What can you do in 24 hours? How about run 5 trails in 4 different states? That’s what I did this past Friday with my running group, MooreOn Running. Now you might be wondering why we would call ourselves morons. My running coach created the group as a play on words of his last name, Moore. So for us, being called a MooreOn is an honor. And all our runs would make people look at us and really think we are indeed morons.

My coach loves adventures and is always planning crazy runs at various times in various locations. He’s had the group do a relay all night across Charleston County and then last year had them run trails throughout South Carolina. This year, he decided to go even bigger. This adventure was to start at 4 am and have us run in South Carolina, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Georgia all in one day.

My mom and I woke up at 3:45 am on Friday morning. At 4:30 am we were meeting up with our group under the Ravenel Bridge to get everyone and their stuff into their cars. My mom and I shared our car with three other women and spent the two hour drive to our first trail laughing and stopping at a sketchy gas station for coffee.

The first trail was at Congaree National Park in Hopkins, SC from 6:30 am to 7:30 am. We had around an hour at each trail to run as much as we could. As my coach said before we left, “Don’t take this too seriously.” It wasn’t a race or a competition, just a bunch of people having fun. The first trail was all on a boardwalk, which was very nice. It wasn’t dark anymore, but it wasn’t quite daylight yet, but enough light that we didn’t need our headlamps. The adventure truly began there when we were running and a runner noticed a wild boar walking around in the forest!

After running that trail, we got in the car and drove 3 hours to our next trail in Pisgah Forest, North Carolina. On the drive there, we passed by the forest where they filmed the arena in the Hunger Games. The trail we ran (North Slope Trailhead) was actually where they filmed parts of the forest in District 12, which was pretty cool to be running there.

We had lunch in North Carolina at a place called Hawg Wild BBQ. I was a little worried about going to a random barbeque place in a random place in North Carolina, but it ended up being very good. We all relaxed from running and enjoyed sharing our adventures and refueling.

In between Tennessee and North Carolina, we had all decided to stop as a group at a rest area. Since the majority of the people on the trip were women, we were all going into the same bathroom. We were laughing since the stall doors were very short. We were taking a bunch of pictures of people’s heads sticking out. Suddenly, my coach’s wife just stared at my mom and me and said “It’s a boy!” She had done blood work to find out her baby’s gender and knew she would be finding out soon. She had received the message on her phone and couldn’t contain her excitement. We all trailed behind her to find her husband, my coach. They both were hugging each other and crying. It was a happy moment that was wonderfully shared with our running community.

Next, we were on the road for another 2 hours and 15 minutes to Gatlinburg, Tennessee to run the Alum Cave Trail in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. This trail was by far my favorite of the trip. We didn’t really run this one because of the massive number of rocks and roots on the path. But the views were beautiful. All along the trail was a river and min waterfalls. We had to cross over thin log bridges and go through a cave.

The next place we went to was Georgia. This was a 2 hour drive to Black Rock Mountain State Park in Mountain City. By the time we arrived at the trail, it was dark so we had to use our headlamps. This trail was literally climbing up a mountain. Going up was very hard and steep, but it was worth it for the top. At the top was a giant rock that we all stood on. It was overlooking a gorgeous view of the mountains and a town. It was cool because all you could see of the town was the lights because we were so high up and looking down on it.

Then we had our longest drive of the trip: 5 hours and 45 minutes back to our last trail, Peyton’s Patriots Point Trail in Mount Pleasant. We were running a bit behind schedule since we took many breaks along the way like coffee at Dunkin’ Donuts and dinner at Chick-fil-a. By the time we arrived at Peyton’s Trail, it was close to 2 am. This trail is a very special one to all of us and one we often run for group runs. It is a trail that my coach’s son Peyton discovered and enjoyed going. So we saved it as our final ending trail and ran it in his memory. It was definitely a little creepy running in the woods when it’s completely dark and you see a bunch of sparkles reflecting off the ground that are actually spiders’ eyes. By the time we got home, we had been out for a total of 24 hours and I had run approximately 10 miles.

This trip was definitely worth missing a day of school to explore so many cool trails and spend the day with so many awesome and amazing people. I am so thankful to have had the opportunity to go and so glad I have a wonderful coach who organizes crazy runs like this.