World Run II / Reports

The map shows the position of which the pictures for the day are taken (if any). The start and finish markers are placed at the first and last valid registered position. This is not nessesary the actual start and finish position, if GSM or GPS signals was not available.

Goto: 2009-09-13 2009-09-15 Africa

2009-09-14:

17
Distance today: 42.0 km (Accumulated: 16005.8 km)
Elapsed time: 04:32:14
Country: Africa

Start 09:04am. at white km-marker "Lindi 45km", on the main rd./B2 to Lindi and Mozambique. 23c, cloudy, humid and l. wind. Finish 14:51pm. At signboard "Tanzania Revenue Authority .., Lindi", at N. end of Lindi on the main rd. to Mozambique. 35c, clear and same.

Documentation..

A few words on documentation, how its done and why its Important :-)

- In case you wonder why there has to be the daily intro w. data on start time, finish time, 'stopwatch'/elapsed time (time excl. food, water etc. stops), details on start & finish location wich has to be geografically exact (not enough w. "a tree in.." or "at a village" etc.), Gps-tracking and uploading of the running (live, so the data cant be 'fabricated' or alterated), pictures of start & finish loc. wich must match the ones in the daily report; and not least company on the stages by fellow runners whenever people are willing(I know areas as the Sahara and East Africa isnt exactly the most attracting place to join but then the gps tracking & precise logbook then becomes the more important).

And why the many pictures on the daily gps coverage (each pic. is automaticly position coded).

It may seem overkill to log and collect all this data everyday ? :-)

But it has its reason..:

Expeditions back in history, and certainly also modern-day point to point extremerunning, has since the beginning had the problem that when venturing very far, and to very remote places - how do you actually prove that you reached there and went the distance ?
If no one else is with you; then there is basically not much to back it unless you have a clear methodical and scientific approach to how you document your progress !!

An example of this, and the consequenses when the documentation isnt done properly, is the century long controvercy on Cook and Peary's claim to reaching the N. Pole first:

Robert Cook choose in his hectic race vs. Peary towards the pole to let most documentation be left aside.
Maybe w. good reason (?) as it fairly quickly afterwards became evident to most of the scientists & experts that he had been several hundred km's awayfrom reaching his claim - so collecting position data etc. would have revealed an unpleasant result !

But also his 'rival', Peary, who for a century was accepted as the conqueror of the N. Pole lacked severely on proper documentation especially on the last critical streatch.

- That its not just academical or 'expedition trivial' but a still ungoing discussion when full documentation is left aside can be seen in an article from a few weeks back in NYC Times where they have a serious and well researched 'take' on who then reached the N. Pole and surprisingly enough it may be less than 20y. ago that it was actually reached proper' ! Adventure is not yet something far "done and gone" back in History. It still waits out there for those who has eye for it :-)

- Times article & discussion:
http://mobile.nytimes.com/blogs/tierneylab/5663

(By the way what sparked my own interest in world running, one of the very few areas not "conquered" yet, was the fragile claims by briton runner Robert Garside - who inspired me in world run 1 to try to show that this can indeed be done w. precise documentation. And that "solo running" can be done w. the latest tracking technology wich hopefully on long term can clean this area of extremerunning of doubious claims. On short term it can pay off to skimp' on the evidence but on long term it seldom does :-)

Data from myfirst, East - West run 2004-2005, and the present North - South run can be obtained in day to day detail at worldrun.org and via LifePilot Denmark who is the gps-documentation system sponsor.

Ps: Passed the 16 000km mark today. Slowly making progress towards a goal almost abstractly far away...