J176 – 6/11/2006

13,000 kilometers in 174 days, 22 hours and 20 minutes = 74.31 kilometers per day since departure on December 18, 2005, at noon.

The 1,000 km between 12,000 and 13,000 km were the fastest run since departure, in 12 days, 22 hours and 58 minutes, which makes a daily average for this 1,000 km of 77.17 km.

Serge has just made a date with us in Tokyo.  He is very satisfied with the thousand he has just run because the longest has been followed by the shortest.  In spite of it, we can’t shout victory too soon and Serge doesn’t forget that nothing is ever completely won.  Over dinner he explained to us that on every transcontinental he has done, the second part of the race has been the fastest: “the further one goes, the stronger one becomes in the mind, and the stronger one’s body gets the more patience one has to spend time on the road.”  Here is our runner’s recipe: a tablespoon of mental, a teaspoon of physical, a pinch of patience.  You blend the ingredients well and after several months of waiting you get the Paris-Tokyo race.

Today we had the visit from two people from Mizuno Shanghai.  It was hot and humid.  We left the mountains to cross the Yellow River (the second longest river in China, after the Yangzi) and to join a wide, four-lane highway which will take us to Lanzhou City by tomorrow noon.

We improvised our camp 50 meters from route 213 and 1 kilometer from route 312.  All night long we were rocked by the incessant passing of trucks.  You have to be very tired to fine sleep which restores in such conditions.