Read Online Running on Empty by Marshall Ulrich - Free Book Online Page B

phone sessions with a friend and mentor for toughening up and steeling myself never to quit during the transcon. We’d talk about the upcoming race. We’d talk about Ted Corbitt and the bunioneers. We’d talk about heroes and history, about myth and mystery, about the rigors of the road and what it would take to march my body across the entire United States. These conversations were designed to prepare me mentally, just as Ray’s training plan was designed to prepare me physically, for the upcoming ordeal, to give me the strength and stamina to deal with whatever might happen once we were under way.
    Yet all during that training period, from October 2007 to September 2008, Heather and I had more immediate hardships to confront. There was her resistance, and my insistence. There was also a string of personal tragedies that pushed us both to the outer edges of loss and sorrow, as well as some moments of brilliance and hope and inspiration. All of this, too, may have been preparation for what was to come.

    â€œThe best I can figure is that we’ve been told too many times that adventure just isn’t in the cards for everyday folk like you and me. It’s reserved for the people we read about in books and magazines, not mere mortals like us. Well, I’m not buying it.”
    Chris Douglass was always saying things like that, getting himself and other people inspired to do what’s out of the ordinary. He’d competed in marathons and an ultramarathon, struck out on wild adventures he called “small world treks,” written charming vignettes about the people he’d met and the places he’d seen in the world, and recently embarked on a new interest, short films.
    That’s why he called me in May 2008, four months before the start of my run across America, to introduce himself and request an interview. He told me that he admired me, that he was preparing for his own cross-country trip (walking from Colorado to Maine), and that he wanted to talk with me, get to know me, pick up a few of my “secrets,” and put together a promotional clip I could use, gratis. At twenty-eight, he came across as incredibly warm, friendly, and enthusiastic about this project and the kind of life he’d carved out for himself. I could tell, already, that Chris was my kind of guy, a kindred spirit, and I wanted to meet him, too.
    â€œSure, come on over to the house and we’ll interview each other.” I thought it would be fun if he asked me whatever questions he had, and then we’d flip the camera around and I’d return the favor.
    After a lively afternoon together, filming mostly on my back deck in Idaho Springs, Colorado, we said our good-byes and Chris promised to send me a finished clip in a couple of days. When he left, Heather turned to me, an odd look on her face. “My god, Marshall. That was what I imagine it would have been like if I’d met you twenty years ago . Those intense blue eyes. His build. His dreams and energy.”
    To tell the truth, the similarities were eerie, except Chris exuded positivity in a way I never had. That’s not to say he was some airheaded Pollyanna. He had a way of sharing his ideas and experiences, displaying a groundedness that was invigorating and reassuring at the same time.
    What a breath of fresh air! Heather and I had been through the wringer ever since I’d decided to do the transcontinental run, and meeting him gave us a lift we desperately needed. For months, we’d faced some agonizing twists and turns. Heather had continued to worry that I was going to permanently damage myself physically or psychologically in attempting this feat, and I’d had a hard time envisioning such a journey without her support. I’m not sure she was able even to consider giving it to me, however. In the spring of 2007, her father had been diagnosed with stage-IV kidney cancer, and she’d made him her first priority.