July 4th Crossing into Asia

Today was the third day on the 3-9pm shift and the most important event of the day was crossing into Asia. Shiri ran the first leg, and on the 8th mile ran across the continental divide. To ensure quality pictures in case the picture of Shiri didn’t turn out, Chris, our photographer, took me to the monument and we did some staged shooting. It was pretty fun. I posed running across the line, jumping over the line, and sitting on the line.
Last three days running in Russia has been very interesting. After our break day, I felt so good that I took it really hard the first day. Unfortunately, it was over 30C (close to 100F) as I took off at 3pm. The run was great… I felt tough, raced the accompanying biker on the uphills, and took it hard. I felt good (relatively, of course—considering I was running hard for 10miles in the mid-day heat), and finished strong. About an hour after the run, however, my body started telling me that I had pushed myself just a little too much. I got a big headache, was dizzy, and felt nauseous. I was just laying on the seat in our van, suffering. Yep, I definitely had a heat exhaustion, or something of that sort. Fortunately it didn’t get worse, and by the time we got to the hotel around midnight I felt better. It definitely scared me though. I have to be careful in the heat. We still have about 2 months left, and a lot of miles to cover. Water is life, and life is good in Russia.