It was too much. Not the day. Not the run. Not the hills nor the heat.

Cresting the hill on my ten mile leg, finally returning to running in the beautiful Russian countryside embellished with hills, small villages, wild flowers. And devoid of trucks passing spewing their paranoia exhaust fumes into the environment, I spotted a cow.

As I reached the top of the hill I began speaking cow speak, i.e. mooooOOOOOOO, mooooOOOOO! As expected, the cow spoke back to me. MOOOOOOOOOOOOooooo,MOOOOO,ooooo. We carried on this wonderful bit of news all the while my roommate, Sunil, watching this as he relieved himself.

Suddenly and unexpectedly, friend cow began charging at me, believing he or she, was some famous bull trying to get top billing in "Running With The Bulls". Well, you can believe I found speed I thought was gone 5 miles back down the hill. This cow evidently had misinterpreted something I said seeing as how my Russian ain't quite up to snuff and this Russian cow took offense to that. So, I ran, FAST!

I thought my friend Sunil was going to use up all his needed energy for his later run, guffawing his guts out at this sight. Oh, and I wasn't even wearing red!

I finally made it safely away from this bull wannabe.

Is there a moral in this little story? Each day running to promote awareness of the lack of access to safe drinking water and to raise needed funding, is NO BULL!!!!!

After our van crossed a narrow river by ferry, I had the bumpiest 3 1/2 hour ride to our hotel I have ever experienced. Like riding one of those mechanical bulls at top speed without a safety net.

Oh. I forgot to mention that while running, the biggest deer flies I have ever seen buzzed all over, I must admit I had to use our sacred baton as a fly swatter more than a few times. I also ingested quite a few and hope I will be forgiven. I typically do not eat meat, or very seldom. But, what does one do when the pesky critters want to explore your face, your mouth and your gut.

And, as Vonnegut said, 'and so it goes" and once again..... THAT IS NO BULL!!!

peace and blessings, daily