I had a great run yesterday. I caught the train down to the northern Illawarra and ran up through the Royal National Park. I actually found an interesting new short cut, courtesy of Google Maps. It was an old road north of the Helensburgh Railway Station, which ultimately leads through the forest, over the freeway, and up to the old Princes Highway. But with the recent heavy rains, I found I had to get across four swollen streams. Each time I had to take off my shoes and socks and wade across the shin deep water. At one point I even ran barefooted for about half a kilometre.

After reaching the old highway it was faster going, as I made my way through Waterfall, Heathcote and Engadine, past Sutherland and on to the Relay for Life at Sylvania. I was surprised at the fantastic reception I received as I ran a couple of laps and then gave a quick interview with Reefton Humblewood. Great work, Reefton. In the end I covered a total of 36 km, and all at quite a quick pace (I needed to run quickly as I was initially in danger of not meeting the deadline for arrival at the stadium).

Today’s photo is from the first day of snow I encountered on the whole of the world run, in Arizona. There were so many days of snow to follow in the year to come, mainly in Europe.

On This Day

May 3, 2012

Distance today = 47.27 km; Total distance = 5960.38 km; Location = Fort Collins, Colorado – 40 31.325′ N, 105 03.155′ W; Start time = 0918, Finish time = 1608

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/174454693

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/174235487

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/174235445

I decided to run a more convoluted route through the countryside today, to escape the freeway and urban sprawl. I’m glad I did, as I found some nice quiet backroads. However, I was only partially successful, as there was still plenty of traffic on many of the roads this afternoon.

It was a sunny day in the high 20s C, but the lack of humidity made it quite pleasant to run. Tomorrow is predicted to be 30 C. I am wondering what it’s going to be like in a couple of months time when summer really hits (I was soon to find out).

I saw my first large snake roadkill today. It was about five feet (1.5 m) long, and had light and dark brown markings. The head was squashed, so it was hard to tell which species it was, but I know it wasn’t a rattlesnake.

Now, you may have noticed the three Garmin data links above. You may also recall that twice in the past few weeks the Garmin data has refused to upload. This is a big issue to me, as I place great importance on a full and accurate documentation of every step of my run around the world. This Garmin data allows anyone to zoom in and see the fine detail of where I’ve run that day, even to the extent of seeing which side of the road I’m on. It also shows my speed at every moment of the day and my elevation. There’s no way anyone can cheat when they’re providing this level of documentation.

Well, the Amazing Jimbo has solved The Mystery of the Non-Uploading Data. He found a file repair program on the Garmin web site and managed to upload the data that was sitting in the system. What a genius! We’re not sure exactly why it refuses to upload sometimes – it is not unique to me – but may be related to the battery life of the watch at the time of uploading. While it’s a bit of a mystery, at least we know how to fix it now if it happens again. I have also inserted the relevant links retrospectively into the blogs where they were missing.

May 3, 2013

Distance today = 50.05 km; Total distance = 20,373.32 km; Location = Pirot, Serbia – 43 11.950′ N, 22 33.545′ E; Start time = 0846, Finish time = 1750

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/307077427

My heel felt great when I started out this morning. However, a big mountain pass of more than a thousand feet caused a bit of a relapse. It was probably the worst thing I could have done for the heel. But, once down on the flat, it settled down again, and wasn’t too bad by the end of the day.

The terrain at the moment is very different from the flatness of the past two weeks. We are definitely in the mountains, with some snow still visible at the higher peaks. It’s the part of the mountain range which forms the border between Serbia and Bulgaria.

There are freeways pretty much between every main region of Europe now, except for the stretch we’re on at the moment. However, this is being remedied, and we could see where the new section of freeway is being built. It’s a holiday here for Serbian Easter, and there was a guard watching over a big earth-mover that’s creating the new freeway. Carmel happened to take some photos of me, with the machine in the background. For some reason, this was a no-no. The guard came racing up in his car and pulled in front of us, blocking our way. He made it clear there was to be no photos of the earth-moving equipment – I have no idea why? I thought he was going to try to confiscate the camera, but seemed happy with an apology.

There were a few drops of rain today, during the early afternoon. They were those big lazy drops you get when the clouds can’t make up their mind if they want to rain. In the end, it didn’t, and the heat came back. However, it looks like we are about to have a thunder storm now – night-time is fine by me. It’s actually the first rain since Portugal, although there’s been lots of snow. And certainly the first precipitation of any sort for about a month.

Tomorrow I run into Bulgaria. Serbia has been great, but all countries must come to an end on a world run (except for the last one, of course).

PS Another great win for the Rabbitohs, this time 26-12 over the Broncos in Brisbane – always a hard one to win up there.