hour 19
.
so the number of intact teams is down to 11.
spain finally lost a runner.
.
it had been my thinking that the small country competition would provide excitement to help me survive the long first night.
and indeed that has turned out exactly as expected.
.
iceland still has 14 runners and 269 yards,
and they are starting to pull away from the pack.
malta is now struggling with 9
and appears destined to finally fall from second place this hour.
ukraine and switzerland are now tied
both have 254 yards
(15 behind iceland and 1 behind malta)
and 12 runners.
switzerland is 2 yards back and also has 12.
while finland continues to move up,
altho now with only 13
has closed within 2 yards of vietnam.
.
mauritius is now down to 2 runners.
they are very close to being the first team eliminated.
.
meanwhile mexico has the latest hard weather story;
after having their original venue washed away in a flood
(literally)
managed to scrape up a new venue just days before the race.
tonight another storm blew their tents away
and flooded the low parts of the course…
.
the stoic team mexico just keeps on keeping on.
they might be a long shot in the team competition now,
but they still have some runners capable of taking the race for top individual down to the wire.
.
here we are in the deepest part of the night.
the longest and loneliest yards.
what gives me hope
is seeing the livestream from denmark
of runners in the daylight…
.
it is coming our way!