Stage 4, the long stage is done (57 miles). Quite a suffer-fest. Lots of wind
and sand. Could not eat my breakfast so I was fighting for calories the whole
way. The tea guy slipped me  a  double shot. Finished the stage in 142nd
position at about 14:12. That brought my overall standing up to 119th. Dirk did
well and came in about 2.5 hours later. he wind was blowing hard all night, in
fact my tent was down when I got in and had to wait 30 minutes to get it set up.
Blisters are not bad for me but Dirk got some good ones. We have the day off.
All but two of our tent mates are in. There will be a lot of people  dropping
out on this one. All the emails are great and very much apprecited.  One more
marathon tomorrow!


NEWS FLASH:  Just found out that the top 200 are starting one hour after
everyone else to compress the finish time line for the marathon.  Guess that I
am sort of at the top of the pile. Don't know if we get our medals tomorrow or
what.  They are saying that the solidarity stage is timed this year or there are
some prizes for the top three placers in it. I plan on trying to run at over 7
km/hr so I hope to finish in about 6 hours. Lots of sand on the route. My start
time is 8:00 ish.  Thought you might like to know.