USA COUNTDOWN
By Perry Newburn
Perry is Running Across the USA!
Wow just realised its almost 9 weeks since I did the last blog – at the end I had said 15 weeks to go till I fly out from Feilding. And I was getting excited then. NOW its only 6 weeks till head off – and yes excitement is starting to get difficult to contain. So what has happened in the last few weeks?
Firstly – organisation! This is coming along nicely but there is still lots to do. First of all – Running gear – yes slightly necessary!!I am lucky in that most of this I already have so there wont be to much to chase up. Basics such as shirts, shorts, compression gear, thermals ( although hopefully wont have to wear these much), jackets, hi Viz are ready to go. Good socks was one thing I was needing to organize. However I was walking through a running shop and had stopped to talk to one of the sales reps. As we were talking this chap stopped and said “ Perry Newburn’. I looked not really recognizing who he was. It turned to be chap who had stayed with my family about 47 years ago when he and his brother were playing in a national hockey tournament that we were all playing in. Last time I had seen him was probably 30 – 40 years ago. It turned out he is a sales manager for a big textile company dealing in socks etc and he ended up sending several pairs of FALKE socks – great socks so luckily I have that well sorted now. Shoes was the main worry. I had had problems with the Nimbus 15’s so needed to sort that out pretty quickly. I have now changed to asics Kurow’s and have done over 500 km’s in the 2 pairs I have been trialing and they have been wearing well so will be going with these. I have had a pretty good deal of getting 4 pairs at $ 120 each ( normally $250 each) so am reasonably happy with that. They should be good for at least 1000 km’s each.
Secondly – finances. Yes the dreaded need to raise a lot of money to enable this journey to go ahead. I have been lucky to have had Big Barrel and Cross Country Rentals come on board. This has enabled me to pay for the air flights with still a bit left over. I arrive in New York at 8.50 pm on Thursday 28 August. The sponsored days have been going well and we are now down to under 20 days still to be filled ( we do need to fill these to cover costs of this huge journey ). I have been so humbled by the people who have come on board this epic adventure.
Also a huge thanks needs to go out to all the people who are hosting a night. I hope I am semi with it when I get to meet you all. This again is going a long way to help keep costs down and I cant thank you enough.
Next a huge thanks needs to go out to Angie – support manager extraordinaire – who has and is doing so much behind the scenes as well as all you awesome Moon Joggers. Again I am so looking forward to meeting as many of you as possible.
Last but not least – the training/running.This has been going well and I am pretty happy where it’s all at Have still been averaging over 200 km’s per week and have just crossed over the 6000 km mark for this year. In essence I could probably start next week ( can I please ? ) although 2-3 70 – 80 km runs will make a difference. Yes probably sick of all the training and just want to get stuck into it. With all that has been needed to do I could well do with an extra few hours in the day!!!!
So 6 weeks to goand as said it is getting harder to keep the feet firmly on the ground. Stil a bit to do but we will get ( probably the day before I leave!!!.
Take care all, keep enjoying the running and see as many of you as possible in the near future. Now I had better get out and do another run.
-Perry
FIND OUT MORE ABOUT PERRY’S RUN ACROSS THE USA HERE
