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: 2012-07-07 2012-07-09 Canada

2012-07-08:

32
Distance today: 40.0 km (Accumulated: 36116.0 km)
Elapsed time: 04:02:21
Country: Canada

Start 10:15am., 12c, overcast after rain & light wind, at roadsign "J. T. Cheeseman Provincial Park" on hwy.1 on New Foundland. Finish 14:57pm., 25c, half cloudy and same, at brown roadsign "Mollichignick Brook" on hwy.1.

40' :-))

... 40km might not be much as far as world running goes, and certainly its not an impressive distance to ultrarunners. Yes, I have to say that it was a small victory of sorts: Its been about a month since I have been able to do decent stages while beeing confined to the 20-30km range, and even struggling at that. For some reason the last 1000km from 35 000km to 36 000 has delievered to me some of the most difficult running I have ever experiensed. Surely, multiday races, international ultra-championships and before that a decade w. elite marathon running etc. has provided challenges - but never a km-by-km knockdown'; day after day; week after week. Step by step, from the first to the last each day.

Had it not been relatively close to the finish I would have had to consider wether it was possible to continue as also a few injuries has been balancing through this period; a very sore left achilles for 3 weeks; the occational disfunction in the right knee and some small musclefiber issues w. pulled fibers on the worst days.

- However, today was finally a day where it Worked :-) The motivation, the body, the positive look forward, the nature, the company, the logistics. I think every runner recognises those kind of days; no matter if its a 5km runner, a marathon runner or an ultrarunner. The Joy is the same when everything suddenly works as it should and gives the reward for many hard training hours out on the trails..

One of the main factors today was the amazing nature here on New Foundland. We arrived by ferry from Cape Bretton yesterday, and ran a short stage late in the day, but it was first today that I and visiting ultrarunner Reino from Finland and my support-driver and documentary-cameraman Alex got a real glimpse of the surroundings:

Rugged mountains, deep lowhangning mist rolling down the slopes and into the long green valleys. A multitude of birds, berries and low trees makes this rough enviroment a true pleasure to see - and not least run through with the oppotunity it gives to take it all proper into eyesight.

I hope the photo's from todays run can provide an impression ! In many ways it reminds me a lot of the sparse and rough terrain up at Nordkapp, 500km North of the Arctic Circle; where the world run 2 began 4 years ago.

A very fitting thing, I guess, that it will (hopefully) end in similar beautiful settings !

- The reports from the last few days will be online tomorrow once I've rested a bit tonight.

NB: The endomodo gps tracking-system spontanious shut down at 33km as it unfortunately lately has done often (!!). But atleast I noticed it and got it restarted. The 5km from 33km to 38km were lost though. But the gps-stamped pictures were there anyhow.