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Our 20th annual
Run for Freedom 2006

Updates From The Road

Day 1
Everyone arrived at
Chief Little Turtle Statue around 8:00 am We were waiting for Larry who had to drive up from Lexington KY and got stuck in traffic. Were we meet is right were the Licking river run's into the Ohio river there were a lot of animals this morning on the shore. Ducks and groundhogs competing for breadcrumbs a local was feeding them. We're here for Leonard Peltier and other Prisoners of Conscience but every time I get close to the river I cant help thinking about when we did the Ohio River Canoe Journey back in 1999 When Larry arrived we had our first morning circle of the run. Everyone spoke a little bit about why they came and why they are running. All of us talking about Leonard Peltier and the other prisoners of conscience. We have a short day today only forty miles. Our biggest obstacle today is to many cars and not enough runners. We are kind of stuck with the vehicles though because at the end of the run only four of us are coming back to Cincinnati. Sean will head back to Cleveland and Larry is heading over to Philadelphia. So today we will start of with Sean and Kid will drive Sean's car up to his stop point then Kid will start running from there Sean will run to his car and I will pick up Kid at the end of his run. Eventually we will have a sixth runner so we only have to do this today and tomorrow. Tonight we are spending the night at a childhood friend of mine Delza and his wife Cathy. Del and Cat for short, we have spent the last few years at their place for our first over night on the Run for Freedom. It's a great overnight and they stop at nothing to make sure we are comfortable and feed well. Thanks guys again from the crew and me. John (my Dad) and Larry decided that tomorrow being the longest day they would put in a few more miles before dinner and got in to camp around 5:30 stopping 11 miles into tomorrows day.

Day Two
We got up at 6:30 am and Cat had the coffee on and ready for us. Jon C. showed up around 7:15 and was ready to go. The rest of us were packing up and getting some breakfast. Jon C needed to get on the road he was only going to stay until he finished his miles then he has to go back home. So we took a pause and had morning circle, the game plan is Jon C is giving Kid a key to his car he will drive up to the start point and start running. Once the rest of us get on the road I will drop Kid off at Jon C.'s car and then Kid in Jon C.�s car and Sean in his and me in mine will caravan up to Jon C's stop point. Then Sean will start running from there and Kid will drive Sean's car up to Sean's stop point then Kid will run from there. Whew!!!

After we finished up at Del and Cat's we headed on down the road and caught up to Jon C. about four miles into his run. When Kid and me finished our run we took off to catch up to Larry and Dad. We knew we were all going to have to keep running today so we started relaying the cars. Dad and Larry would do their miles Kid and me will go up ahead and run ours then they will pull ahead of us and start over again and we will just keep going until we are finished. I am getting a little concerned about Sean though it's almost five and we haven' seen or herd from him yet. We were getting closer to the end of the day and Sean showed up. He took another 2 miles and so did Kid and we finished up with Kid putting in 22 miles today.

We got to camp and Dad went straight to work getting dinner ready. He really wants to take care of everyone through meals this trip. So even after putting in all those miles he is hard at it. I got a hold of Jon C. to make sure he got home okay then a quick call to Jon D to see were he's at. He was about 20 miles out his wife Angie is dropping him off so as of tomorrow we will officially be six for the rest of the trip no more juggling cars. When they arrived everyone had a lot of questions about his trip to Israel. Everyone was visiting and helping get things put up there are bear warnings in the park so no food can stay out tonight. So far the best part of this campground were the bats yes I said bats were there are bats there are no Mosquitoes!



Day 3
At circle this morning Kid told us about a staff that we brought for the run that was given to him on the
Sacred Run 2006. John Malloy gave him this staff to carry with him on the Sacred Run and then any other events that he went on this year. Like I said it is a healing staff so Kid explained to us that it doesn't need to stay in the front so he would like everyone that is running to take a turn with it. Today it will stay with Kid and me. John Malloy is part of a group from California who still do the 500 mile Sacred Run and that run has been happening for the last 30 years now. So Kid and me will carry the staff with us today and then when we all get together at the end of the day to make up the miles we'll pass it off to the other runners.

We all finally got to camp around seven and started getting camp set up. Tonight we are setting up the screen tent compliments of my Mom and Dad they bought it for the run figuring if it was raining we could at least stay dry during dinner. Everyone is tired and we all called it an early night.



