Day 194 – EU – Greece [Livadeia to Amfikleia]

03/09/20

45km

  From Livadeia (Greece) to Amfikleia (Greece)

Europe

Another 45km run around the Parnassos Mountain in the flatlands of the valley of Cephissus

The full moon was out and bright as I left early morning. This was lucky as I got my 1st flat tyre 5 minutes into the run – provided me with enough visibility. I patched it up and resumed running, whilst the moon was playing hide and seek behind the surrounding mountains and the castle on top of the Livadeia hill. Beautiful and serene.

Today’s the 4th day in a row where I get to run around 45km. It does not bother me too much, especially as the terrain is now quite flat. But it does mean I get to finish slightly later in the morning than usual. My timing got further delayed as I went through another 2 flat tyres in the course of today’s run. There is a pattern: always the right wheel, and always multiple punctures (up to 5 in one fixing session).

As I run on the right hand side of the road, my back-right wheel is often driven over the vegetation on the side. For the past few days, there seems to be a lot of thistle-like plants, which drive their sharp prickles right through the tyres and into the tubes. It is a time consuming and very precise job to remove all the prickles and patch up all the holes.

As I sat in the shade of a petrol station to mend the last of the flats, just before reaching Amfikleia, the owner of the station seemed quite admirative of my journey – and offered me free boxes of tube patches. Very generous of him, but I sure hope I won’t need them!

All these delays caused me to reach Amfikleia just around 12 noon. The view on Mount Parnassos is very impressive. I have been many times for skiing weekends on the mountain. Mount Parnassos stands above 2450m high and is covered in snow in winter time. Very different to see it bare and deserted in the heat of summer. The town of Arachova is where the ski resort starts and it’s just a stone’s throw away from where I am today.

Check my daily run GPS data on or

Here is the map of today’s run: