The early morning started out with a nice episode. I left the hotel at around 1 am and walked over to a nearby gas station. Only a booth was open, but the store was closed for the night. After talking to the attendant who turned out to be from India, he opened the store for me so I was able to get some supplies for the shift. I returned to the hotel, picked up a T-shirt and one of our world maps and brought it back to him in return. He was very thankful for our effort, wished me all the best for the rest of our journey and promised to visit the web site after finishing his shift at 5 am. Scenes like this happened all over in many places during our trip. Very often we met people who got excited after learning more about our endeavor, and many times we asked ourselves why so few people - especially back here in the US - knew about our journey.

Another nice scene happened just a few hours later. That morning, I was scheduled to run across the George Washington Bridge from New Jersey into New York City. The bridge is closed overnight to pedestrians and reopens at 6 pm. With some time to spare we stopped at a nearby diner where we met a curious local, John Kang. He initially wondered why a bunch of “athletic” looking folks would show up at the diner at this early hour. He quickly dismissed the “dancer” option (after all it’s almost NYC here) after noticing Laurel and Virginia, and was rather amazed to hear about our mission. On the spot, he bought breakfast for everybody, and later he even accompanied the team walking across the bridge into NYC.

In the mean time, however, I made my own entry into New York City that morning. The run across the magnificent bridge in the early morning light was definitely my personal highlight for the day. Reality set in rather quickly when I entered Harlem on the other side. Obviously, I am not a big city boy – and the early morning scenery in the streets of the Bronx was not a pleasant one. Huge amounts of garbage (in bags and otherwise) was lining the sidewalks. In some places, garbage bags were ripped open and the content spread out all over the sidewalk with little room to pass. I run by a dead cat, minutes later I noticed two huge rats feeding off the content of a torn open garbage bag just a few feet away. The route through the Bronx was pretty difficult to follow with lots of overpasses and large bridges to cross. Some of the covered overpasses and walkways held some rather unpleasant surprises for the unexpected, and a few times I almost stepped on a local resident still asleep at this hour. Thankfully, Phil was accompanying me on a bicycle since I had no intentions of getting lost in this part of New York. Things got better after a while though, and eventually I ran past Yankee stadium and continued crisscrossing through the Bronx. I finally crossed another huge bridge into Queens, and finally arrived at the next exchange point. At the end I had run for almost a whole 1 ½ hours – a pretty worthy entrance into NYC and one of my longest city runs on the trip.

And then the last day had arrived. We run the last whole 40 mi shift of the trip starting in Long Island and finishing in Queens. Paul and I opted to replace our usual Gatorade with a bottle of beer on our last full ten mile shift which made it quite memorable. At the end all of us, including Jason and David joined together for the last one half mile to the final exchange point. Emmanuel, accompanied by guest runners Charles Anderson and Kim Richmond then took the run back to the United Nations, and Mary carried the baton for the last 3 ½ miles to the official finish line at Seaport on Pier 17. Most of us runners ran the last section from the United Nations together with Mary, some joining in later for the last mile. The location was great and quite a few people were welcoming us at the finish line. The finishing ceremony was nice, although we were pretty worn out by then from the final two days… The afternoon passed quickly with a photo shoot for Runners World and a dinner reception with Dow. Later in the evening we moved on to a get-together with friends and families, where lots of speeches and presentations were given. One item to look for later this year is the upcoming book of Blue Planet Run and the global water crisis with a whole chapter on the run itself. And finally we had some time to celebrate together for just a few more hours.

The last morning in New York City was a mixed one: Happy to have finished the run, but sad to leave each other after being together on the road for such along time. We (Laurel, Rudy, Paul, David, Virginia and I) met one more time to have breakfast next door, the same place where we all had our first meal together more than three months ago. And then it was time for an emotional final good bye. Yesterday, when Rudy was asked for a final word he said: “…when you spent 95 days with some people in a van without ever having an argument, you know you have found friends for life.” There is very little I can add to this and I really don’t have any big words to say on what the future may hold for us. I sincerely hope that we all will be able to get back together when the time is right, maybe in a place where our effort has helped to make a difference in peoples lives. I do regret that there was not more time to get to know the other members of our team a bit more. I am thankful to Dow for making this journey of a life time possible for all of us, and to Dill and his crew for their passion to get us around the world safely. Most of all, however, I am grateful to the Yellow Team, Laurel, Rudy, Paul and David for their
compassion and for their friendship.