Day 4- Floure to Mirepeisset

Today’s run was dedicated to Jimmy Matthews, my niece’s father, who was taken away too soon in summer 2018. At the age of 10 I had never heard the word swag but years later after I reflect, you were the first cat with swag I knew 🙏🏾

After the great hospitality of Fred and Claire (they were amazing hosts for us!), we were dropped off at our starting point just before 8am. Knowing that today’s finish would leave us with only two days remaining, helped bring some joy after clocking the first 128 kilometers or so. Another overnight rainfall allowed for some softer terrain to begin the trek which delighted us (we spent a lot of time on gravel yesterday which I’m sure played a role in us not feeling the greatest. Or maybe we are just running too damn long 🤷🏾‍♂️🤣) and we took full advantage. Ben’s prayers to Mother Nature paid off as she blessed us with cloud coverage for the majority of the run. She even gave us rain for about a kilometer which helped keep us cool (side note: Ben told me it wouldn’t rain until 2pm so I packed my rain jacket away smh thanks bruh, great advice). Our number one concern during this stretch was keeping an eye out for the lightning strikes that were expected.

In our four days of adventuring, today was the best overall run as we were able to find a groove on the paths. We even had a middle school boy playing his trumpet at one lock as boats passed through the canal. But the MVP’s of the day were the lock keepers stands selling water (but I was powered by cola. I think I had 3 on the run today) and snacks as needed. Also, the smaller towns who’s restaurants sat along the canal. I appreciated the French fries and coke at the 36k mark. Honorable mention MVP was the older gentleman who thought what we were doing was so epic that he decided to take a pic of us to save as a souvenir (definitely a highlight of today. Just a reminder that ordinary people are used to do extraordinary things).

Injury update: my little niggle in the knee went away (I think, inshallah) but my left Achilles got angry towards the end the run. Im over here feeling like Kevin Durant. Oh and I found two blisters, one on the pinkie toe (it popped itself) and there’s another on the right big toe. My man Ben has some knee pain with some  blisters as well. Our thinking is ‘we only have two more days, we can do it!’  We will be in need of pedicures and massages come Monday.

Special birthday shout out to he youngest Brown, my niece Tori ‘Butt Butt’ Brown as she turned three today. Uncle loves ya girl!  We got two more days, I guess we are doing epic shit 🤷🏾‍♂️🙏🏾