The past couple of days were filled with a lot of (virtually) running along highways and seeing a lot of farms and bait shops. Today I (virtually) stopped a few miles out from Winchester. There is a popular boating and fishing destination near by called Tims Ford Lake. Winchester has also been the home of four of Tennessee’s governors.
There isn’t much (virtually) going on in rural Tennessee the past few days. Just getting some miles in and getting a couple (virtually) rests in. I (virtually) passed through Fayetteville today though. They have this cool Old Stone Bridge that I found out later was built starting in 1860 and complete in 1862 for $40k. I carried on a bit longer after Fayetteville. Today the route (virtually) took me away from the highway, which is a nice change. It’ll be quieter at my (virtual) home for the day.
I haven’t (virtually) checked in for a couple of days due to (virtually) having no signal. Since then I have run 29 miles and during that time I (virtually) ran through Pulaski, which happens to be notable as the birthplace of the KKK. But also the home of the Rusty Spur Steakhouse. After Pulaski, I continued until ending my journey of today at the Hidden Valley Tavern.
Today I (virtually) continued my journey across rural Tennessee. I ran through a smaller town of Deerfield before making it to the north side of Lawrenceburg ending my (virtual) run at an unassuming highway/county road intersection next to this amazing billboard.
Since the beginning of the Quarantine, I have not been able to get out to the trails as much. Whether it is the fact that I am a teaching assistant for my kids or the overcrowding of the trails due to nothing else safe (which of course made the trails unsafe) or anything open to go to, I have had to take most of my runs back to the streets from whence I came.
I was left looking for ways to make running on the road more interesting. I have a ton of regular routes that I ran before being nearly trail exclusive, and it was a great change for a couple of days to run those again. But it didn’t hold my interest for long and I was still looking for something else.
One thing that I had considered in the past was running every street in my town. I knew of a website to help me do it called CityStrides. It basically works by importing your GPS workouts from Strava, Garmin, or MapMyRun. It then combines all that data and compares it against a set of nodes representing all the streets within the city limits of any given town or city. The output is a map with all the routes you’ve taken and a list of the streets you’ve completed, the streets you have left, and a percentage complete.
My map of Kirkwood looks like this:
When I decided to start this project I had already completed close to 30% of Kirkwood simply from running around here for so long without even trying to run every street. But when I started to run every street in every neighborhood and every cul-de-sac, it honestly felt a little weird. I had one person, who was just going out for a walk, question where I was going when the only thing at the end of the dead end street was her house. I simply explained my weird project to her and she seemed to justifiably think that I was just another weirdo runner.
Once I got into my groove though, I had a system of systematically tackling neighborhood after neighborhood, little by little. There were a couple of roads that were private drives that I marked as manually complete since I was not interested in being were I wasn’t supposed to be and did not care to get arrested for the privilege. There were also streets that I would not have had to run because the nodes were marked as complete with a cross street run, but I wanted to make sure I ran down every one.
These past few days of it were filled with various odds and ends that I missed the first time around. It was a lot of distance with smaller increments of progress toward my goal. However, today I finally made it. 100 percent of Kirkwood run. It feels good. It’s ultimately meaningless in the grand scheme of things, but at least now I get to honestly say, “I ran every street in Kirkwood.”
There wasn’t a whole lot to see along today’s (virtual) route. The most notable thing that I (virtually) came across was a combo of a cemetery, church, and volunteer fire station. There seem to be a strong prevalence of churches and cemeteries in rural Tennessee. I suppose it makes sense that where you’d find more of one you’d find more of the other.
Today I (virtually) ran through Waynesboro! It has a pretty interesting courthouse and for visitors it seems there is just about anything you could want to do so long as what you want to do is ride a horse. I (virtually) made it to the east side of Waynesboro to finish off the day following Old Hwy 64. I’ll be (virtually) spending the night among some nice little country houses.
Today I (virtually) started out at the creek I (virtually) fell asleep in yesterday. I didn’t pass through any towns, but there were rolling hills and a couple of unincorporated farm communities that were composed of churches and cemeteries. It was (virtually) very scenic!
I (virtually) started out my day from the Savannah Moose Lodge. I ran about six miles and decided to (virtually) rest at a small wooded area with a creek running through it to hydrate. I’ll put in a few more miles before the day is out.
Today I (virtually) ran through the neighboring towns of Adamsville and Crump. Adamsville is also known as the “Biggest Little Town in Tennessee”. These two towns are also the home of Dewey Phillips who was the first rock ‘n’ roll DJ to play Elvis Presley on the air. Bordering the east side of Crump is the Tennessee River. I (virtually) ran across the river right past the Tennessee River Museum and ended my day on the east end of Savannah.
