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: 2011-11-01 2011-11-03 Equador

2011-11-02:

59
Distance today: 40.0 km (Accumulated: 29780.0 km)
Elapsed time: 03:27:43
Country: Equador

Start 10:25am., 22c, overcast & med.wind, at tarmac-marker "23.000" on hwy. E35 to Quito. Finish 15:26pm., 24c, no wind & same, at green road-sign "<- Pifo, Pintag ->" at fork in road in direction Tulcan & Colombia.

Obstacles & Inspirations !

World run 2 is not supposed to be easy... ;-) I guess those who have been following the run have noticed this by now: The challenges of running through East Europe, the sand storm's and 50c temperatures of running through the Sahara Desert; the 'interesting' experiense of getting thrown stones at during 1500km through Ethiopia, malaria - dysenteria - guardia infection - the weekly diarea - to top it up, two operations in the right arm 'en route' to Cape Town. Its been pure fun all the way ;-))

Today was no different. From the moment packing our things at the posh' hotel in Quito we had our focus firmly on that we needed to put in a 40km run today in order to stay on scedule w. visa-expiration dates, further logistics connections up through Colombia and my support-drivers license which expires by New Year - leaving me a 5day margin for delays in reaching the Northern point of South America.

This firm focus - Was soon lost.

Road chaos from the moment we entered the highway; as today is the first of a series of public holidays in Equador. Then we got lost in the road labyrinth of the 3-million people city of Quito on our way to the start 20km outside the city. On the way noticing that... the road was closed in the direction of the run. Its holiday so; the highway become a 4-lane 'one-way'.

With our elseway firm determination a bit shaken already (and the 20km to the start taking a generous 2hours of road-chaos) we toe the starting line. Within 8km the police flag our supportcar down - it turns out they need it to recharge the battery of a police motorcycle, what is the chance ??, ;-) (see pic.). Then a few km's where everyting goes fairly well and we deeply enjoy the run. Perhaps we shouldnt have done that - because now we are lost ! In bypassing Quito on a minor rural road the signposting, with already is confusing enough in Equadors kamikaze-traffic, offer us only options which isn't on our map.

... Its all good from start to finish' as Sarah Barnett from Australia once has commented about the luck of world run 2 - or as two oldtimer marathonrunners said "its hell from start to finish".
What can one do other than Laugh !! :-)

Behind this little list of 'luck', complaints and daily surprises' is hidden a more important thing:
The more obstacles - the more determination. This is why the world run's so far has been successfull.

And I guess determination goes a long way to describe Reino's effort too :-) What a great performance he put in today, pushing himself through the 40km in quite hilly terrain at 2000-3000m. altitude with no as much as a hint of beeing affected by the daily turmoil of world running ! But he has the background for it too; four times having crossed through Finland at mid-winter North-South on skies, besides the mental skills from successfully maneaging his companies.

"Huuva Soumesta" I think they call it in Finish language - quality from Finland !

NB: The finish time of 3:27h. is due to that I had a good chance to recover at each 5km food-&-rest stop. Reino walks some of the way, which gives me a nice chance to put some fairly good pace into my running from support-point to support-point.