We found a piece of heaven in Japan. After a whirlwind of travelling for Team Silver on Day 58, from our run in Beijing straight to the Beijing airport, then to Saporo, Japan and finally Hiroshima, I landed in my hotel bed around 9pm. I was able to buy a yummy takeout dinner across the street and settle in for some relaxation time and sleep.

Japan is comprised of four big islands and thousands of small ones including atolls. The two large islands that we are running on are Homshu and Shikoku. Today we ran from Oshimals through Imabari over four bridges. We met the Orange Team at an exchange point next to a small beach and the Setonaikai Sea. They finished their stint with a group swim. Our first two runners, David and Shiri, enjoyed runs along the shore and over expansion bridges, four of them, all on pedestrian bike path. Emmanuel and I ended up running through industrial suburbia, too far from the sea to see or smell it. Occasionally a sea breeze would hit me but it was hot. The entire run was suffocatingly hot and humid. Further inland it would be even worse. During my run temperatures soared into the 90's with humidity around 80%. Our shift was confusing because of the roadway and bridge configurations. We got turned around several times trying to connect with our early runners who had the freedom and joy of simply sticking to the beautiful marked bike path. We had some navigational problems including a GPS coordinate that said our destination was 6,934 miles away (I think it meant New York) but it all worked out. It's been a day of islands, bridges and hills. It was great to see many road cyclists out for workouts, looking quite fit. It made me miss my bike.

Most of what we've seen of Japan so far has been beautiful. We are all sleep-deprived and had a four hour drive after our runs to our hotel in Wakayama. In two days we will hit Tokyo, Japan's capital city which has a population of over 20 million. The air here is far better than Beijing but it will be thick again in Tokyo with pollution.

Japan is clean and orderly and thus far its peoples have been the friendliest of the countries we've run through. They are extremely polite and go out of their way to assist you. They are also law abiding and stick to the letter of the law and their sense of what is right. For instance, one of our exchange points was at a gas station but our guide would not park there because we were not doing business with them. Our guide is Hideka Honda from Tokyo. She is a medical doctor and has practiced for 11 years. She has donated her time to be our guide and driver in support of the Blue Planet Run. She is very concerned about our well being and is also a good communicator although struggles a bit with her English. She is having to do alot of driving for us and will stay with us through Japan. I've been riding in the passenger seat and learning much from her. It is her first trip to some of the places we are running and so she has shared in the newness and interest with us. Our drive has taken us past acre upon acre of rice fields. Japan is only able to produce 30% of the food it needs and the rest must be imported. In addition to rice, it grows vegetables and fruit and raises animals and fowl for beef, pork and chicken. The Japanese have a very healthy diet, heavy on vegetables and light on starch and sugars. The spices are more bland than the Chinese and every thing you buy to eat out comes with a pair of wooden chopsticks.

Japan is a land of devices. Talk about overkill. I had a toilet in my room last night that was multi-functional and self-operating. What all it did was nothing I took the time to determine but it made strange sorts of water noises and had dials and push buttons on a panel to the side of the seat. And speaking of toilets, these are on the opposite side of the spectrumn from those in Russia. Although many are of the crouching variety down to an infloor basin, even the public toilets are clean and loaded with amenities. Not just toilet paper but even backup rolls plus soaps, cloth and paper towels or blow dryers for your choosing, flowers to freshen the air, baby seats and other things I did not recognize. In my hotel the bathroom had soap for the body, soap for the hands, for the face and even an emollient soap, plus the shampoo. The soap bar in one of the rest areas off a secondary highway was tied into a netting with was strapped to the faucet so it would not wander away from the sink.

It is easy to get cold drinks and ice here, in addition to other cool and refreshing treats like watermelon. Beverage machines are everywhere, inside and outside. Today I was drinking an ice cold Coke while enjoying the scenery through the van window when the irony struck me. Here I was sipping on a Coca Cola in the country where I was born because my father was working here for Pepsi International. I never much liked Pepsi but I also try in the States not to drink soda. But during this trip many of us have savored the cold Cokes. They taste much better outside the States and are often sold in real bottles. In places like Russia a Coke or a beer was the only way to get a cold drink and one that was safe and free of contaminants.

