Prologue: The Aftermath
Nothing ever prepares me for the aftermath of Vol State.
The blisters, swelling, and throbbing foot pain? I can handle those. It was the return to normal life that caught me off guard. The long to-do list waiting for me. A job. Trying to be a coach. A leader. Reconnecting with the world after disappearing for almost five days. Looking ahead to a busy fall that will roll straight into winter before I have a chance to catch my breath.
Physically I was recovering. Mentally I wanted to turn around and do it all again. I found myself opening maps looking for another adventure. Friends reminded me of the races I am directing and the programs I will be coaching. Those things matter, but they weren’t what I was craving.
Why did coming home feel harder than crossing the finish line?
To answer that, I have to go back to the beginning.
Part 1: Before the Start
I needed this race.
By the time Vol State rolled around, I was burnt out. Life had become a constant cycle of work, coaching, Russell Run Club, race directing, emails, and social media. Every day felt like I was putting out fires or crossing another item off a never-ending to-do list.
I had been looking forward to my “vacation without a car.”
I wasn’t trying to escape my life. I was trying to simplify it.
A few days before the race, I deleted almost everything from my phone. Social media. Email. News. Gone. Messenger, Maps, Spotify, and the weather app stayed. Five people remained in my contacts.
For the next four and a half days, that would become my entire world.
Unfinished Business
Two years had passed since my last Vol State. My return had been delayed by a hip injury, but that extra year also gave me time to reflect on my 2024 race.
Looking back, I don’t think that race ended because of my body.
It ended because of my mind.
A few setbacks became hours of negative thoughts. Hours became days. Long before my legs gave up, I had already convinced myself I was done. It took months, and one very long blog post, to understand what had really happened.
This time, I didn’t just want to arrive physically fit.
I wanted to arrive mentally prepared.
That became the focus of my preparation.
One Goal
I had one goal.
Sub-five days.
Not just sneaking under five days. I wanted to finish comfortably under it. I believed I was capable of more.
The biggest obstacle wasn’t the course.
It wasn’t the heat.
It wasn’t the distance.
The biggest obstacle was my own mind.
I wasn’t sure if I was ready.
But I knew I was more prepared than I’d ever been.
Training
Training wasn’t perfect.
The Jackpot in February reminded me I still had the fitness to run well, but life became busy afterward. My coach stepped back, leaving me to manage my own training. Some weeks I ran well over 100 kilometres. Other weeks I barely ran at all.
It wasn’t the build-up I had imagined, but I trusted the work I had already put in over the weeks, months and years.
Part 2: Vol State
Standing on the Ferry
Standing on the ferry, I felt like the new kid all over again.
Around me, everyone gathered in their little groups, catching up on races, adventures, and life since they had last seen each other. I quietly looked around as the familiar thoughts crept back.
They look faster.
More experienced.
I don’t belong here.
…..
I spotted a few Canadians, including two runners from Québec City, and wished them luck before the start.
The day before, during the bus ride, I had met “Irish Joe” from the Toronto area. I had actually gone looking for him during our lunch stop. Joe was 85 years old and had an incredible running résumé. He knew he probably wasn’t going to finish Vol State. That wasn’t the point. He came for the experience. The bus ride. The ferry crossing. The people. Maybe a couple of days on the road.
He made it about eight miles, or roughly ten hours.
I’ve thought about Joe a lot since then. Everyone standing on that ferry had a different reason for being there. Some were chasing the finish. Some were chasing a personal best. Joe was simply chasing the experience.
…..
Then the ferry reached the Missouri shore.
We stepped off and walked toward the start, only to return to the ferry again.
For me, the hardest part wasn’t crossing the river.
It was taking my place near the front of the pack.
Letting Go.
The first few kilometres don’t tell you much about Vol State. Neither do the first few hours. Three hundred and fourteen miles is simply too long for that.
I settled in somewhere behind the group of stronger runners – seasoned veterans. They chatted comfortably as they ran. I tried to stay with them for a while, but it didn’t feel right. I wasn’t part of their conversation, and more importantly, I wasn’t running at my own pace.
I stopped trying to stay with them and settled into my own pace, passing them.
At that moment, I let go of racing everyone else.
I decided to run my own race.
Would I see them again? Maybe. Maybe not. I had no idea what the next four or five days would bring. If I went out too hard, they’d disappear into the distance. If I slowed later, maybe we’d cross paths again.
…..
