J233 – 8/7/2006

17000 km in 231 Days, 20 hours and 7 minutes.

Distance	Num of days	hours	minutes
0 à 1000	13	3	59
1000 à 2000	14	1	38
2000 à 3000	13	21	57
3000 à 4000	13	23	33
4000 à 5000	13	19	1
5000 à 6000	13	2	36
6000 à 7000	13	0	17
7000 à 8000	13	2	12
8000 à 9000	13	13	58
9000 à 10000	13	1	55
10000 à 11000	13	2	19
11000 à 12000	14	1	57
12000 à 13000	12	22	58
13000 à 14000	12	23	8
14000 à 15000	14	20	0
15000 à 16000	14	23	45
16000 à 17000	14	2	54

We left Gifu, a spa city known for its fishing with cormorants trained to dive and catch trout. At 8H00 AM, the temperature was already 45° Celsius.  We followed route 21 before taking a small country road in the mountains.  We hoped to see some monkeys, but there weren’t any.  The road wound as it climbed up to 530 meters, before descending to route 19, where a group of handicapped children was waiting for Serge.  It was a surprise and Serge took a few moments to shake hands and  have pictures taken, before leaving with encouragement and applause:  ” Go Serge!”  We decided to change our itinerary and take secondary roads.  These narrow roads allowed Serge to run without the hindrance of traffic lights and the heavy traffic of routes 21 and 19.  They also meant we could enjoy the scenery, the temples, the rice paddies, traditional old homes and silence.  Leaving Ena, we had no choice but to take route 19.  We put up the luminous sign between this highway and the toll road, at an unused parking lot.  The 89 decibels of our generator were drowned out by the noise of traffic.

Serge, in spite of his fatigue, had a broad smile: “I hope to maintain my average, which hasn’t fallen below 73 kilometers per day (73.2 km/day until now).  It will depend on the terrain and on the heat and I suggest we meet at 18,000 kilometers.”