The Achilles is still a bit sore. Nothing serious – just niggling, but enough to be annoying.

I’m doing all the recommended exercises and such, but I just can’t seem to get it past a certain level of healing. Easing off hasn’t seemed to help, and doing more hasn’t seemed to help either.  Maybe the intensity is too high, though I try not to push too hard.

I’m thinking of doing a longish run on Thursday at a slower pace – perhaps around 25 km. Increased distance at a lower pace worked when I recommenced the world run in Europe.

The original injury from three months ago was restricted to a small tear on the side of the tendon. It now feels like the tear has extended itself around to the back of the tendon as well. It’s now only what one would refer to as ‘minor’,  but it’s still enough to prevent free and natural running.

Jesper Olsen won his six day race in Florida with 713 km. He finished on Sunday and averaged almost 120 km per day for six consecutive days. Very impressive. That’s about double the most I’ve ever run in six days. Jesper will now be catching up on a lot of sleep.

Kevin Carr has struck some pretty bad weather in Minnesota. Today the high was  minus 8 C. I imagine there’s plenty of snow about too, as it appears he didn’t run. I hope the conditions improve for him. Stopping for bad weather is very frustrating. Kevin has now covered 18,756 km in 477 days, compared to my 20,115 km in the same time. He has a further 7,475 km to run in 144 days in order to break the world record for Fastest Circumnavigation of the Earth on Foot.

On This Day

Nov 18, 2012

Distance today = 50.85 km; Total distance = 14,575.15 km; Location = Balde, Argentina (13 km west of) – 33 24.073′ S, 66 45.477′ W; Start time = 0917, Finish time = 1702

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/244653630

I am now running on the Ruta 7, the main highway between Mendoza and Buenos Aires. Despite very long straights through vegetation that resembles mulga scrub, I quite enjoyed the day, running strongly.

The weather was near to perfect – sunny, about 28C, and with a cooling breeze. After 11 km I reached the state border, crossing from the province of Mendoza to San Luis. The Argentineans love their check points, as the border involved three different gates to pass through. I had a nice conversation with one of the border guards, Daniel, who was quite interested in what I was doing.

Soon after, I entered a straight that was about 25 km long. I could see the end of it, as the elevation rose about 200 metres – only a very gradual incline, but it was still all up hill. From there I turned slightly into another straight. I have run about 15 km downhill on this one, but I have about another 40 km to go on it tomorrow, and much of that is back uphill. Amazingly, the topography is such that I could see the whole 55 km of the straight from the western end.

Tonight we’re staying at a very nice little hotel, in the town of Balde – a great little find, with a very helpful manager, Emmanuel.

One thing I’ve noticed about Argentina is that the restaurants usually don’t open till 9 pm. It’s a very different situation to that of rural USA where, for example, we arrived at a Pennsylvanian restaurant one evening at 7:10 pm, and were told the place closed at 7 pm. We asked why, receiving the reply that “No-one wants to eat after seven”, as we were surveyed with contempt for wanting to eat “so late”. While 9 pm is fairly late for a restaurant to open, I think I’d prefer that to one that closes at 7 pm.