Reflections on the Past
Looking back at my life a year ago, I would never have believed somebody who told me “In a year, you’ll be sitting in a hotel in Indianapolis at the halfway point between Wichita, Kansas and Washington D.C.” So many things have changed between then and now that it is difficult to qualify just how this relay has changed me and my perception of the world.

First of all, I have been extremely pleased with the warmth people have shown us up to this point in our journey. In Wichita, anybody we asked would listen. Dozens upon dozens donated to our cause whatever they could give–whether it was $20 or $2,000. Slowly, but surely, the idea took flight and flew into the realm of reality. From there, people along the way offered discounts; Subways said they would give us free sandwiches sometimes and Super 8s offered us discounts on their normal prices. Unfortunately, not everything has been as easy as would be the case in an ideal world and far too many people are entirely apathetic.

The Not-So-Good
I’m disheartened by the lack of media attention. It’s not that I want to be on TV or that I enjoy seeing my name in print, but I don’t understand how people can ignore us. Perhaps the most discouraging aspect was the response we received from the Kansas City Star; it wasn’t, “we don’t have time to cover your event” or “you should have notified us earlier,” but rather, “we don’t cover events like this.” Maybe it’s vanity on my part, but I couldn’t help but wonder, “how many passionate teenagers run through your city each day trying to change the world?”

I have a hard time understanding how anybody can classify this relay so generically.

A Break From The Madness
This day in Indianapolis was a pleasant break from the normally chaotic schedule we follow. A typical day consists of a wake up call around 6 a.m., a quick breakfast in the Super 8 lobby, loading the cars around 6:30, and on the road to our starting place by 6:45. We’ll run until sometime between 12 and 2 depending on when we hit a town big enough for a Subway. We’ll spend maybe 45 minutes eating and then head off on the road again until between 6 and 8 pm. By the time we eat, it’s usually around 9:30-10, and then on a good night we might go to sleep before midnight. Now, repeat this for about 2 weeks and you can get a brief understanding of just how welcoming a little extra sleep was.

I woke up around 8:30 today because I could hardly sleep any longer. It’s a bit sad that I’ve been conditioned to that point, but I had a reason to be excited. Brief detour: the morning of the relay send-off, my laptop decided to die on me and I had no way to fix it. After a bit of research, I settled on a MacBook as a good replacement for my dead laptop and looked for a good chance to buy one. Luckily, Indianapolis had an Apple Store convenient. So, now, I’m writing this blog on my newly-purchased MacBook and doubt that novelty will ever wear off.

In addition to my exciting purchase, I would confidently speak for the rest of the team when I say it was good to be able to eat somewhere that wasn’t Subway for a change. Don’t get me wrong, Subway is delicious, but 8 days straight of the Spicy Italian on Italian herbs and cheese bread with pepper jack cheese, lettuce, and a nice smattering of ranch gets old. For some reason, I never thought of mixing that up.

Adventures at Trader Joe’s
Having lived in SoCal for several years, my parents loved the specialty grocery store called Trader Joe’s. They had already figured out that Indianapolis was the only place with one along our course, so they figured we had to stop. Nobody was opposed and we quickly found our odd little foods, candies, beverages, and other organic delights at the store. As we were checking out, the sunny Indianapolis sky took a drastic change for the worse.

In a matter of 5 minutes, the bright blue sky changed to a near pitch black and the sun rays pouring from the sky turned into torrential rain. I watched in dismay as a small whirlpool formed in our parking lot and quickly pulled out my trusty new laptop to search for a wifi network and check the weather. We sat there for 20 minutes in the car hoping to wait out the storm. Fortunately, it died down enough for us to make out escape back to the hotel, but we lost all chances of playing some Frisbee or swimming that one glorious rest night. I didn’t waste too much time in self-pity and took to introducing myself to my Mac. Everybody else generally went crazy and enjoyed their remaining few hours in their own ways. I was content, and I’m pretty sure everybody else was too.

Ironically, having the day of rest didn’t change our sleeping schedule at all. Everybody is dozing off right now as I finish this entry. It’s past midnight. Not too surprising really.

Forwards and Onwards!
With only about a week left of this amazing journey, I feel like I have to thank some people who have made it possible for us to get this far. First of all, there are the numerous people that believed in us enough to take a risk in supporting us. Second of all, there are the people who donated or helped us in some other way even though they weren’t sure if we could follow through with our end. Both of those groups were essential to our success thus far. Whether or not they thought we could pull this off, they still put some faith in our ability and, most importantly, proved to us that there are those who are not apathetic.

I would love to keep this list short, but I know I can’t:
To Darham Rogers - the coach that was crazy enough to agree to come along for the ride;
To my eight fellow runners - the guys that were crazy enough to believe this could happen;
To Mrs. Kellerby, Mrs. Fry, Mr. Davis, and Mr. Marshall - the teachers that constantly asked for updates, bought t-shirts, and offered their words of wisdom when times were troubling;
To John Bagwell, the Genocide Intervention Network, and STAND - the wonderful organization that took a risk on a bunch of high schoolers trying to change the world;
To Julie VanMater - the designer of our website and tshirts;
To Davis-Moore Auto-Groups - the company that made our trip financially possible;
To Jim at Kalamazoo Sports Wear - the great guy that prints our t-shirts for us and ships them;
To Senator Betts and Lisa Reiss - both of you have been inspirational to us all and have helped us with aspects of this trip that we couldn’t approach alone;
To Kim Thi Tran - our representative in STAND that played an instrumental role in supporting us;
To my parents who never thought this would happen;
To the hundreds who donated, bought t-shirts, or both;
To everybody at East who believed in us;
To everybody else who helped us;
And to everybody following us right now along our journey:

Thank you.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 11th, 2008 at 10:21 pm by Matthew Heck and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.