This comparison may not make sense for many, but despite my girth, I really enjoy long distance running, and there are many similarities between the way you tackle drag week, and the way you get through a marathon, or a 24 hour race.
It's important to stay in the moment, focus, and set small goals rather than get overwhelmed by the entirety of the task ahead of you. In Drag Week each instruction sheet for the drive includes two checkpoints where you must take pictures of your car to show you followed the route. these become a focus point on the drive, "Let's just get to the next checkpoint and we'll handle everything else from there" is a mantra that's used quite often! So Rachael and I pulled out of Arby's, and headed back onto I-65N intent upon finding a live bait shop roughly 70 miles up the road!
My phone rang almost as soon as I turned onto the ramp, it was Boone.
"We didn't buy gas earlier, and Dale wants to fill up too, so he can see where his mileage is. You guys go ahead, and let us know what you find up there!"
"Ok, Dale has a 5 gallon fuel jug with him right?"
"Yeah, so his plan is to run until the 5 gallon cell is empty, put the jug in the cell, then start figuring his next stop!"
"Might be slow going!"
"Probably, just let us know when you find the checkpoint."

By looking at the line by line instructions, with the mileage listed by each one, we were basically looking at a 44 mile detour off I-65 to get this picture. We jumped onto US-31W, and drove right past Fort Knox, it was probably quite a scenic little drive, for those who left at a decent hour! Rachael and I were just squinting at poorly lit businesses trying to read address numbers, to get our bearings. Once we arrived at Pepper Tackle, I called Boone, and they were about 15 miles behind us, so we decided to start chewing into the 107 miles to the next one!