Up and Down Day

Thanks for all the notes friends! It always lifts the spirit!

It was an up and down day. I went real conservative as I was prewarned by the veterans it would be the toughest normal distance day. Happy I did. 46th today. 39K. The last two stages were absolute buggers. The 3rd was the most difficult I have done in five races, on terrain called crud. Yesterday’s brutal salt flat + unpredictable terrain that would hold your foot or not. Hard to describe. Like walking through broken volcanic crust, add potholes, add sharp shrubs. No one could run at all. 18 min miles for 2.5 hours. The worst. They rewarded us with a fresh orange end of that stage. So good! The last stage was a long 12km in heavy heat, in sand and up and down huge sand dunes. Breathtaking against the Andes and tough. Heat got to most of us and took a little while recover. Insert Mac and Cheese and Don Juan Ketchup!

Dark now, fires going. Bed by 9-930, hope to calm the body down and get some sleep. Never a given.

We get amazing stars at night and stars and moon when we are up at 530am.

Its 8pm now and final competitors are coming in. One in our tent, Mika. An inspirational Finn!

Would have written more, but tired and using MS windows machines and key board is terrible.

We are half way done. Day four tomorrow. 40 ish K and then 74Km on Day 5 over 36 hours.

Finish Saturday morning.