The day before the start screwed runners drive the ~14 miles from Kimball to Castle Rock, park their cars and board buses for the ride to Union City, close to the start. I checked out of my room, and then loitered in the lobby hoping to nobble someone for a lift (something else I was stressed about). Cherrie kindly agreed, and then Jonny came along and (presumably hearing my accent) guessed I was the person with the luggage issue and offered to let me put it on the back seat of his truck. I was extremely grateful and very relieved.

One of the bits of advice I’d gleaned from the last but one Supper was to sit on the right hand side of the bus, so that you could see the side of the road we’d be running on. And to listen to the veterans. I was luckily on the same bus as John Price (the author of the book) and several other veterans, who gave a constant commentary about the locations of vending machines and water taps. Along with stories about people who missed turns and went on long detours. I was pretty tired though and slept through a fair bit of it. Plus in the end one small town merged in to another. It was a long drive, with stops along the way at a couple of gas stations plus Glendale Market, home of the infamous Bench of Despair.

We finally got to the motel in Union City. There wasn’t much time after finding our allocated room mates and checking in before getting back on the buses to go to the Last Supper at another buffet restaurant. Finally we had one last stop at Walmart for last minute shopping, in my case for some snacks and safety pins for attaching the US flag we had to carry to my backpack. After some last minute kit-faffing, I went to bed and, still tired from the night before, I actually managed to sleep quite well.