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: 2011-04-08 2011-04-13 Chile West

2011-04-10:

35
Distance today: 51.0 km (Accumulated: 24634.0 km)
Elapsed time: 04:16:12
Country: Chile West

Start 10:27am, 04c, cloudy & l. wind. At green roadsign "Santiago 147km" on hwy.60, Chile.
Finish 16:02pm, same. At small yellow roadmarker "57.220 on hwy.60.

From glaciers to cactus !

After the restday yesterday to heal the knee after falling at the descent from 4000m alt & to take time to enjoy the splendid scenery at the Largo del Inca at 2900m - it was time to get back to the daily stages again. And what a stage !

.. 44km downhill & 7km flat at the finish. More than 2km down in altitude ! And several climate zones passed during this exiting run down the valleys :-) But quite 'a beating' for the legs ..

At the beginning af the run the sourroundings were glaciers, mountain peaks and the snow that fell during last night - most likely closing the old pass which I ran across two days ago (it closes at the first snow of winter - so I was just in time when running up there !).
After 'sprinting' down 26 hairpins - each numbered and marked - I had covered the first 1000m of descent in just 9kms of running. Already by then seeing the nature change: as I ran down through the clouds flowing up the narrow mountain valley, tiny trees began to appear. Further 10km of running & 500m down in alt. and the sun gained strength, grass at the roadside, flowers, occational houses/huts. 15km more and massive clusters of tall cactus, small forrests and the first villages - as well as the feeling of the legs beeing beaten w. tubes of concrete; its not often anywhere in the world that you get 44km of un-interrupted downhill running. And my legs had an oppinion about that ;-)

But the pictures from today I hope shows that it was all the struggle worth to witness the nature and our human settlements change from almost abscent to flourishing and variated at the finish down in the broad valleys not too far from the Pacific Ocean.

Nb: At present I have some problems w. the connection on my danish simcard. Please, if people who usually send me sms could email instead it would be a big help. The easiest for me to read on a daily basis, when I have datasignal on my nokia phone is: jesperkennolsen @ hotmail.com Thanks :-)