Fri 27 Jun - look around Helsinki and then take overnight bus ("Savonlinja Oy") to St. Petersburg departing at 23:00 Sat 28 Jun - Arrive St. Petersburg bus station at 07:10. Check into Shelfort Hotel (26, 3rd line of Vasiliensky Island, Tel +7 812 323 5154/3626. Nearest metro is Vasileostrovskaya). For emergencies contact Julia Lukasheva at +7 906 240 1832. Sun 29 Jun - St. Petersburg, same hotel Mon 30 Jun - St. Petersburg, and late departure on Train to Moscow (overnight sleeper) Tue 1 Jul - arrive Moscow, stay in hotel Izmailovo Vega (part of the Izmailovo chain) Wed 2 [View Full Entry]

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well not exactly but near enough.... At present I am in a park in the centre of Helsinki which, get this, has free wifi!, I am never making fun of Karoliina and Moomin land ever again. they have free concerts all through the day in this park and I am currently listening to a guy playing a spanish guitar (he is really good, although he keeps playing the song which was on the musical doll in my Nannies house when I was young - brings back memories) and it is a thursday...... who knew life could be so good. We [View Full Entry]

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As I write this I am sitting on the train back from Narbonne (on the med) to Bordeaux (on the Atlantic) after cycling through the south of France along the canals from the Atlantic coast to the Mediterranean The idea for this “mini break” came about as we are about to embark on the transmongolian express and for that we require visas for Russia , Mongolia and China so we had to send our passports away. Thankfully as we live in the Shengen area we can travel within that area on our ID cards, so a trip to France was [View Full Entry]

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Well we are currently in spain and disaster - it rained all day yesterday. Have met the people who we will spend the week with and they seem like an interesting bunch but will let you know how we get along. I still think that anyone who wants to learn to speak Monaghanese must be a really good sort. Seppy PS Its my bday tomorrow - and there is no mobile reception here - its in the sticks! [View Full Entry]

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Jonathans fast time - the truth We in the tent believe that Jonathan did not actually run the race; he studied the map book really well and then got a lift in the jeep! Shocking I know, but it is not possible for an Irish man to run that fast! (Apart from my brother stubbie who is running Boston the weekend after next!) Team Naïve Team Naïve were housed in Tent 63, the name came about on the first day given that we were all new to the race. It was made up of six persons, me and Jon (designated [View Full Entry]

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We got back safe and sound late last night - after flying to Paris, we took the train to Amsterdam with alot of people on it who were wearing their Paris Marathon medals. They found our 23rd Mds finisher t-shirts interesting. Slept solidly for 12 hours before discovering that I lost 3.5kg last week - pretty extreme diet but it explains the amount of food that I'm savaging at the moment. I also woke up with a strange feeling: I really, really miss last week already. The battle against what nature holds, the constant challenges, the simplicity of life (no worrying [View Full Entry]

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Found it really difficult to motivate myself this morning, perhpas I lost the momentum with the really nice rest day yesterday, or that mind tiredness is a result of physical tiredness. Everybody seemed to be taking tody really seriously and looking for a time to compare to road marathons. Today was my most difficult day so far and I really struggled at half way. Helen and Maria: thanks so much for the handwritten letters, they were 100 percent responsible for getting me going again. I set some targets, to be the number 1 Irish person in the race, and also in [View Full Entry]

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well i had my race strategy all worked out, run until the big jebel climb jebel and cross dunes then run walk the rest of the way, My day did not quite work out like that, i arrived at the mountain feeling great, but somehow on my way up the mountain i started to feel really bad in my tummy , mqde it to the top where i promptly got sick, felt aa little better so i started down and then disaster struck on the side of the mountain, i was deathly ill to the extent that i did not think [View Full Entry]

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Finished the long stage last night under the brightest stars Ive seen yet. James finshed about an hour later and then after midnight, Jes arrived. At 10am Seppy finshed after a marathon effort followed closely by Alice and Mark, so there is a real high as all of Tent 63 is very much in the race. This meant we all had the rest of the day off and there was some good laughs. As is fair I collected the firewood and everybodys water for them today, and most of us could spare a 1.5l bottle of water to have a wash/shower [View Full Entry]

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Just in in about 11 hours. I really emptied myself today, I have never been on my feet for so long or for such a distance in my life. I stopped for some food and a change of socks at 6.5 hours just as the leader ca,e storming through (the top 50 started 2 hours behind the field today. There were 4 jebels today, the first with a 25 percent on average slope, like the really steep part of the sugarloaf mountain in Ireland but much higher. You had to use a rope in parts just to ascend. I loved it, [View Full Entry]

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