Kennewick, WA

Chinook Middle School

Run Time: 63:23 + 2-minute kick

End of a long drive. Hot. Tired. Cannot find anyone who wants to make money by selling our line in Tri-Cities. Put the hotel location into my map app rather than the AllTrails trail I wanted to drive to. Almost didn’t run at all. Then I checked in, sat for a few minutes in the hotel room that had been precooled to 63 degrees, did some digestive clearing, and decided to run a full run.

Good decision. I felt great afterward. Not so great during, but knowing that I don’t feel so great and that I will no doubt be able to complete the run, and in fact could double it or triple it if I had to, is a tonic for the brain. Endurance is more important than truth, said Chinaski.

A very nice, new, big middle school on the Southern edge of Kennewick, with an even bigger high school a few blocks away. I could have run at either track, likely. Chose the middle school because it was less likely to have an athletic event going on. There was some kind of event at the school — looked like perhaps an orientation for next year. Kids and parents moving together at regular intervals out one door and in the next. I would have thought that, of the three cities in Tri-Cities, that Richland would be the high-income district. But maybe not. Maybe all the sales tax dollars from Seattle are funding new schools in the Eastern prairie lands.

The next day I passed a sign on I-82 that said no homegrown fruit past this point. A lot of wine and apple orchards in Central Washington. You do not want to mess with Big Fruit.

Drove through some gorgeous back-country on this trip. Enjoyed some Dutch Bros coffee, and Escape from New York Pizza (with my youngest, in Portland, at the end of the trip). It made up for all the flight nonsense on Monday. Every hotel was quiet and clean. Every day was sunny.

The trail probably would have been paved anyhow. The track was empty and easy on the lower extremities. No shade, but if you can’t handle 87 degrees with a light wind, you got no business being a runner. I have been feeling some resistance in my body lately. This felt like a rededication run.

You never know what is going to flip the switch.