In this 28‑day vlog entry, Glen Gould chronicles his Friday morning routine and thoughts on the final stretch before his first marathon in 15 years. He begins with an early delivery, then meets his friend Andy for breakfast at the Redneck Gourmet in downtown Noonan, noting the town’s revitalization, local officials, and a Valentine’s Day tribute. After breakfast he shops at Publix for a watermelon, then searches for running gear, first at a local store and later at larger retailers, buying sport‑flavored beans, new tights, shorts, and shirts for himself and his friend Grant. Glen reflects on how both the town and his own life have changed dramatically over the past 15 years, drawing parallels between the town’s transformation and his personal growth. He acknowledges impatience, the nervous excitement of the upcoming marathon (9 days away, with a 13‑mile warm‑up run planned), and the emotional significance of completing the race. The vlog ends with a resolve to enjoy the remaining days of preparation.
Chapters
Friday morning, uh, so about 6 o'clock and I'm on my way out to make a delivery to one of our clients. And I like to get up at the same time every morning, so I got up before 6 this morning just as if I was going to run. After I do my delivery, I'm gonna go out and have breakfast with a good friend of mine, Andy. And Andy always has great ideas for me. He just really kind of supercharges my brain, supercharges my month. When I get to have breakfast with him, it's a real opportunity and treat. Headed into downtown to have breakfast with my friend Andy. We've, uh, got a quiet little town here, but a beautiful downtown, and it's very vibrant. We're very fortunate. Gonna have breakfast over here at the Redneck Gourmet, a popular local place, and they're not quite open yet, I don't think. They'll open in about 3 or 4 minutes. We have these cool little art trucks all throughout the square and trains. Last year, a couple years ago, we had horses. You may see a horse way off in the distance there. But downtown Noonan does a great job of keeping it interesting and keeping people interested in coming downtown and shopping downtown and having businesses downtown. And there's the Redneck Gourmet. Favorite local place. Good morning, Andy. Morning, Glen. Wrapping up my breakfast with Andy. Had a great talk, some good ideas that he shared with me. The power hitters, all the power hitters in town have arrived at the Redneck Cafe, or Gourmet rather. They're all sitting around a big table in there, the sheriff and councilmen and things like that, uh, discussing what's going to happen in our town, I guess. But as for me, I'm going to get to work. Helped but notice something on the ground here. Oh, how— that's sad. So this is Valentine's Day and it's a brick out here on our square. I hope you, Dad— you and Dad are enjoying the day in heaven together. I think of both of you every day and hope you are praying for me until I can join you. Love. And it's like David or something like that. How touching. Still there. And then I guess Valentine's Day was last week. I really don't know what's wrong with folks. I held the elevator door, I helped set their button, asked them what floor, never said thank you. I really don't understand. It's not that hard to be nice. I'm over here at Publix trying to find out if we have a good watermelon or not. They've been kind enough to cut open one for me, and we'll test it out, see how it is, and see if it's, uh, if it's watermelon season. Let's see. It's close. It's good. I'll take it. Okay. That's the way you ought to do things. Take care of the customer. That's why I shop at Publix whenever I can, because they will go the extra mile. I don't have a real good reason why, but for some reason on days that I don't run in the morning, I just— I get tired in the afternoon. And I'm tired today, just kind of worn out. I'm hoping that's just, uh, the fact that I didn't get everything going this morning and it's just kind of been an easy day, but tired. Say again? I don't know what I was about to say. But I got a baguette! It's really unusual that I end up back in downtown Noonan twice in one day. And I didn't mention earlier today, but towns and people are very similar. They change quite a bit over time. Over here to the left is Caldwell Tanks, and they've done a lot of filming in that building for Hunger Games and for Walking Dead and stuff like that. And they've done a lot of filming on our downtown square as well. Which is, you know, 15 years ago it was basically empty. Alan Jackson wrote a country song that was a big hit called, you know, something about the little