Penultimate Day

[Scott Adams]

I must be honest. This morning was hard. I am not sure whether it was the knowing that I was only two days away from finishing or whether I truly hit some plateau. My arms seemed achy. My right leg forced me to grimace with each step because of an Achilles problem and a knee problem. Mentally, I was tired; I was unable to focus on anything but a long day of painful strikes for each step. This is not the way to get through a tough day. One cannot focus on the difficulties that one is facing by making each small stride the length of 46 miles. One cannot focus on their own difficulties to the point that one thinks only of themselves. One must balance their concentration and believe that with motion life will be different than the now. At points we should live the now/the present but if the now’s focused attention is only about one’s own misery then it will lead to self fulfilling misery. Hope is what is needed. Always! Even when we are so close we need hope that comes from many sources. Hope comes from our knowledge of the world that ”we have lived” when we were without toil. Hope comes from our own experience to work/fight/endure through similar times. Hope comes from those around us who care for us during our troubled times. And hope comes from what each may call by a different name, God, spiritual energy, life force that place which science seeks to name and understand but can only grasp at why the wind breath roams to and fro within living creatures and a living world.
Focus on hope, my friends, as we step to a new day where we name time by plateaus and mountains that we have climbed. But hope is beyond our naming for ourselves and our individual identity. A focus on hope is a belief in something greater within each of us, around us, and through you and me.
Tomorrow I reach a mountain by the sea but it is with you that I have hope that the next day will bring new life for all who suffer.
Manteo bound with 48 miles to go to reach 700 miles. Be with me at the door of a new day when I reach the end.

[Mary Donna]

It's Friday afternoon, about 5:30, and I think I heard a huge sigh of relief coming from the east. All of you are in my thoughts.

[Lara B]

Keep on running! You're almost there! WAY TO GO!!!

[Amanda Zuniga]

You are truly amazing Scott. Congratulations. All of your hard work and dedication is paying off and it is a wonderful achievement - for yourself and for the gift you have given others.

[Sharon]

Scott, you can do it! We are with you in spirit cheering you on to the finish! Godspeed!

[Stephanie Peterson]

Good luck, Scott! Congratulations on an amazing feat.

[David Ranson]

Now your getting spiritual.....I love hope! its my favorite theological virtue. I knew you were thinking while you were running