I will shortly be heading off to Canberra for the Anzac Ultra. The mandatory race briefing will be conducted this afternoon. The race starts at 8 am tomorrow morning. I’ll attempt to update readers via Twitter (@tomsnextstep) during the race, although these tweets will also be posted in the upper left margin of the web site (www.tomsnextstep.com).

My main Garmin device usually lasts about 15 hours, though I think it’s a bit less these days. This will definitely not be enough to last throughout the race. Therefore, I will supplement it with a Garmin watch that I used briefly during the world run. I’m hoping I’ll finish before that also runs out so that I have proper records of the whole race that I can later post for others to view.

I am hoping that Kevin Carr will have finished his world run just prior to my start, so that I can congratulate him on his accomplishment. He should be finished around 8:30 pm UK time, which is 5:30 am here. Try to send Kevin a congratulatory message on Facebook, if that’s your preferred mode of communication. You can access his page via his web site on www.hardwayround.com.

It seems that many readers enjoyed seeing the photo in yesterday’s post. I’ll try to post other photos from my world run from time to time. Here’s one of me running as I passed by Niagara Falls. I’m the person closest to the camera in the middle ground.

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 (not in this post), 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 innumerable 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.

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.