man, and it was about all the shops that were gone downtown. So in 15 years or so, everything fundamentally changed. And that's a town. Imagine how fast fundamentally you can change just changing yourself. I discovered I need some new running tights and probably some shorts for the race, and so we decided to come downtown. And try to patronize a local store, local running store. Cool. The baguette is calling Grantee's name. I'm a tasty baguette. Baguette tasty. I love baguettes. I'm hungry. Tasty baguette. Just to rip a piece and just put it in my mouth. Oh, you're gonna hurt me. Man, that's so awesome. Ouchie, you're gonna bite his Bard. I don't care what you say, that was just damn weird. Well, my little store downtown didn't have what I was looking for, so unfortunately we're gonna have to go to a big box retailer. Not that they're all bad, just the fact that I would like to support the local if I could. And, uh, we did buy some, some, uh, what do they call them, beans? What kind of beans? Um, sport beans. Sport beans. We bought sport beans. The guy behind the counter told us that he thought the Paraguayans were nasty, but they're the best sellers, so we decided we'd buy the Paraguayans. Yeah, and the pomegranate ones and the green apple ones. Juicy pear, right there. Juicy pear. There you go. We'll see which one's best. That company right there makes the ugliest vehicles on the planet. Mitsubishi, I think they try to make ugly vehicles. I'm not sure. I mean, look at that gas cap. What the hell is that all about? It's just, it's just an ugly vehicle. And the sad thing is, that's one of their better looking vehicles. Get a little spicy. I think it's because he has to go to a second store to go find his stuff. I didn't want to go in the first place. Lots of stuff in this store. Looks like it's all on Valentine's sale. If you give me another flat tire, I'm gonna be very irritated. Let's go find what we're looking for and get out of here. You wanted to see what we got, right? So we went to, we went to Dragonfly, but they didn't have a good selection. It's a small store, it's okay. And so we bought some beans because we felt guilty, and then we got over to, over to Dick's and I got my tight What? Wrong one. Where? How do you do this? You do this so easily. Grant got some new shorts just in case it's warm, okay, because I think it's going to be warm. And he got a shirt to go with it. Bam, bam, bam! You'll be able to see him in the crowd. And then I got my tights. Yay me! And I got a new shirt too. Bam! Is that what you will be wearing? Yeah, I think so. You're not gonna wear your race shirt? No, you don't get to wear that until you finish. Day 19, 28 days. It's 9 days until the marathon. It's Friday evening, it's a beautiful night, uh, very warm for February. It's probably in the mid-50s, gonna get down into the upper 40s tonight. So tomorrow's run, 13 miles, shouldn't be too unpleasant. As a matter of fact, it'll be a good warm-up for us because we have been running in such cold weather, and it's gonna be a little bit warmer down in New Orleans next week when we run the marathon. Today was an interesting day. I started out very early and had breakfast with a friend and was able to get some good information, some good ideas. I always get great stuff from Andy Miller when I, when I meet with him, and so that was just really good for me. And it also gave me an opportunity to just kind of reflect today and realize As I mentioned in the video earlier, that things change over a long period of time, and yet it seems like it happened all of a sudden. All of a sudden, in just a couple of days, I'm gonna be running that marathon, first one in 15 years. And just like downtown Noonan 15 years ago, it was a much different place. I was a much different person 15 years ago, and I'm striving my best to get back to that person. Grant's gonna run his first marathon in 9 days, and I know from experience there's just nothing that could prepare him for the way he's gonna feel when he crosses the finish line and puts on that medal. It fundamentally changes you forever. So today was a good day to just kind of realize that I got a little bit of impatience. Gonna have to work on that a little bit. But also I've learned from it and I've learned from the whole time of this journey to get to this week. And I'm very, very nervous. I'm ready for it to be over, but I'm not gonna waste any time, uh, or lose any of the time, uh, on the journey. I'm going to enjoy every moment of it. So 9 days to go. This is it for day 19 of 28 days, and we'll see you tomorrow after a 13-mile run, or maybe just before it.