When we arrived in Japan and met our guides, each team was assigned a roomy Toyota van, the roomiest vehicle we have had on the trip so far. I did not have my usual reaction to what I do not consider environmentally conscious vehicles because all I could think of was, wow, something we can stretch out in. It is not a gas hog but it is certainly not carbon neutral. The question about how we are doing this event in a "leave no trace" format has been raised by my friends. The answer is that Dow or BPR are paying carbon offsets for uses which are not environmentally neutral. So we are stretching out in style, quite the contrast to our sardine mode in the Mongolian desert vehicles. We all desperately need sleep and rest. Even the young members of the team are feeling the aches, pains and stiffness of being cramped up for hours, day after day, in close vehicles. The team members with food poisoning are recovering. Everyone is of a mind that we must be rested and raring to go when we hit U.S. soils. But it has been a struggle and we are all sharing our feelings, giving each other support and focusing on what keeps us going. So what is that formula for moving forward step by step in this odyssey around the world? First we have the special contacts, the people we meet everyday who are impacted by our message and give us positive feedback. The most recent example of this was our encounter in the Gobi Desert with the group of environmental scientists from various parts of Asia who knew about our cause and expressed the excitement of little kids in a candy shop over meeting us. In the middle of the Gobi Desert I would have never imagined stumbling onto these brilliant scientists and having them court us with accolades while taking dozens of photos and sharing the bond of doing something for the betterment of our world.

Secondly, we are running around the world and this is the first event of its kind. For travelers and runners it could get no better in terms of an opportunity to see the world while engaged in your favorite athletic activity. Granted it's not about the running and there is the reality of all the sitting and driving, but we are still running and we are still circling the globe and experiencing foreign cultures many of us would not otherwise visit.

Thirdly, our inner team relationships keep us going. In the Team Silver van we have a pact. We can vent all we want but what we say to each other stays in the van unless it's intended to go out or you are talking outside the van strictly about yourself. This is the same pact we make as runners. On long runs with your male and women friends, at least in my groups that I run with, we talk about anything and everything, and it stays sacrosanct. In the Team Silver van we talk alot and we are sometimes painfully open but always supportive.

Fourth, given who we are as individuals, quitting is not an option. Commitment is not our obstacle, it is a given.

Fifth we have a sense of humor and laugh alot at ourselves and the circumstances. And Team Silver has Emmanuel who brings us much laughter and wisdom. Emmanuel is the one of the one of the five in our message of all of us on this earth who may die every day because they lack access to safe drinking water. In his village in Kenya, they face this very issue daily. Emmanuel gives us comic relief every single day, from his crazy hats to his way of endearingly calling out your name. And he is so clear in his commitment that "we are not the beneficiaries and we are not supposed to be the beneficiaries. We run for water. We run for the 6,000 people who die everyday because they do not have access to safe drinking water." What we are doing is for the good of others. This brings me to the most important thing that keeps us going, the cause.

Lastly and most importantly, we are here for the cause. We have seen in our journey a young boy pulling water on a wagon through the dirt to his family. We have seen with our very own eyes people who do not have ready access to safe drinking water, and we have seen in their eyes the hardship this brings. We know we can provide a solution to millions simply by raising awareness of the magnitude of this issue and the existence of a solution. This is where we get our hope. Unlike so many other global problems, this one has a fix and it is a fairly straight forward and inexpensive one in the grand scheme. For only $30 U.S. per person, we can provide that person with safe drinking water for his or her life. That to me is not only doable but amazingly so when I think of all the other causes that frustrate because the answers to the problems just are not there.

So there you have it, my long answer to why I think we all keep going, and certainly my answer to why I don't check out and fly home. Yes, I would love to be in beautiful Vermont with all my loved ones but this is too important right now, no matter what we have to suffer through. And no matter what we have to suffer through, it is nothing compared to the hardships of those in places like India and Africa, the 6,000 people who die everyday because they lack access to safe drinking water, and the persons who fill up half the hospital beds of the world because they suffer from waterborne illnesses. I am ready to preach to the American people. Thank you all again for this opportunity and for your support.

Water is life. Pass it on!