I mentioned yesterday that I’d put on 3 kg in the past week. Well, I’ve now lost almost one of those kilograms in a day (probably a lot of it being fluid). The other two will take a bit longer, but I hope to be back at racing weight within the week. I find I can both put on weight and take it off very quickly. I’m not sure if that’s a good or bad thing?

I also mentioned yesterday that my Centennial Park time trial was noticeably affected by a past week in which my lifestyle was far from conducive to running fast. That included several consecutive nights in which I only managed five or six hours of sleep. The Tour de France has something to answer for in that regard. In hindsight, I’m quite pleased to have run 13:44.

A few days ago I posted a photo from the day I entered Colorado. Soon after that I crossed into New Mexico. Today’s photo is from that day – I think it was April 4, 2012. Sorry for cutting off the edges.

On This Day

Jul 14, 2012

Distance today = 57.39 km; Total distance = 9263.79 km; Location = Kenosha, Wisconsin – 42 35.353′ N, 87 49.078′ W; Start time = 0806 Finish time = 1717

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/199220641

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/199220634

I knew I had a big day in front of me, so I was up and ready for an early start. I clicked my watch to begin and headed off. The ankle wasn’t too bad, but the day got off to a disastrous start as far as technology is concerned.

You see, after what I estimated to be a few kilometres, I looked at my watch to check exactly how far I’d gone. It read zero. I stopped and tried to work out what the problem was. It turns out that none of the buttons now work. While there is a display, nothing happens when I click the button to start it. It looks like all the sweat and other environmental factors have finally taken their toll, and the watch is now dead, cactus, kaput!!! I mean it’s now about as useful as Mr Reefton Humblewood’s wedding tackle, and as effective as his cycling ability (a little “in joke” there, but you get the picture).

So, I called Carmel and arranged for her to activate the spare Garmin when she came to meet me. Luckily, the route I was taking was direct and simple, and she could easily follow my course. When she reached me, I reset the Garmin and started it again for the rest of the journey. Therefore there are two Garmin links. Ignore the average speed in the first one – the distance is correct.

I will need to get a new Garmin soon. If the spare displayed the map I could just continue to use this, but it doesn’t and I really want to provide the map, vertical profile, and speed graph facility to viewers of the web page. As soon as I can get a new one, these graphs will be back in the link.

Anyhow, as for the running, it was a mix of suburbia and semi-rural landscapes. It wasn’t the best day of running, but I was very pleased to get through my longest day in months without any issues.

Early tomorrow I will cross the state border into Illinois. That will be my 13th US state of the run so far. They will come thick and fast after that. My good friends, David and Cheryl Kerr from King Island, are donating to Oxfam per state and country I pass through, so I guess I’m not doing them any favours by visiting so many states, but I’m sure they don’t mind. It’s all for a good cause.