Let the Dan Wright Greenway Tour begin

In March I told you about my friend Dan Wright who is dying from Lou Gehrig ’s Disease. The City of Roanoke, along with Dan’s friends and neighbors dedicated the Murray Run Greenway near Patrick Henry High School to Dan for his years of dedication to the Valley’s greenway projects.

As Dan sat there in his wheelchair, taking in all the well wishes it seemed so sad that there is nothing medical science can do about his disease. Feeling helpless, it occurred to me that there was something I could do --not about the disease, but to help further a cause that meant so much to Dan.

I told him that I would run every mile of Greenway in the Valley in his honor and that I would write about it here, using the experience to help educate the public on what’s available and showing that the greenway movement is alive and in fact, expanding.

But, then came some bad weather, followed by the events at Virginia Tech. Various other of life’s complexities came along, and all of a sudden it’s summer and my promise was unfulfilled. I am pleased to report that is no longer the case.

Among the complexities came an invitation from an acquaintance to join him and another guy in a 24 hour “adventure” race. Essentially the three of us would work as a team traveling together on foot, bicycle and canoe using a map and a compass for about 75 miles. We would compete against other teams trying to complete the course in less than 24 hours.

I agreed to join what is now known as “Team Gearhead" made up of Troy Lenderking, Robert Lichtenstein and yours truly. Immediately however, I began to worry about my promise to Dan. So here’s what I’m doing.

The Gearheads have agreed to help me cover the greenways as we train for the July 21st competition. (It is sponsored by Odyssey Adventure Racing based in Salem. To read more about the event, click here.)

With some time off on the 4th of July, we covered a bunch of greenway. We started on our bikes on the brand new spur that parallels Bennington Street along the Roanoke River. Eventually this section of greenway will go all the way to the area around Carilion Roanoke Memorial Hospital where it will join the existing pathway near the River’s Edge Sports complex. (The old Victory Stadium area).

For today we were happy to ride the two miles that are open. We rode to the trailhead for the Star Trail which is just across Riverland Road. There we locked the bikes and trekked to the top of Mill Mountain. We had hoped to run up the mountain, but this proved difficult with 20 lb packs.

Once atop the mountain we jogged down the “old” road (past the mansion) a ways and connected with another trail that eventually looped uphill and emptied out near Mill Mountain Zoo. From there we ran down the Star Trail, back to the bikes, onto the greenway and to the car.

It was nice today to see lots of people using all of the trails we visited; lots of families biking on the new section along the river; birders, hikers and families on the Star Trail. It’s the kind of activity Roanoke keeps talking about attracting. It looks like it’s beginning to work.

Troy’s GPS unit said we traveled about 6 miles by foot and 4 or so on the bikes. My stopwatch indicates we were moving steadily for 2 hours and 10 minutes. I was bushed.

We have already run numerous times on the Smith/Wasena Park greenways. Including today’s activities I can say that I have run or biked about half the roughly 20 miles the valley has to offer.

As I promised Dan, I with the help of the Gearheads, will continue to traverse the greenway system and report back to you on its current state.

With any luck we’ll cover all 20 miles -- and we might just survive our little jaunt on July 21.