This city is sometimes called Russia’s third capital and has a population of 1million and during the soviet times the city was name Gorky, after the writer Maxim Gorky who was born there. The city was founded in 1221, so it has a wonderful history. It was my first Russian city in which to have a good look around as initially I thought I was going to miss out like I had to in Moscow. On our day off we had a 9 hour van drive and ended up getting to Nizhny Novgorod at 10pm that night.

The drive was only meant to take 6 hours but we hit some nasty traffic and also stopped for some lunch so we all could try a bowl of traditional Russian soup called Solyanka. This soup is made from cucumber and tomato, and mixed with chunks of fish or meat and garnished with chopped olives and a twist of lemon.

Our tour guide Dasha has been fantastic and has a wealth of knowledge about Russian history and is always encouraging us to sample the local food, share folktales and music with us and take historical walks…..and I am all for that if time and energy permits and fortunately it did in Nizhny Novgorod.

We were starting the dreaded 9pm - 3am shift, but that did give me a good day to look around. So Dasha, Chris the team photographer, our new Blue Planet run team member called Will who joined us in Poland to circulate around the teams in case an injury or illness forces one of us 20 athletes to take a day off and myself caught a local mini bus to look at the Kremlin.

The mighty walls of the Kremlin and its 11 towers date from the 16th century and it over looks the Volga River. I got some lovely photos of a 17th century Cathedral and also an eternal flame that burns near a striking monument to the heroes of WW11, but my favorite was of me and a OWL called Matilda who perched on my forearm, she had such soft eyes but with much wisdom, and the cutest face I have seen, nearly as cute as my parents two British Blue cats and that’s saying something!

Got back to the hotel and did my hand washing, we had a balcony in the room and I was able to let the clothes dry in the fresh air outside, but still sprayed my Givenchy perfume ‘very irresistible’ all over them as hand washing never leaves your clothes as fresh as the washing machine……and you wouldn’t believe it after bending awkwardly over the bath tub for a good 40mins I find out they are collecting washing to take away and have done properly.

Our team left the hotel at 7pm to get to our exchange point by 9pm and tonight we had a full van with Will who was running for Victor because he has a slight injury and Polly Green who is the other half of ‘flair films’ documenting this whole adventure. She wanted to capture life in the van and got some good footage of us all at 5am in the morning look a bit worse for wear trying to figure how to sleep upright after a hard night running and a 250km drive to our next hotel!

My run that night has probably got to have been the most challenging so far and I certainly had to have my wits about me, I had these massive trucks powering past me and providing very little room for me to run, the road rules and driving are definitely not the same as New Zealand and I have got to say was missed by inches at times.

In challenging times like that my mind does start to wander from thought to thought…... I thought ‘gees I’ve got so much in my life to do, please don‘t let me get bowled over my a massive Russian Truck!, I thought about how I will never complain about anything in life again, I thought about spending my birthday weekend in Lyon, France attending an All Blacks Game there with my younger brother Dylan who also shares the same birthday as me, I listened to the Robbie Williams song ’Angels’ on my ipod and knew everything would be alright ……….and then I thought about how character building this all was, remembering Dill’s comments about this is ‘not being Disneyland, but the Army’! I thought about all the millions of people who are dying each year because they lack safe drinking water and I was pleased to have had that tough run because it’s the tough times that build your strength and mental toughness and it’s important to continually keep having them. I know I am going to have a lot more throughout Russia, Mongolia and China and will make the most out of them and learn from them.

Until Soviet times most Russians lived in homes made of wood, the single story log cottage is called a izba and common in the countryside. The cravings of the window frames are so intrinsic they are known as wooden lace and often painted bright blue and green, and yellow this I understand was to cheer people up in the cold Russian winters. They are absolutely beautiful looking and I had clusters of these cottages every so often to admire as I ran by on this busy, dusty road. I waved my baton too all the locals who were sitting outside on their little benches in the early evening, they all waved back which was really sweet and that made the run another memorable experience.

Word spreads fast in Russia and by the time our last runner Richard started at 1am the police were there to provide safety and light as they followed closely behind. We all really appreciate their help and so I presented the 3 police officers with some Blue Planet Run stickers and said ‘spasipo’ which is thank you in Russian. They all got a cheer from us when the plastered the stickers on their windscreen!

We arrived in Kazan at 6am, my mum and dad called which was a nice surprise, mum has done a lot of reading on Russia and as I discussed the look of the Kremlin, Cathedrals and cottages I had seen in the last day or so she knew exactly what I was talking about - I will be her eyes for her on this trip throughout Russia and try and capture it all on film to show her when I get back home.