1. Downtown Dublin, Ireland 2. Conway country side, Wales 3. Pierrefonds castle, France 4. Downtown Mechelen, Belgium 5. Amsterdam canal, The Netherlands 6. Bremen, Grimm fairy tale sculpture
On the route
1. Downtown Dublin, Ireland 2. Conway country side, Wales 3. Pierrefonds castle, France 4. Downtown Mechelen, Belgium 5. Amsterdam canal, The Netherlands 6. Bremen, Grimm fairy tale sculpture
People moments
1. Mandy and Ian, Shropshire, England 2. Soccer kids, France 3. Laurel with BPR supporter in Bruxelles 4. German pub at midnight exchange point
Blue planet runners
1. Richard and Emmanuel 2. Father and son, Amsterdam 3. Taeko, Emmanuel and Sunnil, Holy Head, Wales 4. Yellow team with Jason, who broke his foot, and in the USA became our team driver.
On the run
1. Conway Beach, Wales 2. Exchange point, Dublin 3. Exchange point Trafalgar Square, London 4. Exchange point, Brussels
From now on we are traveling just with our relay team of four, consisting of Laurel from Hawaii, Heiko from Germany, Paul from Scotland and myself from The Netherlands. Designated the yellow team, we will be together for at least the first 15 days of the route. Each relay team will run four consecutive days with the fifth day off for some rest and media events. The rest of the time we travel, run ten miles per days, pack and unpack our suitcases and pass through the night to be gone again by dawn. Most of the teams will stay at the same hotels at different points of the day and as we come and go, we will exchange our stories, hugs, good byes and hellos with the blue, green, red or silver team.
For the first week we are running the 9:00 am to 3:00 pm “shift”, and the mid-morning to afternoon time slots proofed to be fairly hot, with temperatures in the middle to upper eighties. Add to that some hills and head wind, and we have a good daily workout. Admittedly, I was slightly nervous when it was my turn to take over the baton and run my first leg of the global run, but at the halfway mark I was in the groove and paraded at a comfortable 8:30 pace through the rolling countryside of Connecticut. On occasion a curious onlooker would ask me from a front porch or a sidewalk what was going on. I would than raise the baton and simply respond with a smile and say: ”blue planet run”. Traffic was polite and shared the road at a safe distance. Intersections would come to a halt to let me through, and scooter-man, our personal guide and pilot rider, was always in sight to give directions, and make sure we were safe and secure.
Before I knew it, my run had come to an end and still breathing heavy from the run, hot and soaking wet, I was looking into the giant lens of a camera! Everything I say now and every move I make will be recorded and could end up in some evening news show or local newspaper. Wow! I felt good and concluded my interview with the hope that this global run would produce the desired result, to bring safe drinking water to over a billion people. Nearly finished with the run and the interview, we boarded our team truck to the next exchange point. That night we flew across the Atlantic Ocean, destination Shannon Ireland, for the start of the European part of the run. And so our journey has begun.
For the first week we are running the 9:00 am to 3:00 pm “shift”, and the mid-morning to afternoon time slots proofed to be fairly hot, with temperatures in the middle to upper eighties. Add to that some hills and head wind, and we have a good daily workout. Admittedly, I was slightly nervous when it was my turn to take over the baton and run my first leg of the global run, but at the halfway mark I was in the groove and paraded at a comfortable 8:30 pace through the rolling countryside of Connecticut. On occasion a curious onlooker would ask me from a front porch or a sidewalk what was going on. I would than raise the baton and simply respond with a smile and say: ”blue planet run”. Traffic was polite and shared the road at a safe distance. Intersections would come to a halt to let me through, and scooter-man, our personal guide and pilot rider, was always in sight to give directions, and make sure we were safe and secure.
Before I knew it, my run had come to an end and still breathing heavy from the run, hot and soaking wet, I was looking into the giant lens of a camera! Everything I say now and every move I make will be recorded and could end up in some evening news show or local newspaper. Wow! I felt good and concluded my interview with the hope that this global run would produce the desired result, to bring safe drinking water to over a billion people. Nearly finished with the run and the interview, we boarded our team truck to the next exchange point. That night we flew across the Atlantic Ocean, destination Shannon Ireland, for the start of the European part of the run. And so our journey has begun.