As I made my way through Union City and then Martin, I slowly started catching other runners. I knew there was still at least one person ahead of me. At least I thought there was.
Then I reached one of the angel tents before Dresden.
“You’re the first one here.”
I looked around, half expecting another runner to be ahead of me.
Me?
I wasn’t supposed to be here.
Just a few hours earlier, I had been wondering if I belonged near the front of the pack. Now, somehow, I was leading the race.
I knew it wouldn’t last long.
Finding Rhythm
I had one job.
Move.
Run or walk.
Everything else existed to support those two things.
Eat.
Sleep.
Repeat.
Life became remarkably simple.
I wore an old Timex watch programmed with run/walk intervals. It wasn’t fancy. It beeped when it was time to run and beeped again when it was time to walk. It took the decision-making out of it. I started with eight minutes running and two minutes walking. As the days passed, that became four and two
When the watch beeped, I ran. Even when I didn’t feel like it.
That little watch won a lot of arguments with my brain.
I fought burning feet, blisters, heat, and exhaustion. When it was time to walk, I ate. I drank. When I could stop, I took care of my feet. Then I moved again.
After a while, time stopped meaning much.
I rarely looked at the clock. I stopped thinking about how many kilometres remained. Instead, my world became the next town. The next gas station. The next road angel. The next place I might be able to sleep.
I’d get there when I got there.
Somewhere along the way, that simplicity became my favourite part of the race.
The Circle of Five
Before the race, I deleted almost everything from my phone. Five contacts remained: my running coach, my strength coach, two friends from the Russell Run Club, and my husband.
Four of them had one job.
Keep me moving when things get tough.
I’ll let you guess which one didn’t.
It didn’t take long before I settled into a routine.
Every evening after the 7:30 p.m. check-in, I’d call my running coach. We’d recap the day, talk through tomorrow, and he’d almost always end the conversation the same way.
“You are in a good place.”
Every morning, after another long night on the road, I’d send a voice message to my strength coach. Over the past few years, he’d become much more than a strength coach. He’d spent countless hours helping me challenge the stories I told myself.
He heard the fatigue in my voice. His replies reminded me that I was doing better than I thought and that he considered me one of the toughest and mentally strongest athletes he knew.
Tara and Shiloh volunteered for the night shift. They became my companions during the hardest hours of the race. We’d talk about how the day had gone, what was happening back home, or whatever happened to come up. Sometimes I needed to talk. Other times I just needed to listen. Anything to keep my mind occupied while sleep deprivation slowly took over.
Then there was my husband.
He got all the random calls.
Sometimes we’d talk about the race. Sometimes we’d talk about absolutely nothing. He became my connection to home. As the race went on, he’d tell me what was happening with the other runners, but only once I felt ready to hear it. Until then, I didn’t want to know. I wanted to run my own race, not theirs.
These five couldn’t take a single step for me, but every conversation helped me take the next one.
Heat, Storms & Peace
The weather caught up to me on the very first night.
The previous two years I’d somehow avoided Tennessee’s famous thunderstorms. Heat? Plenty of it. This year I got the full experience.
People give me strange looks when I say I feel blessed to be out there.
The course is relentless.
The heat is oppressive.
Sleep is a luxury.
Your feet hurt.
Everything hurts.
Yet I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else.
One evening I found myself racing toward McKenzie as a severe thunderstorm rolled in. Trees bent in the wind. Branches cracked overhead. Stop signs swung back and forth. Rain came down so hard it bounced off the pavement as I splashed through water pooling along the shoulder, trying to reach shelter before the worst of it arrived.
It was scary. There’s no denying that.
Looking back, though…
It was also incredible.
The storm eventually moved on, leaving me alone on the open road. Thunder echoed across the countryside while lightning lit up the sky so brightly it felt like daylight. I remember stopping for a moment just to watch.
How often do we get to experience something like that?
The nights became my favourite part of the race.
Traffic disappeared.
The houses were dark, their owners fast asleep.
Tree frogs called from every direction while something rustled through the ditch beside me. Every now and then I’d catch a pair of glowing eyes watching from the woods before they disappeared into the darkness.
It was peaceful.
No emails.
No notifications.
No decisions beyond the next step.
Just me, the road, and whatever Tennessee decided to throw at me.
Those were the moments that reminded me why I kept coming back.
Not to escape life.
But to remember how simple it can be.
