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May 3, 2004
TREK Along the Loneliest Road in America

Mike Thompson tosses a beat up pair of Nikes into the Shoe Tree on Route 50 in Nevada.  See more photos in our gallery

Route 50, Nevada - One hundred sixty-five miles.  Temperatures ranging from 39 degrees to 105 degrees along Route 50, "The Loneliest Road in America."  We ran  Beautiful mountains overlooking Lake Taos and the desolation of the Nevada desert. South Lake Taos, an amazing tourist destination, to Austin Nevada, population 140.

Today's adventure began, once again, at the crack of dawn.  The "Trekkers" would experience the mountain roads out of South Lake Taos into the desert, while the "Harriers" would spend most of the day in the desert.  Tom began the run out of the Lake Taos area with a guest from the East - his daughter Crissy who flew out with her husband, Ahren, to spend a few days with team TREK USA.  Having guest runners along with us is a real treat.  As awesome as the experience is for each runner, it can get lonely running solo.  Once again, it reminds us of how unbelievable Dave McGillivray's solo run over 80 days really was.

Running 17 miles each yesterday and then 16 miles today began to give us a sense of what we might expect from running consecutive high mileage days.  The "enthusiastic" pace of the earlier days is beginning to settle into a 9  minute pace. Altitude, heat, and the realization of what lies ahead is forcing us to think more rationally than we runners generally do.  The quote of the day was Dave McGillivray's assessment of this trip compared to his adventure twenty five years ago. "I'm glad I did my solo one first, because if I ever did this first, I NEVER would have tried doing it alone!"

Besides the running, there were two notable highlights to report.  The first was "The Shoe Tree".  We came across a beautiful tree that was adorned with hundreds of shoes.  The legend is that a man and his wife argued under the tree, she got mad and said she was walking home.  He said, "Well, you're walking barefoot" as he through her shoes into the tree.  Mike Thomson couldn't resist.  He heaved his oldest pair of Nikes into the boughs so that all would know that TREK USA was there.  No, Mike will not run barefoot!

The other highlight was our destination, Austin, Nevada.  We were a bit apprehensive when we pulled into the Lincoln Lodge parking lot.  Our eight room reservation pretty much filled the place, and we were sure that we wouldn't find a high speed internet connection in our rooms.  What we did find was a delightful owner who told us to call her "Charlie".  She told us that this town was once a key location in the silver mining boom of the 1800's.  It was then, a town of 10,000.  Today there are 140 left. Last year's graduating class had 1 student (good news - he was the valedictorian).  Across the street was the building that housed the diner that would host our pasta dinner, and the bar that would replace a few "carbs".  The building was transported to its current location in 1840.  It was originally in Virginia, Nevada, but when the Comstock vein dried up, they disassembled the building and moved it to Austin where it's silver mine flourished.  The bar was shipped "around the Horn" from England.  The original mirror still hangs over the bar.  The folks we met there were warm, friendly, and fascinated by our run across America.  Lots of famous characters have stopped to tip a pint at that bar - Wyatt Earp and Mark Twain to  name a few.  On this evening it was TREK USA.  We were given the honor of posting our visit on the "wall of dollars".  If you pass by, stop in.  You won't be disappointed, and while you're there say, "Hi" to Jack the bartender and take a look at the TREK USA dollar on the wall. 

Tomorrow we face a big day featuring 186 miles of running and 6 mountain passes that will keep us above the 7,000 foot level for a good part of the day.  The weather forcast, provided by our own metereologist, Dave D'Archangelo, calls for continued warm weather with the possibility of "cloudless lightening" in the mountains.  Wow, what a trip!