We are nearing the end of our Russian and Siberian experience, 24 days in this vast country. As we have past through 16 cities so far we have crossed 9 out of the 11 time zones. I have managed to gather a few facts along the way such as the surface area being a massive 17 million sq km, the population 143.4million, the national symbol being a double-headed eagle, over 100 languages spoken, 20 Nobel Prize winners and 15L of alcohol consumed per year per capita and I would imagine that’s mainly vodka! They sell it everywhere, Russia is Vodka!

The following 5 cities we past through I will remember for a variety of reasons, the City called Omsk has a population of 1.5million, the industrial suburbs look off-putting, but generally attractive central core has some fine century old architecture and is dotted with parks, museums and quirky public sculptures. But what I remember about Omsk was my dismal run at 3am. In fact most of Blue team were suffering with stomach problems and all had to make ‘emergency’ stops along the way. I personally didn’t think I was going to make it and for the last half hour of my run visualized myself doing a ‘Mary’. What is a ‘Mary’ you might ask? Well Mary is one of the 20 athletes who describes her experience on the M7 Russian motor- way, there is a humorous account from her blog on the experience, an experience we have all come close to having…..But like Mary you have to see the funny side of it all and I was most impressed by the way she handled and documented it - in times like that you simply have to laugh and remember it is not the end of the world…….The following is from Mary’s Blog…….

MARY CHERVENAK’S BLOG

‘I was first up the morning of June 30th – the first runner of the day at 9 AM. My stomach was a little gurgly and strange when I woke up, so I opted to skip breakfast. A wise choice, as it turned out. By mile four, my stomach had stopped gurgling and was instead making squeaky little protests. By mile six, protest turned into open rebellion; my legs were covered with diarrhea. My socks were brown, my shoes squishy, my shorts indescribable. I had a police escort who witnessed the whole explosion from behind and who may now be suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder as a result.

I always wear my favorite shorts on the last day of a four-day shift, when I'm usually the most tired. I'm convinced my favorite shorts are imbued with some sort of luck, because I always have a good run when I wear them. Well, almost always. And now, my favorite shorts are imbued (possibly permanently) with something other than luck. Hmmm. I may be in the market for a new pair.

I did finish my run – not elegantly, but definitively. At the conclusion of my leg, no one wanted me to ride in their van and I was offered Wet Wipes the way mints are offered to someone with bad breath – politely, repetitively, and with a certain sense of urgency. The baton was taken away from me and, I think, boiled in bleach. I'm not sure I'll be able to look Hilary Swank in the eye if we hand the baton back to her on September 4th.

Upset stomachs, less-than-ideal terrain, hot, dusty, miserable runs – all part of the experience. I'm okay with it. I can take the bad along with the good, the terrible with the amazing, the hellish with the transcendent. To put it simply, life is like a box of chocolates: sometimes you get delicious, sometimes you just get brown. And until now, I'd been unable to adequately express my disgust and disdain for the M7. No longer. “A big load of crap” sums it up nicely.’

The next city we spent the night in was Tartarsk, we arrived at our 1star hotel about 5pm, actually that ended up being 6pm because we crossed another time zone. The usual routine is check in, always handing over our passports so we can be tracked throughout our stay in Russia, unpack and take a shower. I was a little reluctant at this hotel as there was a strong sewerage smell coming from the bathroom, they assured me it was the chemicals they use to treat the water, but I wasn’t entirely convinced. I did have a shower and did some hand washing but that was a Big Mistake cause both my clothes and I smelt worse for it! Lots of my Gucci rush perfume had to be used as a cover up that day, I have used so much perfume throughout my time in Russia that I have run out, will have to wait till we fly into Japan from China to get some more duty free!

I had to hold on to the fact that a bad hotel is normally followed by a nice modern hotel and well that was the case in Novosibirsk. This is Siberia’s largest city with a population of 1.5million and they say if you want nightlife, restaurants with Las Vegas style glitz and countless Irish pubs - Novosibirsk might be your Siberian dream come true. That evening I was able to have a soak in the bath which was bliss, back home I would have a soak in a Radox bath every night, but since leaving New Zealand I have only had about 5 baths in 8 weeks!

I didn’t venture out to taste the Las Vegas style glitz and glamour but was treated to some piano playing by my teammate Richard. He found a piano in the hotel lobby and showed us why he one of the top 20 Jazz pianist in the World, it was marvelous listening to such a talented artist. He played us ‘what a wonderful world’ by Louis Armstrong and had everyone in the lobby listening intently.

I ran first for my team starting a 9am and I have got to say the support I got from the Russian drivers was amazing, it really is the first time since starting this relay around the world that I have had that sort of support from the public, they were tooting their horns and giving me the thumbs up and showing a real appreciation for what we are doing - it made a huge difference getting that feedback. We have been in Russia for over 2 weeks now and the media interest has started to grow little by little. I even had my first Russian television interview after finishing my run. Dasha who is our tour guide translated and I was able to tell them what wonderful support I had from their people and that made me feel good.

Some of Dasha’s music tastes have been interesting, and in the middle of Siberia sitting in the van waiting for our next runner to finish she had us listening to this Band from Finland called ‘Elaaelaisett’ who play Humpa music to heavy metal songs! You had to be there to appreciate what a strange setting it was……..

And so it was on to our next city Kemerovo, we arrived at the hotel at about 5pm and again had to move our clocks forward, another time zone past. My legs were in desperate need of a massage, over the last few days they have been a bit swollen and sore from all the bites by those nasty Siberian horse fly’s and I thought a massage would be great to get rid of some of the toxins that have built up. Good old Dasha organized a massage about a 15 minute drive away. She put me in a taxi and gave the driver instructions to pick me up in an hour after my massage and bring me back to the hotel .

The taxi driver and I tried to have a conversation in broken English, in my kiwi accent I told him I was from New Zealand and in his thick Russian accent he uttered the words ‘Wellington - capital city and Maoris‘! - I was most impressed. But I was a little apprehensive when he picked me up after my massage because as I got in the car he pulled out this dark bottle ( kind of the brown color of our L&P soft drink back home) and he pour this rather dodgy brown looking liquid into a plastic cup and handed it to me saying ‘ Russian tradition - you drink”! Well as you can imagine a million and one thoughts rushed through my head as I took a sniff and uttered the words - ‘this smells like alcohol,’ he replied ‘No alcohol - you drink.’

Not wanting to offend him I took a very, very small sip and waited for my head to start spinning and wake up in the Siberian Mountains never to be seen again! But all was well, closer to the hotel I finished the remainder of this drink off and the only reason I did that was because on the dash board of his car he had a little Buddha and I knew he wasn‘t going to drug me and sell me to slavery. I thanked him for his Russian hospitality, but I have got to say lurking in the back of my mind the next morning was ‘what happens if there is a delayed reaction to this drink? What happens if I start my run tomorrow and all of a sudden my body starts to go into spasm? Then I thought of the little Buddha on his dash board and knew everything would be alright!