It started with about 18 miles of running through more salt flats and scrub brush. The heat hit us on a wide open set of rocky dunes/salt crust. That slowed us all down. Then a climb up a large 30-degree sand slope, onto a rocky saddle, and down to a dry riverbed. That took us through mile 30. The last sections were mostly dirt road, winding up in a place called the “valley of the moon”. Which for me was right around the time the moon came out. Long day.

A few stomach issues, but a salt tab from a friend helped much. The doctors have been wonderful at keeping people going despite feet that are chewed to pieces and too swollen to fit in running shoes. Samantha and all of the Racing the Planet staff have greeted us warmly at every checkpoint, with a bottle of water, a smile, and kind words. I couldn’t say enough about how well this was run. Never a mis-marked route or a checkpoint run out of water. The race photographer, Thiago, must have hiked miles with his cameras and lenses – he was always appearing in unexpected places with a camera and also a handshake or some words of encouragement.

I’ve received many emails from family and friends – I’m glad JR enjoyed the post, and your assessment of the race is accurate; a race for a select few, getting to the finish for the rest. See you soon. Thanks for your messages.

It sounds like we are almost at $13,000 for Phoenix Patriot. Thank you for all the donations, it will make difference.

A rest day today and then a short trot to the finish tomorrow morning. I’m going to go put my feet up for a few.

-Jason

Today was another tough day for the runners, 27-ish miles of rocks, dunes, and then the salt flats. Mixed in were about 7 river crossings. I saw a piece of someone

The other runners are doing really well, and the conversation has been good each night. A lot of interesting people, different backgrounds, who have one thing in common. There are almost two separate events going on---in one, the fast runners who run more of each stage in the cooler morning hours, finish early afternoon, and then have time to rest, repair their feet, and let their bodies absorb the food and water. In the other, the slower runners/walkers, who are often on the course for 9-12 hours, sweat through the full brunt of 41 degrees C and the sun burning through the thin air. They return as the sun is setting, and have to quickly recover, repair injuries, and get some food down quickly before they sleep. The two groups each have their own challenges.

Today went well, we saw another piece of Atacama. In the morning we struggled through broken crust and weeds for almost 6 miles, then broke out onto dirt roads for about 5 miles, then we pushed back into broken ground for about 6 more. Then we hit the uphills, which were made of thin rust-colored plates of rock. I stayed on them instead of the soft sand in between. Each morning, we get a pre-stage brief from Alistair, who has the characteristic British gift for understatement. His last comment to us today was something like

Hello! Just completed stage 2. It was about 28 miles and the first part was fantastic, running through a river for about 10k, and then climbing up to a high ridgeline, through a ~100m tunnel that looked like it was built a long time ago, complete with a few sections of ceiling that had collapsed. Then there was a descent down a huge set of sand dunes that was a fun plunge-step down for about 400m. After that we were on the flats and did a 15 mile study in different types of sand. Riveting.

The race staff has been superb, very supportive and most of them are doctors, which is useful out here. A great group, and that

Today went well, a good start. My shoes were torn up a bit on the route, if I had known it would be this rocky I would have gone with a