It is Friday, June 22nd, and we (finally!!) finished the last of our 3 am shifts, DEFINITELY NOT my time to run… We were scheduled to run into Warsaw today, and it was raining all the way. The road into Warsaw was a straight line – for most of the 65 km our shift had to cover. Rudy finished the last part into the center, and despite of the rain, we had quite a few folks waiting for us. Afterwards we got back on the road and drove straight to the boarder to Belarus were we said good by to our crew from Italy, we sure hope to see some of them later on our return to the US. Crossing the boarder into Belarus was quite a chore. We spent a good three hours waiting however, – for “normal” standards this is considered a rather speedy processing… A short drive brought us to our hotel in Brest with its famous fortress, our first stop.

June 22nd is a special day for Belarus. On this day the country remembers the beginning of the war which took a terrible toll on the Belarus people – one out of every three people lost their lives. The fortress in Brest is a symbol of the resistance. The people never surrendered there and the last ones were fighting back from the rubble of the fortress for many months after it had been taken.

At the hotel we met our guide for the Belarus segment. Valentina, a very lovely and engaging young lady from Minsk was going to take care of us for the next few days – and we hardly could have been in better company. We were moving from the 3 am to the 9 am shift next day, and in the morning we were heading out for our first 65 km segment in the countryside of Belarus. The run was quite pleasant, all country roads (actually one, very straight one…), little traffic and a police escort all the way. Ice was hard to come by – but Valentina got us a large bag of frozen carrots in a small town which we happily shared to ice our knees and ankles. We then drove straight to the capital Minsk, through the beautiful Belarus countryside. Everything looked very clean and very well taken care off. People were working in their fields since Belarus is mostly an agricultural country. On our way to Minsk we passed a huge oversized statue of a buffalo. Our guide explained to us that it represents a large, UN protected forest area with wild bisons. The Area extends all the way to the western boarder of Poland, and the bisons are actually larger than their north American relatives.

Later in the evening Valentina took us out for a night visit through here hometown Minsk. The vibrant city is absolutely amazing with beautiful old architecture, water parks and lots of memorials remembering the war. Next day our shift took us into Minsk with a finish at the main sports complex. We all run the last mile together – and Paul was wearing his kilt, which was quite a sight to see… We had a 3 police car escort on that last stretch, and a nice crowed including Belarus TV was waiting for us at the finish. Our next shift took us already close to the Russian boarder, and sadly we had to say good buy to our guide from Belarus. Valentina handed us off to our Russian crew, and then left back to Minsk by train. We all had a great time; it would be nice to see her again some day. One more note. Starting from NYC it took us 26 days to reach the Russian boarder, now we will spent the next 27 days crossing that country – that certainly puts things into prospective…

The next day was a rough one. We started at 9 am with our run, and I ran the 1st leg. Within 15 min trouble arrived with upset stomach and nausea. I was running half delirious, trying to keep everything in on either end for as long as possible. In between I was silently cussing at myself for eating one half of a salad at last night’s dinner – something I normally just don’t do. I somehow managed to finish my run, but spent the next minutes behind a nearby tree, bent over as a rectangle. It turned out that Rudy and Laurel also struggled heavily to get through their day. Paul was just fine (as usual, he hadn’t touched his greens…), and - encouragingly noticed that we were looking a bit “washed out” coming in that day. Well – is just does not pay to eat your vegetables on some days… Besides that, along the road through a small village we noticed an old woman washing dishes in a pool of water next to a pump – a reminder on why we are actually out here. In another village we met a few kids. I tried to explain (in Russian) what we were doing since nobody spoke any English. I finally drew a circle in the dirt next to the road symbolizing the earth, and wrote a few Russian words in the sand, and the message got across. After taking pictures with the kids and handing over some stickers, we spent the rest of the day driving to Smolensk, spent the night in a pretty run-down hotel and hoping for recovery overnight.

Finally, the last day of our 9 am shift has arrived, and tomorrow we will be in Moscow and have a day off. We were pretty skittish starting our runs, but things had settled down over night (with the help of some vodka) and we all finished without further problems. The 3 am, followed by the 9 am shift does not really leave a rest day in between, and understandably we were quite happy to have this long eight day stretch completed. So, we stopped at a gas station got ourselves a few beers and drove a few hours towards our hotel about half way to Moscow.

To put things in prospective for an outside point of view, a few words regarding those last eight days. Each of us run a little over 80 miles over the last 8 days, which is the equivalent of more than three marathons in just over one week. Besides that, we spent about 6 – hours driving to and between exchange points and hotels which always make long 12 – 14 hour days, so, sleep and food are our main concerns during most of the days. Of course, we somehow want so see a bit more of the countries, and that means finding a reasonable compromise.

Arriving at the hotel, a nice log cabin style place, we met the blue team (Victor, Richard, Melissa and Taeko), and continued on with our celebration of our 1st month on the road. Food and drinks were excellent. I was told I had seven beers at dinner (not counting the ones in the car), and several vodkas as well (I only recall four) before we called it a day. Next morning was payback, and I started the day with a MAJOR hangover. In our room, Paul was digging around in some plastic bags – I thought my head was going to explode. I got some breakfast down by 8, vowing to keep there for the next couple of hours. By 9 am we were on our way to the capital. The traffic into Moscow was horrendous. Trucks, cars, slow going, wild maneuvers you name it… We made it finally to our hotel at 3 pm, almost six hours had passed. We quickly dropped our bags at the Vega hotel, then left for a few hours sightseeing and photo shooting in the center. The day was beautiful and sunny, and Read Square, the Basilica Cathedral and the Kremlin were beautiful. By tomorrow we’ll be back on the road, and we will be heading east on highway M7 for several days. Our first bigger city after Moscow will be Nowgorod.