Adventures in Running-Idaho Style

So I had quite the unusual experience running a couple weeks ago. It had to be either the highlight or lowlight of my sweet marathon training. I’m probably going to go with lowlight.
We were staying up in Idaho for Rachel’s family reunion, the Super Sweet Stewart family reunion! I’m at the point in my marathon training where I take quite the long run on Saturday mornings as part of this training to actually move my fat body over 26.2 miles. So I let Rachel know that Saturday morning I’ll have to join the festivities a tad late due to my run, scheduled for 14 miles. I tell her “I’m just going to leave your Aunt’s house where we are staying, run out 7 miles, and run back.” Rachel has a bright idea, “Why don’t you just run from Diane’s house to my Grandma’s house? I bet that is pretty close to 14 miles. Then I won’t have to come back and pick you up when you’re done.” So Rachel’s aunt lives in Ammon up on the mountain and her Grandma lives in Shelley. I was reluctant to take on the challenge primarily because most of the way would be country road with no water fountain or even a gas station to pick up a drink. I express my concern with my sweet wife and she gives me the stare of “just do what I say”. So I make plans to stop at the “last outpost” Maverik about 8 miles into the run to buy a couple Gatorades.
So I wake up early on Saturday morning and head out for the run. My first 8 miles are pretty much straight down Sunnyside, which is a main road in Idaho Falls. It’s actually quite the nice morning and the path along Sunnyside is ideal. I’m feelin’ good and have a good groove going. Rachel stops by about 90 minutes in to check on me on the way to her Grandmas, I’m feeling good and wave her off. I get down to the end of Sunnyside and head into the Maverik drenched in sweat to buy my couple Gatorades.
Quick tangent: so inside the Mav in front of me in line a “young adult” (a dude about 21 years old, at what age do I have to reach to call him a “kid”?) tries to buy 3 mountain dews and a couple huge bags of sunflower seeds with a welfare credit card and the lady tells him they don’t accept the card. He freaks out on her and storms out, apparently thinking that screaming curse words all over the place will make the lady change the store policy. Now, soda and sunflower seeds are a step up from beer and cigarettes but come on aren’ t welfare funds supposed to be used for actual food necessities like milk, eggs, bread, etc? Applause to Maverik if that’s their policy and not a state-mandated item. End Tangent J
So I leave the Mav with a huge Gatorade in each hand and a little under 6 miles to go. I look down the long highway and realize there is nowhere to run! The first couple miles of the country highway have turned into a 4 lane road; there is no shoulder to run on, and right off the road on both sides are monster weeds. I certainly don’t want to run in the road with 60-mph traffic coming down the pipe at me. What do I do? I improvise. Off the road 30 feet is a railroad track that does have some space on the side of it. I start down the track. The space is extremely rocky and uneven but I’m chugging along. I get another 2 miles down and finally see that on one side of the road the weeds have gone away and it’s just field on the side of the road; off the road, but manageable to run on. I cross the road to take my chances with the field instead of breaking my ankle on the train track.
Rachel’s aunt Diane stops by to check on me, I move her along. A few minutes later her uncle Garth stops and gives me a water bottle. I chug it down and he pulls away. Right after he pulls away, things get interesting. . .
I see a Bonneville County Sherriff car coming down the road and for some reason I know he’s going to turn on his lights and “pull” me over. He does just that. I can envision what he must have been thinking when he got out of the car and sized me up, “Fat dude, holding 2 gatorades and a water bottle, funny leg things on (I wear leg sleeves on my long runs because I have calf-cramping problems), all that’s missing is a helmet”.
Cop-“What are you doing?”
Me-” Um, I’m running down the road.” Duh! Honestly I know it’s just a conversation starter but what does it look like I’m doing?
Cop-“OK, Where are you headed?” I’m sure at this point he’s expecting something like “Down the street one more block” or “Just to that building over there” Remember I’m officially in Idaho Falls at this point.
Me-“Shelley” If you aren’t familiar with Idaho Falls, it’s like he pulled me over in South Jordan and instead of saying “I’m headed to a buddy’s house a couple blocks down” I respond “I’m going to Sandy!”
Cop-“What?! That’s really far, where did you come from?”
Me-“Well, up on that mountain over there”
Now the cop is confused and is thinking that it might not all be there upstairs. Cop-“What do you mean you came from up on the mountain? Are you ok?”
So now it’s time to go with the full-background explanation approach. Me-“ Look, I’m from out of town and I’m here for a family reunion but I’m training for a marathon and I had to do a long run today and I’m staying up on the mountain with a family member but I had to go down to Shelley for the family reunion this morning so for the long training run I just decided I would run from where I’m staying to where I need to be”. And that crazy run-on sentence is about as crazy as he thought I was.
This is the point where I know the cop thought I might not have it all there mentally. Cop-“Son, Who is going to take care of you once you get to Shelley?”
Holy Crap! I JUST EXPLAINED that my ENTIRE set of in-laws, including my wife and kids, are over at Shelley. What do you mean who’s going to take care of me? I’m not sure how to proceed; am I going to get a ticket? Arrested? What the crap did I do wrong? Me-“My WIFE is in Shelley and ALL of my in-laws are there too to take care of me once I get there. I’M JUST RUNNING DOWN THE ROAD DID I DO SOMETHING WRONG OR SOMETHING?!” Obviously I’m getting frustrated at this point and he’s thinking I’m more and more not with it. Cop-“Were you running on the train tracks?”
Bingo. Should’ve known somebody would think I was a wacko and call the cops for running along the tracks.
Me-“Oh yeah. I was. There was no room to run on the side of the road for those first couple miles so I ran on the tracks. I’m not wearing headphones so I could hear a train and obviously look around and see a train. You can see I got off and crossed over when this side of the road turned to field. “
So during this nice chat Rachel’s uncle Garth saw the cop pull me over after he pulled away. He turned around and came back to check what was going on. I think when he pulled up the cop didn’t believe me when I said I knew him.
Cop-“You’re not in trouble I’m just really confused at why you’d want to go that far” I’m thinking if I actually looked like a runner it would’ve been a little different.
Me-“It’s fine I’m done I’ll just go with him.” I had gone about 9.5-10 miles so it was a good long run, just not the whole way but by then I had lost my mojo and was disheartened by the stop. I don’t want to give away too much but from my experience as a teenager, whenever cops get involved, you get out of there! So I jumped in with Garth to get a ride the rest of the way. I don’t think the cop had anything on me, but I could also tell that he was going to follow me along the road the remaining 4 miles and I wasn’t cool with that.
Anyway, I arrive at the family reunion to great fanfare and share the great tale of the cop who didn’t like my running style. While it gave a good laugh to the family for the day, I was still disappointed that I couldn’t convince him that I was a marathoner! Well, I guess I’m not yet, so next time I’m back up in Idaho after the October marathon I’ll have to go for a long run down some train tracks. On second thought, maybe not.