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: 2012-02-14 2012-02-16 Usa

2012-02-15:

11
Distance today: 30.0 km (Accumulated: 32998.0 km)
Elapsed time: 02:54:07
Country: Usa

Start 09:41am., 17c, light rain, overcast and no wind, at cross of Daniel Siding Rd. & Hwy.17. Finish 13:10pm., 18c, overcast and no wind, at cross of Dawes Ave. & Hwy.17 in Savannah.

Sometimes there's a struggle...

After nearly a week of knee-problems; first the right knee, then the left - today finally offered a day where the run went Ok :-))

And the struggle has far from been only with the knee-injuries.
Why its been a struggle lately ? I'll try to give an impression of what goes on 'under the hood' of the world run's when its one of the difficult periods of the run:

Fortunately its very very rare that I battle with injuries, both in the two world run and also in the many years of competions. But this however doesnt meant that there isnt difficult periods. It wouldnt be a challenge if there wasn ! Yet, the challenges can at times move uncomfortably close to beeing "troubles" raughter than challenges which one can do something positive about:

The struggle wich has followed along w. the knee-problems is most of all related to motivation. Doing these extremely long runs its central to always have a strong and clear motivation. If not, it fast becomes a challenge that borders the impossible. One of the central points in the motivational part is to try to keep the mind from wandering down the path of thinking "How much is there left now, in total ?". I think its a common thing both for long distance runners but certainly also for ultrarunners - that we try to stay clear of asking ourselves this central question... Or atleast untill the answer is "No very far left !!" ;-)

Starting on a new continent always holds this risk, but its rarely at the very beginning of each continent since there is too many new, exiting and interesting things to experience. But after a while, about 1/3 of running across the continents the critical zone comes: It now slowly becomes routine and not much stops the mind from wondering.. "How far does this road go before its reached the tip of this continent ?". When answers comes in the category of 5000 to 7000km left - then its a dangerous question to ask one self !

And this is the exact situation now. Not too critical since North America is actually one of the smaller continents compared with the last two I've just run across, South America and Africa; but still the answer to the question is 5000km.

So the quest at hand right now is to focus on the positive things ahead and in the daily running - the nature that reminds me a bit of Scandinavia with the large forrests and timber industry, the interesting areas on the East Cost wich is just ahead of me, possibilities of ultra-races I can do on the route and the fact that spring should be coming in a few months :-)

And, not least one, wich is too easy to forget once things get allowed to become routine: That I am able to do my "hobby" each and every day and even make a living of it. That is not too bad I think !

But the road was a small struggle itself today; gone was the nice space on the rough shoulder next to the highway, and instead a white line to run on ;-) Not the safest of situations to run through.

So its important to remind myself, that all these difficulties are not really big struggles ! Since at its core its a thing I do because I enjoy doing these runs :-) And because these extreme challenges of running East-West and North-South around the world calls out to me like no other thing ! It would be easier if i stayed at home and occupied myself with a normal job istead of beeing a 'professional worldrunner' - but I would sooner complain of boredom back home, than these occational troubles with tiredness and some physical pain here and there in the world runs ! At the same time I know most other people would have it the other way around and the good thing is that we in each our way inspire eachother :-) !

Just as the local guy from Georgia that pulled up his big pickup truck where Morten was waiting with water at one of the regular stops. First he was curious of what the car was stopped at the roadside for, however once the story of the world run 2 was told - we suddenly found ourself in a talk about the run, South America, got some tips on Savannah city and the road ahead. Very Enjoyable and just... as I was about to ask myself one of the other wrong question: "Aren't you too tired today ?". This question I navigated clear of and at the end it went well today !

Besides this, the struggle here at this phase of the run is in many ways an easy one compared with what the situation can be for example here in Savannah, where a 2010 censuss showed that about 21.8% of the population in the city were living below the poverty line. Surely a much more difficult situation and a thing wich puts my 'problems' in perspective if I should complain too much about them !

PS: Again today the endomondo-system didnt work properly and suddenly shut down at 27km. Luckily I noticed it immideately so it only means that the last 3km is in a seperate entry when you check the endomondo-link below this report. For those not familiar with it the documentation I use for the world run 2 has a back-up system too in the way that the pictures wich I take are stamped with their gps-location as well, so there's both a documentation of the route via the endomondo gps-tracking as well as via the location of the pictures taken during the run).