The Dark Miles
Day 1 went almost exactly as planned. I felt fresh, excited, and happy to finally be on the road. Even the thunderstorms that rolled through that first night couldn’t dampen my mood.
Day 2 was different.
The excitement of the start had faded, and the reality of what lay ahead began to settle in. More than 200 miles remained. That second evening led into what became the darkest miles of my race.
One hour of sleep. Or at least some version of it.
The sleep deprivation had started.
Check-in was in Linden, the first time I’d ever reached the town in daylight. The road to Hohenwald was a long one. Against my better judgment, I pulled out the map to see where I might be able to rest.
Ten miles.
Three hours if I walked. Maybe two if I ran.
As the sun set, I pulled out my phone and called my nighttime circle. Tonight it was Tara. She was still dealing with jet lag after an emergency trip overseas. We talked about the race and everything happening back home. Anything to keep my mind awake while my body demanded sleep.
My eyes drifted toward the pavement instead of the road ahead.
One foot in front of the other.
Run when I can. Walk when I had to.
Then the white line beside me started moving. It looked like a conveyor belt sliding beneath my feet.
I knew it wasn’t moving. My brain insisted it was.
I found a driveway. I sat down, dropped my head, turned off my headlamp, and tried to shake off the sleep. Cars zoomed past me. To close for comfort. I must have surprised them – seeing this slumped figure at the side of the road. However none stopped.
…..
Eventually I reached the carport.
Shoes off.
I grabbed a towel from a bin to keep warm, stretched out backwards on a reclining lawn chair so I could elevate my feet, and closed my eyes.
Sleep came in short bursts, interrupted by strange dreams and the sounds of animals moving around the edge of the property. I never figured out what they were. Raccoons. Coyotes. Something bigger. After a while they all blended together.
It wasn’t a great sleep. But it was enough.
…..
When I got moving again, I called my husband.
We talked for two and a half hours, just like we had early in our relationship, when talking to each other was enough.
As I made my way toward Hohenwald, he followed my route on the map while we chatted about whatever came to mind.
…..
Twenty-five miles that night.
By Vol State standards, it was a perfectly respectable night.
My mind just hadn’t accepted that yet.
Alone...but never Alone
I came into Vol State with a circle of five people. They were my connection to the outside world. Along the way, I realized I wasn’t nearly as alone as I thought.
Somewhere during the race, though, I realized I wasn’t nearly as alone as I thought.
On the second night I stopped at a Family Dollar to buy another disposable poncho. Sleep deprivation was catching up with me, and I wandered the aisles looking for them.
A woman and her daughter noticed I was struggling and pointed me in the right direction.
As I checked out, she smiled.
“Are you one of the walkers?”
She lived nearby and had been following the race on Facebook.
“Are you… Michelle?”
“Yes.”
Her daughter’s eyes lit up.
“Can we get a picture?”
I smiled.
It caught me completely off guard.
To them, I wasn’t just another tired runner buying a poncho. I was part of the story they had been following for days.
…..
That wasn’t the only time I realized people were watching. Friends back home were following the tracker. Russell Run Club members were cheering me on. Even complete strangers were following the race.
But the people I thought about most were my young nieces.
When I got home, they told me they’d been following along too. Watching the photos. Watching the videos. Watching the little running icon slowly make its way across Tennessee.
Do I like being the aunt who does crazy things?
Absolutely.
But that’s never really been the point.
Maybe that’s why I write these stories. I want them to see that doing something difficult doesn’t start with being fearless. It starts with taking the next step, even while you’re still unsure.
Road Angels
One of the things that makes Vol State so special is the people.
Throughout the course you’ll find coolers, lawn chairs tucked under shade trees, pop-up tents, and aid stations that rival many organized ultramarathons. I stopped at most of them. Not because I needed food or water. I stopped to sign the guest books and posters.
Most of the time the hosts weren’t there. It was the middle of the night. They’d wake the next morning to find a new collection of names in their guest books and on their posters.
Some of the guest books had been there for years. I flipped back through one and found my own message from 2023.
“Thank you. You came when I really needed you.”
Three years later, those words still rang true.
Road angels break the monotony of the course, but I think we give them something too. They become part of the story. Some stopped traffic just to hand me a cold bottle of sparkling water on a scorching afternoon. Others offered Gatorade in the middle of the night with nothing more than a smile and a few words of encouragement.
…
Day 3 brought the long trek to Columbia.
Fifty kilometres.
Four-lane highways that eventually narrowed to two. Almost no shade.
