The Elmira, New York leg of the Blue Planet Run was, for obvious reasons, the most sought after. Elmira is a friendly, home-y place with wide, old sidewalks and gracious wood-sided houses that open onto the street. The shallow silver Chemung River runs through town. The streets are lined with fragile, fleeting poppies and ancient, gnarled roses. People wave from lawn chairs in their front yards. Who wouldn't want to run through Elmira? Using powerful intellectual arguments, hypnotism, and occasionally, bribery, I wriggled my way into the prime Elmira slot.

My family doesn't actually live in Elmira. I grew up closer to Corning – about 15 miles down the road. I went to high school in Corning, Mom and Dad currently live in Big Flats, my sister taught at Elmira College. Until the last few years, I have been transient. This part of New York is as close as I get to a home town. Running here is a return to childhood, a return home.

My brother has always been a better runner than me. Years ago, he would pace me, pausing only to spit over his shoulder, forcing me to perform a crazy dance of saliva avoidance. He joined me for the Steege Hill to Pennsylvania Avenue leg bouncing with confidence. At 4:30 in the afternoon, the sun was already starting to sink behind the hills, but the roads were still radiating the day's heat. After a hand-off from Lansing, who warned both of us that the day was deceptively hot, Jay set off at a brisk pace asking “is this okay?” I wasn't about to disagree.

A reporter from the Corning paper trotted alongside Jay and me for the first quarter-mile of the run. Annoyingly, he kept firing questions to Jay about the run, like “How long have you been running?” and “How does it feel to run around the world?” Jay responded “about 2 minutes” and “I don't know. Ask her.” I love my brother. He has mastered the art of sarcasm. I am merely a pupil.

Dad commented later that my feet ticked off the miles like a metronome. Jay lasted eight miles before hopping on a bike. My sister picked up the slack for a mile and a half before she commandeered the bike and Jay jumped back in for the finish. Dad brought up the rear on his own bike and Mom met the entire crew at the 6:00 PM exchange point. Yeah, Team Chervenak!! Jay presented the baton to Sunila, smiled broadly for a photograph, and then lay on the ground in front of an automatic carwash.

After we convinced Jay that a carwash actively in use was not the best place to recover, the entire family adjourned to the house to celebrate with lemonade, raw vegetables, and homemade chocolate chip cookies into the not-so-wee hours. Team Chervenak rocks!