The summer hiatus is over, and the blogs are back. So much has happened over the last few months and suddenly the beginning of the run is less than a year away, where has this year gone, it literally feels like last month when I was back at the UK helping Spinal Research at the London marathon. I know that the remaining 6 months is going to fly by and before I know it i'll be standing at the Canadian Border in Maine, staring down the 4,200 mile journey. This blog is going to be a catch up on everything that has been going on in the summer break, the fun stuff will all start flowing again next week! So, what has happened over the last few months, well unsurprisingly quite a lot. One big thing is that the route has had to be changed slightly due to my original one being slightly over ambitious. When I first decided on my route I had pretty much just created a list of places that I wanted to vitis and drawn a line between them, but upon closer inspection it turned up that my bright ideas took me through some serious deserts in some of the hottest parts of the year. Not the brightest of ideas eh? So what has been changed exactly. Well the main bulk of the changes is after I leave Denver, I will be heading East through the beautiful Rocky mountains and heading to Salt Lake city, from here I will continue along route 95 (I-80) through the Salt flats of Utah all the way to the stunning Lake Tahoe. I will then make my way down the coast line and meet up with the original route in LA. I am very excited to pass through Lake Tahoe and the Rocky mountain range, although the route through Uta and Nevada has been a tricky one to decide on as many of the towns are close to 50 miles apart... [gallery ids="774,775"] Training is still on the slow side although this is mainly due to work being so full on during the summer season. I am getting out for 3 runs a week currently although I am hoping to have this up to 5 large training runs by the time the winter rolls in. For those of you who haven't been following my social media this summer (If not then go press those follow buttons!) then I have some awesome new sponsors who are generously helping support my cross country run. First up is Bioskin, an American based company who specialise in medical grade compression and have some of the comfiest gear I have worn, seriously, their calf sleeves are so comfy, I'm not sure what it is that makes them like that but it could be the fact that they are totally latex free. Next up is a company called Scrubba who make portable washing washing machines... well wash bags. It was one thing that I was unsure of how to manage on my run as I would probably not pass a laundrette for sometimes weeks at a time. My wash bag will be rocking up in the new year so I can update you more on that when I have had chance to wash some smelly winter gear! Finally, a company who many runners in the UK will have heard of, Scimitar. There are providing me with 10, YES 10, custom designed, personal event shirts to run in. I am so excited to see these, the design is almost finished and a few of you on Instagram have already had a sneak peek at it! Something which took me by surprise last month was having this blog be nominated for at the Running awards. For those of you who have been around for a while will know that back in April I had the awesome opportunity to accompany the guys from Spinal Research to the Running Awards where they picked up an award in the Favorite Small Category (Read about it here!). So once again, I have to ask you to spare a minute or two to go and drop a nomination for this blog (Corner To Corner USA) and for Spinal Research, it would mean so much to me and be amazing if we would both be shortlisted for an award on the night! This blog is up against another 70 which at the end of November will be whittled down to only 12, so it literally is every vote will count. [gallery ids="777,778,776"] There are a few other exciting things that have been developing over the summer "break", but they are really that exciting they deserve their own blog post. But as i promised at the start of this post that all the fun stuff will be starting up again next week. I have some amazing interviews with some unbelievably inspiring people, guest bloggers and some posts about how to stay motivated through the winter months. Until next monday!   Eric