Thankfully, I left Hohenwald around 6 a.m. to beat the heat. I knew I probably wouldn’t arrive until sometime that evening.
The first half to Hampshire went well. The second half was a different story.
The heat eventually forced me into a power hike.
Then the rain came.
I looked at the sky and gambled.
Is this just a sprinkle… or is it about to open up?
I guessed wrong.
Within seconds I was soaked. Then I got cold.
I started thinking about finding a hotel just to warm up. It was still almost two hours away, and I knew those final ten kilometres would mostly be walking.
Then I rounded a corner and saw something familiar. The same house with the cooler and lawn chairs from two years earlier.
Everything had been moved into the carport because of the storm.
“Do you have a cot?” I asked.
“Yes.”
I cried. I needed sleep.
I stripped down to my bra and underwear, wrapped myself in a blanket, plugged in my electronics to charge, and slept for about an hour.
When I woke up, he was making himself hot dogs.
“Want one?”
Absolutely.
Then he picked up my still-damp clothes.
“I know you can’t ask,” he said, “but I’m going to throw these in the dryer.”
I nearly cried again. I had been dreading putting those cold, wet clothes back on.
While they dried, he gave me one of his velour Hawaiian shirts to wear. It hung on me like a muumuu.
A few minutes later, he handed my clothes back warm and dry.
……
Vol State is full of stories like this.
People open their homes, share what they have, and ask for nothing in return.
Looking back, I don’t remember every mile between those stops.
I remember the people.
The cots.
The hot dogs.
The honks of the cars as they drove by.
The borrowed Hawaiian shirt.
Those moments of kindness kept me moving just as much as the food, the water, or the sleep ever could.
…..
I packed up my gear, thanked my road angel one last time, and headed back into the night toward Lewisburg.
Another twenty-six miles stood between me and the Lewisburg fire station. Another early-morning call with Shiloh carried me through them.
Mistaken for Homeless... Again
By the end of night 3 my goal was simple.
Reach 200 miles.
I pulled into a gas station in Lewisburg and sat down on the curb. I was eating, fixing my feet, and trying to get myself mentally ready for the long stretch ahead.
Then an older gentleman pulled up beside me in his pickup truck.
“Do you have a home?” he asked.
Before I could answer, he reached out and handed me a wad of cash.
“No,” I said quickly. “I’m okay.“
He looked confused.
“I’m from Canada,” I explained. “I’m running a race across Tennessee. I started on Thursday.” Today was Sunday. I think.
He just stared at me.
There was a long pause.
Looking back, I probably should have just taken the money.
The real story was much harder to believe.
If he’d offered me a sandwich or a cold drink instead, I probably would have accepted without hesitation.
After 200 miles, I suppose looking homeless isn’t entirely unreasonable.
The Spark
Sitting in Lewisburg, I knew I had a long haul ahead.
Shelbyville felt a long way away. I wasn’t even sure I’d make it to Wartrace or the Bailey House before check-in.
For once, though, the weather was on my side.
Clouds.
A breeze.
After days of heat, it felt like a gift.
I looked at my watch and set it to four minutes running and two minutes walking
Then I moved.
Run.
Walk.
Repeat.
I stopped thinking about Shelbyville and focused on the next kilometre. The next road angel. The next little gas station. Before long, the miles started taking care of themselves.
…..
Somewhere between Lewisburg and Shelbyville, Carl drove past in the race van.
He pulled into a driveway and held up his phone.
Thankfully, he caught me during a run interval.
I was feeling strong.
Happy, even.
We chatted briefly before he carried on. I figured he was busy shuttling runners who had decided their race was over.
Later, I found out he had posted the video online with the caption:
“Front runners are front runners because they never stop!”
Yup…
That was me.
Later, I learned that Laz had been following the battle for second place. I hadn’t even known there was one.
I was finally racing the course the way I had intended from the very beginning.
Move.
One interval.
One kilometre.
One town at a time.
I reached the Bailey House right on schedule. After a two-hour rest, I headed back into the night toward Manchester.
Thirty-eight miles.
More importantly, it felt like I had finally found my rhythm.
The Second Darkest Miles
The previous day’s effort caught up with me.
Leaving the Bailey House, it was already dark.
The shoulder had all but disappeared. Cars flew past just inches away, and the dogs were back.
I walked. Most of it.
When I finally reached the open highway again, the desire to run was gone.
So I did the only thing left to do.
