I should end up with around 125 km this week – another good one. I intend to do a very long run next week – probably 50 km. And I’m looking forward to the 50 km ‘race’ on April 30. I should be reasonably fit for it.

Don’t forget to follow both Serge Girard on www.sergegirard.fr and Tony Mangan on www.myworldwalk.com. Both are doing very well on their respective world run and world walk. Serge continues to pump out days of around 72 kms, while Tony has walked days of nearly 50 kms.

Today’s world run photo is from somewhere in Europe, but I don’t know where. I suspect it was somewhere in Spain or France. The bridge is very ancient.

On This Day

Apr 9, 2012

Distance today = 50.61 km; Total distance = 4782.70 km; Location = Bernalillo, New Mexico – 35 19.185′ N, 106 32.751′ W; Start time = 0920, Finish time = 1655

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/166555858

As you will see from the new video at the top of the page, the Albuquerque TV station, KOB 4, aired a story on my run on last night’s news. I like the way the footage focuses on the actual running. You can see how slowly I make my way during this adventure.

This led to innumerous waves and horn beeps today as I made my way slowly towards the city. At one point a guy called Travis stopped and offered me some water, telling me how he saw me on the news last night. Thanks Travis – it’s nice to have this sort of acknowledgement along the way.

You might also have noticed how the menu bar on this web site is out of whack. This is my fault. I was trying to add a map showing my route so far. All I succeeded in doing was ruining the menu bar. I am going to have to call on my extremely competent sponsors, Next Digital, to clean up my mess. Hopefully it won’t take too long.

To finish, I thought I’d comment on something slightly obtuse – the smell of skunks. I have gotten used to this aroma in recent months, as I reckon there have been at least ten dead skunks I have passed at close quarters. I don’t know how much stronger the smell gets when they are alive and emit the scent from their glands in your presence – perhaps it’s much worse. While I’ve found the skunk scent to be quite uninviting, I reckon it’s still a distant second to the stench of rotting road kill (I should add that the skunks have not been dead long enough for the road kill component to be a factor). All the same, I wouldn’t want to get skunk “juice” on my clothes – they’d be going straight into the garbage bin. No wonder the cat with the painted tail was so intent on escaping from Pepe le Pew.

Apr 9, 2013

Distance today = 52.06 km; Total distance = 19,226.20 km; Location = Pelhrimov, Czech Republic (4 km north of) – 49 27.329′ N, 15 11.203′ E; Start time = 0829, Finish time = 1650

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/295628381

Another very hilly day. I no sooner went down one hill, than I had to start up another – almost nothing flat today.

It was a bit more grey today, but I did see some nice sun during the afternoon, and the temperatures must have gone close to reaching double figures. We’ll crack it soon.

The Bohemian countryside is becoming slightly greener as I move south. The grass has obviously been affected by being under snow for long periods this winter. There was still a lot of old snow on the ground today, and several reasonably sized lakes that were still completely frozen over. That’s amazing for April 9. That said, it won’t take too long for them to thaw if conditions like today continue.

The milestone for today was the website reaching half a million hits – and the hit counter was only added last October. If everyone tells a friend to start following the site, it should reach a million hits before I finish in September.