Birthdays never really “done it” for me, even as a child. I suppose being so close after Christmas nearly a month before, my birthday always seemed rushed and chaotic. It always felt wrong receiving a gift “for being born”, especially as we just got gifts from Santa.
As I grew older and was out on my own, I did not want a big deal made of my birthdays. They come and go as quickly as the people saying “happy birthday” come and go.
Who really wants to get older after you hit twenty-one anyways?
For some odd reason when I was young, I just wanted to be twenty-one. I wasn’t really interested in the legal drinking age aspect of it, I guess I just wanted to have the “freedom” that I thought would come with turning twenty-one. Fun fact, my baseball number all through little league was “21” that’s how badly I wanted to be “grown”. Little did I realize that being grown comes with all kinds of things you never want, haha!
I’ve had birthdays also over the place. I turned 35 in a muddy power substation in Wiley, Texas. Until then all of my adult birthdays had been lame, or very uneventful. My buddy Leonard that I did line work with for many years saw to it that we celebrated.
Last year on my fourth-fifth birthday, I planned to do a 45k run, solo, on a 5k route I made up for myself. That route is now known to many as the TrailYeah 5k route. One lap in the Glen Sebastian trail and one loop around the swamp on the gravel track. A figure eight pattern where my wife and dog would be stationed, in case I needed anything.
I can remember as clearly as if it was yesterday coming out of the woods around mile twenty and Catherine asking me,
Catherine
Long story made short, I finished my 45k, and it was the first time I had ever run any distance over 13.1 miles. I felt alive, I felt proud, and with Catherine there I felt filled with love and gratitude. Sitting and watching a clown you married run loops around a park all day was probably a more daunting challenge than actually running the 45k. She is a trooper, a champion, and I am forever grateful for her.
Here we are a full year later and I throw out the idea of walking, with a pack on my back, a full 46 miles. I am not a guy that can contain things I’m excited about and I quickly told Catherine my plan. She was in! On board from the first mention of this wild idea.
She had reminded me of how bored I got on my run last year and promptly suggested mentioning it to friends. I smiled, and let out an exuberant “YES!”. How cool would it be for people to pop in and pop out as their schedules allowed! Catherine, you’re brilliant.
We both wear Garmin watches, as many runners, walkers, hikers, cyclists, and swimmers do in our community. Garmin has a “live tracking” feature that allows a selected group of people to see your exact whereabouts and other data like pace, heart rate, and cadence.
I built an event page on Facebook, throwing the idea out and I’ll be dang, people were in! Awe man, I was getting fired up! I was going to spend the day, “freely” roaming around the county an city of Mobile. The little kid in me loves this kind of stuff. I got busy building a route that would accommodate my lofty goal.
The plan was to start in our neighborhood as a family, and end in our neighborhood as a family. We did just that. We walked the first 3.3 miles, I kissed Catherine goodbye, and I was on my way. At mile 7 Bradly met me at Cottage Hill Park. He had come to walk before work. If you know Bradly you know he’s a ball of positivity and energy wrapped in a runners body. Meeting up with him meant I didn’t need a cup of coffee quite yet. He walked about 2 miles with me then went to work…
The next walker up to bat was big Dave. Dave is quite a guy. He has run some miles in his life, including a few trail ultras. Even trained for a race in his cul-de-sac, who does this?!? He’s no stranger to a long day on his feet. Dave caught up with me about mile 10.5 and walked with me until roughly mile 13.3. We talked about so much in that short time frame. I say short because he pushed my pace as we talked we even missed a turn. At the corner of McGregor and Old Shell, we split ways, and he continued his training run. He’s doing the MS50 mile race too.
My next stop was Carpe Diem where I met up with Emily and Crystal. This would also be my first stop for food. Carpe Diem has some lovely muffins and on this day, the apple pie muffin made the cut. That warm muffin and a small americano with 2 shots kept my hands warm while walking with these two ladies warmed my spirit.
As we walked through the campus of Spring Hill College, I mentioned that I just didn’t think I could feel more boojie. My pinky was definitely out! Haha!
Emily is a great friend and running buddy, she is always down to challenge you, push you, and never let you forget that she can run faster than me. We have a very fun back-and-forth competitive spirit. I like to think we push each other and keep each other honest and motivated.
Crystal is a new friend that I met through Catherine. They were in the Battleship 12k training together.
Crystal is, from what I can tell, the female version of me. So I’ll let you think what you want of that. She is super inspirational, she is down for trails all the time, and maybe a touch louder than me. Crystal has a very nice home gym and I enjoy it when we can get together for a workout.