Walk. Walk fast. Keep moving.
…..
Somewhere before Manchester, Adam caught up to me.
He seemed surprised to see me.
As we walked, he talked excitedly about the hotel he’d booked. He planned to sleep until 6 a.m., then make one final push for a sub-five-day finish.
After a while he pulled away.
I kept walking.
I felt disgusting.
Sweaty.
Grimy.
Everything hurt.
I had planned to push all the way to Bobby Brown’s angel tent.
Instead, I admitted I needed a reset.
I found a hotel.
Not for the night. Just for an hour.
Long enough to shower, rinse out my clothes, reorganize my pack, and steal twenty minutes of terrible sleep.
It wasn’t much. But it was enough. Enough to get moving again.
…..
I headed back into the darkness toward Hillsboro.
Somewhere in the early morning I called Tara again.
Like so many times before, she helped carry me through the final miles until my next stop.
Twenty-six miles that night.
It felt like another disappointing night.
I was learning that sometimes the hardest part wasn’t moving forward.
It was starting again.
The Fire
Around 4:30 that morning, I sent Jamie a voice message.
I had a rough night. I was trying to pull myself out of it and make up for lost time. If everything went perfectly, maybe I could still salvage a four-and-a-half-day finish.
It would be close.
“My phone’s on,” I said. “If you want to kick my lazy ass.“
The truth was, I didn’t need sympathy. I needed someone to remind me why I was there.
I knew I wasn’t going to get pity from Jamie.
About thirty minutes later, his reply came through.
This is the hard part.
Those first reps in the gym don’t really do anything. They just get you to the point where the real work starts.
You’re there now. You’re doing it. You’re tough.
I don’t want you giving up.
Stay strong. Keep putting one foot in front of the other and keep moving as fast as you can. That’s the only thing you should expect from yourself.
Unless you die along the way… in which case I might forgive you.
Go back and think about it. This is what you asked for.
This is the stuff that makes the whole race worth it.
If it was easy, you wouldn’t even want to do it.
He was right.
This was exactly what I’d signed up for.
Not the easy miles. These ones.
The ones where every step feels like a choice.
I thought about my future self.
The woman standing at the finish line.
The woman waking up the next morning.
The one a month from now.
A year from now.
I wanted her to be proud of the effort.
…..
A little while later I reached Bobby Brown’s.
I’d been watching for his Jeep all morning.
Not even a kilometre after leaving his tent, I saw it flying toward me before it turned into a driveway.
When I finally saw Bobby, the tears came again.
“I’ve been looking forward to this all night,” I told him.
I needed that oasis more than I realized.
Another road angel.
Another person who waits all year for Vol State so they can help complete strangers chase impossible goals.
…..
After a short rest, I started the forty-five-minute climb to Monteagle.
My feet were trashed.
At the top I found a picnic table, took off my shoes, elevated my feet, and called my husband one last time.
“I’m up the mountain,” I said. “I hurt so much.”
It took a while to get moving again.
Somewhere between Monteagle and Tracy City, though, something changed.
I stopped negotiating. Every time I wanted to slow down, I asked myself why.
Do I need food?
Do I need water?
Is this hill too steep to run?
If the answer was yes, I dealt with it.
If the answer was no…
I kept freaking running.
I wasn’t going to save anything. I was going to empty the tank.
Get to Kimball well before the 7:30 PM check-in.
Reach Castle Rock before sunset.
Whatever was left in me belonged on that road.
And for the first time all race, I stopped asking how much farther I had to go.
I simply ran.
The Finish
I reached Kimball around 5:30 p.m., regrouped in the hotel lobby, and called Sean.
He was surprised he hadn’t heard from me in so long.
“I’m in Kimball picking up the tracker,” I said, fighting back tears. “I’m almost done. I ran straight here. I’m exhausted.“
A few minutes later I texted Carl to let him know I was on my way to Castle Rock.
Moments later, Laz walked into the hotel lobby.
“I ran straight here,” I told him. Sobbing again. “I’ve been running since Monteagle this morning.“
After days alone with my thoughts, it was nice to talk to someone.
The sadistic race director disappeared.
He was simply a guy who loved watching ordinary people chase extraordinary goals.
He told me how well I was doing, especially over the last couple of days, then updated me on the runners farther back who were battling the weather.
Even then, his trademark sarcasm never left.
…..
There were only fourteen miles to go.
I had no idea how long the new route would take, but I knew one thing.
There was one last climb.
