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: 2011-10-15 2011-10-17 Equador

2011-10-16:

37
Distance today: 30.0 km (Accumulated: 29254.0 km)
Elapsed time: 02:48:12
Country: Equador

Start 11:45am., 21c, cloudy & strong wind, at km-sign on auto barrier "97" on hwy. E80 to Cuenca. Finish 16:12pm., 27c, half-clear, med.wind, at km-marker on lightpole "70.140" on E80 to Cuenca.

Detour !

I'm now heading into more mountainous terrain and it has its consequenses...

Ofcourse its most of all a very welcome re-visit up into the Andes Mountains, with amazing views and silent remote valleys. But its also a challenge. And not only for the runner; the support-car had to get some special care' before the stage and, as you can see from the picture-series, also during.

However, I did get my own serving of hardship today ;-) The road turned out to be not quite what I had expected. After 20km a rock-slide had closed off the direct road ahead, and the police was in place to direct both runner and car along an 8km detour (with its own rockslides -see pictures). And a detour it was:
After having earned' the amazing vistas over the terrain below by tough but expected uphill running - the detour send me immideately down from the mountain ridge... and into a valley faaar below.

And that, obviously, had the consequense that I somehow had to get back up on the old road in order to continue running Northbound in direction North America & Canada :-)
Easy to say. Painfull to do.

The new road linking back up to the old road on the mountainridge, past the rock-slide, was steep. And by steep, I mean something which made my hugely enjoyable run across the Cristo Redondor Pass at 4000m. altitude (5000km back running through Argentina) feel like it was a few steps on a ladder.

And I gues it tells the story of "What you prepare for becomes easy. What catches you by surprise nearly stops you". Atleast when its concearning very-long distance running or expeditions. The pictures from today should give you an idea of how this short 30km stage fealt..