There in the hallway we found runner Theresa Saupe together with husband Hank. Hank was to be our driver. He stood nursing a tall boy. Our team was now complete.

Getting up at 3:30 a.m. is not normal human behavior. I know; I saw a turkey hunter and they’re abnormal. My roommate Dennis and I both did. We even talked to him while we had coffee and cereal, the hunter decked out in camouflage overalls. Our idyll didn’t last long. We shoved off at 4:30 driving to the race start. Our first runner, Robin, was starting at 6:30.

Read the full story by Dallas Smith by clicking HERE