The Achilles was a little sore today. No idea why – yesterday’s run was shorter and slower and flatter than usual, yet the tendon felt sore when I finished. It’s not too bad, but I wished I knew what caused these minor relapses. It feels OK after today’s run.

Kevin Carr is now in Minnesota, and likely to intersect with my course fairly soon. It’s a beautiful part of the world with myriad lakes. I’m sure he’ll enjoy his time there, though it will be much colder than when I was there in the 2012 summer. Kevin now needs to cover another 7,539 km in 146 days if he is to beat my world record. That’s 1,338 km more than I ran in my final 146 days. It might sound formidable, but Kevin is certainly capable of the feat. He also has the advantage of knowing exactly the date by which he needs to finish.

On This Day

Nov 16 2012

Distance today = 50.39 km; Total distance = 14,474.23 km; Location = La Paz, Argentina (24 km west of) – 33 23.975′ S, 67 47.081′ W; Start time = 1023, Finish time = 1809

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/243902030

A bit of everything today as far as the weather was concerned. It was hot and sunny in the morning, but just after midday I was stung by a dust storm. At times I had to run with my eyes closed. Then, by mid-afternoon, it started to hail. The stones weren’t too big – about the size of a marble – but there were plenty of them. Luckily for me, Carmel was stopped just up the road, and I was able to wait out the storm in the car. A quarter hour later, the sun was back out, and it was a very pleasant late afternoon of running.

I had a very late start to the day, as the new hire car appeared to be overheating. We couldn’t afford for anything to go wrong in the more remote parts, so we took it back to Hertz. Gerardo checked it out, and everything was fine. Then we had to drive the 70 km back to my start point for the day.

Lunch was in a small café in a little town. We had the lomo y huevos en pan – basically a steak and egg sandwich. It was really quite nice.

There were, surprisingly, several sections of bike path along the way, which I appreciated. Later in the day I had to run on the road, but, by this stage, it was very quiet.

Towns are a long way apart out here, and we had to drive 24 km to the nearest option with accommodation. Luckily there was accommodation, and it even comes with wi-fi. Tomorrow I will run to the town and then a similar distance past it, so we will then drive back and spend a second night here in La Paz (no, that’s not the city in Bolivia).