Day 4

What a day! I have to say that it was the most beautiful wonderful day yet and we lost the camera somewhere along the way so I don’t have many photos to share. (This was my bad when trying to put away my gloves and arm warmers). We started in freezing weather at 8:00 am this morning in Galtur, Austria and ended 39.9 km (24.8 miles) away in Scuol, Switzerland. As the sun came out the day only got more and more beautiful. The Swiss part of the Alps is so spectacular. There were two high peaks we had to go up today. The first one was 2768m (9,081 feet) high and the second was slightly higher at 2793m (9,163 feet) high. You could feel the high altitude and it was a little harder to breathe near the tops. I got a little bit of altitude sickness but pushed through it and charged down the backside of the mountain. The total elevation gain today was 2339m (7,673feet). We finished in 5 hours and 31 minutes, which put us in 5^th place for the mixed/coed teams for the day. It moved us up to 9^th place for the mixed teams and 63^rd place for all the teams for the whole race.

So we are half way done, only 4 more days left and tomorrow is considered a rest day. We only have to run 6km (3.7 miles) straight up one of the ski slopes here. We have lunch on the top and then get to take the gondola back down the mountain.

We both still feel good, sore but not letting it hold us back. We only have one blister and no injuries. Every day we have to carry a small backpack with drinking water, a rain jacket and gloves, first aid kit, and cell phone. There are usually 3 aid stations along the way were we can fill up on water and sports drink; as well as, food like bananas, nuts and Suz's favorite cucumbers with salt. Mine is yellow cake with chocolate and cola.