hour 25
.
we have made it around the clock.
everyone is back to the time they started.
new zealand and australia are deep in the desperate hours of night.
the next 5 or 6 hours will be a critical time for their teams.
.
japan and the southeat asians are heading into the night.
they have some challenging hours ahead.
europe and africa are in midafternoon.
after 100 miles in 24 hours it is not going to be easy.
but they do have some more prime hours left….
.
and for us here in the amercas the long night is ending.
we have the whole glorious day ahead of us.
for our poor guys at bigs it means a return to the rugged trail.
after seeing the weary departures at each bell since midnight
we can only hope no one is near the breaking point.
we got a steady rain earlier this morning
which means slick rocks.
and there are a lot of bare rocks to cross.
.
24 hours is both a huge landmark,
and a challenging hurdle.
so often the struggle to reach 100 becomes so consuming,
that this is where the runner stops,
the 24 hour barrier will always effect the outcome of the race
and the satellite championships are no different.
.
there are now only 7 clean teams,
as japan and new zealand both had an athlete stop at 24.
.
in the small division the 24 hour barrier has left iceland in a precarious position.
two icelanders stopped at 24 hours.
but you have to consider that they had 4 runners reach 24 hours for the first time.
the icelanders have already over-performed as a team.
they still have a 14 yard lead over finland.
but if no finn drops soon,
they will be losing 3 yards an hour from their lead.
it is even tougher with norway and austria,
where they stand to lose 4 yards an hour.
even tho they are ahead by 18 and 21 yards respectively…
.
unless something changes, their lead will only last four hours.
.
of course the one thing you can count on in the backyard
is that you cannot count on anything.
i guess we will know more when the next leaderboard comes out!