Up, Up, and away is what my run felt like today. The first part was pretty nice and flat through a small Russian town. During this portion I had numerous greeters and people honking their horns at me while I was running. After 41 minutes of the locals looking at me with pleasure as the police car followed me, the town ended at the bottom of a hill. I noticed up ahead there was a small turn that went over a wooden bridge but I had thought nothing about it since I figured I would be running for another 40 minutes any way. As soon as I turned the corner the road began to ascend like no tomorrow. I just figured since the road was so curvy that it would end after 800 meters or so. Boy was I wrong! The next 30 minutes was a continuous run going up at about 12% with dust and cars all around. About 20 minutes into the hill I looked back for a brief second and could not see Melissa or “The Doc” on the bike. I had figured by this point I had either lost on the hill running or there was such much dust they were about 30 feet back and I just could not see them. By 13k I was at the top and was so glad to see the pilot car to get some water. Fortunately the next 2k was all down hill so I was able to make up some time. As I approached the last Kilometer another hill began. By this point I knew I would done in about 5 minutes so I turned up the speed just to get through the run. After about 5 minutes I was thinking to myself I should be done by know but the pilot car is nowhere in site. Then about 20 seconds when the dust cleared up I realized I was side by side to the vehicle. When the crew saw me appear they just looked in awe at me saying eventually that was impressive. I am glad I made it look that way.

Song for the day- “Don’t stop Running” band Y&T