On this day, she would end up walking about 16ish miles with me on 2 separate legs.
As Crystal and I made our way downtown, we were joined by Victor and Amanda. Amanda joined first and was killing it with a 30lb rucksack on.
Amanda is planning to section hike the AT at some point this year and I would love to join her in that adventure. One thing I loved about this walk is putting people together. Amanda and Crystal had never met, and they had a great conversation about all kinds of things.
Victor was out on one of his runs and decided to grace me with his presence. If you know Victor, you know he is always down to ride and support his friends. It was awesome to walk and talk with him for a couple of miles.
Amanda turned off somewhere around Blacklawn and went about her way. Victor hung out all the way down to broad st.
Crystal and I crossed broad and got on the new pedestrian path that basically wraps around the city. We were only alone for about a quarter of a mile when Mary Trufant came running up! Boy oh boy, Mary brought some energy and pushed the pace. We walk and talked about all kinds of fun things along the way.
We had been walking for about 2 miles when we met up with Lee. At this point, Mary asked me if I had eaten yet. I had only consumed the muffin at Mike 13 and was now close to or just over the 20-mile mark. Mary inspected my grab bag of snacks and instructed me to eat now. I just said “yes ma’am” and started filling my pie hole with bars, chips, and whatever else she gave me.
Lee had the reggae music for me. Lee is a good friend and seeing him come out to walk really warmed my soul. He’s an avid trail runner and a member of my Ragnar KY team for this May!
After I had eaten enough for Mary’s liking, I tore off my hoodie and under shirt, it had warmed up pretty nicely. The day was such a pretty Mobile January day. Wispy clouds painted a cobalt blue sky. The cool breeze was absolutely perfect in the warm sunshine.
We walked to the corner of Water St. and Church St. then turned right. We were met by the Zimlich crew. Micheal, Jenni, and Delaney wore their cowbell blaring and cheering like we were coming to the finish line. We hugged, and high 5’d.
Delaney was in her race chair and I knew I was in for it. She started off so gentle and nice, but then started pushing my pace. She giggled and laughed when I called her speed racer and asked her if she thought this was some kind of race. I ran a few feet at a time to keep up with her and realized we had dropped the field… I think that was her plan! We talked about Downton Abbey and chicken names. She gave me a 26.2 Mardi Gras necklace, and on the back wrote +19.8 to commemorate the day! It was such a sweet thing and I’ll have it always.
We took some pictures at the corner of Church and Washington, where we went our separate ways.
Walking up Government getting close to Ann St. I saw Catherine and Sunny again! I knew that Catherine was coming to pick Crystal up and take her home, but I was not expecting her to walk down to meet us.
We crossed the street at Ann and I hugged her happily, then said, let me have the boy. I walked Sunny back to the Starbucks there at Catherine St. he was typical Sunny, happy, alert, sniffing all the pee-mail.
Mile 24ish I finally sat down. In the van, changed my socks and shoes, and got a quick rub down from Catherine while I ate wherever Mary told me to eat. I honestly don’t even remember. It was a quick stop and I was back moving.
Catherine brought me all kinds of stuff, but the cinnamon roll from Reney’s Honey Butter was what I went with. Holy guacamole, y’all go get yourself one of them! They are a Friday-only thing I believe, and well worth the wait!
Walking on this day was such a treat for me. Yes, I was tired, yes it was hard, but yes it was also epic!
I walked a while solo, with Katie Miller popping in for a second to say happy birthday and cheer me along.
A little bit later Bradley rejoined the quest. He came back on where I hoped I’d be solo as it was the absolute most sketchy part of the entire walk. I was glad to have that energy again! A quick pop into McDonald’s for some fries and a coke and we were underway again.
Crossing the interstate on Airport by foot is something I think everyone should do at one point in their life. You take for granted how easy it is to be in a vehicle, and how little you’re paying attention to your surroundings. That being said, we made it over to the bike path at Walk-On’s unscathed.
Crossing Cottage Hill Rd. where I crossed was borderline sketchy but I was solo so I didn’t mind it. I always get more nervous when people are with me while I do sketchy stuff. I know how to do dangerous things safely, but that’s not a skill everyone possesses. Some people get nervous and second-guess things at the wrong time. Just think about all the squirrels you’ve seen that couldn’t make a decision, it typically doesn’t work out too well for them.
I got on my way, on a dirt path right of way that not many people know about when I hear a car horn blowing at me. I stop and turn to see just what in the world is going on, Stephanie Gillis, that’s what’s going on! After a quick photo opp and a hug, she says, “I’ll see ya about 4 pm” I think it was somewhere around 1:30 pm. I had just hit mile 30.