After the trek through Kimball and miles of country roads, I rounded the corner, saw the road pitch skyward, and settled into a power hike.
Oddly enough, I welcomed it.
My legs needed a break from running.
I reached the 7:30 PM check-in at the base of the mountain. Somehow, I was moving as strongly as I had during the opening hours of the race.
Then, one foot in front of the other. No stopping. I climbed the mountain.
At the top, only six miles remained.
I looked at my watch.
8:30 p.m.
If I kept moving, I’d finish almost two hours earlier than Sean expected.
So I did exactly what I’d been doing all week.
Run when I could.
Hike when I had to.
Then run again.
The sun had set. Cars rushed past one last time before I reached the gate at Castle Rock.
Then down the tree-lined road.
Past the white fences.
Through the soybean fields.
A few deer watched quietly from the darkness as I made my way toward the woods
That final stretch felt like it would never end.
Then I saw the tent.
The folding chairs.
The stop sign.
The rock.
I touched it.
Four days, fourteen hours, seventeen minutes, and twenty-nine seconds.
Then I hugged Sean.
“I did it” I sobbed “I gave it everything. There was nothing left.”
And that’s exactly what I wanted.
I ran the perfect race. I ran my race.
For years, I believed finishing strong came from better fitness.
Standing there, I realized I’d had the fitness all along.
What I had been missing was the willingness to keep pushing when every part of me wanted to stop.
The difference wasn’t in my legs. It was what I was finally willing to ask of myself.
When the race finally asked me who I was…
I had an answer
Part 3: Coming Home
Nothing prepared me for coming home.
The blisters healed. The swelling went down. My appetite returned.
But mentally, I wasn’t ready.
It took me days to open my emails. Days to reply to messages. Days to become a coach again.
I returned to the same life I had left behind only two weeks earlier. The same responsibilities. The same to-do lists. The same decisions waiting for me.
Yet something felt different.
For four and a half days, my world had been remarkably simple.
Move.
Eat.
Rest.
Repeat.
Every decision supported one goal: keep moving forward.
Back home, life became complicated again.
I kept thinking about the stretch between Lewisburg and Shelbyville. Nothing dramatic happened there. I simply stopped negotiating and started moving.
Vol State didn’t teach me how to run 314 miles. It reminded me that impossible goals are rarely solved all at once. They’re reached by making the next good decision.
Again.
And again.
And again.
I used to think races like Vol State were about endurance.
Now I think they’re about trust.
Trust that the next good decision is enough.
Trust that another step really does lead somewhere.
Trust that you don’t have to solve 314 miles all at once.
Just the next one.
That’s the lesson I hope I carry home the longest.
Epilogue
Here I am again.
Instead of settling back into everyday life, I find myself scrolling through the FKT website. Pulling out my Rideau Trail binder. Looking at maps. Looking for one more adventure.
Wondering if I can disappear for another five days.
I keep asking myself why.
Isn’t this enough?
Isn’t Vol State the mic drop? The perfect ending to my ultrarunning career?
Can’t I be satisfied directing races, coaching athletes, and helping others chase their goals?
Apparently not.
I still crave that feeling of moving from sunrise to sunrise with nothing to think about except the next town, the next gas station, or the next place to sleep.
Why does it have to be something epic?
Why can’t it just be a long run on a trail I’ve never seen before?
……
When I looked back at the history of Vol State, I had finished as the seventh-fastest woman overall, including crewed runners, the fourth-fastest woman in the Screwed division, and somewhere in the top fifty overall.
Years ago, this race felt impossibly big.
I never imagined my name would end up on that list.
And yet…
That’s not what I think about when I remember Vol State.
I remember a cot in a stranger’s carport.
A hot dog after a thunderstorm.
A velour Hawaiian shirt.
Tree frogs calling in the middle of the night.
A little Timex watch beeping every four minutes.
The next town.
The next gas station.
The next place to sleep.
I opened the lottery page.
I stared at it longer than I should have.
I knew exactly what would happen next.
Yes. My name is in the lottery again.
Eleven months is a long time.
Maybe my goals will change.
Maybe they won’t.
If I find myself standing on that ferry for a fourth time, maybe I’ll be chasing a faster finish.
Or maybe I’ll simply be chasing another sunrise.
Because somewhere on those Tennessee roads, between the next town and the next place to sleep, I found something I didn’t realize I’d been missing.
And every now and then…
I need to go looking for it again.
