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: 2012-02-15 2012-02-17 Usa

2012-02-16:

27
Distance today: 30.0 km (Accumulated: 33028.0 km)
Elapsed time: 02:45:22
Country: Usa

Start 10:00am., 18c, overcast & no wind, at cross of Dawes Ave. & Hwy.17 in Savannah. Finish 13:01pm., 12c, rain and same, at cross of hwy. 17 & I95 in Rigeland town.

Bridge-sprint anyone ?

Today began with the interesting experiense of running through the old center of Savannah. As I wrote yesterday its a city hard hit by unemployment, though my impression was that its was mainly in the coloured community at the South part of town - right where the stage began. And while I think its easy to see from the pictures that its an area wich is struggeling a bit economically at the same time it was a little 'time travel' with the old houses, laid-back ambience and friendly people along the route !

That was soon to change though:

My maps had shown that it would be Ok to proceed running on the highway 17 and crossing the broad Savannah River on the Talmadge Memorial Bridge. And if one thing, the bridge certainly was memorial ! ;-)

Once on the up-ramp towards the bridge I noticed a sign informing me that bicycles, slow vehicles and pedestrians were strictly forbidden on the bridge. I recon that this includes runners; but world runners ? I took my chance and put on the best pace I could. Figuring that it was probably only a km or two long. That was as wrong an assumption as thinking that it was allowed to run on it !

... After 2km's of high-pace running I was only just about halfway over the huge concrete brige. The view was nice, overlooking Savannah and a large part of the suburbs in this flat area. But I remember from the first world run that the highway police in USA doesnt take kindly to runners on roads where they isnt allowed to be (back in 2005 I fx. didnt know that I was not allowed to run on the Interstate- and Express highways, so that generated some "hu-ha" from the patrol-cars ;-). Wanting to avoid this kind of encounters I pressed on with the pace the best I could and lucikily made it across the long bridge before the first patrol car came past !

The bridge and the Savannah River also marks the dividing line between Georgia and South Carolina, so despite the knee-troubles I came 'flying' into the next state. Unkonwn to me South Carolina actually was the first state to exit from the Union as the founding state of the Confederate States of America in what let up the the American Civil War. Prior to this it was a british colony where the coastal areas (where I am running now) was under Spanish rule in the early period of the settlement.

However the run across the bridge into South Carolina wasnt the end of the highway perils. Right after the bridge the hard shoulder next to the white line on the highway 17 disappered leaving the choice eigher to run on the muddy grass next to the highway or out on the tarmac with the oncoming traffic. Beeing a narrow road I switched a little back and forth depending on how large the trucks were making it the only slightly dangerous part of traffic so far in the run through East Cost USA - reminding me a bit of the 1 year of running through South American traffic in 2011...

NB: The finish picture (they are all gps-position coded) didnt upload today as there was some problems w. the camera in the rain, so to get the complete gps-track of the stage please use the "endomondo" link below the report; its always a back up in reguards to extra documentation of the stages.