Friday, November 2nd Day65

Miles/day : 49.7 (80km) Total : 2794.9 ( 4497 km )

Daily running time : 9h 12mn

Daily average speed : 5.4 miles/h ( 8.7km/h )

Here we go again…..

Six o’clock a.m. After three hours’ running Serge has to struggle against the wind. The sleeves of his shirt look like a "spinnaker". He has been fighting for a few hours already ; he succeeds thanks to his courage as usual. The first part was covered at an average of 9/10 km/hour. Head down, with the nose in the handlebars, he’s always fighting with the same arguments, pugnacity remains his main trait of character. The (80km) 49.7miles are over for today. Next ones… The morning freshness diminishes as the sun rises. Dusk is the moment we are all waiting for, without mentioning the cup of strong black coffee to get us going. We feel more and more tired. We are all longing for a lie-in, coffee, bread an butter and jam (and a nice croissant for me, please) some of us already think of being back home. They think about restaurant and good meal with friends. Rio will be an anticipation of the work done, but there is still a lot to do. 9.10 days of running??? By counting then all the time, we don’t really known any more. There is one who counts and counts again, it’s Serge… (700km) 466.1 miles of hills, it makes you wonder and it isn’t finished. As a French saying goes, when you like it, you don’t count. As for the race, let’s keep our fingers cross, we could all become superstitious… Serge fears the pain which may come back at any time. But we know now how to deal with it. The prescribed medicine works. The second black point is the profile of the stages , and this too isn’t the best. But, tonight, COPACABANNA is ( 700km) 435 miles away from here. And we can’t imagine what could stop us. The phone is ringing… The mails are piling up. Friends, family, relatives, anonymous people want to know how he is doing. We are getting more and more encouragement, that does our "ultra runner" a lot of good. Before meeting at the sand heap we still have a few nice days to go. Same time, same place, same site.