My trip began Thursday, March 6 with a swift 8:30 pm flight out of Eugene that had me landing in Las Vegas and Atlanta before reaching Jacksonville at 9:22 am.  I didn’t really end up sleeping on those flights, in part because I was never really on one flight too long, but also in part because I was fired up about executing my plan for Friday and Saturday. 

Anyway, in Jacksonville, my first take of this city was that the people here are amazingly nice and out going, and I’ll tell you why from many different encounters.  My first impressions from when I got off the plane happened when I got a big Starbucks coffee in the terminal and the coffee girl flirts a bit before raking her nails down my hand while giving me back my change….cool!  Then the Enterprise rental woman is really great and the girl that actually gave me the car was a gorgeous Florida State grad that was much more than nice.  Later I would talk to random “Jacksonvillians” that just seem to come up to you out of nowhere and want to talk about whatever is on their minds. 

So, after I get my “Silver Bullet” of a rental car, I head straight to the Jacksonville fairgrounds where the Runner’s Expo is being held.  I’m now wired on Starbucks, but still a little dazed from the redeye flights.  I call Colleen, who is a meet organizer, and meet with her to get my press pass for the next day.  Then I begin taking random interviews of Exhibitors.  I talk to Polar, Juice Plus, Bondi-Band, Mizuno, Recovery Gear and Zoot shoes.  Then I notice Bill Rodgers talking to people at the Gate Booth and decide that I’ll ask him if he’d give an interview.  He did, and let me just say, Bill Rodgers is a really great guy.  I finally leave the expo and head to the Hyatt, which I was staying at because all of the cheaper hotels were booked ;)  I check in and upload some interviews, take a 20 minute nap and then head back out to get some course footage to piece together a video course map.  Mounting the camera in the car was partially accomplished by using my headphone wire and an Ethernet cable as rope to anchor the camera into position….pretty ghetto, I know, but it did the job.  The more difficult part was navigating the car while looking at a course map that doesn’t show all of the streets.  I’m sure more than a few people wondered what I was doing with a camera mounted in the car, one hand holding up a map and the other on the steering wheel.  It might not be the best footage (sorry Ross), and some of it was done during a complete downpour, thunder, lightning etc, but at least I got it done.  I then headed back to the hotel at dinner time and ate my first food of the day with 2 Samuel Adams’ to ease my mind (Because I always hear that we’re spoiled in the northwest on “good beers” and that many other states don’t have such a selection, I asked the bartender what they had in an IPA.  He didn’t know what an IPA was so I guess the stereotype is true).  I relaxed for a while and then went out to find the Gate River Hall of Fame for some pictures.  Unfortunately for me, a rounded, white haired, pony tailed, hobbit looking security woman happened to be working in that building and happened to be the one person in Jacksonville that wasn’t pleasant to talk to.  Let’s leave it at that, I didn’t get in the Hall because of a private party. 

I went to the hotel and slept 3 hours before waking up and not being able to sleep again until my alarm went off at 5:45 am.  Coffee, pastry, out the door to the race, the windy race!!  The women start, the men start, I upload my horrid, wind blown start footage while being pelted in the face by bark from a nearby, wind blown planter area and head to the stadium.  The finish was sick!  It got me really fired up about running, seeing Andrew Carlson come in the stadium pumping his arms in the air the way he did.  I uploaded a short, wind-blown finish segment immediately after the finish while 2 interested security guards asked me some questions about what I was doing.  I run down to the ground level to get interviews, but all of the elites have been taken away already.  So I wait until the award ceremony, which takes much longer than I anticipated.  The awards start at 11:30 am and my plane leaves at 1:24 pm.  Currently I’m about ¾ of a mile from my rental car and it’s about a 15 mile drive to the airport.  I get a little stressed thinking about it, but get the award ceremony on video, and some decent interviews all in a period of about 20 minutes.  After interviewing Matt Gabrielson and Fernando Cabada, I run like hell to get to my car and speed to the airport, fill up the gas tank along the way, drop off the rental car and get to check-in a whole 40 minutes before my flight!  I think, “yes, I made it”.  There’s no line either.  I swipe my card to pull up my flight information, and the normal information doesn’t appear.  What I see is “Flight Cancelled”.  This means that all my connections, Jacksonville to Atlanta to Salt Lake to Eugene are all lost.  They tell me I'll have to wait 24 hours....haha, “hell no”, I think!  I see if they can get me to Portland, I'll have my bro Ryan pick me up or get a rental car.  They get me in.  I'm all good, right??

Ha, ha, ha…..WRONG!!!  The flight plan is Jacksonville to Atlanta, Atlanta to Portland.  The Jacksonville to Atlanta flight is delayed to the point that I'll be about 20 minutes too late to catch my connection.  I run into Stephanie Herbst-Lucke, who was 10^th place in the race, and she tells me about another flight a few gates down that leaves 20 minutes earlier, so I wait in yet another line (I waited in many).  I end up being the 4^th out of 5 people they let on the flight from the 16 or 17 on the standby list.  I think Stephanie was number 5.  I make it to Atlanta.  They announce on the plane that some people have tight connections, so please let them off first (by the way, I'm in the very VERY last row...row 38).  The plane stops, people are letting me go, I run with another woman who has a tight connection, we make it 8 rows, then the whole plane gets up in front of us.  We finally get through, I take a glance at the Departures screen and see that my flight to Portland has been delayed to 8:05!  Holy crap, there's a chance!!!  It's 7:55.  But wait, they switched the Concourse from B, where I was currently at, to E, which is a shuttle ride and some hell sprints away.  The woman that I was running out the plane with says that she missed her flight and asks me if I want to get a few drinks if I miss mine.  I say, “If I miss my flight, I’ll hunt you down” and then I SPRINT, I SPRINT LIKE THE FREAKING WIND, with all of my computer gear on my back.  I haven't ran for 2 days and I'm in good shape, so I'm a freaking cheetah today.  I am running like there's no tomorrow.  Except for when I have to sit on the shuttle and wait patiently, but otherwise, I'm SPRINTING!!!  I see it in my sights.  I get there, I do it!!!!...or do I??? 

They have just closed the doors.  The plane is still right outside the window.  Myself, a couple from Jamaica and a few others have just been put through hell to get here and they won't let us on.  I can’t remember where that woman’s flight was leaving from either, so I can’t “hunt her down” and have a few drinks.  I have to spend the next 2 hours in line.  While I’m in line, another woman that I spoke with on the plane walks by and says, “you missed it, didn’t you” and then tells me she has an hour and a half layover if I want to hang out with her.  Of course the line was too freaking long, and I hadn’t slept for an eternity, so she was in the air by the time I got done and I was a social retard by that point anyway. 

It was an interesting night trying to sleep in the Atlanta airport.  I finally did make it back to Eugene.  It just took me 26 hours.  In all I missed 3 days of running as a result.  I was gone for 64 total hours and 36 of it was spent on airplanes or in airports, while the other 28 was spent in Jacksonville.  This is what I call a very long short trip.  The Gate River Run was pretty amazing though, if I ever go back there, I want to spend at least a few days enjoying the sites and talking to the people, they're grrreat! 

THE END