For the next good while I would be solo Steve. Just me and the audiobook “Ultra Marathon Man” by Dean Karnazes. I highly recommend that book. It’s awesome!
I was walking and listening to my book when I got a FaceTime call from my friends Gretchen and Eric from out in Sunny California. Man, that was fun. We talked and laughed and made plans to buy a large piece of property where we could be the founders and governing body. I of course would be the garbage man. A profession I dreamed of when I was a kid.
Walking a long way is hard. It’s not at all fun, I can tell you this from real experience. But when you see a friend waiting up ahead of you, there’s no way in the world to describe that feeling. You forget how far you’ve come, and how far you’ve got to go, and you live in that moment.
I got chills and welled up with happiness when I saw Cristin Waite at the top of Girby Rd. at Knowlwood Dr.
We high 5’d so hard! And went up the road. She had brought her rucksack so we stopped at her car today to grab it. With the 26-pound pack on we took on one of the hilly sections of this walk. The problem with walking from west Mobile to downtown is the walk back to west Mobile is basically all uphill. We were headed to Hillcrest road. It got its name for a reason, it’s hilly all around there.
At the bottom of one of the climbs, we ran into a group of ladies from the run community. I’m going to try and name them all in no particular order, Nell, Maggie, Stephanie, Shea, Erica, Khanh, Adair, and Jean.
What a fantastic group of friends! I was so happy to have them join me. We walked and talked and I’m sorry to say, I don’t remember much of the conversation at this point. I was 38 or 39 miles in and was on autopilot.
We made our way up to Hillcrest, turning right and doing the “Holla at the Dolla” route up to the Carriage Hills subdivision. Who made this route I kept asking myself, only to answer myself with, “you did dummy”!
We had made it almost to Cottage Hill when my good friend Meredith met us for a second with her two sweet Golden’s. I gave them a treat and a bunch of loving, and we were on our way again.
The ladies hadn’t realized that I needed to cross Cottage Hill in a very busy section, in fact, they had a car waiting on them at the CVS on the corner of Sollie and Cottage hill.
We said our goodbyes and took another picture.
Stephanie accompanied me across the busy road and we walked for a while together before being joined by her husband Bill. Bill had parked up on Yorkhaven and ran to us using my route.
I’ll tell you this, if you need someone to keep your mind off the physical pain you’re in, call Bill. He is full of so much useless knowledge and random facts it amazes me. Dad jokes that go on for seemingly hours and never quite get to the punchline.
I was so happy to have the distraction at that time. I was hurting. I was nauseous and on the edge of being sick. Stephanie saved the day with her backpack full of snacks. We walked and enjoyed a beautiful sunset together.
Soon after the sun was setting I noticed yet another figure off in the distance. It was Crystal again! Back for more eh, I asked her. She felt inclined to see me to the finish line.
We made our way up to Yorkhaven, where Bill had stashed the car. We said our goodbyes and Crystal and I headed off in the darkness up that “last hill”.
Coming up to our house I saw my bride and my pup in the yard. Catherine had baked me a carrot cake and had me set up for a refueling pit stop. I couldn’t think about eating, my stomach was in knots and I was still on the verge of losing my cookies.
We set out on the last 2 miles of this thing. The same roads we walk and run weekly took on new life. The hills were hillier, the turns seemed further away than ever. Time was starting to stand still and not make any sense to me.
What makes things worse is a missed turn at mile 11.5 earlier in the day, which made my finish mileage a touch longer. Here we are, in the neighborhood, walking flipping loops to get this watch of mine to hit 46 miles.
Finally, it was over! I had walked 46 miles on my 46th birthday in just a touch over 14 hours!
What I’ll always remember is this, living in the moment, those moments when I’d come out of a solo section and see someone waiting for me was mesmerizing… it was a shock to my system and a huge boost of energy!!! My pace would quicken, and my steps would get lighter. Many asked to tote my bag for me, but they had already lifted my spirits so much, it wasn’t needed.
I learned that day that our community is a supportive and loving body. They will show up and show out at any time any place. I will never ever for as long as I live forget this birthday. It was so much fun.
I can’t wait to plan something for 47, because I know I will have people tag along. Thank you all for the calls, texts, and messages. Thank you for taking time out of your day to track me and send encouragement. Stephen Orso, thank you for knowing just what to say at just the right time! Paul Brouillette, thanks for stopping by for a birthday hug!
I know I am loved. And there is no greater feeling than that. Thank you for reading.
– Steve Taylor, Jr.