Day 4
Everyone is pretty soar and stiff today Jon put in 25 miles yesterday just to give you an idea of how many miles we are putting in. I have been agonizing over the map to see if I can find us a shorter route. This is a good group we know why were here and everyone feels the same that no matter how hard it is out here its only one week of our lives. And that cant compare to being in prison for 29 years for a crime you didn't commit. I ma just trying to make it a little easier, Its not going to happen. The best I can do is if we can cover 72 miles a day every day for including today then on the last day we will only have to cover 40 miles. We're covering 74 today so we are good today, I will bring it up to the group tonight.

We got to camp and started to set up. No luck with the rain any more while we were setting up it started to come down. After we all got our tents set up then we all had to go into them with towels and dry them out before we put our bedrolls in. At dinner I talked to everyone about the game plan and they were all good with it. We also talked about how the hard ones are the ones we remember the most they just seem to have more meaning to them.

Day 5 Today we get wet and by the looks of it we are going to stay wet. It cleared up a little in the afternoon but the thing that we need dry the most seems to take the longest, Our Shoes!!! After the rain stopped though I was parked waiting for Kid and the butterflies just came out I mean a lot of them. When we caught up to dad and Larry after our run they were on their last leg with only another 5 miles to go and they wanted to take it. So we talked a little bit about getting a birthday cake for Sean today is his Birthday. So Kid and me are going up to find us a site for camping get everything set up and wait for everyone else to get there. When we arrived at the state park I found out that for 2 dollars more we could have what they are calling a walled tent. It was raining again and the park ranger said it wasn't going to stop tonight. The walled tent sleeps 6 and its dry! We went for it, when everyone got there it was eight or so, so dinner was late tonight. Dad out did himself though he wanted to do something special for Sean so he had make your own burritos Sean's favorite. We had a birthday cake and stayed dry while it was pouring rain. But it all turned out really nice.






Happy Birthday Sean!







Day 6
Three more days woke up not only dry but to the smell of fresh coffee, it's still raining so it looks like another wet day. I have messed up the mileage somewhere so we are going to have to go a little bit farther today. We had morning circle and talked about the route and about
Leonard Peltier Everyone feels that in our harts even though we do not have contact with him that he knows we are coming. Not much to talk about today to tired, we finished running around nine, finished dinner about ten thirty and went to bed.

Day 7
Today everyone is feeling pretty good no RAIN and we are excited about being this close. We decided we wanted to stay a little closer together today so were going to do shorter miles and just keep leapfrogging each other.

Kid was talking today about how messed up our news is today he said here you have six guy's running and walking almost 700 miles ranging in age from 39 to 64 and no one has even asked what we are doing. The reason I am mentioning this is because right after that we caught back up to Dad and Larry and they told us that a young man from the local collage stopped and asked them what they were doing? After they told him his response was, well can I run? Dad said now? And he was like yeah so he ended up covering four miles for us. Then he said that he would go back to the college and tell all his friends about us and then next year he would join us for the whole event. We do affect people, we do create change and peace.

It is sunny and beautiful today the wild flowers are just in full bloom It�s a great day to run, we ran until about five and we managed to get all the way to the turn off to the camp. That leaves us with 38 miles tomorrow no showers tonight but we are camped next to this beautiful stream Jon and Sean decided to take the plunge. At dinner we decided that in the morning Larry and Dad would go ahead to find the prison while the rest of us ran then they would come back and help us finish the rest of the miles.





Day 8
This is it and it's pouring rain we packed up ate what ever was left in the coolers had morning circle talked about the game plan for the day and off we went. When I got out to do my run the sun had come back and it was humid. I was the last runner out Dad and Larry found the prison and had come back to do their miles. I was running through Lewisburg the cops have been shadowing us all day and while I was running I kept thinking to myself as long as you have Leonard in this prison you all better get used to a bunch of us running through here every year. Looking off in the distance I saw what has become a familiar site Kid with his hands in the air clapping and giving me some support to finish up my run and today The Run. We finished with a closing circle a lot of thoughts and prayers. We all went to lunch together and that was it Sean heading for the North West, Larry heading for the South East and the rest of us heading back to Cincinnati.





Thanks Guy's





Thanks to everyone who kept us in their thoughts and prayers
PEACE