After spending the night in yurts near the Mongolia/China border listening to porcupines scratching, we crossed into China. Luckily some team members had befriended a Mongolian colonel who helped speed along the process. Our port of entry was Erlian, China. Erlian stands for "boundary." The Chinese side of the border was orderly and pristine. The Mongolian side was chaos. Our new Chinese guide Kelly immediately whisked us off for a great Chinese lunch before driving to our run point.

We had 50 miles to cover, with five of us to do it. Jason was on our team for his last day since Shiri is now recovered and back to running her full 10 miles. I ran third through contrasting environs. First there were miles of grasslands with cross winds, then a slum town followed by sheep farms. The countryside was beautiful although windy, hot and humid. It was another hard run for me with more hills. I feel psychologically and physically tired. Today I would have given up all my percs for an adjustment and a good sports massage.

The Chinese people are even friendlier than the Mongolians. Motorists would stop when we pulled our van off the road to make sure all was okay. Everyone I waved or looked at would wave or gesture back. The little girls in the slum town got a real charge out of seeing a foreigner, an old lady in shorts no less, running down the center of their town. They gave me sweet, curious, wide smiles. The road workers north of town, male and female, spoke to me and one woman I'm sure was asking me to sit down and take a break with her. The police even showed up to ensure we were safe on their highways and waved me in at the exchange point where I handed off to David.

There were lots of farm animals and herds along the way, including many street dogs and trucks filled with sheep. In the distance you could see smokestacks to the south and windmills to the north. The land was plotted with white marker pins a few feet high designating lot boundaries. The entire country is plotted out like this, something I remembered from an age old history lesson. I loved the Yanzi birds, the small swallows that are often in the Oriental watercolors flitting around inside the inner gardens. A large flock of them hovered on the ground near me as I ran up one of the steep hills.

Team Silver finished our run at 9pm and headed off to Beijing for our day off.

Water is life. Pass it on!