JONESBORO, GA -- She bends over and lets her fingertips graze the tops of her shoes. She stretches her calf muscles against the side of an old building in downtown Jonesboro. This is about as much as Zoe Romano does to prepare for her run. Except it's not just any run.
With a colorful bandana wrapped around her head, her dark hair in a braid, Zoe said with a smile, "It should take about 7, 7 1/2 hours."
That's because Zoe will run 30 miles today.
She details her route. "I'm in Jonesboro, Georgia, and I'm going to finish up between Conyers and and Porterdale, Georgia today."
We should tell you Zoe ran 30 miles yesterday, the day before that she ran 30 miles, and the day before that and that and that, 30. Thirty miles a day since January, taking every 9th day off.
Her grand total so far? The little girl with pigtails in the front row ventures a guess. "2,060?" Zoe smiles and delivers the real answer. "I ran 2600."
Inside the Warren Holyfield Boys and Girls Club in Atlanta Zoe is face to face with her reason for making this solo trek across America. She tells the crowd of about 50 children seated on bleachers, "In january I flew all the way out to California and I dipped my feet in the ocean and then I started running east."
Two years out of college Zoe is running alone across the country to raise money for The Boys and Girls Club of America.
"It gives kids a place to go and just be kids."
Zoe doesn't know this from personal experience. She never went to the boys and girls club. But her father did. And it helped his life. So for this grateful well adjusted young woman, that was reason enough. She visits clubs along the way, but mostly she's alone, just a woman and her 70 pound stroller.
Grinning she says, "No there's no baby on board." The stroller is her lifeline, packed neatly with camping gear, food, clothes, extra shoes.
"It's really painful to push a 70 pound stroller through the grass."
A GPS sends hourly messages to her mom and dad, and they let authorities know Zoe is coming. "They send out faxes every morning to all the sheriff's departments and the police departments that I run through. This morning they sent out 13."
In five months she's run through amazing parts of our country, has met wonderful host families, has listened to a lot of music, a lot of podcasts. Car Talk is one of her favorites.
She's run her way through seven pairs of shoes in extreme weather pulling more than a few muscles, dodging close calls with traffic, sleeping with pepper spray more than once, and now she's almost finished, 300 miles from Charleston. She plans to finish saturday May 7th.
"Sometimes I'm happy and excited but I get nostalgic."
And once in while, she even gets lonely.
"Cheese!" Zoe is sandwiched between her young audience, their tiny arms wrapped around her, posing for a photo. This is the cure for any snippets of loneliness.
In truth, Zoe says she has felt amazing, invincible 90 percent of the time. With each herculean mile, these are the faces she sees, money she raises will keep them coming to the club, to a place where they can meet people like Zoe Romano, who is showing them and us that the way to make your dream real is to do it.
Lifting out her arms to the children she says "Each and every one of you. You can do whatever you want. Whatever it is, take that first step."