Blue planet run kick-off
At long last the day had come to take the run on the road. The night before we had enjoyed a pre-dinner reception with Hillary Swank, our guest of honor, followed by a family style get-together at the Salmon Dinner restaurant in downtown New York. Temperatures had been in the mid-eighties all week and the weather forecast called for another sweltering hot day. Brynn and Sean were selected to be on the Today Show at 9:30 in the morning and were picked-up by a limousine service for the occasion. The rest of us, dressed in orange and black, walked the four blocks down 42nd avenue to the United Nations building in full anticipation of the day ahead.
The opening ceremony took place on the UN lawn, a nicely groomed grassy field, bordered on the street side by large deciduous trees, yet dwarfed by the tall skyscrapers of downtown Manhattan, and yielding on the far side to the banks of the East river. Sculptures depicting messages of global peace complimented the United Nations grounds with hundreds of colorful flags of all the nations in the world waving in the wind, as if to bid the runners “G-dspeed”. In front of a sizable crowd of hundreds of supporters, press and curious onlookers, Mary Chervenak, the first global messenger to run, took to the streets to kick-off the ninety-five day long journey around the world. After years of preparation by Jin Zidell and other senior members of the blue planet foundation a long awaited dream shifted gears from the planning phase into the awareness- and fundraising phase.
The runners, one by one had been announced and called-up to the podium and from there, witnessed the moment we had all waited and prepared for. As Mary descended the podium-steps the crowds came alive and sent her on her way. Waiving the baton in the air she ran under the air inflated blue planet arch off into the distance, and out onto the crowded streets of Manhattan. While four of the relay teams boarded their team trucks to travel to there exchange points, team yellow, my team, stayed behind to attend to the media.
At the end of our tour of duty, as we were walking back to the hotel, a dozen school kids from the Bronx, who had raised over $3,000 dollars for the blue planet, ran up to us armed with blue planet tee-shirts and colored markers. Soon we were signing their proud and priced possessions. It was a treat to see their enthusiasm for the cause and it gave us hope, that if kids like them and others all over the world understand the message and call for action, we will be able to bring safe drinking water and save thousands of lives all over the world.
By mid-afternoon we left New York destination Hebron, Connecticut where we will start our run tomorrow morning. For the next ninety-five days, we will run and travel, eat on the go, overnight in different towns and hotels and sleep in different beds every night. We will travel across all time zones, and run a range of elevations from below sea level in The Netherlands, to over 12,000 feet in the Rocky Mountains, with temperatures from the low-forties, to the one-hundred plus high-noon summer temperatures in the Mojave Desert, Nevada and Utah. In full anticipation of all of that and more we have begun our journey of hope for those less fortunate on our planet.
The opening ceremony took place on the UN lawn, a nicely groomed grassy field, bordered on the street side by large deciduous trees, yet dwarfed by the tall skyscrapers of downtown Manhattan, and yielding on the far side to the banks of the East river. Sculptures depicting messages of global peace complimented the United Nations grounds with hundreds of colorful flags of all the nations in the world waving in the wind, as if to bid the runners “G-dspeed”. In front of a sizable crowd of hundreds of supporters, press and curious onlookers, Mary Chervenak, the first global messenger to run, took to the streets to kick-off the ninety-five day long journey around the world. After years of preparation by Jin Zidell and other senior members of the blue planet foundation a long awaited dream shifted gears from the planning phase into the awareness- and fundraising phase.
The runners, one by one had been announced and called-up to the podium and from there, witnessed the moment we had all waited and prepared for. As Mary descended the podium-steps the crowds came alive and sent her on her way. Waiving the baton in the air she ran under the air inflated blue planet arch off into the distance, and out onto the crowded streets of Manhattan. While four of the relay teams boarded their team trucks to travel to there exchange points, team yellow, my team, stayed behind to attend to the media.
At the end of our tour of duty, as we were walking back to the hotel, a dozen school kids from the Bronx, who had raised over $3,000 dollars for the blue planet, ran up to us armed with blue planet tee-shirts and colored markers. Soon we were signing their proud and priced possessions. It was a treat to see their enthusiasm for the cause and it gave us hope, that if kids like them and others all over the world understand the message and call for action, we will be able to bring safe drinking water and save thousands of lives all over the world.
By mid-afternoon we left New York destination Hebron, Connecticut where we will start our run tomorrow morning. For the next ninety-five days, we will run and travel, eat on the go, overnight in different towns and hotels and sleep in different beds every night. We will travel across all time zones, and run a range of elevations from below sea level in The Netherlands, to over 12,000 feet in the Rocky Mountains, with temperatures from the low-forties, to the one-hundred plus high-noon summer temperatures in the Mojave Desert, Nevada and Utah. In full anticipation of all of that and more we have begun our journey of hope for those less fortunate on our planet.
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