Tritt ein, bring Glück herein

Stop, leider geschlassen!

 

Bericht World Run - 10% report - Ultramarathon beim Steppenhahn (03.2004)
Jesper Olsen and Alexander Korotkov , 27. März 2004

World Run - 10% report

After completing the first 3500km and thus having the first 10% of the planned distance behind us, we send this report especially for our friends at Ultrafondus (France), Steppenhahn.de (Germany) and Kondis (Norway) with our thanks for their help so far.
With their accept other media are wellcome to use parts of the report.

In general:
- In the following report we will try to sum up the major experienses during the European and first Russian stages of the World Run. It will mainly be considerations and comments about cultures, contries, equiptment, injuries and other running related.

The run has in general been less hard on us than expected !

We expected serious hardship during especially the Scandinavian winter stages, mainly Sweden and Finland, but due to a relative mild weather in Sweden and due to an allmost breathtaking degree of support in Finland, we found it not too much of a problem to do about 48-50km /day including pushing our 30kg loaded Cougar babyjogger.

Countries
Our experiense - seen from the road - is that the U.K., N.France and the Beginning of Belgium was quite similar. The first changes came in Holland and Germany where both nature and hospitality was different. Especially in Holland we recieved much help and so far its the contry where we have met most positive reactions from non-runners !! Some of them even voulenteered to help us detail-plan the accomodation in Holland.

The next change came in Sweden where the media interest suddenly became evident. Only 1 day into Sweden we were met by media on the road and this was to be situation for many of our days there. It's in my oppinion (Jesper) closely related to Swedens big interest in athletics which allmost is a national sport.

In Finland this is also true and the media interest was event bigger. If we remember correctly there was only one day during the entire Finland part where there whasnt tv, radio or newspaper coverage or interviews. But what remain the main impression is the great Finland hospitality mentioned above. We won't forget that for a long time.

Our current position is in Russia (the city Vladimir, about 1000km East of St.Petersburg), and so far Russia has been good to us. But for Russia its very correct to say as Alexander: "Russia is a contry of contrasts". We have huge help from single persons and expecially various sports-committies like that of Edouard Ykovlev ASIM (Russian Ultramarathon Association). At the same time conditions like worn down roads and other infrastructure difficulties like lack of gsm/mobile data coverage makes it a good challenge for us.

Equiptment
So far our sponsored equiptment has done the job fine. Especially the clothes and shoes from the Danish branch of Asics has taken the challenge excellently ! Alexander has even tested one pair of Keyano's (Keyano X) by running about 3000km in a single pair. And they are still going strong.

Injuries
Especially in the first 2-3 weeks we had a sevel problems to deal with, but came through by running carefully and lowering the pace when needed. In that period the injuries were shinsplints, iron-foot (a iron-bar feeling beneith the forefoot, probably due to the cold and wet conditions), and general muscular fatigue.

After the 12hour race in Finland (which Alexander won!!) Alexander had some long time problems with a neve on the inside of the upper tight. But after 1 month of difficult running he is in good recovery. A strong runner indeed.

At present the main thing is a first notion of stomack problems (Jesper), which we probably will have more of in the next 5 months !

Food
We eat very differently. Alexander prefers fat and vegetables while I (Jesper) prefer chocolate and a high carbonate diet with only little protein and vitamins. Both systems has worked fine for the first 3 months.

Group
So far the group has worked fine. It's probably due to that we are different 'natures' but try to respect each other as best we can. The differences are important because what one sees as a big problem the other can easy handle and otherwise. We try to help the other overcome these kind of crisis and then its important that we don't have a 'down period' at the same time.

Durin Russia the strong female ultrarunner, Katzuka Kaihata, from Japan, runs with us. During the first month with her she has proved a positive input and allways does her best to keep the team together. You could say that she is 40kg's of positive engergy :-)

Documentation
During Europe we used the gps equiptment that you can see on the front page of our website www.worldrun.org. During Russia it doesnt work and we thus use photo documentation, video, reports from other runners (we have compagny on 30 - 50% of the stages so far !), media coverage and police / authorities who follow us on the roads.

- Well; that is all for now. We hope to be back with a 50% report after Vladivostok !

With the best wishes and big thanks to our helpers, big and small, around the world :-)
Jesper Olsen and Alexander Korotkov

© Jesper Olsen and Alexander Korotkov , 27. März 2004
jesperkennolsen@hotmail.com
http://www.worldrun.org/