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: 2011-09-06 2011-09-08 Peru

2011-09-07:

8
Distance today: 40.0 km (Accumulated: 28020.0 km)
Elapsed time: 03:25:19
Country: Peru

Start 05:46am., 09c, rain and l.wind, at km-stone "180" on Panamerican highway, North. Finish 09:27am., 12c, overcast and same, at km-stone "220" on Panamerican highway, North.

28.000km, an armed robbery and a haircut...

I am sorry for the delay in the reports lately. As you probably are aware of by now, internet connetcions in the remote parts of the Peruvian farmlands is scarce and far between. But sometimes it can be just plain tiredness which keeps me from sending the reports without delay - or, an unexpected drama:

Yesterday my suppordriver Pali, from the Slovak Republic, got attacked by 3 armed robbers while waiting for Sarah and I at the 15km-point; as usual with a small bit of food and water which we/I take at each 5km segment to keep the body relatively fresh. As he was cleaning the windows of the car and getting ready for us to arrive atthe supplypoint at the roadside of the Panamerican Highway, he was told at gun-point to open the car and hand over the valuables. In this case the valuables were his professional camera, money, cellphone and - the keys for the car (which were the only set of keys we had for this rental car that we have used the last 2000km). To top things up, they fired a shot and knocked him down when he at the beginning of the confrontation denied them access to the car.

When we reached the supportcar he appeared more angry than shaken and immideately told us the situation - which was quite problematic: Not only had the thives taken off with the valuables, but we now had no keys for the car; stuck at roadside about 180km from Lima where Sarah's flight was homeway bound for Australia the next day (today). As well as we in 3days had the rental car due for return. Still, Pali's always calm temper came to its right here - immideately making the proper phonecalls lending our phone, as well as trying to alert other drivers on the highway. The result was that the robbers were caught less than 30min. later; a small 'miracle' as we didnt have their lisence plate or precise description other than "3 persons in a grey car".

One of the many routine police-stops which we have also experiensed daily in the Lima-region had pulled the car over and since suspecting something was afoot, had kept them at roadside for a while examining the veichle. So.. When they got the call and heard the description of the stolen items it didnt take many minutes to find out who they had in their custody.

Yet, as fast and impressive as the swift apprehension of the thieves was - as 'interesting' was the bureaucracy which followed. We were taken to the nearest police station, in the village "Supe" (which as far as I could understand had the motto "supe'r people" in its spanish eqvivalent - which definately applies for the speed with which they caught the criminals;-). The village was literally filled with policemen and to top it up quite a few media-reports too, which took a sudden interest in the little drama.

A strong part of the drama, seen from our viewpoint, was the 12-hours that it took at the policestation while 7-8 machinegun-armed policemen watched (and commented on) the person which were writing and re-writing, re-drafting, re-formulating, re-designing, re-vising and.... what not - the official policereport. Never have I seen such an artellery of a bureaucracy ;-)
Then copies of the report, then corrections, new editions, handwritten notes, etc. etc.

But finally my supportdriver had his things back and could leave the policestation at midnight. We only got to run those 15km yesterday to the supplypoint where the robbery took place, but not all was lost for the run: while the process' rolled at the policestation I took my chance to sneak out to the streets of the tiny village to get a haircut to atleast make something of the time and after a bit of a hazardous 'razor-swinging' experience I could proudly walk back into the fray of the interrogations looking a bit less like a caveman !

As most probably know, ultrarunners only allows themselves to be stopped by few things. And since we get to run much yesterday, we decided that instead of driving to the airport to send Sarah off today, we'd first get some decent running done on the route: In order for the logistics of dropping Sarah off for her flight and also get the run done as well as prepare for the new driver which is due to take over in 2 days from now (!), we had to get up at 5am. this morning.

The reward was that we at after a few hours of running reached my 28 000km mark of the run. Pali was not more affected by the whole incident yesterday with the assult and following bureaucracy than he with joy threw himself into painting a Huge world run statement on the tarmac at the km-marker where he had calculated that I would reach the round number.

Myself, I was more or less too tired to really take in the moment - beyond 19 000km to 20 000km around-the-world runs like these become very very taxing for the body and motivation to handle. Not only overall, but on a constant daily basis; this happened around the same mark in world run one and I 'hit the world-running-wall' near 20 000km also here in world run two. Despite a rest-period in denmark (where I couldnt resist to do ultracompetetions and the normal 2-3 times training per day - thus not giving me the rest and recovery from the tropical diseases which I needed), the deep fatigue definately sits in the body by now. And it will be an intersting experiment how much futher the body can run while adapting to new cultures, terrain, diseases and climate. Hopefully enough to reach the finish line around 12 000km further ahead.

NB: After a long day we reached Lima, got most of the logistics sorted out and said goodbye to Sarah. Now at 2am. its beginning to get late and I'll have to wait untill tomorrow to upload picures and write the missing reports. Untill then I'll briefly fill in the logbook-data of the previous days to get the exact km-total at this moment. The proper text for those days will follow soon.