The Coast to Coast Challenge

Given I basically haven’t travelled in the past 20 years except to Saskatchewan, Vancouver, and Victoria, trying to organize and actually follow through with two trips to the US for something as frivolous as running was truly insane – and very much needed. I used to travel a lot. I backpacked around Britain and Ireland for two months after university, and then I moved back to Ireland for six months the following year. In university I travelled to Ottawa, Montreal, Quebec City, Windsor, Toronto, and other places for exchanges or disabled sporting events when I worked for sport groups. After university I travelled to Niagara to fly with Air Combat Canada, kayaked and sailed in Haida Gwaii, and drove down the Oregon Coast working as a travel writer.

Lately, though, I’ve found myself in a travel rut and that rut has been getting narrower and narrower. This whole 50 Crazy Things started with me on Pinterest (drinking red wine – never a good combination) seeing costumes for RunDisney. Less than a year later I was in Florida, where I had never been before, running with Amanda Cowell. In August I just decided I would run for a charity, and ended up registered in the Pixie Dust Challenge in California the following May. It still blows me away that I just stepped out of my travel rut.

I’m now a seasoned pro again with baggage, flights, and US and Canadian Customs handled. On that first trip to Florida, Amanda breezed through US customs while I looked like a babbling idiot. Of course, she had a hunky guy who was flirting with her and I had a woman who looked like she might have prison guard figure prominently on her resume. I noticed going to and coming from California my customs luck had changed and I had hunky guys in each direction. Perhaps that was because I wasn’t travelling with Amanda. Food for thought.

The Coast to Coast medal is a free option from RunDisney and I didn’t know what a big deal it was until I’d already registered for the Pixie Dust Challenge. To earn a Coast to Coast medal you need to do one RunDisney Half Marathon on each coast in the same calendar year. To earn the much coveted pink Coast to Coast you need to specifically run the Disney Princess Half Marathon and the Disney Tinkerbell Half Marathon in the same calendar year. Conveniently, I did just that. The regular Coast to Coast medal is blue. Maybe I need the set.

Why was this crazy?

I made myself leave the comfort of home, get out, move, do something unfamiliar. It’s been so long I forgot how to do it. I forgot how easy it was. And I remembered how hard it is. When you actually have a job and responsibilities it’s not always easy to just pick up and go somewhere, but for the most part, the rest of my world can adapt for a couple of days.

The Coast to Coast medal is more than a medal for running. To me it symbolizes travel that doesn’t really make sense – and that’s what makes it important.

Will I do it again?

Probably not the medal – but the travel…. ABSOLUTELY! There are places I want to go, places I want to take my mom. If I wait for the time to be right, it will probably never happen. The time is never right, and the time is always right.