Team Silver spent last night in Irkutsk at a very nice hotel. We ate a good dinner with Team Yellow and our guides, then went bowling to celebrate our guide Arena's birthday. It was a sonic bowling alley, sparkling clean with psychedelic balls and high tech scoring systems. We had three teams competing and all did pretty well, considering. Emmanuel had never even heard of bowling and played like a kid with a new toy.

Arena lives in Irkutsk having graduated from the university there. After our bowling session the younger members of our group joined her and her friends for a limo ride to a local dance hall. I retired to my room to finish the book I've been reading and slept well. We ran through Irkutsk this morning with Shiri running into the main exchange point where she was greeted by the Irkutsk Rotary and a batallion of media. The Rotary held a breaking of the bread ceremony and gave each of us a small banner. Emmanuel then took the baton out of the city. Jason joined him a few miles out as they were covering miles for both Shiri and for David who was having a stomach problem. I ran the last leg and it was a gift from heaven.

My run began up the last three climbs of a steep range. I then rolled over the top and enjoyed many miles of beautiful downhill with a dirt shoulder I could run on. I was in thick tall forest with expansive views of deep valleys and hills. In some many ways it brought me home to Vermont. It was sunny, warm and dry with a slight headwind. When I reached the final team exchange, we presented Arena with a birthday cake and sang to her. Turns out Paul Rogan of Team Yellow was also celebrating his birthday so we sang to him as well and gave him a piece of cake. We then drove on to Lake Baikal.

Lake Baikal is the largest body of fresh water in the world. It is 2,000K around its perimeter and a mile deep. Below the water bottom are miles of sediment and silt. The lake formed atop geologic plates which constantly move and shift such that the lake keeps growing and the spaces created by the moving plates fill in. One fifth or 20% of the world's fresh water is located here. We were asked to do a photo shoot along the Lake shores after which the team all took a refreshing swim. The lake water is so cold that your legs and feet start to numb within minutes. Shiri was the first to brave the plunge, followed by Emmanuel, Jason, David and last of all me. It took my breath away but was great therapy for the legs after today's hilly 10 mile run.

We are staying along Lake Baikal tonight and resume running in the morning. I love the day shift. There have been no bugs because it is so cool here in the mountains and now near the lake. Team spirits are high as we are so close to Mongolia which along with China and Japan will fly by. In less than two weeks we will be back in the States with familiar food, clean bathrooms and communication.

I talked with a lot of Russians at the Irkutsk exchange, particularly the Rotarians. The Irkutsk Rotary funds water projects in Africa and was instrumental in putting a stop to planned release of contaminants into Lake Baikal. Throughout the day I made friends with several kids, trading them stickers for a photograph. When we were on the beach at Lake Baikal we drew interest from the locals, passed out some materials and were photographed by some of them. Baikal is a resort community. There's no internet. Whether the word will get out from here or not was our smallest concern. The point was that we were swimming in the waters of sacred Lake Baikal, a testament to the water resource that is on this earth. We just need a way to get it to those who need it to survive. lf only we could deliver the fresh water of Lake Baikal to the more than a billion people around the world who don't have access to safe drinking water. We would fix the problem.

Water is life. Pass it on!