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: 2012-05-05 2012-05-07 Usa

2012-05-06:

14
Distance today: 25.0 km (Accumulated: 34856.0 km)
Elapsed time: 03:53:40
Country: Usa

Start 8:55am., 14c, overcast & light wind, at mile-marker "66.4" on hwy.1. Finish 13:41pm., 18c, half overcast & same, at "Greenleaf Inn" on 141 State Street in Newbury Port, approx. half a km after mile-marker "80" on hwy.1.

A Long short run !

Day number 2 of running w. 15-20kg's in the backpack. As you can imagine it was a less than perfect start on any given run to wake up at dawn, in the sleepingbag with a raincover/bivurak-sheet, wearing four layers of running clothes to keep warm through the night in the small forrest next to the highway.

And if you check the endomondo gps-track (link below this report) you'll notice that the pace was considerably slower today than yesterday. The 25km's took nearly 5 hours when counting in the long breaks of up to half an hour each to try to regain some energy and ease off the weight on the achilles tendons wich has started to take the effect of this added strain.

Through the fairly rough night I drank most of my water-supplies and since there was no shops etc. the last 10-15km's I encountered a slight case of dehydration. Nothing serious at all and it didnt affect the running/jogging/shuffeling w. the heavy backpack - but I suspect it played a main role in creating the somewhat large blisters on both heels (see pictures uploaded w. the report). Usually blisters isnt one of my problems; infact I've been lucky not to have had such things since the mid 80'ties after may first marathon's as a junior runner - with one exception of a 100km European Championship in 2000 where I maneaged to pour a large amount of sticky energydrink onto my shoes; and that caused some serious blisters 50kms later ;-)

Also in other ways than the blisters did it become an unusual run: During the world run's I try my best to keep them "a run" all the way. Besides ofcouse never jumping' distances except across oceans and carrying gps-equiptment to document the running along w. photos, video and logbooks - then I also raughter stop and streatch to regain my energy than begin to walk. You'll notice that the pace very rarely drops below 6min/km or about 10min/mile since that is where running would slowly begin to drift towards jogging and walking. The exception beeing the stage at 4000m's altitude when running across the Andes Mountains; here running at full capacity meant a pace of about 7min/km or 12min/mile due to the reduced oxygen in the air.

Today... Unfortunately there was no choice ! I had to walk some of the streatches since the rest-breaks did next to nothing to make the tendons ready to take more 'punishment' from the weight of the backpack. Previously the walking part of the world run one & two has been a 2 x 5min. walk near Hamburg in Germany in 2004 during wr1 (a burst musclefiber in the calf, but walking in the cold rain made it nothing better so I went back to running and eventually it was doable) and about 10min. of walking while running the last part out of the Sahara Desert in 2009 as I didnt want to leave a short-streatch co-runner behind.

There is nothing wrong with walking. Please dont misunderstand that ! But I have been a runner since I started as a young kid in this sport, and I dont intend to become a runner-walker or jogger here at my 'old age'. Therefore I'll put all my energy into getting tomorrows stage done running all the way from start to finish. After that, I am fairly sure the body will need some serious recovery-time and that is what I will give it.

There should be four days from then
untill my great suppor-driver from the stages down in Chile, Alexander Hamlin, comes to take care of the luggage-logistics and a little bit of documentary-filming on this last part of the run to the finish in New Foundland.