In a few hours I will be boarding a United flight from Nagoya to San Francisco with the rest of Team Orange. We are the first team to fly back to the US, since Brynn and I are the locals in SF and will be running the first shift there from noon-7:30pm tomorrow. We finished our last run here in Japan this morning at 3am and despite our newfound love of Japan’s spectacular countryside, overly friendly and helpful people, and delicious food, we’re pretty exhausted from the relentless running schedule we’ve kept for the past five days and lack of sleep. We’re definitely ready for a good sleep on the plane.

As we spend our final hours in Asia, I’m filled with mixed emotions. I’m partly flooded with nostalgia, already looking back and reminiscing fondly on the first 60 days of the Blue Planet Run, which will clearly stand out as the most exotic of our journey. At the same time, I’m already starting to feel the rush of excitement and anticipation of returning back to the US, which is where we can really start to make more headway on our fundraising goals. Now that we have made our way across Europe and Asia, we’re really hoping to get the media’s attention back in the US. It will also make a huge difference just to be able to speak the same language. I also can’t wait to have an In-N-Out burger!

A few journalists, friends, and other people we’ve run into have recently been asking us about whether we feel we’re achieving our goals with the run. For me, the jury is still out. Raising awareness is important, but it will really only improve the lives of the 1.2 billion people that lack access to safe drinking water if concerned citizens force large-scale policy change in terms of funding water projects. More importantly for me, we need to raise a lot of money in this event to make it a success in my eyes, earning a solid return on the investment Dow has made in the project. The real fundraising effort will be put into high gear as soon as we arrive back in San Francisco tomorrow. On that note, if you haven’t already made a donation, I ask you to consider it. If you haven’t seen already, 100% of all donations go straight to safe drinking water projects (thanks to Dow) and approximately $30 provides safe drinking water to one person for life.

Water is life. Pass it on.