It’s Day 27 of 95, just 68 to go. In three days I will start on my second pair of new shoes, entering the second stage of this three stage water odyssey. The Green Team is back together and we are rocking!

Our BPR days always start with the 9am to 3pm shift, so if you are running the graveyard shifts and run into the following day, it still counts as the start day. Today the BPR team successfully navigated around Moscow. On our way in last night, after my run, our new fill in runner Will was running the third shift when the police pulled him off the road, saying it was too dangerous even with their escort. They were worried about the drunk drivers, evidence of which was strewn along the highways in the form of numerous empty beer and vodka bottles. So the various powers that be from BPR and Russian officialdom convened a negotiation session right there on the shoulder. In the meantime we had gotten word that the Moscow powers that be had determined we could not run through Moscow and do an exchange event in Red Square. So we rerouted around one of the City’s ring routes. Between that and the holdup of the run until dawn, some of the team members ran extra legs and everyone sped up so that now we are back on schedule.

Tonight the police are letting us run through the dark hours with a very polite police escort.
After running last night, the Green Team stayed in a very nice Moscow hotel in a not so nice neighborhood. I was saddened by the scar-faced men and undernourished dogs on the streets outside our fenced in hotel grounds. Everything in Russia is fortressed. You need your hotel key for access to the elevator, access to the hallway where your room is located, access to your door and sometimes to turn on the electricity servicing the room. Throughout this journey, we’ve had a variety of rooms with unfamiliar amenities in them. Most welcome is the fact that virtually all have had windows you can open for fresh air and hot, strong showers, although the stalls are usually claustrophobic.

Tonight I ran the 10:30 to midnight shift. I was on another auto route but far better than those of the past due to a good shoulder, some good dirt to run on and the presence of the dutiful police escort. The police changed shifts on my run about midway and the two officers going off duty pulled up beside me, wailed their siren, and one of them yelled in English “good luck.” It was great, and certainly a contrast to how we think of and experience the Soviet Bloc militants.
I ran really well tonight, 10.4 miles at about an 8:00 minute per mile pace. I was thinking about how to get a spiritual message out of the whizzing semis. So I contrasted their roar to the serenity and tranquility of a drop of water. That drop of water when joined with other drops of water builds and crescendos into great volume and power, such as the rapids of the Colorado River, the waterfalls of Niagara. That power brings good things to society, like hydropower. So I like to think that the dinning roar of these semis also brings good things to society, like fresh produce, and perhaps bottled water to people in crisis.

So what is it like to run at night? When we first started this run we were wearing headlamps and carrying three way radios. That lasted all of one or two runs for most of us as the radios were heavy, chafing and often fell off. I could never keep the ear piece inside my ear canal. In some tricky places we’ve carried them by hand when we can’t keep contact with the pilot car. But now we have the Russian police. We are wearing illuminating vests. Being this far north gives us daylight until almost 11pm and it comes back around 3:30am. Headlights are helpful during the dark shifts if you want to run off road, but in the shoulders you generally can get by with the lights from the escort vehicle.

Having been to Moscow before, I opted out of the downtown tour and slept in. Then I watched BBC and the stepping down of Tony Blair. I don’t think I’d gotten any current news since Germany. I still don’t really have any idea of how the world is doing. Saying goodbye to Tony was certainly the closing of an important chapter in the history of the United Kingdom. He was a great leader. Let us pray that the US gets a great leader in its next President. I would love news on how the candidates are doing. Spokonoi notschi!