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raised from this run. That's a tangible benefit and makes me happy.
Things are looking up.
sePtember 3
I ran into the capital city, Managua, today. It felt as though I'd been
climbing all day, and it wasn't until I had completed 76 kilometres
that I could finally see the lights of the city, and from there it was all
downhill.
On the road, I saw vultures feeding from a dead cow's carcass.
While it's easy to see these birds as morbid opportunists, they do play
a vital role in cleaning up the environment.
sePtember 5
I was running well when a truck full of cows brushed by me at the pre-
cise moment when one cow decided to relieve itself. At first, I thought
it was a cooling rain shower; then I realised it was another kind of
shower—of cow urine. I spent all day stinking, until a thunderstorm,
with real rain this time, gave me a wash.
sePtember 6
First thing today, I started pushing up a very steep hill, not knowing
that this was the start of a mountain range that would climb for the
next 22 kilometres with a gradient of 30 degrees. Up and up and up I
ran. It was a tough and unrelenting grind. There were no flat sections.
I knew that I had to reach the top eventually, but every time I rounded
a corner or reached what I thought was the peak that damned moun-
tain road kept climbing. I was exhausted by the time I reached the top.
The view was spectacular, but I'm not sure the effort was worth it. The
ordeal meant I've finished late to squeeze in my allotted number of
kilometres. I'm paying for it tonight.
I've had to remind myself yet again that this run is all about the
mind being more powerful than the body. My body was in bad shape
when I got off the ice of the Arctic, and it hasn't really improved much
since then. It's my attitude and lat-out refusal to quit that have got
me almost to the halfway point of my run. When I face a steep hill, or
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